A Beary Long Weekend

The Plan: Pick Curtis up from school on Friday and drive to Fresno, go to his cousin's HS graduation on Saturday, the graduation party on Sunday and then come home. It was to be our last visit until after the baby is born.

The Monkeywrench: Two hours from L.A., I gasp in sudden horror as I realize that I left Bear in the crib. Bear is Thomas's favorite stuffed animal. It's the one he holds while he sucks his thumb and falls asleep.

The Result: No bear --> no thumb sucking --> no falling asleep. I had no idea that a baby could function on so little sleep. It would take hours to get him down for the night, then he would sleep for only 4 hours (= 1 sleep cycle). Then he would scream and cry because he was so tired. On Sunday, we managed to get him to go back to sleep for a little while and he took one nap on Saturday. For comparison, he usually is asleep by 8pm, wakes up at 6:30am, and takes 2 2-hour naps a day. The amazing thing was that he was still really good in public. He was good as gold during graduation and church and was a big hit at the graduation party. Meanwhile, his parents were grumpy, grouchy, exhausted messes. While 4 hrs of sleep in a night was a fairly common occurrence at Caltech, we are way too old (and too pregnant) for that now.

Except for Beckham, we were all overjoyed to come home and see Bear. Thomas went straight to sleep and took two long naps today. Unfortunately, he slept so late that he's not tired tonight, but his parents are exhausted. We had no idea that we owed our sanity to Bear. At least we don't have to worry about him being a chronic thumb-sucker when he gets older. If he doesn't have Bear with him, apparently the thought never crosses his mind.