Yawn

We celebrated his "birthday" yesterday (10 months old - my, how time flies...). We introduced one more treat at dinnertime - his own spoon. He was fascinated by it. He stared at it, tasted it, waved it around in the air, and generally got all excited and wide-eved over it. It's amazing how much something like a spoon means to an infant - or any new object, for that matter.

We didn't let him try and use it, though - not yet. Jane fed him while he waved the spoon around. The idea is to get him accustomed to the spoon first, then gradually get him using it so mommy and daddy can just plop the bowl in front of him and let him chow.

However, we now realize that peas will not be the best food to start doing that with.

The latter portions of the night were interesting. He had way too much energy to go to sleep at the usual time (oh, we tried...), so I wound up sitting with him until about 10. It still took him a while to fade out after I put him to bed.

Then he woke up shrieking at 3 AM. First time in quite a while. Jane tried for a long time to settle him down - first the diaper check and change, then the nostril check (sometimes a big ol' booger will set him off), then the teething check (some of the teething painkiller on his gum). Nothing worked. Finally, in desperation, she gave him the bottle we had in reserve for the morning.

He guzzled it, and conked right out. He was still solidly out cold when I left for work this morning.

You see, Jane takes care of him during the night should he need it. The theory we have is that I can therefore sleep for work. In practice, I'm a much lighter sleeper than she is, so I'm generally up anyway - though I try and go back to sleep.

Fortunately, I bought a nice Braun coffeemaker with a timer last week. I did this after actually realizing how much of my money goes to Dunkin' Donuts every year (around $450!) for a morning coffee. Buying the coffeemaker lets me have it waiting fresh in the morning for me, while lowering my per-cup costs substantially.

Anyhow, the point here is that I can brew it as strong or as weak as I want. Normally I brew with five scoops of ground - three decaf scoops and two regular scoops (the decaf comes drom Dunkin' Donuts, the regular comes from Coffee Time). Today I reversed it and then some. It's helping, but I'm going to have a long day.