i don't what i did different, but he slept all night, sans one feeding. which was a blessing for me since i woke up at 1:00am with a lemon in the throat and couldn't swallow. i thought it was strep. i haven't had it in a while but that's what it felt like. i don't get the normal symptoms like other people. i just get a lump in my throat and feel like crap. that's kinda how yesterday was. mom took the monster to the babysitter's and my sister is off on tuesday's so i asked her to take me to the dr. since i was home without a car. i had to sit forever in the uncomfortable waiting chairs before i finally got to see a dr. the lady told me i had some fancy shmancy name for a sore throat. she said it's red and swollen and painful. uh, yeah. i coulda told ya that. so she gives me a prescription for some horsepills and sends me on my way, $50 later. after filling my Rx and running around with my sister while she gets food for her kids, i get to come home and take care of mikhai cuz she picked him from the babysitter's. let me tell you that wasn't fun. when i get sick my body aches from head to toe and i'm miserable. all i want to do is lay down and try to forget about it. can't do that with a six month old running around now can i? so that was my day yesterday. today i still feel like crap, but at least it's not as bad as yesterday. i just hope mikhai doesn't get sick, cuz i can't take any more days off to take care of him now.

i swear i have a jekyl/hyde baby. during the day, he is the sweetest thing in the world. this weekend we followed the same schedule that he has at the daycare and he was wonderful. he ate really good at every meal, drank all of his bottles, played really good. nothing wrong there. but during the night, i don't know what to do with him....he wakes up at least every hour or half-hour just fussing. i have given him teething meds. that doesn't seem to help. i have given him his bethanechol and baby zantac and that doesn't seem to help. and i know he's tired cuz he's constantly rubbing his eyes, but he keeps tossing and turning in my arms while i try to soothe him. it's wearing me out. i'm so tired this morning.

i told the babysitter about it and she said it may be that he is sitting up, but he's still sleeping and doesn't know how to lay himself down again. she said that for the afternoon nap he will do that to her. he's still sleeping but he sits up and starts fussing. she said she just lays him back down and pats his back until he settles down. i'll have to try that. i'm getting desperate here. i would SOOOO like to have a few consecutive hours of sleep for a few nights.

my mantra "this too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass...."

my sister told us that she is going to tell her oldest tonight that the man that he has always called father is not really his father. up until a few months ago she had been receiving child support from the birth father, but he has decided that he doesn't want to pay anymore and has signed away his rights to mikey. that leaves the way open for my BIL to formally adopt mikey now. they have filed necessary paperwork and have to do a case study of the home, hence the meeting tonight to let him in on this secret. my BIL has been this little boy's daddy since he was a itty bitty baby. my mom thinks that my BIL fell in love with mikey before he fell in love with my sister.

see, he and my sister were good friends in HS and he had asked her to date him then, but she always said that would be like dating a brother, so she never did. well they graduated and went their separate ways. she had a kid and he got engaged. his engagement ended and he came over to my parents to try to see my sis. she was out, but her son was home. my BIL spent the entire evening taking care of mikey while she was gone. we think he was a gonner that night. my BIL is not a man that cries and my sister said that last night all my he did was cry. i think he's worried that the little boy that he has always thought of as his will reject him once he finds out.

i'm kinda worried how mikey will take this, but like my mom says, he is a smart kid, he'll get through this okay. it's not like adoption is a stranger to our family. my little sister is adopted. my foster sister's oldest has been adopted by the man that she is married to. my godmother is adopted. but you always worry that when he finds out he's gonna get angry and retaliate by getting in trouble and doing things that he doesn't do normally.

hopefully everything will go well tonight. the whole family is going to be there to support my sister and BIL and mikey.

just some more things that my monster is doing.

while taking a shower, he will reach his hand out to the spray of the water and try to catch it. my mom said that this past weekend he took a shower with Papa and kept trying to grab the water. he would also lean forward and put his face in the water, then jump back, shake himself a little and do it again. then in the bath last night he was leaning on mom's leg, kinda on his belly, but ke kept putting his face in the water again. i hope he keeps up this lack of fear of the water. i'm ready for the summer when we can go swimming again.

saturday night we were playing in bed before it was night-night time (wear the kid out and he'll sleep better!!!). the little monster has figured out how to blow raspberries on someone. he was playing between me and the wall and he kept leaning down and blowing raspberries on my leg. then he would scootch down towards my knee and knaw. it wasn't hard or anything, but it sure as hell tickled!!! he almost got kneed a time or two cuz of the reflex jerk. but the cutest thing of the night: i was just kicked back on the pillows watching him and when he was done playing he crawled into my arms how he goes to sleep every night and flopped onto his back and looked at me like "okay mom, i've assumed the position, i'm ready for bed. where's my bottle?" just makes my heart want to melt.

he's also learning how to crawl over objects in his way and to pick his feet up when trying to walk over things. example...there is a toy that his aunt dawn gave us that he can stand up and play with, well this is on the raised fireplace hearth. he loves it there by the way. while i was getting things ready for bed the other day, he was playing in the living room and tried to get at this toy, but the walker was collapsed and sitting on the carpet in front of it. at first he didn't know what to do. he tried to go around it, but there was a box in his way and finally he got fed up and crawled on top of the walker and used it to try and climb on top of the fireplace hearth. little stinker! next example...he was playing in bed with grama and papa and was trying to get me. i was standing by the bed on mom's side. he crawled up grama a little bit and reached up for my hands that i was holding out and proceeded to walk over grama to get to me. he had to try a few times to get over grama's legs, but each time he tried, he raised his legs a little bit more to get his foot in the right spot.

does someone have a cot for me to sleep on? the thanksgiving weekend is supposed to be one of food & leisure. mine was not. i worked all weekend. bleh. yeah, i know, people all over the world do it all the time, but i've never had to before and this past weekend it sucked. i had thursday off, but it's a workout eating all that food and listening to the loud family that i have. i had to be at LSP at 6 on Friday. i got home after 2am and died. dad gave me mikhai at 8am so i could spend some time with him and then i had to be back at LSP by 11:45 on Saturday. i got off after 6pm. spent a little bit of time with mikhai before bed time, then i had to be at LSP by 11:00 on Sunday. i didn't get off until after 6pm. i came home and wanted to die again. but had to take care of mikhai since i was home. tried to go to bed early since he hadn't taken a nap all day. that didn't work. he fell asleep and only slept for 30 minutes to an hour at a time the whole night. we were up from 2:30 to 4:15 before he crashed. during this whole time, he was tired, but he kept falling asleep for 1-2 minutes then he would wake up crying again. now that i'm a little more awake and my brain cells are functioning, it sounds like it might be teething. but at o'dark-thirty in the moring, i wasn't thinking about anything. so i don't know how much sleep i got last night, but apparently with the rate the my eyelids keep drooping, it wasn't enough.

i loved working at LSP, but i'm happy this was the last weekend. i'll actually get to spend almost three whole days with him this weekend!!! :o)