Milestone

Well, it's official. Matthew can finally roll over. He's been able to roll from his belly to his back since he was 10 weeks old, but to get him to go from his back onto his belly was a longer road. Partly because it takes more strength for a baby to roll that way, and partly cause he seldom had any desire to go on his belly. When we play with him we'll put a toy just out of reach so that he'll roll for it, but he just uses the hand closest to grab for it. So let me tell you the story. Our apt. managers are cracking down on the storage units they give us. We're entitled to one, but we've been using two for the longest time. Our building's never been fully occupied, so it's never been an issue. So we have to downsize to one, which means we took a bunch of our boxes down to our place so we could sort through them and decide what stays, what goes to Goodwill, and what gets thrown out. It's a shame too, cause some things we'd like to keep, but we just don't have the space for it. Oh well, decluttering is good for the soul :). Oh yeah, back to the story. Matthew was being so good through all of this. We played a Baby Einstein DVD for him, and he watched that and played with his toys. At one point I turned around to check on him, and there he was, on his belly! I saw the back of his head up in the air as he looked out the window. I couldn't believe it! I was so excited, but so bummed that I missed the actual event. We started to make a big deal over him, and I think he got a little scared. Josh said he almost started to cry. Well, that's what happens when you don't take naps all day.


See? Look how tired he looks in the above picture. See how he's red around the eyes? Little booger. He rubs his eyes and yawns so I know he's tired, but he just won't sleep. Anyway, more on that later. Back to the good news. Matthew is mobile now, though I don't think he realizes it yet. I think he's a boundary-oriented kid. He's used to playing on the floor on a blanket, and there was one night where we just put him on the carpet, and he looked like he didn't know what to do. It was like he knew that blanket was missing, and he wasn't so sure about that. Of course I say he's boundary-oriented now, but that could change as he perfects his new skill. I hope he rolls for me today--I wanna see it!



So my sleep campaign is going so-so. He cries for his naps, so when bedtime comes, he's exhausted and falls asleep while nursing. I try to keep him awake, but it's just impossible. Wednesday night he was nice and awake for bedtime, and he actually fell asleep all by himself! I was going to check on him after 15 minutes, but he started to quiet down, so I left him alone for a little longer. I went in there when he was quiet, and he was still awake, thrashing his head around. He moves so much when he's settling down. I only had to pat his butt a couple times, and the next time I went in he was fast asleep. It took him 40 minutes, but he proved to me that it's possible. Now if he could only do that on a consistent basis, then we'd be in business. I struggle so much to get him to take naps, but I am grateful to the Lord for one thing. When he's tired, he's just tired. He's not overly cranky and crying forever. So at least we don't have to deal with that kind of a scenario.

Well, I think that's all I have to say about that. Now what movie line does that resemble? ;) I'll leave you with a couple more pictures. The first one is him asleep after eating. I even moved him all around and burped him to try to wake him up, but my efforts were fruitless. And the next pic is him the next morning. What a cutie!