What a Life!

Steve got me a 64 oz. jug of Gatorade last night, which I drank half of…and I’m feeling much better this morning…at least as far as my digestive system is concerned. However, I am so tired I fear I might fall asleep at the keyboard while I am typing this…so be warned!

Joey seems to have his days and nights mixed up.

Okay, I know. It’s newborns that have that problem. They’re used to resting while mommy “rocks” them to sleep during the day by going about her daily adventures and then they wake up at night while mommy sleeps. He’s six months old so we’re well past that stage.

Here’s the problem: he’s so interested in what’s going on around him and exploring his little world that he is hardly interested in eating during the day. Yeah. Then at night, of course, he is starved and can hardly wait for me to change his diaper because his tummy is so hungry. You should hear the racket he makes. Ben seems to sleep through most of it, but even Steve swears he woke up every time Joey did last night.

He even woke up three times in one hour. I don’t know if it’s the nightlight I have in the room so I can see to change his diaper without having to turn a light on or what…but he thinks it’s time to play. Or maybe I need to remove all his toys – just a teddy bear and a set of cloth stacking rings – from his crib so he isn’t tempted to play. I don’t know. He rolls over like he does when he’s awake and done with his nap (or when you put him to bed and he doesn’t want to go to sleep). Then he lies there and talks happily as though it’s the middle of the day. What is with this kid?

It’s funny because with so many of the things Joey is so interested in, Ben hardly paid attention to at all. Ben never played with the rings when he was this age. He didn’t play with the toys on the bouncy seat. Joey’s even already interested in the TV remote. And his feet. Very, very interesting. Ben was more of an observer who also crawled two weeks after he learned to sit – would that have anything to do with it?

Joey is also far more interactive than Ben ever was. They talk about how you should narrate and talk to them while you change their diaper and such. Perhaps I was just a dumb, inexperienced Mom but I didn’t do that with Ben much. He was all business, though, when he had his diaper changed or ate. For Joey, getting your diaper changed is a social event. He gets all excited and laughs and talks with you enthusiastically. I am not sure if it is the attention or the fresh bottom he’s getting that makes him like it so much. [I’m hoping at least some of the latter so he will mind a little when he wets himself, which doesn’t seem to bother Ben and makes potty training, well, difficult.]

But how to get his days and nights back straight is the big mystery at the moment. I try to nurse him during the day at a place where there are as few distractions as possible. But many times, he simply isn’t interested in eating. Even if we’re in a quiet, calm place, he wants to go do something fun, ya know? He’ll wake up from a two hour nap and you’d think he’d want to eat, but no he just wants to play. If I can actually get him to eat, the meal is very abbreviated.

I may be so tired I feel like a truck ran over me, but I’ve sworn off the caffeine. When you’re not used to it, it really does a number on you. At least for me, it suppresses my appetite and cleans out my entire digestive system. If I ever need to have on of those tests done like a colonoscopy or something where you have to get all cleaned out and everything, I can skip the chalky stuff they give you ’cause a couple Mt. Dew’s should do the trick. Seriously.

Now, back to regularly scheduled programming…