$$$ REWARD FOR SANDMAN

First off, Happy Anniversary Sweetheart! Thanks for giving me the light of my life, our beautiful Izzy. BUT WHY DID YOU RUIN HIM??????

Maybe it's not all his fault, but mostly, it is. Izzy fights sleep 10 times worse than I do. I put him to bed last night, at about 9:15, and just like I expected the wailing began. But five minutes later, silence! We were shocked! Did the crying method from last night actually work?! We were so tired that we went on to bed a little after 10. I was laying there, all amazed that Izzy was sleeping, when panic struck. There was no way he was just sleeping. Surely he had suffocated. I flipped on the light and ran to his bedroom. Ok, so I tip-toed quietly. There he was, my sweet little son, so peaceful and serene, arms laying straight up over his head. Still not convinced that he was breathing, I put my hand on his chest, and felt that little flutter of his heart, and the slight rise and fall of his tiny chest. Still breathing, mommy's just nuts. Right off to sleep I go, dreaming of the giant diamonds I'm sure to receive this evening in honor of the all-important fourth anniversary.

11:55 p.m. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Izzy was crying too. I tried to calm him, but he was pretty ticked. I stood by his crib until 12:15, and I got Chris up, because nothing wears on your nerves like your baby screaming for no reason. Chris came back to find me sitting on the side of our bed, and he tells me to just ignore Izzy's cries and go back to sleep. Men. So back I go to the nursery. I rest my hand on Izzy's chest until he falls back asleep. I've developed a tricky little method of sneaking out of the nursery. I put all of my weight on my right leg, and slowly lift each toe of my left foot until I've got the whole foot off the floor. Slowwwwly, I move that foot behind me and very carefully, one toe at a time, I shift my weight to that leg. I repeat this process until I've reached the door. This takes about 7 minutes. I then carefully slide my leg around the doorway, careful to hug the wall, where the floor creaks the least. I'm doing great till suddenly I get cocky and I move a centimeter too fast, and the floor calls to Izzy "WAKE UP! SHE'S ABANDONING YOU!" I think he has supersonic hearing, actually. Quickly and as light as an Amazon can, I get back to my bed. I can tell Izzy hasn't stood up yet, which is his biggest obstacle to falling back asleep, so I start to relax my muscles into the mattress. Then one of our dogs, Gammie, decides to run up the hall as fast as she can, and the wailing recommences. As soon as it starts to subside again, our other dog, Deltie, has to sprint to the living room too, and she runs as lightly as a bull moose.

Chris decides to take another turn at it, and gets Izzy to calm down some, and he comes back to bed. Izzy is still very upset, but he's laying down. I give up. "I'm going to get him now, and we're just going to have to get used to the family bed," I tell Chris. He's not too happy with that decision. "This is what you do every time we decide to try crying it out! You give up and he's worse than ever!" He has a point, so I decide to wait until Chris goes back to sleep, which will take about 30 seconds, and THEN I'll go get the baby to put in bed with us. I know, I know....

But then Izzy finally decided to quit crying, and he drifted off to sleep. He actually slept then until 7:15 which is pretty good. It's so hard for us to do this method, for both of our styles of parenting is to grab Izzy up and cover him with kisses at his first whimper. We know it's no wonder he's a maniac, but he's got us both wrapped around that impossibly small pinky finger of his. I can see it now..."Mom and Dad, just one more Corvette, please?"