Tally Ho!

Yesterday rocked, in a somewhat unexpected way. The Duran Duran mini-show was lovely, they did a short acoustic set in a small, intimate setting, and there was a Q&A portion wherein Simon and John got to be all kinds of charming. Nick and Roger were not there, oh well. And my childcare set-up ended up not working out at the last minute, so we brought HR along thinking we could take turns hanging out with him outside the venue, but he was welcomed inside. Luckily it wasn't too loud. He liked it OK (or DID he? What are we trying to say here, baby?).

The crowd got a bit much at times and it cut into his naptime, but all in all it was a great experience. Even if we were shut out of the meet-and-greet (apparently only mysteriously selected listeners were granted this opportunity - if an adorable baby and a mama with huge weaning boobs aren't part of the criteria of meeting a rock band, I don't know what could be). I can't complain. For one, I got to see Duran Duran for free, and relatively close up (they are still so handsome). I got to leave work early, enjoy the gorgeous weather, and most importantly I got to spend most of my baby's birthday with him. I think he liked that part.

"How we spent your first birthday" - that will be a good story to tell him somewhere down the line, even though he'll probably be totally embarrassed that this was the band. Whatever parents like just isn't cool, I'm willing to accept that.

How's the sleep training going? I'm glad you asked. We've made some great strides in that area. No, he's not sleeping through the night yet. But the results of this effort are irrefutable. Usually it would take me 20-30 minutes to bounce him to sleep, putting him down, picking him up, killing my back until he was out. Here's how the new crib-bound strategy has worked out so far:

Night one: 30 minutes from put-down until sleep, lots of crying
Night two: 20 minutes, about 10 minutes of crying at the end as he tried to settle in
Night three: 12 minutes, maybe 3 minutes of it total in tears.

I'd say we're mighty close to a breakthrough. Honestly, putting him to sleep initially was never the issue for me, I sort of loved the cuddly closeness of it, but the fact was he didn't know how to go to sleep without it and I realized this was hurting us all in the middle of the night. The book I'm using as a guide says that I can use whatever method I need to get him back to sleep, so long as we're consistent with the first put-down, and that within two weeks he should have the tools he needs to skip those wakings altogether. It's an amazing feeling to have that possibility in my grasp.

The question on everyone's mind, of course, is why didn't we do this months and months ago? Part of it is that I underestimated the baby's ability to self-soothe, and part of it is that maybe he wasn't actually ready. And maybe I wasn't. So though I am not confident enough to declare this the fix-all yet, I think we're all as ready as we're gonna be, and things are going well.

To celebrate, here's the latest Beastie Boys joint, which I like more than any song of theirs since Ill Communication, maybe even Paul's Boutique. Plus everything about this video is a foxy revelation, even that little hobbit rapping.