Sleep you WILL, Sleep you MUST!
Fussiness leads to Lack of Sleep, Lack of sleep leads to SUFFERING.....

Yeah, unfortunately the suffering is of the parents, not of the baby! Riley became enthralled with a yoda doll that sits above Jim's computer (Jim totally would cry in delight if Riley's first word is Yoda) this morning and we were making Yoda talk to him (I do a pretty good Yoda, for a girl!). The above is Jim's take on what advice Yoda should be giving Riley.

Hmmm, Riley is doing good- moving around at warp speed (and with heavy breathing to boot)when he sees something he wants. He's able to stand and get down by sitting on his bum rather than his face which is good, although he does take face plants like a pro! He knows "mama" and "dada" and says "baby", but we're pretty sure that he doesn't know what he's saying when he says baby. We've been working on waving hello and goodbye but he kinda does it whenever he wants, so I'm not so sure he gets "it" yet. He's been really interested in Maggie lately, much to her dismay, but she's starting to realize that there are many hiding spots around the house that she can skulk off to when Riley is annoying her. He started eating again solids with reckless abandon again, which is good b/c he was losing weight. Jim read somewhere on the internerd that babies just refuse solids for a period of time for no real reason and then just pick up where they left off without any rhyme or reason. That's pretty much what happened...he just started eating the same foods he would throw a hissy fit over only days before.

The eating is great, but the sleeping has not been good, which is slowly destroying our ability to be the normal, upstanding citizens we are (stop laughing)..he's up 1-3x a night and often screams in terror (often complete with hyperventilating fits!) without actually waking up but will only stop when we pick him up and cuddle him. I'm trying to stop nursing but he still wakes up 1-2x a night to nurse- I know all the books and people say to just put him back in the crib but this kid will cry and scream for up to a 1/2 hour (we bet he would go the hour if we let him) and we just can't bear it. If Riley never started sleeping through the night, I guess we'd be used to this, but since he slept through for months and just starting waking up a ton again, it's really tough on all of us.

Hmmm, We're having our first BBQ with Riley this weekend, so that should be fun! Plus, Riley will be getting two new cousins within the month's end, so that's pretty exciting!