Bitter-sweet

I just got home from teaching and Emmett has just passed his third hour napping for the third day in a row. Pretty exciting. Today's is not surprising, though, as Emmett woke up screaming just before midnight and it took about 45 minutes to get him back in bed. What finally worked was to stay in the room with him and put my hand on his back while he fell asleep. I would stand there for a while, semi-bent over, finally tire, and pull my hand from his back, but he would then stand up, grab my hand, and pull me down so that my hand had returned to his back. I finally came up with a compromise solution whereby I would sit outside his crib and have my hand either on his cheek or his neck. After what felt like 20 minutes, I would pull my hand away and he would immediately wake, grab it, and return it where he felt it belonged. It would have been sweet and nice had it not been well after 1 at this point, had I not still had work to do for today's lecture, and had it not been uncomfortable on the floor with my arm snaked into the crib between the slats in the side. Finally I was able to sit on the floor with my hands in my lap and he would stand every few minutes to check that I was still there and then lay back down. This went on for some time with him checking on me and I finally left the room at 2:30ish. I would have left earlier if we lived in the country or in a separated house, but every time we tried to put him back to bed last night he would let out the worst screams which would lead to the downstairs neighbor banging on the walls. Ah, the joys of city living!

Emmett did wake again at about 2:45 and yell because I wasn't there (I assume), but he put himself back to sleep and made it to morning. 5:30ish. Hooray! Andrea was nice enough to get up with him since I didn't finish my work until 3:30ish. Sleep can't come too early tonight.

I am convinced that the way for one to make a billion dollars today would be to invent a device that would let a parent or caregiver know if the cry that is being let out is due to poop in the diaper or not. I changed Emmett when I went in last night, but am now wondering if he had pooped over the next couple of hours. His lack of settling was very unlike him, but I didn't check again and Andrea found a messy diaper when she got him. Very unlike him to do that so quickly in the morning.

Speaking of the topic, Emmett has been getting better and better about communicating that he has or is going to poop. We are still trying to push the potty seat, but he will only sit on it and hasn't taken care of business for some time.

We have returned to cloth diapers after our ~5 day hiatus. The blisters on his skin cleared and I boiled all of the diapers, and in our ~4 day return to cloth we have yet to find a new spot (knock on wood). Good news!