we hate germs

Gabe and I have our first colds today. I've been watching him like a hawk to see if he feels sick, but besides keeping me up all night whining, he seems fine. I, however, am coughing and have lost my voice, and my throat hurts and I feel generally achy. Now I feel like whining, especially about the fact that I got no sleep thanks to my little whiner.

I can't figure out what is going on with him and sleep. I'm assuming that last night's disaster was related to this cold, but we've had some bad nights lately. For a while we were on a great schedule where he would sleep a solid 6 or 7 hours (once 8 and a half!), wake up for 10 minutes to nurse, and then go back down for another 5 hours or so. But for the past week and a half, that schedule has been nonexistent. I'm lucky if I can get him to sleep 5 hours in the first stretch, and then it is 3 hour stretches after that. I feel like we are in the newborn days all over again.

I've tried pumping and feeding him a bottle, and not pumping and breastfeeding him directly. I've tried putting him to sleep in his bassinet and then in his crib. I've tried a blanket, I've tried pajamas, and last night I tried layered pajamas in case he was cold. I've tried putting him to sleep early, and I've tried putting him to sleep late. He seems to do better when I put him to sleep later, and by later I mean around 11pm or midnight, but that seems so absurdly late, I worry that it can't be a good bedtime for him. At this point, I'm thinking that the problem is that his schedule is all over the place. So I think I'm going to pick something and stick with it for a while to see if his sleep improves.

It could also be the fact that we've been traveling all over the place, first to California, then to Florida, then my mom was here, and now she left. Maybe he is thrown off by the number of changes we've been undergoing. I'll let you know if I see any improvements.

In unrelated exciting news, Gabriel rolled over for the first time in Florida from his stomach to his back! It was such a surprise! Since then, he's done it 2 more times, both of them by accident. Then yesterday, he rolled over from back to front! It also looked like an accident, frankly, but I suppose that's how it always starts. He rolled himself onto his side, and then suddenly straightened his legs out and scooched himself forward and he ended up on his stomach. He looked up at me with this shocked look, as if asking, "what just happened here?"

This kid seriously wants to MOVE. It scares me a little, especially knowing that both Josh and I walked at 9 months. I'm planning on knocking him over if he starts trying to stand up. When I sit him in his bouncy seat, he spends a good amount of time trying to pull himself into a sitting position, so it looks like he is doing crunches in his seat. When I put him on his stomach, he flails about madly, trying to reach everything around him and can even get himself to move a few centimeters.

Just to show you that we actually do something besides sit here admiring this baby, Josh got a job. A real job. Which means that when he graduates from business school next month, he will have an actual paying job and I will no longer be supporting the whole family on my own. I am excited, to say the least. The best part of it is that this job was his first choice. Family friendly, interesting work, consulting (which he loves), but not much travel (which we both hate). So things around here are happy happy happy.

Also, now that I've convinced Gabe to nap, I'm able to read more books and I'd love recommendations. I am finishing up this book, and I recently read this book and this book. I loved them all. Suggestions?

I mean, I can't spend all day sitting around staring at this gorgeous face, although I'd like to.