Perry's second birthday

I guess what has surprised me most about this second year was that I expected it to be easier in many ways. Sometimes it is, but in many ways it all still comes crashing down. I have this desperate need to get away again after Perry's birthday, but am still here. The second year is sort of more of the first with the exception that you know what to expect and more of your triggers, so you can avoid them or know how to handle things a bit better. You don't expect as much out of yourself, although perhaps others do.

So this year after Perry's birthday passed again, I was thinking about birthday gifts for him. We went to target for something else and ran across this again:






This time I bought it. Many Moms will buy gifts for other babies in memory of their little one.(I decided it was fine to be less noble and buy it for my own son since I'd already spent a lot of effort donating sleep sacks again this year- its ok to do things just for my family as well. I wanted to see it used in our house). It occurred to me that if Perry were here he and Emily would have loved this one by now. I decided I could buy it for Paiden's Christmas, but as I write Emily is desperately bartering to get me to let her play with it... "I would really like it- to have one of those...". So we'll see what happens. But I still wish Perry were here to play with it.

One new trigger we've found is that Paiden is beginning to roll over. Chris hates and fears it- I try to remember that as much as we'd like him to skip this milestone it is just that- a milestone that all babies have to go through to progress. The bad thing for me is that he knocks off his blinky (snuza motion detector), and so my crutch is not working at night.

Last night he rolled over for the first time in the crib. Chris put him on his back and I heard him pleading with Paiden to stay put. But he continued rolling over and knocking off his snuza at least 6 times until it was finally taken off of him. Then I stayed awake listening for every breath until Chris and Paiden woke up.

During the day it is so so now. I put it on for a trip to the YMCA nursery and it went off before we left the house. I knew he was ok as he was giving me a big gummy grin- but I suspect he has figured out how to make it go off by holding his breath. He seemed especially pleased. I've heard of babies learning to pull sensors off the corded ones, so perhaps this is not as far fetched as it sounds.

I've ordered an angelcare under the mattress sensor for night, hoping it comes in soon. We'll see if he figures this one out as well, but I'm hoping it will work for his bedtime anyway.