Bad editors! Rawr!

So, with my job, I am sometimes assigned to the final edit of a manuscript previously edited by someone else. I never communicate directly with authors, but each assignment comes with notes from the author. This one––oooh, so angry at the first-pass editor. What a punk.

The author wrote: "For example, consider the following from [title of story here]: "But Mr. Wilson was made of sterner stuff; he was as determined as a bloodhound, as tenacious as a pit bull, and as stubborn as a beagle." This was corrected to: "...he was as tenacious as a pit bull and refused to give up." Understandably, the author was a bit miffed about this suggested change. Me, too! The author followed it up with this comment: "In some of the stories, the 'corrections,' although grammatically correct, seemed to flatten the emotion and intended humor." 

I guess it's like any profession, where the not-so-great editors give us all a bad name with their overreaching, overzealous "corrections," which really cannot be justified. 

Also, I'm a little sad to be working for a company who has also hired an editor of such low caliber. We need some quality control around here! 

A wasted day

Today feels like a wasted day. It's so frustrating. Matthew has been fussy and tired half the day, which makes me think we should stay in so he can nap instead of going for a walk or to the gym. And then when he doesn't nap for hours, argh. It just feels like the whole nice sunshiny day is passing by. But of course, if I knew he was just going to fuss around for a long time, we'd go do something. If only predictions of the future were possible.

But now he's sleeping finally, another long nap, and I've washed dishes, edited, finished reading another book for the book marathon, organized some stuff, cleaned the refrigerator drawers and underneath them...

Really, though, it's a day where I feel like I'm just waiting on things. Waiting for Matt to fall asleep, waiting for Matt to wake up, waiting for Jeff to come home, waiting to go outside. But we're walking to the library when naptime is over, and we're going to turn this day around. And then it's the weekend! And we get to hang out with Jeff a lot! (That's one of my favorites.)

Pilates and priorities

I've been going to classes at the gym almost every day and choosing them solely on when Matthew is awake and not too fussy. So yesterday was Pilates. I always thought Pilates was some type of aerobics, but not so much. It involves a lot of lying on the floor in a dark room with your eyes closed and concentrating on breathing. Very relaxing. Kind of workout-y, too, I guess. I felt like I was preparing for childbirth all over again, but other than that it was nice. "Nice" isn't usually how I describe a good workout, but I can't really think of another word.

A point in favor of Pilates is that, with everyone having their eyes closed, my lack of coordination is not so evident. (This is also a major advantage of water aerobics. Can't see the flailing under the water!)

In other news, our house needs to be cleaned so badly. I should be cleaning instead of blogging. But then Matt will wake up, and I'll want to play instead of clean, and then he'll nap again, and I'll want to edit instead of clean, and then Jeff will come home, and we'll want to hang out instead of clean...

Anyone want to come over and clean for me? Really we just need a good sweep and vacuum and bathroom-counter dusting. Every night we pick up all the toys and obstacle course obstacles (pillows, blankets, etc), but that's about it. My cleaning routine for the past month or so has been to pick up large dust bunnies when I see them. Laundry and dishes are easy, so that's taken care of. Suppose I could clean the bathroom counter while Matthew plays with the drawer in there. He learned how to open it, and opening and closing it can keep him occupied for many minutes. Plus those really fun shadows are in there...

It's always all about sleep...

...but at least this post is about getting more of it. After a week of Matthew waking up and crying and wanting to be rocked and entertained and generally not sleeping during the night for hours, we resorted to our last resort. The dreaded "cry it out" method. Which, incidentally, resulted in much, much, much less crying by both me and Matt in the middle of the night.

Jeff and I decided to let Matt cry for a little while, maybe up to 20 minutes, when he woke up in the night so he could settle himself back down. This hurt me so much, just listening to him rolling around and crying. But the alternative––endless nights of crying and rocking and days that seem endless because of sleep deprivation––just wasn't going to work anymore. I didn't know if I'd be able to resist going in and picking Matthew up and falling into the same routine. But with Jeff's help and lots of praying, we made it through. Both Matt and I are much better able to enjoy the days now, too, having actually gotten some rest.

First night: Matt woke up and cried for 10 minutes. He woke up a second time and cried for 6 minutes.
Second night: Woke up twice. 4 minutes of crying each time. Woke up a third time and talked happily to himself for half an hour then fell back asleep.
Third night: Woke up twice. 3 minutes of crying each time.
Fourth night: Woke up once. Made some noises for about 2 minutes. Made another noise later on, but I don't think he was awake.

And now everything seems bearable again. If you'd told me even two weeks ago that I'd let my baby cry in the night, I would have said you were delusional. This was probably the most heartbreaking decision I've ever had to make, but I think we did the right thing. And now, I'm thinking, one of the great things is that when Matthew cries in the night later on (because he will; he's a baby), I'll actually be able to tell if he needs something or what the deal is. We're coming to an understanding.

Now if only we could come to an understanding about how he needs to get better at eating solid foods...

Small success!

Guess who talked to himself for 20 minutes then fell asleep with no crying and no rocking and no pacifier! Guess! I bet you can't guess! (Answer: Chatty Matty)

This morning I decided we're going to break the rocking-to-sleep habit first then tackle the night waking. The first nap was not so great. It took an hour and a half of me picking Matt up and putting him back down and giving him the pacifier and him crying and then playing and then fussing and and and...

But the second nap is a success! He's asleep! Completely without me!

I'm not getting my hopes up, but I am sure excited about this small success! (Too many exclamation points!)

Need sense of normality

Something has to change around here. I've determined that Matt is waking up in the night for my company. He'll be somewhat mollified by Jeff's company if necessary. But we've got to change things somehow. It's ridiculous to wake up every 45 minutes to 3 hours all night long when he's not hungry or wet or teething or sick. I'm not sure what the plan is right now, but we'll have to have one soon. And stick to it even if I think it's too difficult.

In other news, weight lifting really makes me feel like myself. I've always enjoyed it a lot and even more so now. Matthew seems to love the ladies in the playcare, too. He was charming both of them yesterday; lucky for him, he was the only kid in there when we went. I probably need to stretch. Hopefully we'll get this sleep thing settled so I can go to the classes at the gym, which are all in the morning. I find it difficult to ease into the weight lifting; I just want to go all out right away. Should take it easy today probably. And I've been running with Tonya. It makes me so happy! It's funny how I used to love running alone, but now I would so much rather run with someone. I'm not sure what changed about that.

Some of my friends emailed me yesterday and today. It's exactly what I needed. Hopefully I'll manage to email back, but we'll see. I'll see two of them tomorrow at Jennifer's baby shower in B'ham. And my mom, so that will be nice.

Editing. Ugh. Need to get going on that, as usual.

And this weather is really bringing me down. There are few things I loathe more than winters in Alabama. So much dreary rainy darkness. I miss winter in Vermont, when I went skiing nearly every weekend. I miss winter in Minnesota, when I taught skiing nearly every weekend. I miss shoveling our driveway and Maria's driveway and random people's driveways for money. I miss demolition-derby sledding. I don't so much miss alternate-side parking, though. That pretty much sucked.

Oh no! Not nighttime again!

I'm pretty sure I'm going to die. Okay, that might be a little melodramatic, but what doesn't seem melodramatic when you're awake half the night for no reason? We've had about four to six incidents lately where Matthew wakes up in the night and just stays awake. He's not hungry. His diaper's not a problem. He doesn't seem hot or cold. I pick him up, and he puts his head down and just relaxes. But doesn't go to sleep. I put him back in the crib, leave the room––he screams like he's going to die. If one of us doesn't go back in there, he keeps crying and crying until he starts almost hyperventilating. Then I usually try to feed him again, but he either just refuses or he bites. So, you know, that's definitely not the answer. Or we'll put him in our bed between us and hope he settles down. Nope. That's the perfect place for him to grab our faces and kick and roll around. Fun times! And he's been staying awake about two hours with each incident (which thankfully isn't every night. Yet). He's like, "Hey, time to wake up! Time to stay awake for two hours! Yeah! Okay, time's up. I'll go back to sleep now." And it hasn't been happening at the same time of the night, either. It might be 11 to 1. It might be 2 to 4. No pattern.

The worst part is, I can only make it about an hour before I feel like crying until I hyperventilate. So then Jeff's gotta get up. And then we're awake even longer because I have to calm down and Matt has to calm down, and poor Jeff has to still get up and go to work in the morning. (Though, really, I would love to leave the house in the morning some days and not come back until evening. I'd sacrifice a couple of hours of baby giggles and games and smiles, along with tears and nap-fighting and diaper changes for a couple hours of solid work staring at a computer. Not many, just a couple hours. Or a couple days. I couldn't make it a week in the real world without my baby, I'm pretty sure.)

So yeah, it's rough. I don't think we're going to make it. My faith is wavering badly. I can't understand it. Maybe it's teething. Maybe it's all the new skills Matt's learned. Sometimes he's crying in the night and when one of us goes in there, he's sitting up, like sleep-crying. Or crawling backwards, sleep-crying. It's weird. A couple times when I'm watching him sleep, Matthew will just be peacefully sleeping, then he rolls over really fast, sits up, and starts crying. All with his eyes closed. That's what I'm calling sleep-crying. And sleep-sitting.

People were fond of telling me in the early months how "things will get so much better once he's five or six months." I was fond of telling them how everything was great, ideal, really, for taking care of a baby. We were sleeping well almost every night. Daytime was easy. I knew how good we had it, and I appreciated it. But now, oh my, now it's been months of incomprehensible nightwaking. I just don't see the end in sight. I'm glad I appreciated the easier times, but I sure don't feel like we're going to make it now. And.... *end melodrama*