Of Babies and Wedding Gifts.

I think Warren is trying to kill us all. (People who don't give a crap what my kid does, go ahead and skip ahead, I'll let you know when we're done here). Up until a week ago:
Warren went down to sleep with about 1 minute of whining, but would wake up about once or twice a night. I don't think he was actually hungry, but more out of habit and nursing as a way of going back to sleep. Generally, we put him down by 7 pm, and had to get him up at 6:15 am. (Yes, I have to wake my sleeping baby to get him to daycare in time for me to get to work on time.)

So, in an effort to break the wake up habit, Xtian and I employed a method that has been successful in the past. It's pretty simple, I sleep on the couch, so when Warren wakes up the milk-machine isn't even there, so he goes back to sleep. Eventually, he'll stop waking up all together since the payoff isn't there.

The last time we did this was right around the 4 month sleep regression. After a week, he was all good and regularly sleeping through the night again. (He started sleeping 11 hours at a stretch at seven weeks old after a night spent in my sister's room. Kat is magic.) Then there was teething, then vacation, then crawling, then daycare changes all of which disrupted our rhythm and left him needing the comfort.

So, here we are and after a week of our lazy brand of sleep training. Last night Warren didn't finally go and stay asleep until 11 pm. And then he awoke at 6 am. So, I guess technically he slept through the night, but getting 4 hours less sleep in a night. Awesome. I kind of want to punch the kid in the face when he pulls tricks like this. The kid just couldn't stop crawling. All he wanted to do was scoot around on the floor and get into mischief. As my sister pointed out to me, this is when the kid starts to prove that I am, in fact, his mama. My stubborn "I've got stuff to do, get out of my way" attitude is alive and well in the next generation. Fantastic. That's what the world needs, another ME running around.

So, we'll see how tonight goes. For Xtian's sake, I hope it goes well. While Warren can sleep in until 6, the rest of us are up by 4 am. And since Xtian drives for a living, 5 hours of sleep is not enough. I cringe to think if I had to spend 10 hours behind the wheel with only a few hours of sleep.

Ok, non-kid people, now's the time to rejoin us. Sorry to bore you with tales of things my kid does. I have officially lost 50 pounds since the end of pregnancy. That sounds more impressive than it is. At least 35 of those pounds were gone by the end of January. Which means it took me six months to lose 15 pounds. I'm awesome. I blame this all on Xtian. I'm not really sure how I can blame Xtian, but it's just got to be his fault, somehow. I'll work on that theory.
If I can take off another 20 pounds, I'll be pleased as punch. (For those who might worry, don't. Even with another 20 pounds, that still leaves me on the heaviest "Normal" weight for my body, so says all the BMI measuring things anyhow).

I can now officially wear, not just zip up, actually wear in public everything in my closet. That's mostly due to my throwing out all my old clothes, but still. I'm taking credit for it. Maybe some day I'll go into the basement, and actually be able to put on my OLD clothes with size numbers not in the double digits. But probably not. (Durned pregnancy and the havoc it wreaks on your hip width).

This weekend we'll be attending Xtian's friend's wedding. Should be delightful, I just love the groom. But I just went and looked at their gift registry. Wow. There are officially 10 items on the list for under $100 adn they've all been purchased already. Everything else is anywhere from $200-$500 per item. And there is no furniture on there. Dear lord, why oh why do they need $5,000 worth of dishes? And then register for a couple sets of "Casual China" on top of it?
I fully expect to be invited for dinner parties on a monthly basis. Also, why do you purchase sheets that cost over $125 per sheet...that's singular, not a sheet set... ONE SHEET. To quote my sister, "So, do you just kill yourself when you get your period on a $125 sheet?" And they want several sets of them. ACK!

Clearly, when I got married, I didn't do this right at all. Look. It's ok to want nice things, and it looks like people are buying them. But keep in mind who your friends are, and that they too will be buying these gifts. The groom's friends are all broke. So, register for a bunch of cheap things so at least they can buy you something and not have to feel like jerks. I'm not saying DON'T register for that $500 duvet. But maybe also register for... a $20 toaster. Hell, I thought I'd go cheap and buy some towels or wash cloths. NOPE. $43 per towel, $26 per wash cloth. Yeah. I think I'll buy them one wash cloth, Happy Wedding Day! I would just give cash, but we really can't afford to part with enough cash to make a decent gift. So, I usually just buy a few cheapo items and then it doesn't look so chintzy. Thank god for sales, we bought two pillows for $19. Whew!

On the plus side, a registry like that demands a fancy pants wedding. I swear to you now, if there's not an open bar with top shelf liquor, I'm demanding a refund. Ok, maybe I'll just make snarky comments afterward, but you get the drift. I can only describe this registry with the word "ostentatious", I'm fairly certain it's not the groom's doing. He's just not that type, or hasn't been when I've spent time with him. And it makes me think negatively of the bride, whom I've not met. To give the benefit of the doubt, she may just be a darling girl, and her parents are encouraging her to put all these unbelievable things on their gift list. But in my head, she's becoming a bit of a villain. Or at least a materialistic brat. I know, it's not very nice of me, and I'm trying to keep an open mind, but sheesh. Not easy.