Progress report

Are you ready for me to jinx myself? We actually have already said it out loud so the damage is probably already done. Anyway, the last two nights Ben has kind of put himself to sleep AND only woken up ONCE each night!! Now, granted I have rocked & fed him as usual but when I put him down each time he woke up & started whining but it never lasted for more than a minute or two & never turned into actual crying. Otherwise, I think we all know I would have scooped him up & rescued him from the torture that every other perfectly well-adjusted child has experienced. Hmmmm. And I realize that a 16 month old that wakes up once a night is a massive fail to most parents but I feel like I'm floating on cloud 9 & have the energy to run a marathon. He did the same for his naps both days too - I rocked, he whined, then blessed silence. Today he did not give in for his nap but a little while later he had a ginormous, messy poo (sorry, should have warned you that was coming) so I blame his little squirrelly tummy for that & still have hopes for tonight going well again. I do not have high hopes, mind you, just minor run-of-the-mill hopes. If I get cocky, I will get burned.

So let's talk about the small pony roaming around our house at the moment. Hilarious. He actually woke me up last night once so I still ended up having to get up twice but I would much rather wake up to let him out instead of having the house flooded by the world's largest dog bladder. He is an awesome dog, I have to admit but I don't think a dog is for us in the long run. He's the lowest maintenance dog in history - we could have avoided the midnight wake up except that we're nannas that I had to go to bed early so he didn't get his last outside romp of the night. Greyhounds (well, this one at least) are calm, sweet, peaceful, sleepy, daybed-hogging lovers of cuddling. Nothing wrong with that.

Jack (race name Birraba Boy), shortly before he was taught that he is not actually allowed on the couch.

The cons are more along the line of the amount of food they consume - seriously, if we actually had to pay for all that food we'd be broke - & the size of the resulting poop is ridiculous. I'm tempted to take a picture of this dog's dumps but I don't want to lose the 5 followers I have struggled to get!

The ultimate downfall with Jack is his relationship with Ben. He is so gentle & lovely but even when he's ignoring Ben, he manages to knock him over or whack him in the face with his tail repeatedly. Totally not his fault that there's a miniature person around or that he's too big to manoeuvre around without swiping one of us. Unfortunately, Ben is subsequently not that crazy about Jack most of the time & usually does his best to avoid him if they meet up in the same room. I don't want Ben feeling uncomfortable in his own house so if it doesn't improve, Jack may not end up staying the full 3 weeks.

There is the thought in the back of my mind that all the bobbing & weaving Ben has had to do around here is the reason he has been sleeping so much better! There's also the chance that he heard us telling our friends about his sleeping woes when we visited them & their gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous 2 month old son. Maybe he decided that we deserved better than that but I doubt it. And can I say he was the life of the party for 2 days as well!! It was like having our goofy little man back instead of the crank pot that has been hanging around a lot recently. It's been awesome to see him smiling & cracking up as much as he used to. He's a bit crankier again today so I hope we're not reverting back. I also hope he wasn't sick for weeks or something that we just didn't catch like the awesome parents we are but I assume extra sleep makes everyone a little happier.

Anyhoo, that's our life in a nutshell these days. I am off to make myself useful & maybe try to convince Ben to take a late nap. Shyeah right! And monkeys might fly out of my butt.