lovin' life: b for brady, v for vendetta

*this post is a prime example of how i write without intending for anyone to actually read it. i wouldn't recommend this post to anyone. it is winy and confusing and just plain boring.

"v is for vendetta" that's the phrase that kept running through my mind last night. i know it's actually "v for vendetta" and not "v IS for vendetta" but i'm a mom and i read a lot of "a is for apple" and "b is for book." except around here it's thomas style. "c is for coaches, annie and clarabel." "d is for diesel" "e is for engines" "f is for freight cars" "g is for gordon" "h is for henry" annnnnd it's time to stop.

anyways, my honey left town again. this is happening with increased frequency i feel like. i don't know what it is but brady always has a hard time when i'm single parenting it. like when my honey was gone over valentines day and brady had run out of his reflux medicine and he spent that week crying all day long when he wasn't being held and frequently even if he was. or he'll go through a growth spurt or teething or something that makes him super cranky or a bad sleeper like when honey was in california weekend before last and it was saturday night and i was attempting to get him to sleep and it was 3am and i hadn't been to bed yet and i needed to finish my fast sunday lesson that i was teaching in yw and he wouldn't eat and no matter what i tried he would not go to sleep and he wouldn't take a bottle which was stressful because my second counselor was coming over at 7am to watch my kids while i went to a special two hour ward council before church and on and on. that sunday turned out awesome (it was the day john got set apart to be a missionary!) but ohhhh the stress and anxiety leading up to it and during it. so the short of it is that when my honey leaves down, my baby goes from high maintenance to ummm... i can't think of a nice way to sugar coat it.

well, sometime early monday morning my lovely honey kissed me goodbye (it's very "sleeping beauty" although i'm positive those are not the words that he would use to describe my grogginess) and i rolled over to enjoy a few more hours of sleep. when i woke up i checked out the baby app on my phone and was pleasantly shocked to see that brady had slept for over 8.5 hours... a new personal best for him! and he was happy, though still very sleepy, for the hour and a half he was awake and then he went down for his first nap without a single peep. and he slept and slept and slept and his nap was an epic 3 hours and 40 minutes long! i was kinda thinking he wasn't feeling well so that's why i let him keep sleeping instead of waking him up to eat. and my morning with abigail was a glorious girls morning of eating chocolate and treats for breakfast and painting our toes and playing the piano and doing all those things that girls like to do together. so then brady woke up right as abigail went down for her nap and i got some awesome one on one time with him while i got some stuff done around the house. and then after an hour and a half of that i put him down for another nap and... once again, he went right to sleep without a problem. after two hours, i actually had to wake him up because we were going out to dinner with my mother in law, brother in law, and sister in law. he was great all during dinner and stayed awake in the car on the way home. sweet! now i can just put him down for the night and go to sleep myself! or not. he's got an adverse reaction to the night. as soon as that sun sets, and the lights go out, BAM! jekyll turns to hyde and this kid fights sleep like rocky fought the russian. so last night i finally got him to sleep and then i did a few things and wrote a few emails and was wrapping things up when i heard brady fussing. he'd woken up after less than 2.5 hours... whatever, i'll just feed him and get ready for bed and go to sleep. it took a few tries but it happened. and then i got to sleep. and then 40 minutes later, that kid's crying woke me up. i was so tired i couldn't think straight. it was 2:15 and as annoying as it was, i was pretty sure i could just feed him and be back asleep within 15 minutes. not the case... because brady doesn't abide by those rules when i'm husbandless. noooo, he spent the next hour happily refusing to go to sleep. and then he spent the next two hours screaming. some crying, but a lot of screaming. that high pitched piercing scream that irritates the headache you were hoping would go away with a night of sleep. he was crying so hard he had trouble catching his breath and he would. not. eat. i tried every trick i knew. changing clothes, changing swaddles, changing diaper, giving drugs (reflux medicine, orajel, gripe water, and finally tylenol) and a million other things. it was like he hated me. i was so congested i could barely breathe, so tired i could barely see straight, and i had a headache that was threatening to detach my head from the rest of my body. he felt warm and had a temp of 100.5 so i did feel compassion for this poor uncomfortable soul. but really?! just go to sleeeeeep.

so at 5:15am, as the morning sun was rising... i finally got to sleep. for another 40 minutes. because he woke up again at 6am. and then i got him to bed again and we both slept for two whole glorious hours.

and then it was crazy difficult to get him to sleep for his first nap. he was so sensitive that even readjusting the way i was holding him would send him into a screaming fit. he would fall asleep in my arms so fast (i'm sure he had to be just as exhausted as i was!) but the second i moved to put him in his crib it was screaming for dear life. finally rigged a plan that outsmarted him and he slept a nice full 2.5 hour nap but woke up super sensitive again. once again, not eating well, and crying if you even look at him the wrong way. but then he went down for his next nap without a peep, slept for a full 2.5 hours, and was happy for all of his awake time and went down again without a peep. and then tonight when i got home from yw (my awesome mother in law watched the kids for me) he woke up but then went back to sleep after a quick feed, diaper change, reswaddle. maybe he's feeling better (he wasn't so hot tonight) or maybe that tylenol brought his fever down enough that he wasn't so miserable.

y'know that talk where president uchtdorf talks about how nothing is more consistent than change? well i always think of that when i think of brady... "nothing is more consistent than inconsistency." maybe he'll sleep for 8.5 hours that night, or maybe he'll wake every two hours, or maybe he'll only sleep for two hours and then be awake for three and then wake every hour. or maybe he'll go right to sleep when you put him in his crib, or maybe you'll walk up and down your stairs fourteen times over the next three hours. maybe he'll be super happy and smiley and laugh like crazy while he hangs out on the floor, or maybe he'll fuss and cry and scream no matter if he's being held, rocked, fed, burped, or anything else you could possibly imagine.

not a day goes by that i don't think to myself "i birthed jekyll and hyde in the body of my sweet baby brady." hopefully soon we'll start seeing a little more jekyll and a little less hyde.