February 12, 2007

“Orange real pillow,” that’s what Hayes calls his first pillow. Yes, we’ve made a transition of sorts. Hayes now has a pillow, get’s tucked in nightly and sleeps with his head on said pillow. It’s a big change from Hayes’ old fall and sleep days where we’d go into to check on him and he’d look as if he’d been happily playing then fallen over into a sleep induced coma.

So big boy time is rapidly approaching. Now… I guess we’re going to have to think about taking him out of the crib. On second thought, maybe we’ll just leave him there.

March 1, 2006

Famdemic #2 has really put a strain on our new home. Hayes ain’t sleeping well. Dad (that’s me) is sick. Mom is sick of us being sick (and who can blame het, I’m such a whiney bitch when I’m sick.) Other than that… and that’s a lot, thing are going well.

We are entirely unpacked. Yes, you read that right. Everything is out of boxed that didn’t find a seasonal home in the attic. My home-office is up and running — and I’ve had a chance to use it since I’ve been sick.

Hayes loves the family room. He has lots of room to run and doors to open. You know, the things 13 month olds relish. Sleeping, however, is proving difficult for him. He has good nights — two nights ago — and bad nights — last night. Last night he was up 6 times. He would only sleep with Jen or me. In fact, I brought him into bed at 5:30 and got another hour of sleep out of him.

We’re going to have to figure out his sleeping soon. Jen, who is freakin’ awesome, has been getting up with Hayes thereby letting me recover from this cold… that… will… not… GO AWAY! I hate this cold. It’s gotta go.

January 27, 2006

I really don’t know how you spell blankey. No idea. Actually, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m quite clueless on this spelling thing all together.

On whether Hayes has found a blankey, however, there is very little question. Yes, indeedy, he’s got one and he won’t sleep without it. I’m actually proud of his choice. As a designer and big fan of modern stuff, I like the things that are simple but interesting. His choice, multi-blue (good boy color, BTW) irregularly stiped blanket. Same one I would have picked.

Here’s the problem — I feel like I can find a problem in about anything these days — he’s going to lose it. I know this because he is a Sagalyn, and if there’s one thing Sagalyns know how to do, it’s lose things. This is a both side of the family problem on my side, actually. Howells lose things too.

So he’s got a 50% chance of losing the blanket, the way I figure. I would have lost it long ago. Hell, I lost a Red Sox hat in Thailand. What are we to do? We need to find another one, that’s what.

Problem is, it’s impossible to find one. I’ve searched everywhere. Even used the UPC code. No luck.

Look, I found another problem. Sagalyn’s are good at finding problems.

January 20, 2006

Yes, that thing we’ve dreamed of may be the problem. It may be too quiet for Hayes. He is still getting up too early, and my working theory is that now that it’s super quiet ’round these parts, he’s gettin’ ‘nough sleep in 11 hours than he used to need 12 hours to get. That’s right. He sleeps 11 hours. Go ahead and feel bad for me, I’ll give you a second.

Noooow that you’ve got that out of your system, we’ve devised a solution: put him to bed later. I know, I know, we’re brilliant. You can hold your applause.

January 17, 2006

Well, our neighbors upstairs have finally gone. We’ll miss their smiling faces, but, as you know, not their dogs. It’s been quiet. Too quiet. OK. Not too quiet… it’s been fantastic, actaully. Except for HBomb’s sleeping… which has actaully gotten worse. Go figure.

The last few mornings since they left, he’s been getting up at 5. Not 5:05, not 5:10, 5. Further, there seems to be no rest for the weary, as he has gone from three naps to maybe half a nap. We think (hope, actually) that this may be his year growth spurt. Has anyone else had this happen? Please say yes.

December 12, 2005

Don’t get me wrong, which will be easy to do should you continue reading, but the couple above us are about the nicest people in the world. They also happen to be among the most unintentionally loud people in the world, which would be comical if their schedule was not diametrically opposed to Hayes’.

Oh, and did I mention they are right over our bedrooms?

We used to love the layout of the apartment. It’s in two browstones that house 5 units. 4 of the units are two level and one spans both browstones. That one is ours and, over time, we’ve realized it about the worst set up possible because we have 4 different neighbors. One neighbor lives above our bedroom, one below, one lives above our living space, one below. Anything a neighbor does effects us, and recently they’ve been doing a lot.

Take our friends upstairs, whom, as I said, we think are great, very noisy guys. They do their laundry at 5 AM. 5 AM. Once it was 3AM. And their washer and dryer are directly above us. So guess what? When their spin cycle goes we hear it. And, more importantly, H hears it… and he’s not big into sleeping through such intrusions.

Oh, but that doesn’t happen that often. Only about once a week. Their dogs racing around their apartment at 5AM happens about every fucking day. Yah, I said fucking. And guess what? That wakes H up too. And he aint happy. Funny thing is — and by funny I mean about as funny as the bird flu — the dogs have ESP for H’s sleeping schedule. H goes to sleep, they start racing around.

This is how it sounds to us as we sit peacefully enjoying the quite of H sleeping:

No sound.

Earthquake as dogs — and these dogs have a combined weight of about 20lbs — run above.

H screams after being asleep for a full 5 minutes.

Lovely.

See, when I was working at home, and while Jen was pregnant, they decided to replace the carpeting in their bedroom with hardwood. Which, you know, made it about ten times louder for us. Then they bought dogs. The small kind that like to run.

But that’s not the worst thing. The worst thing is… wait for it… they own another place right down the street. They bought it two months ago. Their place has been on the market for over three months in which they’ve decided to stay, for some unkown reason, until it sells. So far they’ve reduced the price over 140k and no takers.

Yup, folks, the bubble has burst right over our heads. So, here’s the short and skinny: the thing that we’re hoping helps us buy a better house for our money so we can get the hell out of this noisy place is also making our stay in our apartment a nightmare. If that’s not irony for you, I don’t know what is.