Does One Year Mean All Grown Up?

On September 26th (last Friday) Connor turned one. We, in true first-time-parent-fashion, made a big deal of the whole thing and threw a big party. Since that time, Connor seems to be a completely different baby in a lot of ways. Mainly, napping, which I have discussed in future posts - only now it's much worse!!

Connor now considers nap-time optional ... which it is NOT! As the first birthday drew closer, he was becoming less and less thrilled about his second (afternoon) nap, which we sometimes skipped if the morning nap lasted longer than, say, 2.5 hours (there is a delicate equation to figuring these things out that only mothers understand - it's complicated;) But, most of the time, he'd get in a good 2 hours in the morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon. Alas! A schedule.

HA!

Now it seems, being the big boy that he is, one nap may be enough. After much thought about this new system, I came to the conclusion that a 2-3 hour nap in the middle of the day, albeit eliminating any possibility of normal-timed lunch dates) would be fine because I could get stuff done during the day and run errands (if needed) in the morning and late afternoon. Once again,

HA!

Today, Connor went down for a nap around noon. One o'clock rolls around and I hear him. Not just the normal "come and get me" cry, but full-on screaming. Great. So I head upstairs expecting to just need to pop the paci back in, but no, he has it in him mouth - and is still screaming (also a new development as of late... baby's got skills!).

Ah ha!

He is too hot! Yes, that is definitely the problem. I strip him down to his diaper expecting a comforting sigh of relief, droopy eye lids, and back to the crib!

Nope - still screaming. Joy.

I know, he must have a dirty diaper! Duh! Why didn't I think of that before?

Nope - clean diaper. Well, pee diaper, close enough.

Of course! He must be hungry! Obviously, that is it!

Nope - after about a half cup of goldfish crackers were fed to the dog via Connor throwing them on the floor from his high-chair, and picking his juice sippy up off the ground about a million times, I had to give up on this idea.

Wow! I am suddenly brought back to the first couple weeks of parenthood where you have no clue as to what in the hell you are doing, but everyone just smiles at you and says it gets better - exec pt now no one is smiling and I thought it was supposed to already be better!!

Ahhh! Dang it!

After another 10 minutes of cranky whining (which might as well be someone pulling their nails down a chalkboard at this point) we are off the his nursery again for a well-intentioned attempt at a nap.

Move ahead 30 minutes - I'm still listening to him 'talk' on the monitor, hoping that any minute silence will fall over the house and I can go clean the garage... fun huh? Wait, do I not hear anything?? Only for 5 seconds - definitely still awake!

So, all I'm asking is that Connor just stay 10 months forever! Sleeping 9am - 9pm, two 2-hour naps per day, and there is no problem a fist full of Gerber Puffs and a Dr. Brown's bottle won't fix. We worked so hard to get to that point, but he just keeps growing up! Sometimes I literally think he is smarter than me when he's playing with his stacking toys ... he almost always gets them in the correct, progressively smaller all the way to the top, order!

All I know is, mommy had better come up with some new tricks to keep little man busy and happy (aka: napping regularly!) or this is going to be a long winter!