Super Mommy!

So it seems that having a child has given me actual cosmic powers. Wednesday night, Tim and I stayed up until 3 a.m. working on home improvement/cleaning in preparation for our home appraisal (refi) happening the next day. I haven’t tried to pull an all-nighter since college, and even then, I only tried to do that a total of twice. Both times I made it to 4:30 a.m. with the largest bag of skittles they make mostly depleted.

Wednesday night? Not so bad. Certainly I was tired (stayed up until 1 a.m. the night before) and a smidge cranky, namely with my waning strength to help Tim with some woodwork installing. But overall, we both just kept trucking until everything was complete.

Flying an airplane while he sleeps

And Thursday at work, I just caffeinated at three hour intervals (only one cup of coffee and two sodas, so not more than 300 milligrams of caffeine, no worries, won’t hurt baby). That seemed to work out pretty well. Whenever I felt the need to put my head down on my desk and close my eyes, I just got up and told someone a funny story about Levi 

Not only do I have “staying awake to accomplish everything in a mostly lucid state on only three hours of sleep” superpower, I also have The Force. On Tuesday night, Levi slept for TEN HOURS straight. We marked it down to a fluke b/c he hadn’t slept much at daycare that day. But the next night, this time even more amidst banging, drilling, vacuuming (at 11:30 p.m., no less), sawing, dragging furniture around, etc. Levi slept for 9.5 hours!!! On Wednesday night, shortly before falling asleep at 3 a.m., I said out loud “Levi, you will NOT wake Mommy up between now and 6:30 when I have to get up to feed you before we get ready for the day.” And (long, dramatic pause with face screwed up in utter astonishment at my own force of awesomeness) it worked!!! [update one week later: Levi has hit his three-month growth spurt, so he is now eating twice/night instead of zero times per night. Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.]

Working on finding his thumb on occassion

But enough about me. You want to see Levi! Since our house was in better shape than it’s been…….ever (Tim said “our house is in as good shape now as it was when we moved in! and then we remembered that when we moved in we only owned a coffee table and a futon mattress, the walls in every room were covered in quick coats of thin primer to temporarily erase the dirty or gaudy color of every. single. room. And our kitchen was the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen in your life).

I should note that Tim also said “Honey, I’d like it if our house looked like this all the time.” I told him that he should get right on that.

[I have a poop story. But per this post, I’m not allowed to write about it yet.]

I like to sleep with my arm extended....

One of the things Tim and I have been enjoying about parenthood is the ability to be two-against-one. For example, when Tim tells his corny jokes, I tell Levi not to listen so he won’t start getting into the habit of thinking corny jokes are funny. If I’m saying something silly or running around the house like a tornado trying to accomplish too many things, I hear muttered from the dad and baby lounging on the couch “mommy’s crazy – she needs to slow down.” When I complain about the incessant voice of Joe Castiglione, Tim says “don’t listen to mommy, Joe is your favorite.” And so we go back and forth, laughing at each other and making Levi laugh.

We have been tackling bath time recently. Both mommy remembering to GIVE the poor boy a bath (it’s not like he really gets dirty!) and making it more fun for the little man. Tuesday night was mostly success – he really hates when I pour water on his head to wash his hair, so that part ended not so well, and the 90 seconds it takes me to quick rub him dry all over, throw the diaper on and get him in an outfit again are also much protested (he HATES being cold). But the other parts he finds quite enjoyable. I confess to teaching him how to kick his legs to splash water – which I will later regret, I’m sure. Right now his bath is up on the kitchen sink and I have to stand on my tippy-toes to bathe him, so I don’t get too wet and my back doesn’t get too sore 