Why Won't my Baby Take his Naps!?

Kevin playing in the dog's bed

Yesterday was so frustrating!  Kevin just wouldn't take his naps!

Normally, Kevin and I have a pretty good schedule.  Usually, I get up at 4:00 a.m. with Grig, help him get off to work, and then I have a couple of hours to blog, work on books I'm writing, and work on video editing.  Then, around 7:30 a.m., Kevin wakes up.  We play together for a few hours and I usually get some household things done, and a couple hours after he wakes up he takes his first nap.  He usually sleeps between an hour and a half and two hours.

After he wakes up, we usually go on a walk outside, check the mail, and enjoy the warmth (though it is getting colder).  Then, we come back inside and I usually try to get a few more things done.

Around 2:00, he takes a second nap, and I spend that time writing, reading, or sometimes just relaxing.  Then, Grig gets home around 4:00, which is when Kevin usually wakes up, and we do various things for the rest of the night.

It's a great schedule!  I love it, and Kevin is so happy when he gets his naps.

However, the last two days, Kevin has absolutely refused to take a nap. Kevin would tell me that he was tired like he normally would, and we went in the bedroom to lay down.  He would almost close his eyes numerous times, and then he would sit up or start singing.  It was very cute at first, but then he started getting grumpy.  I'd try to help him lay down and he'd fight with me. I'm not very good at holding still when there is nothing to do, so yesterday, after laying down with Kevin for over two hours, I was starting to get a little cranky.  Which is totally not something I would normally do.

So, eventually I said, "If you don't want to sleep on the bed, let's try your crib again."  (We've been trying to gradually help him be crib-trained recently.) I put him in his crib, and he was happy for about five minutes.  Then, he began to scream.  I waited as long as I could to see if he would calm down and go to sleep.  I even took the shower I'd been needing all day.  When I finished, he was still standing up and screaming, so I took him out of his crib.

He was so tired, but he absolutely refused to go to bed. 

After he recovered from the traumatic crib experience, he was happy to play for a little while, and eventually, he fell asleep on my chest around 12:30 p.m.  Happy, I put him in his crib and sat down to unwind.

An hour later, he woke up screaming.

He didn't sleep for the rest of the afternoon.  His eyes were all red from exhaustion and I couldn't figure out what was going on.

Finally, it hit me.  He was in pain from teething!  His nose had been running the last few days, and so Grig and I decided to try some baby Tylenol before bed.  Half an hour after we gave it to him, my happy little boy was back!  An hour later, we went to bed and he slept well the whole night.

If only I had realized that he was in pain hours before, our day may have been far less stressful.

You live and learn, I guess.

Poor guy.  Teething is hard.

Day at the Amusement Park and Steer Licking

Friday, Grig's work had their annual "Lagoon Day," at a local amusement park.  When we first heard about it, he was excited to go and signed us up, but after talking to other people he began to feel like maybe it wouldn't be very fun because it didn't begin until 5:00, and a lot of the waterrides were closed.

I encouraged him to still go.  I had been to this particular park before, and I loved it!  It had been years, but I was really looking forward to it.  The tickets were extremely discounted, and we could invite up to eight guests to come with us at discounted prices as well.  The park would be closed expect to the company and their guests, so we were expecting shorter lines.

We left about 4:00 p.m., just in time to hit rush-hour traffic.  It took us a little longer to get there because of that, and we didn't arrive until 5:30.  Then, we had to wait for a while for Grig's sister and brother-in-law to arrive.   Once they came, we bought our tickets and entered the park.

I'm really wet from the Logride

Kevin's having a great time

It was an awesome evening.  Kevin, even though he's too young to ride most of the rides, immensely enjoyed himself.  There was one ride called The Rocket that Kevin particularly liked because of the noise it made.  It made him jump every time, but he kept saying, "Ooooo!  Oooooo!" because he was so excited.

They fed us dinner at 6:30, and then we went back to having fun.  Grig's sister lost her phone at one point, and we prayed that she would find it.  She did!  It was kind of broken, but someone had turned it into the lost and found.  That's was a blessing.  

Kevin, in line for the Merry-Go-Round

We took turns going on rides and watching Kevin, which was just fine with Grig's sister, since she didn't get to see Kevin very often.  We had a great time.  We took Kevin on the Terrorride, which he didn't find scary until the very end with a loud horn went off in the dark.  We also took him on the Merry-Go-Round.  He liked that, but it was about 9:30, and he was getting tired.  We still went a couple times.

At about 10:00, we met a new friend.  It was a little praying mantis.  Kevin liked it, until it jumped on his face.  Then, he accidentally squished it when it was trying to get it off.  We were worried about the mantis, but it was fine.  So was Kevin. 

Kevin accidentally trying to squish the mantis

The mantis afterward, he was okay

By 10:30 he was asleep.  Grig's sister rocked him to sleep while we were on a ride, and then they just wanted to hold him.  Grig and I ran around trying to get to as many rides as possible before it closed at 11.  We felt like we were dating again as we skipped and ran around the park.  It was quite the nice evening.

We got home at about 12:30 a.m., and then we got up at 7:00 to go eat breakfast at my aunt's home.  We helped them feed their baby cow and their four kittens.  We thought Kevin would be more interested in the kittens, but he really liked the one-year-old steers that they had.  He got really excited, especially when the big black one started to lick his feet.

There was a scary moment though.  My aunt's dog, Buck, got off his leash, and when we turned around, he was gone.  Grig was helping look for him, when he thought he heard a sound in the garage.  He went inside to find that Buck had cornered one of the kittens in a box.  After Grig dragged him out, we went to check on the kittens.  It took us a while, and we could still only find three.  My cousin was devastated.  Her favorite kitten was missing.  We told her not to worry, because she was probably hiding and would come out when she wasn't scared anymore.

Not long after, my uncle started the lawnmower and the lost kitten emerged, just fine.  We were glad she was okay.  It was an exciting couple of days.

It was nice to have a nice calm Sabbath.