It’s been eight days since I posted anything here, and my usual schedule of writing a few times a week and taking a few daily snapshots hasn’t held up lately.  I’m a morning person, and I set my alarm for 6:30 everyday, but I usually climb out of bed earlier.  The rhythm I was accustomed to gave me an hour or even two hours in a quiet house with coffee and a solo shower.  It was my time to write or to plan my day or my week.  I loved my time.  I say loved past tense because we’ve had a disruption in our usual rhythm.

We moved Jude out of the crib.

Last Friday, I heard him wake up from his nap and talk happily to himself as he usually does, and as I opened the door to get him, I found him hanging his entire torso over the edge of his crib, and he dove headfirst (if that’s what you call it when you don’t even put your arms out) to what my paranoid self would assume is a sudden death or at least paralysis.  I caught him as he grazed the carpet.  As he stood upright, he looked back at the crib and then at me and then grinned.  He figured out how to work a doorknob that afternoon, and we dismantled the crib and got a toddler rail the very next day.

I am pretty certain that I would have kept him in the crib for at least another ten years if given the chance, but if my options are toddler bed or terrible injury, I choose the former.  It’s no secret that Jude took quite a while to get the hang of sleeping through the night, but the past four months have been blissful.  Like 13 solid hours of sleep every single night without a fight or a peep kind of blissful.  And here we are with a new set of problems now.  The staying asleep thing he was never great about hasn’t regressed too much, but he doesn’t particularly want to go to sleep in the first place when he can easily get out of bed and play with the toys in his room.  Or as he was demonstrating today – run around his room and scream “night night!” while laughing hysterically instead of napping like he has every single day of his little life.  His old schedule had him sleeping until 8:00am or so, but now he also opens his eyes at something like 6:45 every morning and silently grabs his favorite blanket, opens his door, and steps into the hallway.  And when I say silently, I mean you seriously have no idea how quiet he is. A kid who can’t be quiet in a restaurant or a library or a moment when mama wants to hear what’s on NPR somehow acquires the stealth, sly nature of a Navy SEAL when he wants to arise from nap or nighttime.  I walked out of the bathroom in my robe yesterday morning at 6:25  to see him just staring silently at me.  It’s unsettling really.

So I’ve spent the past four evenings camping outside of his room Supernanny-style and silently plopping him back in his bed every single time he gets up and walks out.  All 127 times.  Every night.  And every naptime.  And I haven’t had my alone time and coffee solitude since last week.  And family business is somewhat improved but still weighing heavily on me.  And I’ve been helping my sister with childcare for part of this week and spending all day alone with a seven-year-old, a three-year-old, and my nineteen-month-old who all together aren’t as terrible as it probably sounds, but I am outnumbered three to one nevertheless.  And my husband is gone for work for part of this week.

Help. Me.

So today I was trying to get Jude down for a nap and we were on something like minute thirty-eight of the Supernanny routine, and I totally lost my cool.  I yelled and I couldn’t take it anymore, and I totally exploded. Poor Jude was confused at my response since nap time normally isn’t a punishment of any kind.  And the fighting over staying in the bed didn’t really get any better by the yelling because we were still arguing about it twenty minutes later.  He finally gave up and I came downstairs to regain lost sanity by browsing eye candy on Pinterest and listening to my usual Joni Mitchell Pandora mix.  And it hit me how ridiculous it all was that I was feeling so overwhelmed and full of self-pity when here I am in my air-conditioned home with my healthy child and healthy spouse and the time and money for occasional hobbies.  I feel so stupid for complaining when there are families with far greater problems than my current stresses.  There are women around the world for whom the idea of an uniterrupted hour of solace and fresh-ground coffee is absurd rather than expected.

But still.  I feel overwhelmed, stressed, and in need of some inspiration just the same.  It’s hard sometimes to find a balance between understanding that there are far worse things in the world, but still recognizing your own life and your own issues as valid and real, you know?

I don’t really know where I am going with all of this except to say that I am a lucky girl and I love my life, but there are still long days sometimes.  I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, and I decided to take some photos of Jude in his new bed tonight.  The result is not what I was going for but hilarious indeed.  I took him upstairs in just a diaper since we were headed for the bath, and I tried to get a few shots in the bed, but he decided to show you that he can jump headfirst out of his crib, he can work a doorknob, and he can also remove his own diaper.

And he’d like to demonstrate that he can even climb out while naked.

And while we are at it, let’s run around the room naked and point to our business in case you didn’t see it.

So I’m a little blah lately.  I’m a little stressed.  I’m running on fumes with some really frazzled nerves, and I need some inspiration.  But despite all of this, life keeps me laughing.