the very, very cooperative baby

The hills are alive, with the sound of freedom...

Peter is such a team player. Today brought these milestones - and not a minute too soon:

(1) Sleeping for a 6 continuous hours last night. The only way this might have been MORE enjoyable is if Kevin and I had also slept for 6 continuous hours last night as well. Alas, while cosleeping is a godsend, it's also a curse, as neither of us really enter into deep sleep states.

(2) Hand in hand with #1, Peter also avoided the uglier side of the "I want to be awake right now even though it's only 4 a.m., or, barring that, demand that you hold me for hours on end" phenomenon that had been his trend for the past two weeks. Today, it was a more tolerable 6 a.m.

(3) Let's hear it for a half-hour pack-and-play nap, which allowed me to dust, put a few things away, and (in a burst of OCD that suggests things really are getting back to normal around here) sort about $300 in loose change we have hanging around.

(4) AND, perhaps most excitingly, Peter and I took a nice 2-hour errand walk, which found us at the library, the bookstore, the post office, and - cue choir of angels - a coffee shop, where I enjoyed a coffee and croissant and read the latest Martha Stewart Living (cursing her under my breath all the while).

In fact, Peter was so very delightful during the entire walk/errand experience. The only time he freaked out was during our walk home, when we were delayed at a stoplight for 20 minutes as a barrage of trains kept denying us the light. Frankly, I was a little freaked out, too.

So, we're figuring out this parenting thing. We still have a few things to work out - most pressingly, the cosleeping. Peter's outgrown the nest the hospital gave us, and is a frighteningly mobile wiggle worm in bed. Cosleeping didn't seem so daunting when he was somewhat securely tethered to one place; now, he ends up perpendicular to Kevin and me. Other than hogging prime mattress real estate, he's also putting his head dangerously close to some suffocating blankets.

Also, he does really, really enjoy being held while sleeping. He has two favorite positions : Sleeping Baby, Slumping Mama and the Doll Hold. In Sleeping Baby, Slumping Mama, Peter is face down on my chest, while I half-sit, half-slump. I'm able to get 10-minute bursts of light sleep out of this one, even if it does leave me with a sore neck. In the Doll Hold, Peter is on his side, stomach-to-stomach with me. Imagine a little girl holding her doll, and you've got it.

All of this sleeping stuff has us on the American Academy of Pediatrics Do-Not-Parent list. Otherwise, I think we're doing a pretty good job. Sigh.