Night Owls

For some reason or another Ayden's and therefore our schedule has shifted about an hour. He used to go to bed around 8 pm and wake for the day around 7:30 am. Then one day (after a rough night) he slept in until almost 9 am and we've been off ever since. He was taking two naps a day when he woke at 7:30. One around 11 and another around 4. That arrangement was perfect because he got the two naps he needed, was awake from his afternoon nap by the time David got home and had enough of a gap between his afternoon nap and bedtime so he always went to sleep easily.  Ever since the shift, he's not ready for his first nap until around 1 pm and IF he takes a second nap it is at 5 pm and then if we try to put him to bed at the usual 8 pm he plays and plays and just isn't ready for sleep. So here we are, he is falling asleep easily but it is almost 9:30 pm and he also has a low grade fever (hopefully teething? He was SUPER clingy today and we are keeping our fingers crossed that he isn't getting sick).

Following Ayden's lead, sleep-wise, has been what's worked best for us up until now. If he doesn't shift back to the earlier schedule on his own I may spend a few days intervening. Every time I've tried to control his sleeping in the past has backfired on me though so if we try for a few days and it doesn't work we will just follow his lead and perhaps shift to 1 mid-day nap and a little bit of an earlier bedtime. Just as you get settled into a particular routine, it all changes. The life of a parent is never "normal" or dull.

On the fun side of today, my sister dropped her kids off at our house while she went to get her hair done. Yay for cousin play dates! They are all so cute together and I am glad Ayden has kids around his age to play with (one just turned 3 and the other is 15 months) since we don't plan on giving him a sibling anytime soon.

The rest of the day consisted of a meeting pertaining to our farm plans, hanging out at my parents' house afterward and teaching dance.

David found some sweet emails between is from back in 2005 and they inspired him to kick our sweetness with each other up a notch. We thought we were still pretty darn sweet but our 2005 selves put our present selves to shame in that department. For the whole day we would randomly text cute things to one another and we were being flirty and silly all night. It is amazing how much that small amount of extra effort brightened the entire atmosphere of our home. I told David that Ayden would grow up a lucky boy if we could keep such positive attitudes toward each other and everything else for that matter. The more chill a child's environment is the more energy they can spend on learning and developing since they don't have to waste much on stress or anxiety, even if they are feeding off of ours. Just something for us to think about and strive for. Don't sweat the small stuff and in the grand scheme of things, it's all small stuff!

Here's a video from tonight's bedtime routine:

~Sarah