Sleeping through the night

Audrey and I went yesterday to have a playdate with Lauren and Gavin down in Sahuarita, and we started talking about sleep. Lauren said Gavin has now been sleeping approximately 12 hours at night, and she achieved this by a means she called "Every 15 minutes" but what I would call "cry it out." It's hard to argue with the results - 12 hours of time to sleep, plus spend some time with Paul or pursuing my own interests (actually reading a book? amazing!) seems very tempting.

But I am besieged with thoughts about all the "other" things that are going on. In addition to the thought of having to listen to Audrey cry for perhaps hours for four or five nights (the time Lauren said it took Gavin to adjust, although there's no telling how long it might take Audrey) I think, should we really be forcing self-soothing on her when she's growing? When she's teething? She's a pretty good self-soother (no losing your pacifier when it is two fingers on your left hand - always there!) and will sleep in her crib, but there are just some times that she adamantly does not want to be in the crib, she would rather be close to us (well, me, sorry Paul) to sleep.

So I don't know, though some of Paul's co-workers say we're "spoiling" her by going to her in the night and bringing her back to bed with us if she won't settle otherwise (or if I'm too tired to spend the time to try to get her back in the crib) I prefer to think we're raising a happy, secure child. Will Gavin, or other "cry it out" babies turn out insecure or be somehow otherwise lacking? Probably not, but I guess each set of parents just does what seems best to them at the time and no one knows the results until much later!

Playdate with Gavin

Yesterday Gavin (Audrey's "twin") and his mom Lauren drove up from Sahuarita to have a playdate. Because I'd had such a good time at the zoo a couple of Mondays ago, I suggested we go there. It was more crowded this Monday, but a lot of the animals were still pretty visible and we had a good time. Audrey rode in her front carrier again, and Gavin was in his stroller. When we went up to the lion enclosure, the lion was sitting in the middle of his space, looking away from us. I walked up to the glass with Audrey as I had before, and he started looking over at us. Within a few minutes, the lion got up and walked directly toward us, walking around the pool and coming right up to the glass like last time. This time, instead of just mushing his nose against the glass, he pawed the glass a couple of times and then opened his mouth two or three times to show us his menacing teeth (although because he is a very elderly lion, the teeth were somewhat broken off and dull, so not all that menacing). Lauren held Gavin up and I snapped the picture.



After the zoo, we came back to the house and Audrey and Gavin ate and then played on the floor. Of course, they were most interested in the other one's toys, so we had a "plate of spaghetti" moment with the toy I call chewie ball - it's one of Audrey's favorites but Gavin had a serious interest in it too.



I was trying to get some "look how they've grown" pictures to compare to the earlier set of photos I took of Audrey and Gavin at breastfeeding support group, but the two of them didn't really seem to be playing on the same page this time - the best I could get was both babies on their backs but facing in different directions!

Separated at Birth

A few weeks after she was born, I discovered that Audrey has a twin. Okay, so he's not really her twin, but one day at breastfeeding support group, I met Gavin and his mom Lauren. Gavin was born at Tucson Medical Center, like Audrey, on June 30th. Audrey was born at 1:09 pm, Gavin at about 2:30 pm. To add to the links, Lauren's birthday is Sept 22, the same date as my parents' wedding anniversary. It seems fated that we will be friends!