Lack of sleep makes you do crazy things

I am just going to jump straight to the crazy things, and skip the lack of sleep part -- wait, no I am not, I need to vent! So, the Squeaker, who is 6 weeks old, has been doing such a wonderful job of sleeping... from day 1. He usually sleeps between 4-6 hours in a row at night. 2 nights ago, it was 7! Yeah for the Squeaker!!! (and for his parents who were more well rested yesterday than usual). We should have known that the next night wouldn't be as wonderful. i am not sure why, but our feeding schedule was off just enough to mess me up completely. I fed the squeaker at 1 and, since he has to be upright for 45 min or so after he eats, I ended up sleeping upright on the couch until 5:45am. That was not my intention - I had asked Daddy to wake me at 2:30 so I could put squeaker down and get some real sleep... that didn't happen, for some reason... :( I fed squeaker again around 6 (yea for 15 min of horizontal sleep) and was pretty much up for the day at that point. Oh, I take that back. I slept from 7:00-8:00 uninterrupted. woo hoo. So, that whole paragraph was just about our youngest child.

Our oldest, the Little Man, decided to wake up every couple hours (he is worse than an infant) crying for his paci. Now, granted he is 2 and still requires our assistance for most things, I feel that he is capable of looking around in his bed for his paci if it falls out... it is usually sitting right next to him! After the 5th time getting up with him, I had decided that the paci was more of a hinderance than a help at this point. (yah, i know, i am smart, i have an advanced degree so that i can figure these things out.) The Little man has been super cranky for a week and a half, but shows no symptoms of being sick. I did feel a molar coming in, so i have been giving him tylenol periodically and assuming it is teething. I figured, if he is miserable anyway, and we are tired anyway, and we are getting up repeatedly anyway, why not... GET RID OF THE PACI?!?!

If we were smart parents, we would have done this long ago, but seeing as how we are not, and the advance degree didn't cover pacifier use, we didn't. Tonight was the first night. We have been talking about getting rid of them for a while (like a month) - "One day, we are going to get rid of those pacis and you will get to sleep in your big boy bed without them!" All these comments were taken in without protest. Tonight during dinner, we had the same discussion and talked about throwing them in the trash and maybe using something else to replace it - like another blanket. The Little Man thought it was a great idea. So, after his bath and jammies, he climbed in bed grabbed his paci and sucked on it all the way to the trash, where he didn't need any coaxing to take it out and place it in. On the way back to his room, we talked about how the trash man would come in the morning and the pacis would be gone, but that it was okay, cuz he was a big boy. this was greated with, "yah, i a big boy". We went into his Little Brother's room and stole one of those animal head loveys to take to bed instead. He got into bed and was quiet for like 20 min - we thought we were home free. After about 30-45 min of crying and needing extra hugs and time with mommy, he has been quiet for like an hour! I think we are good! woo hoo, the paci is GONE! and the trash man is coming tomorrow morning and we can't get the pacis out of the trash. Mommy and Daddy won't be tempted either. Baby brother has pacis, however, so that might be a future challenge... we'll see. :)