First Exam and First Sleepover

I had my first law school exam today. Sure it was pass/fail, but it was still a law school exam. It was a four-hour in-class limited open book (course books and personally prepared notes and outlines only) exam for Legal Methods. There was one traditional hypothetical type question and one policy question. I spent three hours on the hypo and only one hour on the policy question. I couldn't think of much to say on the policy question, although I really should have anticipated the question and prepared an answer ahead of time, but I only had one day to study, so I didn't have time to do everything that I theoretically should have done. I think I passed, so I am not worried about it. We are actually going to get comments back which hopefully will be helpful for refining my exam-taking technique for the real ones in December.

We had the day off yesterday to study. Our nanny also had yesterday and today off, so in the morning I took the little guy out to his grandmother's house yesterday to spend the night -- his first night away from me. He had fun on the train and laughed when we got to our car and he saw his carseat and some old toys of his inside. He must have recognized them even though it's been a couple months since he has seen them. Anyway, there was only about five minutes for the drop off because I had to jump on another train going back into the city. So I quickly showed grandma how to fold the stroller and got the little guy buckled into his carseat and then leapt back up the stairs to the train platform just in time to step on the train.

Back home I worked on my outlines and read and briefed a case our professor distributed to us on Wednesday that he promised would "figure significantly" in the exam. I spent about 8 or 9 hours total preparing for the exam.

I had a leisurely morning this morning, kind of enjoying having the time to myself. Before the little guy was born I used to enjoy having my personal time in the morning, because I get up significantly earlier than hubby. Since the little guy was born however I haven't had that time to myself (or anytime to myself) so it was nice. Not that I don't enjoy our morning time, but most days it is a little more hectic with trying to get everybody fed (pets included), and dressed (pets not included) and get out the door.

So anyway, our exam was scheduled from 10-2, and I was worried about being hungry in the middle, so on the way I bought a breakfast sandwich -- two eggs and sausage on a roll. That did the trick. I wasn't hungry at all until about the last 20 minutes of the exam. But then right after the exam I had to rush downtown to catch the train back to grandma's to pick the little guy up. I ate a luna bar on the way out there and then on the way home I stopped and bought a couple of cheese tamales from a street vendor for a buck each. We got home around 5:45 -- just in time to eat dinner and put the little guy to bed. He was tired because he didn't really take a nap at grandma's, but he was in good spirits. He had fun with grandma -- she had lots of new (to him) toys for him to play with and he got to run around in the yard and go to court and go shopping for wedding dresses (not for him). Although he didn't really nap yesterday either, he apparently went right to sleep last night, which was my biggest fear about him spending the night away. And he went right to sleep tonight too. So everything went well.

Little Guy News

• In the last week and a half or so the little guy has really started walking a lot. He can't stand up without holding on to something yet, but once he's up he can go far. I think we can officially call him a toddler!
• He's also mastered buttons and switches. We can no longer watch TV with him around because he changes the channel or turns it off. He also absolutely loves light switches. We had to move his crib because he could reach the light switch from where it was and would stay up at night turning the light on and off.
• He has five teeth now (they've been coming in fast in the last month or so).
• We found out last week that the little guy is not allergic to eggs after all. The results from the blood test had indicated a very mild allergy, but when the allergist did a skin test, which he said is more accurate, it showed no allergy. So I've given him some egg this week and it hasn't seemed to cause any problems.

Week Wrap-Up

This week was the last week of Legal Methods. We finished our 837 page casebook in 13 days of class (averaging over 60 pages/day). We didn't finish with quite as much enthusiasm as we started, which had something to do with the reading load and something to do with the fact that we all seemed to be coughing or sniffling through most of the week. It was nice to have this introduction -- it served as a relatively low-stress breaking-in to law school classes -- but I think we are all ready to move on to the real classes now. So, on Tuesday it starts for real! (Not that this wasn't real, but it is pass/fail so it wasn't too real).

Oh and hubby and my parental accomplishment of the week was to teach the little guy how to pant like a dog. Yay us!

Miscellanea

It is less than a week now until school starts. I have been buying school supplies and trying to get a few last things done. Many of my future classmates have arrived in town and have been arranging various informal get-togethers. So far I haven't participated in any. I think maybe I just want to have this last week of family time before law school takes over my life. I am, however, planning on going to a wine and cheese tasting being held by my school's women's group later this week and I might go to the Student Senate sponsored party Saturday night. We'll see.

I got portraits done of the little guy last week. He was very cute. He just got his second tooth on the bottom and now the first one on the top is already coming through. It's weird that it was two months between the first and second tooth and only two weeks between the second and third tooth. Maybe they'll keep accelerating and we'll get done with this teething business in the next couple weeks. Hah!

We also applied for passports for myself and the little guy last week. We have a trip to Mexico with my family planned for winter break so, with all the delays in getting passport applications processed lately, we figured we needed to do it before school starts.

Our nanny is starting tomorrow. She will be coming for just three hours a day for the next three days to give the little guy a chance to get used to her and her to us before she starts for real next week.

Finally, we just found out that the little guy has a mild allergy to eggs. They seem to give him a rash and a blood test confirmed he has egg antibodies, or whatever. It is probably something he will grow out of, but for now we need to avoid eggs.

Recurring Dreams

I have been having school related dreams lately, but, for some reason, in my dreams being in school always means living in the dorms, even though I won't be living in the dorms and the last couple times I attended school I didn't live in dorms. I think it must be because I feel like law school is going to take over my whole life more than school did the last couple times I matriculated.

Anyway, a couple nights ago I had this dream that I was coming back to the dorms (the dorms in this dream were the dorms I lived in as an undergrad) and coming up to the guard desk and I couldn't find my ID. I don't know if I lost it or if I didn't have it yet because school had just started, but I got delayed at the guard desk and while I was standing there talking to the guard I heard the little guy crying from my room and a woman at the guard desk heard it too. She said, "Oh, a baby!" and I said "That's MY baby!" I think at that point she let me through. Then when I got up to the floor that my room was on I couldn't figure out which room was mine. I had the room number but I couldn't decipher it, it was like 7G9 or something like that and I didn't know what it meant (not being able to find my dorm room has been another recurring theme in my dreams lately). So, I finally find the room and go in and the little guy is crying in his crib and I feel horrible for leaving him alone.

I had another dream a while back where I was living in the dorms and sharing a room with a couple other people and hubby and the little guy were not living with me and were living in separate places. The little guy was in some kind of nursery and I went to visit him there and was so sad that he was living in this institutional-type place. I remember saying, "WHY isn't there some place where we can all live together?!?"

I guess my subconscious is expressing the fear that I might be abandoning my family in some way by going to law school. I know I'm not, but I guess it's all related to what I was talking about last week -- the feeling that I won't be able to be a good mother if I am doing something else. Anyway, I know that, for me, I have to do something else or I won't be a good anything, but it is still there.

Multitasking

PT-LawMom's post the other day brought up some issues that I have been thinking about recently. Does being a mom mean I'll never be as good at anything else as I would have been if I wasn't a mom? Will I be at a disadvantage because I won't ever be able to give anything 100% like someone who isn't a mom could?

Although I've been doing it for almost a year now, I know that I am not cut out to be a 100% stay at home mom, so sometimes I feel like I am doomed to a life of being only half of anything. I will always be a mom, so whatever else I do will be hyphenated with "mom" -- law student-mom, lawyer-mom, whatever.

But at the same time I know that almost everybody has family and friends and a life outside of work or school that limits, or should limit, how much time they are able or willing to commit to other things. So, really everybody is hyphenated: teacher-friend or doctor-wife or accountant-daughter. Of course being a mom is different than being a daughter or wife or friend. For one thing a friendship will likely survive even if you don't see the each other for a couple months.

I haven't really resolved how I feel about all this yet. I realize that what I am feeling is related to this ideal of motherhood that society has created that maybe isn't really ideal and is definitely unfair to women. And there are times when I think being a mom could actually be an advantage. I am used to having only small chunks of time in which to get things done and, knowing that I won't be able to spend the night in the library, I will be motivated to do my work more quickly and efficiently than someone who doesn't have my constraints might. I am the kind of person who gets more done when I have less time to do it in, so it is even possible that I will be a better law student as a mother than I would have been had I gone to law school before I had the little guy.

Lonely Tooth

This tooth broke through over eight weeks ago and has yet to be joined by any others. The doctor said the little guy reminded her of Popeye's son Swee'Pea, who, although I couldn't find a picture to prove it, apparently only had one tooth. It makes for some funny grins. Sometimes, when he's feeling mischievous or playful, he gives us a pirate grin, with his tooth and gums clenched together, his lips open wide and his eyes squinted. The little guy has been a little extra cranky the last couple days though and didn't sleep well the last two nights, so tooth number two may be coming soon.

A little anxiety

In my last trimester of pregnancy, as it became increasingly obvious that there was a baby inside of me after all, the reality of my situation hit home and I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Maybe it was all a big mistake, maybe I wasn't cut out to be a parent. I am having a similar feeling now, with less than two months until law school starts. What have I gotten myself into? Am I really up for this? Am I really going to be able to handle school and family? Am I going to feel out of place with my classmates? I've thought about these things before, but law school is really starting to feel real now and that changes everything. I thought I had a pretty good feel for what law school is like from reading all these law school blogs and everything, but suddenly I feel like I don't have any idea what it is going to be like. I think I am feeling this anxiety now because there is really nothing for me to do before law school starts. Having things to do keeps my brain occupied, but now that my to-do list is basically empty my brain has nothing to do but worry. Not that I am worrying that much, but when I stop and think about law school now there is anxiety.

I have also joined my class' Facebook group and reading the discussions there has made me feel out of place among all the recent grads. Probably the Facebook group skews younger than our class as a whole. At the admitted students' days I met at least two people who graduated from college the same year as me and at least one of them was pretty set on going to my school, but I don't know what their ultimate decisions were. Anyway I have always known I would be one of the oldest people in my class, but that hadn't really concerned me until now. When I was in the Air Force I was older than most of the people that I worked with, but that never bothered me and they didn't generally notice. Now it is different though because I am married and have a child, it is that more than my age that will set me apart. I am not just worried about what my classmates will think of me though, I am also worried about whether I am really going to be able to keep up with law school and do all the things I want to do without completely sacrificing my family life. I know people do -- I have several examples in my blogroll -- but it still worries me.


At the same time, I am enjoying these last couple months of spending my days with the little guy. He's starting to be pretty fun -- he can do more stuff and is more expressive. We go to the park now almost every day. I found a couple of playgrounds that are not crowded in the mornings and I can let him crawl around on the equipment without fear of being trampled by shrieking kids. And with everything all set for law school I can really focus on him. That is what I am trying to do, instead of letting my brain think of all the things that might go wrong, or all the ways I might fail at being a law school student or a mother.

We Have a Nanny!

So, after talking with her references, all of whom said she was wonderful, we offered the nanny we interviewed last week the job and she accepted. So childcare is now arranged for the school year. The current plan is that she will care for the little guy from 10:30-4:30 Monday through Friday. I won't get my class schedule until the first day of orientation, but the fall schedule of classes is online, and there is no class that goes later than 4pm, except a possible class from 4-5 on Friday afternoons. If I have the misfortune to be placed in that class then we will have to adjust our schedule slightly, but, otherwise, I should be able to be home by 4:30 every day. I anticipate leaving for school around 8 in the morning, perhaps right after putting the little guy down for his morning nap, so hubby will only have to watch him from when he wakes up from his nap (around 9:30 or 10) until 10:30, when the nanny arrives. I think it will work out well. I should get to spend a couple hours with the little guy in the morning and a couple in the evening before bed.

With that taken care of, my To Do list is pretty empty. I already sent the school everything they need to enroll me: transcripts, immunization records, etc. So now I can just relax for the rest of the summer, enjoy spending time with the little guy, and maybe get some more reading done. Speaking of the little guy, he's going to be 11 months next week and he is getting close to walking. He has been using a plastic file box and the dining room chairs as walkers: he pulls himself up on them, then pushes them forward and takes a step, pushes, steps, etc. He can go pretty far that way. I will often hold onto the back of the chair while he is holding on to the side of the seat and move it slowly along and he walks along with it. He also has been practicing standing up without holding on to anything. He only does it for a couple seconds at a time, but I know that very soon he will be running around. And in not too long he will be talking. It's exciting to see all this stuff happening right before our eyes.

Progress Report: Childcare Search

After my last post on finding childcare we decided that, rather than look for a family daycare for the little guy, we would look for a nanny. I just decided I wasn't that comfortable with the idea of a family daycare, and all the daycare centers I found are already full for the coming school year. Most nannies I have spoken with charge $12-15/hour and, since we will only need her for 30 hrs/week (since hubby will watch the little guy in the mornings), a nanny is actually cheaper than the daycare centers I looked at (although still probably more expensive than a family daycare), and she can also help us keep up with some daily chores, like dishes and sweeping/vacuuming, which is a big bonus.

So, I put an ad on craigslist for a nanny to care for the little guy starting in August. We got many responses, but only a few were promising. I made a list of my top three or four candidates and started calling them. The first two I spoke with sounded good on the phone, but one never sent me her references and the other one's references didn't check out (I spoke to one reference, but I got the feeling it was her mother or some other relative; the other number she gave me was a wrong number, and after I emailed her to see if I had written it down wrong she never got back to me). Another candidate did not want to work in our neighborhood.

But there was one candidate was at the top of my list almost from the beginning: she was one of the few who actually sent me a resume, even though I specifically asked for one in my ad, she had worked for a couple of families with children the same age as the little guy, and she worked for both of those families for more than two years, she also recently completed her AA degree. We met her yesterday and we liked her. I have spoken to one of her references so far and she gave me a glowing recommendation. So we are thinking she is the one. I still have a couple more references to talk to and we will do a background check, but I don't expect anything bad to turn up.

So hopefully she will work out and we will be all set for childcare for the year. I am still thinking that I will probably put him into a daycare next year, when he's 2, since I will be able to submit applications early enough to possibly get him in to one of the daycare centers(most of the ones I looked at have a winter application deadline for the following fall) and at that point he would probably get more from being around the other kids and in a more structured environment.

Looking Back and Ahead

Back in January I shared my goals for this semester. Since the semester seems to be over for almost everybody who was in school I figured I would go back and see how I did, and maybe set some new goals for the summer.

These were my goals for this semester:

• Keep my son alive and healthy: He has now completely recovered from last week's stomach bug, and, other than being extra cranky due to teething (finally!), is doing well, so check.


• Keep my son from torturing the dog: Check. We actually had an incident where my dog snapped at my son, not because the baby was torturing her, but just because she was in a tight space with the baby crawling toward her and she felt trapped, so now I keep them well apart.


• Do my taxes: Check!


• Fill out financial aid applications: Check!


• Decide which law school to go to in the fall: Check!


• Sell our house: Check!


• Find a place to live: Check!


• Do some reading to prepare for law school: define "some."


• Go see a movie with hubby: as zuska predicted, this was the hardest -- we have not been to a movie.

So for this summer my main goal is to find daycare for the little guy. I have a list of family daycares near me that accept children his age, so I need to start calling them to see if they have any openings. It looks like hubby is going to be able to start working from home soon, which means that hopefully we will be able to work it out so that the little guy isn't in daycare for more than about 6 hours a day. In the morning hubby can keep an eye on the little guy while checking email and doing some of the more mundane tasks of his job, then drop him off at daycare around 10 or 11, and hopefully I will be done with school around 4 or so and can pick him up then. I'm hoping that the family daycares can be fairly flexible about when we drop off and pick up the little guy so that if I have a particularly long or short day, or hubby needs more baby-free time to get things done that we will be able to adjust our schedule.

(By the way, I am going to try calling my son "the little guy" or maybe "LG" for short, because "my son" and "the baby" sound so impersonal and DS is so un-original).

Baby Tracking Software

This is exactly what I wanted a few months ago: a way to represent my babies sleep visually. I love that you can record when you put the baby down and when he actually fell asleep, and I love the sleep probability distribution! Too bad I didn't search lifehacker for "babies" a long time ago.

Baby Steps

Although I haven't written much about the little one lately, he's actually been really busy. Right around the time we moved into the apartment he started pulling himself up to stand. Now he does it whenever he encounters an object that is taller than himself. Unfortunately several of the objects he has picked proved not to be as supportive as he hoped, leading to a few slips and falls. I try to be right there with him when he is exploring and pulling up, but I do not always foresee the hazards or react appropriately, so I haven't been able to prevent all the falls. I wouldn't want to prevent all the mishaps anyway, as some of that is part of learning, but, of course, I don't want him to get hurt.

He has also gotten really good at opening cabinet doors and drawers, but not so good at getting his fingers out of the way when he closes them, so, in addition to the bumps, he has been getting a few pinched fingers. Sometimes when his fingers get stuck because one hand is holding the top of the drawer and the other hand is pushing it closed I can see him stop and think about what's happening and how to extricate his fingers, other times, of course, he just cries. But it is neat to see his problem-solving skills developing.

Finally he is getting pretty good at picking up smaller things. He has not quite developed the pincer grasp yet, but he is getting close. This has opened up new possibilities for meal times -- I have been introducing a few finger foods, like teething biscuits and baby pancakes -- but it also means he now notices, and tries to pick up and put in his mouth, every little crumb, or bit of paper, or whatever, that he sees.

So, while all of this is exciting, because I love seeing him learning new things and developing new skills and just having more opportunities, it is a lot harder to keep him out of trouble. The minute I put him down on the floor he is off to try to pull the cat's tail or stick his hands in the dog's water bowl or pull on the electrical cords, and those kinds of hazards are everywhere, and baby proofing can't really solve all the problems.

Sometimes when I get tired of chasing him around we just go in his bedroom and close the door and play in there for a while, but even in there there are cords he can pull and the diaper pail and drawers. The safest, most baby-friendly area is the 4' square area created by the corner sofa on two sides and the entertainment center on one side. This is also a convenient play area because I can watch TV while he plays, but we don't have an easy way to block off the fourth side, as there would be nowhere to attach a gate. What has worked best is taking the cushions off the couch and stacking them up on the fourth side, but I'm sure that it won't be long before he can climb over those, and we will be chasing him around the apartment again.

Unpacking

So, we have been in the apartment for about a week now and there are still boxes everywhere. We have too much stuff here and will have to try to move some of it into our already-packed storage unit at some point in the future. Very little unpacking has been happening the last few days because we have all been feeling pretty run-down from last week's moving extravaganza and also all seem to have caught some kind of mild stomach bug. I really hate having all this chaos around me and wish I had just one full day to get everything cleaned and put away and the excess packed for storage. I may have said this before, but the most difficult part of being a mother for me so far is never having more than an hour or two at a time to get anything done.

On a more positive note, our house is closing on Friday and we will not be there. We already signed the things we had to sign and FedEx-ed them to the title agent and afterwards she will be wiring the proceeds into our bank account. So easy! It's a good thing we were able to do it this way, because I don't think any of us would have been up for the 10-hour round-trip drive.

Speaking of driving, on a negative note again, we will not be keeping a car in the city as we had originally planned because both nights that we had the car parked on the street overnight bad things happened to it: the first night two hubcaps were stolen, the second the window was smashed and the satellite radio was stolen. Now I know we were probably dumb to leave the satellite radio in the car, but it's not worth that much, and anyway you have to pay every month to use it, so I didn't think it would be a big target, but apparently I was wrong. So anyway, those two incidents combined with the hassle of parking in the city (street cleaning, etc) made us decide to just get rid of the cars and rent one if we need one.

Baby Bookmarks

In searching for ways to entertain my six-and-a-half month old when I've had enough of chasing him around the living room and he is frustrated with me for thwarting him every time he gets close to getting ahold of something interesting (like the dog toys or computer wires), I have found a couple of websites that hold his attention for a little while.

The first is the infant games page at the Fisher Price website. In these games when he hits the keys on the keyboard he is rewarded with little cartoons and cute sounds. He loves banging on the keyboard, but I have to be quick to click the mouse back inside the game screen whenever he accidently hits the Windows or Alt keys.

His other favorite site is YouTube. He enjoys watching videos like the ones in this playlist of babies talking and laughing and playing. He also likes the dog and cat videos, like this one.

Of course there is some debate over whether children under two should be exposed to TV and computer screens at all. However, I don't think that ten or fifteen minutes in front of the computer a day could really hurt, and it gives us something different to do.

This Semester

I am participating in Legal Andrew's class action "This Semester..." Although I am not a student yet, I will be soon, and I have some student related goals, so I hope he doesn't mind. So, without further ado, these are my goals for this semester:

• Keep my son alive and healthy
• Keep my son from torturing the dog
• Do my taxes
• Fill out financial aid applications
• Decide which law school to go to in the fall
• Sell our house
• Find a place to live
• Do some reading to prepare for law school
• Go see a movie with hubby

Mobility and Space

My six-month-old is just starting to become mobile. For several weeks now he has been using his arms to move around his blanket in a (usually) counter-clockwise direction and occasionally pulling himself forward one scooch. Now he has begun stringing several forward scooches together so that I turn around and he is already a foot off of his blanket. I don't know how this is going to affect our dog, who is already feeling cramped by our current living situation. My son is extremely fascinated with both pets and tries to reach out and touch them whenever he gets a chance. After having their fur pulled or their ears pinched a couple of times, both pets try to keep their distance. Once he really starts crawling though, that will be a lot harder. The cat, at least, can escape by jumping up onto the furniture, but there is no where for the dog to go other than outside (where it is freezing cold).

Sleep Improvement

Last week I decided to give up and no longer try to get my son to go to sleep at any particular time. It seemed like we spent hours every night trying to get him to sleep -- we'd walk him around, he'd fall asleep, we'd put him down, he'd wake up and cry, we'd pick him up and start all over again. It seemed easier to just not fight him, wait until he conked out, then we would both sleep late the next morning. After a few days of this he was so overtired he was just crying and crying and I could not even get him to take a nap (usually he naps pretty well). It turns out that if left to his own devices he will not sleep as much as he needs to, he needs some parental management of his sleep, but what we were doing before was not working for him, it didn't help him sleep.

The first thing I did was create a bedtime routine and a shorter nap routine. I had always heard that this was important, but I didn't really know what my routine should be and I was a little skeptical of it -- the routine will only work if he associates it with going to sleep, but I have no idea when he is going to go to sleep, so how do I know when to start the routine? I needed some help, so I got the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (HSHHC). That helped me figure out more of the details of what I needed to do: regular naps, a much earlier bedtime and letting him fall asleep on his own. So far it has been working pretty well. We do the routine and then I put him in bed and he falls asleep on his own. Usually he fusses and fidgets around in the crib for between 10 and 30 minutes, then he falls asleep. He goes to bed between 7 and 8 and gets up between 6 and 8. I nurse him once in the night and he may wake up one other time (usually around 4am) but he falls back asleep on his own without needing to be fed.

The only hitch we had was one night when he woke up 45 minutes after he went to bed, he cried but it had been less than two hours since he ate, so I was pretty sure he wasn't hungry. I think some noise had woken him up and he was just tired and not having an easy time getting back to sleep. We went in to rub his back a few times, but that wasn't helping. Finally we had to just let him cry himself back to sleep. It took a lot longer than I expected (two hours :( ), but I knew that our picking him up was not going to help matters, and after a certain point I felt that if we went in to get him then he would have cried all that time for nothing and we would be taking away his opportunity to learn how to fall back asleep on his own. That was really the only time he has cried for more than five minutes since I started letting him fall asleep on his own. I am actually amazed at how easy it has been.

So now we have a daily routine, a much more well rested baby, and me and hubby have evening time to ourselves. Things are much better all around. I also think it is really good that we have gotten my son on an earlier bedtime now so it won't be a struggle when I start law school and he starts daycare. And now that I have time during the day and am not exhausted I can get back to doing some reading in preparation for law school. I think my next post will be about preparation for law school, so stay tuned!

Confessions of a New Mom

A few confessions:

• I've cut my five-month-old son's fingernails probably twice in his life. One time resulted in bleeding (those safety clippers are not safe enough). Fine motor skills are not one of my strong suits. We mostly try to file them down with the little emory boards that came in the baby care kit we received as a baby shower present. Luckily, since he has started sleeping on his stomach, he almost never scratches himself anymore.


• I frequently have a wet spot on the front of my shirt, but not for the reason you might think (if you are a mom, or otherwise know about these things): when I am holding my son and he is tired he likes to put his hand under the front of my shirt and suck on it.


• While I thought I would not drink any caffeine while I was breastfeeding I do occasionally have a cup of coffee or a soda. I limit myself to one cup (8oz) of coffee or two sodas (or 4oz of coffee and one soda) per day and it doesn't seem to affect my son at all (i.e. he sleeps just as poorly on days when I haven't had caffeine as on days when I have), and it helps me get through the days after bad nights. I also never have caffeine two days in a row, because I get addicted very easily and the withdrawal headaches suck. I have no illusions that I will be able to survive law school without large quantities of caffeine, but by then I will probably be done breastfeeding.

The Well-Traveled Baby

A couple days ago my five-month-old and I returned from our trip to the West Coast. This was his second trip to the West Coast (the first was when he was six weeks old). He does really well on the plane: sleeps most of the time and when he is awake he is in a good mood because he loves looking at everything. The trip out was a little crowded and until he fell asleep he was squirming around quite a bit -- he doesn't fit as neatly in my lap as he did when he was six weeks old, and, despite my efforts, I couldn't seem to keep all his limbs within our designated seat space. At one point he even touched the guy next to me with his drooly hand. The guy was quite nice about it, but did not accept my offer of a burp rag to wipe off with. On the flight back we had an empty seat next to us, which was much nicer.

Pacific time seems to suit him, because he also slept well at our destination. He was in bed between eight and nine every night, sleeping for eight or more hours without waking up and taking two-hour naps during the day. I was hoping this trend would continue at home but it hasn't. He is sleeping worse than before our trip -- he was up until 12:30a the last two nights. I am hoping it is just jet lag, but, if not, we may have to consider moving to the west coast.