Take two...

Ok, so the first night of sleep training wasn't that great. Indio was up at 1:20AM and again at 3:30AM, at which point I couldn't take the crying so I brought him into bed with us. I woke up exhausted and frustrated. Did I do the right thing by bringing him into bed after 15 minutes of screaming or am I setting him up for a lifetime of therapy?

Well, last night was night #2 and I knew we had to try again even though my heart ached at the thought of the crying. E and I went to a movie beforehand while our friend watched Indio. When we got home we went through our usual routine of nursing, changing, story time and then I nervously put Indio down to sleep at 10PM. I anticipated a midnight wake up, a 1AM wake up, maybe 3AM? But nothing until the wonderful hour of 6AM! Indio slept until 6:21AM this morning! Life is good.

[I really hope I didn't just jinx everything and he'll go back to waking all.the.time again!]

Not taken last night, but you get the picture.

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Sleep training

At Indio's doctor appointment today I asked Dr. Ajl about "sleep training" to which he replied, "He is old enough to sleep ten and a half hours straight so you can definitely start." Those few words made me elated because it meant that if all went well, I might actually sleep more than 4 hrs in a row! But it was also a little sad because it meant my little man was close to 6 months old, the age at which I had decided we would start any sort of sleep training. Between you and me, I was also scared and nervous. The only thing I had heard about sleep training was that babies sometimes cry for 90 minutes before settling down!

Well, after a day of humming and hawing, researching online, posting on a message board, and talking to a friend whose son is a year older than Indio, I finally told E that I was ready. We were going to cry it out [CIO]! We went through our normal night time routine: nurse, change, storybook...but instead of rocking Indio to sleep I put him in his cosleeper and closed the door.

The crying was torturous...for me! I thought I was going to cry! It felt like an eternity, but after 28 looooong minutes, he was fast asleep. It seems a little too easy too soon. Cross your fingers it lasts for a few hours and we make it through the night.

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The Good Stuff: Hello Baby

Why is it 6 months after Indio's birth that I may have found the perfect baby record book??? I searched high and low for months before he was born, looking for that perfect book to record my babe's milestones. I decided on this Annabel Karmel one, which I like, but tonight I stumbled upon this: Kal Barteski's beautiful b&w Blurb-published book, hello baby. The steep price of $115 is the only thing from deterring me from buying one, especially since I had planned on compiling my own Blurb book of Indy's first year.

But this book goes one further. It's an amazing "life book," filled with pages that even the baby can fill out when he is old enough. Instructions found in the book:

And some other pages:

I think I'm going to get me one.

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Lifeline lost

Haven't posted in awhile because my beloved MacBook died last week. I depend on my notebook for keeping our families up to date with Indio's photos, staying on top of email, online shopping, and of course, blog reading, so I was pretty heartbroken to have no access to the outside world. Luckily, our phones were still in working order, and E was around to chat so I could still connect with others.

Thankfully, I had recently backed it up with Time Machine, so I only lost a few photos. Saturday, I visited the Soho Apple store's Genius Bar and had my notebook refitted with a new hard drive.

When I got home I eagerly went to restore the computer to the latest backup only to be told that I didn't have enough space on my new hard drive! After hours on the phone with Apple Care tech support, I figured out on my own that Time Machine had backed up both our MacBook and iMac to the same folder, which is why the back up was too large for the 80G new hard drive!

I'm not sure if it's fixable, but at least the computer is working...Ugh, isn't technology supposed to make life easier?

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The Good Stuff: MetroCard no more

This past Thursday HB and I bundled Indio up in his car seat, rented a Zip Car and headed to Long Island City for some car shopping. Our intention was to buy a used smallish SUV under $15,000. This is what we left with:

A brand-spanking-new Honda CR-V! It was a teeny bit more than we wanted to spend, but it was sooo pretty. It was fully loaded with all the options. It's the safest car in its class and of course, we couldn't skimp on Indy's safety.

In all, the car shopping experience wasn't that bad, but car salesmen live up to their reputation of being a bit slimy and trying to coerce you into getting "extras" that you don't really need. Oh, and the wait! It took us about 5 hrs to close the deal and another couple of hours on Saturday when we picked up the car!

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