Rusharound

This week’s Sunday Props goes to a little guy who’s deserved it many times, but can’t yet read this anyway. You probably already know who I’m talking about.

It’s been a big weekend for River – he’s become a proficient nighttime sleeper (more on this in a moment), learned how to transition from lying down to sitting, and even pulled himself up. (Andddd yes, I just finished installing the cabinet locks in the kitchen). So River’s been busy exploring and learning, often with a dribble of slime out his nose and evidence of the last meal on his pants. He is of course, unfazed by this (handy for sailing and camping). More surprising is his disregard for the wooden blocks he lays on, crawls across and frequently sits on without complaint. I remind myself of this when he does cry – if he can handle those discomforts without a whimper, imagine what it takes to make him cry.

We’ve been doing exactly that this week as we took the scary and long-postponed leap into sleep training. We did the requisite reading, counselor hiring, worst-case-scenario forecasting and even some last minute postponing – but on Thursday we finally initiated a new go-to-sleep tradition and put a sobbing River in his crib and walked out.

Twenty minutes later, he stopped crying.

That’s it. Where’s the training part, you ask? The quadratic equation of kid slumberdom? It turns out there wasn’t much too it – the two nights since have gotten easier and better. And last night was so good I don’t want to jinx it by telling you the details.

So those are some of the big milestones, but there are plenty of smaller ones, too. And if you’re still reading at this point you must have an appetite for minutiae. River makes some of the cutest sounds; sometimes when he’s on the changing table he makes barely audible Bah Bah noises. They are so soft most of the noise comes just from his lips separating. Throughout the day he says Dah Dah and Mah Mah – often without any regard to which of us is in the room, but we congratulate him when fate delivers him the correct one at the right time. Other moments his exclamations vary in tone with the kind of animation of an old friend telling a favorite story. Such was the tone (and perhaps true back story) during today’s return from the afternoon adventure when River held Mr. Waffles next to his face and debriefed the stuffed animal on his fascinating trip.

In between the sounds, River’s developed some satisfying habits such as opening a particular cabinet and pulling out a particular bag to play with and suck on. He loves pushing his yellow truck back and forth and so gingerly knocking down the block towers I’ve made, I sometimes wonder if he’s actually practicing for a regional Jenga tournament. Throughout all of this, he has the wonderful attribute of bring quick to smile – it usually only takes a smile from someone else or the sight of anything unusual, like his dad with a Cheerio stuck to his nose. For this especially, Sarah and I are extraordinarily grateful. It will be many years before he will appreciate how much of our energy and kindness is the grownup reflection of the laughs he fills us with.

Thanks buddy. You make us feel very lucky.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.