No sleep 'til Brooklyn.

Husband: Sweet lord, it's like a thousand degrees in here.

Me: I think I've lost 5 pounds since midnight.

Meanwhile, baby is a wailin'.......

Husband: I knew this would happen. It's 4:30 in the morning. He's been screaming for an hour and a half. Why won't he settle? (he says in his ultra-annoyed voice)

Wife: His head is wet and we are beyond hot in here. Obviously it's the heat. He won't even take my breast. This is going to be a hell of a weekend. In Hell. With this heat. Jesus, open a window!

That was the first night I dreamt of Edward Cullen. No wait, wrong story. That was the first night Jackson woke up and nothing, (and I mean nothing) would make him settle. I cringed everytime the next wail would become louder than the next; my poor family in the next room. Although we had traveled to northern Ontario, the heat in the room felt more like we were vacationing in Mexico, which would have been awesome aside from one sweaty and very angry little boy. Not that I could blame him. Hell, I was a little cranky myself. Oh, who am I kidding? I was beyond cranky. And hot. At 5am, baby finally settled (the window had been opened for the past half an hour, allowing for the cool night air to infultrate our stiffling room).
The next morning, right on cue, baby awoke at 6:30am and before I could even groan, Nana was at the door, rice cereal already in her hand. God bless Grandmothers. Seriously, this child lacks for nothing when Grandma or Nana is in the room.
Both my husband and I slept for another blissful 2 hours.

Me: Ok, what is with the bloody heat in this joint?

Sister: Oh. My. God. I was freezing last night.

Nana: Was there a draft near the door?

Husband: I woke up thinking I was in Cuba.

Grandad: You opened a window?? In winter?? That's wasteful.

Sister's BF: Ah, I had the best sleep last night.

Us: Groan......

The following night, my husband went skiing. I was nervous about putting baby to bed, but my dad seemed to have fixed the heating debacle and I hoped that would mean baby would sleep "better" than he had the previous night in Dante's Inferno. I laid baby down after our nightly routine of bath and a story. He put his head down right away and I started the bum shooshing thing. Since he was in a playpen, I had to lean right over the side. Doing this longer than 30 seconds and I literally felt my back seizing. I knew baby was fed, was tired, and was ready to fall asleep. I gently reminded him I loved him, apologized for the blazing heat the night before and left the room. I shut the door behind me, heard him cry for 2 minutes and then slilence. It was the first time I had listend to him cry and not gone rushing in. Physically, I knew I couldn't shoosh him to sleep. Emotionally, I knew he'd be ok.

2 minutes. That's all it took. And he really wasn't even crying; it was more moaning than anything. 2 minutes and then quiet. 2 minutes and I released a breath I didn't even realize I was holding. 2 minutes and my baby had fallen asleep on his own. My mom high-fived me and I couldn't help but plaster a massive grin on my face. He had fallen asleep without the shoosh.

At 4am, I startled awake and lunged across the bed to the playpen and dove my arm in. I immediatly checked for breathing, a pulse, some indication that baby was ok. He had never, I mean never, slept this long. It was 4 am and my body was confused, refreshed even. Of course baby was ok. He was sleeping soundly until my intrusive arm woke him up. I gently patted him and he fell back asleep until 6am. Wha???

Several things happened that weekend:
1) Baby began crawling. And I, of course, went crazy with delight. And then 10 minutes later internally groaned about the lack of baby proofing we had done back home.
2) Baby swam in the pool every day and loved it. I am open to Nike endorsements and am declaring 2024: Baby's Olympic year.
3) Baby slept through the night for three nights straight.
4) I felt ok leaving baby to moan, knowing he was fed, changed, tired and ready to go to bed. When he wouldn't settle after a minute, one of us would go in, reassure him that everything is ok, and then leave the room again. We never had to go in more than twice.
5) We had support from my fmaily and were less stressed and less tired than we normally were.
6) We slept with baby in between our bed so when he briefly arose, we were able to calm him right away with a simple touch to the back.
7) I started to feel like 'me' again.

When we left, we had no idea what to expect at home. Would baby keep this up? Could this be the turn around we've been waiting for?
One thing was certain: we were installing a pool in our downstairs den.