on an extended absence (and many gratuitous photographs of the world's cutest baby).

I hadn't realised how long I had neglected this space until this morning.  What can I say?  This baby is a black hole for time.

It is strange, last week I had started to feel like I had this thing nailed - we had a bedtime routine, we had regular but copable night wake ups, we had smiley mornings and long naps in the day.  I began to tentatively feel that I was finally getting to grips with this parenting thing and slowly I allowed myself to relax.  Then I committed the No.1 crime, the one thing you should never do, I uttered the words to my mother - I think I am finally getting this.  

Immediately night times became something that, shamefully, I began to dread.  My previously cosy nighttime boy, happy to wake only twice for moonlit feeds, found his lungs and his desire for endless love and attention. During the nights of the last week or so we have only achieved an hour of sleep at a time. At first I felt crestfallen and had to fight the sense I had got something wrong. 

(don't be fooled by that grin!)

But, after a couple frustrated days involving far too many tearful phone conversations with my mother (sorry mum) I realised just how well Faelen continues to do by day.  He has now fully found his hands and spends a large portion of every day attempting to shove his entire fist in his mouth, he is amused by my renditions of any Flight of the Conchords song, he smiles (borderline hysterically) at the stuffed triangle we hang on his bouncy chair and will talk endlessly to the butterflies that hang on the play mat.  He is a social, bubbly, smiley little boy.

So, whilst sleep still feels like a fantastical wish, what I have learnt this week is that you never get this.  Getting it is the not the point of this joint adventure.  Faelen is learning and growing too much every day to simply reside in a state of equilibrium.  I can't guarantee to feel any less frustrated at 3, 4 or 5am but I am fully accepting of this part of the process.