Wake up!

You would think that after all the time I've spent complaining about Kaylani not getting enough sleep during the past week, I wouldn't be asking her to wake up early for me. But this weekend, I found myself staring at the monitor in the mornings thinking "wake up Kaylani! It's time to play!" And that led to Mommy wondering what the heck was wrong with me.

This past weekend didn't provide me with any more sleep than the rest of the week. As usual, my body and brain betrayed me and kicked into gear around 5:45am each day. While getting started early on weekdays helps me get off to a good start for work, it provides me with something I'm not used to on weekends: free time. 5 months ago, I came to the realization that free time for parents did not exist. Since then, I've accepted that realization and even learned to dislike any free time that I did have because it made me feel alone. Well, weekend mornings are apparently not any different. While everyone was home, I was still alone.

After catching up with all the Fatherhood Fridays posts over at Dad-Blogs, I quickly skimmed ESPN for any interesting news, and then I twiddled my thumbs. I tried to talk to Mommy but I got a "Pa, leave me alone for a little bit more okay?" for my troubles. It was 6:15am which meant that Kaylani should be waking up any minute now so I waited. And waited. And waited some more. It wasn't until 6:45am or so that Kaylani made her first move. But like the rules of dating, I didn't dare go at her first sound. Instead, I waited for her to cry out for me so I could run in her room and be the hero who saved my daughter from the lonely confines of the crib that she spent all night in. But that moment never really happened.

For what seemed like forever, Kaylani laid in her crib playing with her stuffed monkey. She shook it, she chewed on it, she moved it from side to side. For a bit, I thought she was even waving at the camera to tease me by saying hi, but it turns out she was fascinated with the opening and closing of her own hand (or had one of Mommy's hairs stuck between her fingers...tough call). Throughout all of this, I sat at the edge of our bed (to Mommy's dismay) just waiting for Kaylani to cry out to me.

I felt like I was 10 years old and at the town pool waiting for adult swim to end so us kids could dive back in and splash around. "5 minutes kids. 5 minutes" would be the sign for all of us to sit on the edge of the pool. We'd stare at the adults slowly making their way out of the pool. We watched the lifeguards seemingly swim through quicksand to remove the lap ropes. And then we'd hear "alright kids" and the whistle would blow and all would be right in the world again. Just like back then, I was never very good at the whole waiting thing.

At 7:15am I gave up. Kaylani was talking to herself which I figured was close enough to crying out for me. I mumbled "get up, I'm going in" to Mommy as I ran out of our bedroom. Before Mommy could even try and stop me, the ribbon/binder clip contraption that holds her door slightly open ever since the WD-40 incident was off and I was in the room. I shut off the humidifier, opened her blinds, turned off the night light, then picked up my smiling little girl. Finally she was awake! Finally I had something to do! Finally we could get the day started! Finally I got to play the role of hero as I rescued her from her lonely confines of her crib...kinda.

Anyways, that about sums up for my day. I mean, sure we did other stuff like have waffles on Sunday, go to Church, buy $40 of baby food and a turtle shaped floaty for the pool, and then actually use it (the floaty, not the food) in Aidan's pool, but all that seemed to go by much quicker than the first 90 minutes of my day. Funny how that works. I'm sure I'd feel different about Kaylani sleeping in if my body and brain ever let me sleep in, but since I don't see that happening anytime soon, I guess we'll just do it this way. Or maybe I'll bang some pots together next time to get her to wake up. Tough call.

My Alarm Clock

When we had Kaylani, I didn't think that I would ever need my alarm clock again. She was supposed to be our alarm clock replacement, and would wake us up each and every morning. And every now and then, it actually works like that. Daddy's alarm clock would be set for 6:30am, but Kaylani would cry out at 6am which was close enough to get out of bed and start the day.

Everyone can relate to the frustration with waking up minutes before their alarm clock is scheduled to go off. It brings on the feeling that you missed out on a few extra minutes of sleep before you had to get out of bed (or should get out of bed). Or if you're like Mommy, you try and sneak in a few more minutes of sleep before the alarm goes off, whether it's 1 minute or 30 minutes. Now though, it's a different feeling if the alarm clock actually wakes us up.

At this point, the alarm clock going off means we've missed out on a chance to sleep more. Sure we only set it if we have something to do, but it means that something other than Kaylani woke us up. And if something other than Kaylani woke us up, it means that she's still sleeping and we're not. Thus, the missing out on a chance to sleep some more.

There's no real way to change the way we look at things. If we don't set an alarm clock, then we'll miss out or be late for things that we've planned on doing. I guess we could clear out our morning schedules, but we just never know if she's going to wake up an hour before our alarm, or an hour after our alarm. Looks like we'll just have to adjust to the fact that waking up to our alarm clock is going to be just a little bit worse than waking up minutes before it. Sure didn't see that coming.

She ages pretty well

Today is Kaylani's 3 month birthday and we enjoyed every bit of it, from the second she woke up to the second she fell asleep, and everything in between too. The day started off so routinely, with Mommy and Daddy sleeping in until it was time to get ready for Church. But since Daddy doesn't get to see Kaylani wake up very often, he thought he would take it all in.

Part of me wonders if Kaylani knows that today is her 3 month birthday. She woke up with a giant smile on her face, even with Daddy taking pictures of her while she was waking up. Some may think that flash photography while she's sleeping may be a little bit mean, but it was 9am already and we had to make it to mass by 9:30am, so it was okay. Not only did she wake up in time for us to get to Church fairly on time (5 minutes late), but I did get to capture her first smile of the day.

The middle of the day was great too and Kaylani got to spend time with her friend Mia at her house. Mia's parents, Harold and Steph, even made a delicious brunch for all of us which Kaylani seemed to enjoy (several hours later when it passed through Mommy's milk of course). After a quick nap in Mia's swing (which Mia didn't seem too happy to be sharing), it was off to run a few errands then home for the night.

Tonight, we got the best present ever FROM Kaylani. We were just about to head in for bath time and we heard the cutest little laugh come out of our baby girl's mouth. We've heard her give a giggle before, maybe a single laugh, but never quite like this. She laughed for about 5 minutes and was so cute that it brought tears to Mommy's eyes. Before either Mommy or Daddy could compose themselves enough to grab the video camera, Kaylani decided the show was over. But even though we don't have it recorded on tape, it's in our memories forever and is the best gift she could have given us today.

So today was pretty great, just like every day we've had over the past 3 months. But now, it's time to start the next 3 months (I find it easier to look at Kaylani's life in 3 month increments so I don't have to think about her toddler or teenager years). For tonight, here are pictures from the last 3 days. They're split into 2 albums so make sure you look at them both!

Oh, and for those of you who happened to notice, I did make a slight change to the look and feel of The Daddy Diaries. The only way you may be affected is if you had a RSS feed going (like iGoogle). That address has changed, so use the link on the right to update. Thanks and keep reading!

Eight is Great!

Eight. It's just a number. After seven, before nine. Can be found in the popular joke "why was six afraid of seven?" Has a "crazy" card game named after it. Usually represents the number of working hours in a day. But last night, eight was the number of hours Kaylani slept consecutively. And since she didn't fall asleep until 11pm, eight hours was enough for Kaylani to sleep "through the night" for the very first time. And that meant that for the very first time, we (and by we, I mean Mommy) didn't have to get out of bed in the middle of the night.

My alarm went off at 6:30am as usual, and I snoozed it until a little after 7am as usual. Mommy was stirring (probably because music kept coming on every 9 minutes), so as is customary when Mommy is at least a tiny bit awake, I asked her what time Kaylani woke up last night. Her answer was one that I've never heard before. She didn't even roll over to look at me, and just mumbled out "she didn't." I looked at the clock again to make sure that it was right, did the math in my head, and that's when I realized that she made it eight hours. Eight whole hours. Amazing!

If sleeping was a profession, I think Kaylani might have her career decided for her. She's a great sleeper. She's such a good sleeper that she's the envy of kids everywhere. Actually, the kids don't mind, it's the parents that are amazed how good of a sleeper she is. She's almost too good (well, not in my mind). People always ask if we're sleeping, and I have to tell them that we actually are. I obviously sleep more during the night than Mommy does, but even Mommy can't really complain about sleep. After all, Kaylani has been sleeping 4-5 consecutive hours on average for the last month or so. But forget about 4-5 hours, could we be looking at 8 consecutive hours from here on out? Could it be?

I feel like writing this post is already going to jinx the whole eight hours of sleep thing. I remember when a co-worker told me that her oldest daughter used to sleep 12 straight hours no matter what time she put her to bed. And this was before the age of 6 months. At the time, 12 hours seemed unattainable, the holy grail if you will. But now, I feel like it could be within our reach. Just one month ago, Kaylani was sleeping 4 hours. Perhaps in another month, we'll be looking at 12 hours of sleep? I can't even begin to think of the things we could accomplish with Kaylani sleeping for 12 straight hours.

But then there's the other side. There are the doubters, and the naysayers, who find it necessary to keep reminding us that it's too good to be true. That once Kaylani hits the 3 month mark (which is in less than 3 weeks), she'll "wake up" and be too interested in everything around her to sleep at all. That's when all things will go to poop. And I'll admit that I don't doubt that it could happen. It's well documented that babies do "wake up" around 3 months. But you know what? We've beaten the odds since day 0. Our first child was supposed to bring 30+ hours of labor, and the first 3 months were supposed to bring little sleep for Mommy and Daddy. To this day, neither of those things has been true for us. So the only thing I will accept as a given is that every child is different. And for that, I couldn't be any happier.

Now it's time for Kaylani to make her way into her crib, and also time for Daddy to start the timer to see if we can go for eight on back to back nights. Only the night will tell, so in the meantime, here are pictures from the last 2 days. I hope that these pictures are the only thing I have to look at until at least 7am tomorrow, but we'll see.