Meet the Parents

So my Mom is in town. And my Step-dad. Here's the thing: these people are really good people. Not like, oh you know, good as in they are well groomed, wear matching jewelry, listen to NPR all day and wear LLBean.

No these people are Good (capital G), as in, are loving and always of service and cheerful. Really! Cheerful pretty much all the time. Frankly it's a bit tough being around them because any impulse I have to throw a snit or complain or whine about dumb crap gets quashed by their laughter and Can-do attitude. Oh and I should say that they are well groomed too, but not so much on the catalog outfits.

In fact, it's been hard to come up with stuff to write about up here because I think alot of what I do here is thrash around about my garden-variety angst which has been minimized by all this damn loveliness. Of course the other thing I do is talk about sleep which I know y'all are probably over hearing about. And frankly? Nothing to say right now - drama done for the moment. OK. Okay, wait..I know you won't mind just this one little tiny eensy bit...

The boy sleeps. I put him down. He goes to sleep. As I'm leaving the room, he smiles at me. I'M NOT KIDDING! He does this at night, he does this at nap time. And then he sleeps - 3 hours during the day, 11-12 at night. Ridiculous. And if I wasn't me, I'd hate me too.

Back to the parents. They live full time on an RV, so they are staying in their lil traveling house about a mile from here. So. Life is so sweet with our routine of getting up and making coffee for Papa L. They arrive at nine, he drinks it makes jokes and starts doing all kinds of stuff around here. Like fix lamps. He goes to his favorite hardware store. He watches the stock show. My mom gets the baby up from a nap. She changes him into a cute day costume. They sit together and coo and laugh while I flit around trying to get something done. And meals are made, errands get run, the baby is so beautifully taken care of since his naps are totally honored and yet, something unique for this household, still stuff gets done! If I could freeze time I would. I do pine for my Mommy and Me groups and a little bit, but not enough to miss a minute of this magic.

They were originally going to be here to help us BHB sit while cute hubs and I made our short film. And then, if you remember, we had a reality check and realized that we didn't have a huge chunk of the budget required to shoot the short in the manner we'd like to. Meaning: pay people something, not steal locations or shoot without permits. It turns out law-abiding is an expensive habit. Harumph.

Soo, we decided to do some fund-raising type thingee's while they are in town so that we stay focused on making some art while we get the benefit of some delicious Gramma babysitting and Papa L tasking. So last weekend we had a fund-raising party and today we threw a fund-raising Garage Sale. Both only mildly successful in terms of actual dollars compared to the work put in, but strangely fun and also came with the great house purging and house prepping that a g-sale and party (respectively) will do for you. Picture above: Boy and Grandma prepping for garage sale with couch on porch.

The place we're really hoping for some magic is our online effort. Last week we mounted a computer-to-computer Obama type funder on a super bitchin' site called Kickstarter.  Perhaps you noticed it the widget over there to the left? Give it a click, or go right here. On the page you'll find a video of cute hubs and I yapping to the camera and some real fun comes when BHB makes an appearance (about 3 minutes in).

If you can, pledge a few bucks. Really, just 2 is seriously great. What's even better is if you can pledge a few, and then forward to some friends and say 'Hey! Check this out! These people have a small child (with a big head) and still want to shoot an ambitious short film. I think they are kinda nuts but in the best way and I pledged a little, can you help them out too?' Then the magic of the interweb comes to life with all of the forwarding and hey-ing and tweeting and lovin' and then our movie gets made thanks to you. Seriously.

I hope that sounds good. I've backed a few projects up there and it's super damn fun to be a part of their projects. Artists are crazy people and I enjoy being counted among them, especially in times like these - we're hanging out on the edge.

Also, this is our movie poster. Our friend Bob designed it. We love him.

What Dreams May Come

You know, I should have left this title for a super oovey-groovey post about Angelsnshit but I am too lazy to come up with another way of saying - dreams do come true. It can happen to you, if you're tough at heart....

Well, not heart tough actually, more like heart-filled with love, tears coming down your face but loving your little person enough to set a boundry and help him learn something all the while with endless love you are psychically sending from the next room as you are furtively writing down the times and resetting the timer and walking in and carefully leaving in thirty seconds and sighing and crying and hoping it will end soon. But here's the result.

It works.

He's sleeping Through, not around, not beside, not above, not below and not any other preposition. Through the night.

Can I hear a what, what?

Last night was the one week anniversary of the first night of letting the boy cry which as you know from the recap sucked. And the rest of the score?
Check it out:

Night One - 1:01
Night Two -: 20
Night Three - : 04
Night Four -  :38 - * I speculate it was rougher here due to the fact that we were stressed around here getting ready for an event the next day...
Night Five -  :28
Night Six - :03
Night Seven - :02

Last night he slept from 7:03 pm to 6:30 am. I'm beside myself (and more prepositions). The previous two nights before we only heard about four minutes of crying somewhere deep in the night. You know deep in the night, the part where I used to jump and and run in there and feed his little face sometimes a little dangerously because I couldn't remember doing it? That part. Now I raise my head and my hand enough to jot the time and make sure the crying doesn't go past five minutes, because then I would have to do something. Holy hallelujah.

So I do not intend this as cyber bragging, it is not. It is me saying the following. When I birthed this little boy I said 'hellsnonowaynohow am I letting him cry it out, those people are savages'. No offense to you people, I know you know. But now after the last four months of the rocking, swaying, singing, feeding, rocking, swaying, feeding singing to sleep and the four and five times up before actually finally going down making it a three hour process sometimes, I've changed my tune.

We did it all in one fell swoop. Nights, weaning from night feedings as well as naps. All at once. All from the Sleepy Planet program. Totally recommend this, it's working great as his naps are even shaping up really well too. Today he was down for two this morning, and I just put him down for midday and we heard 30 seconds of crying and then nothin'. We'll see him in an hour or so. Peeps, I'm just sayin'. It's a freakin' miracle.

Here's the link again. Big shout out of love to those purty ladies, big ol recco on the DVD as well. Sorry this is a big commercial for them, but you know - I want to say to my comrades suffering out there - I'm out of baby jail and life is pretty sweet.