Tuesday, December 8, 2009

One Small Step for Alden, One Giant Step for Parent-kind

I remember when I was outside-of-the-home employed and had personal work challenges to rise to and conquer. Say a funky co-worker with a personal bubble invading issue (yes, Gavin, I'm talking about you) or a deadline that was waaaay to close for comfort (yes, Josh, I'm talking about you). Now that I am at home working as a domestic coordinator, I have wins here and there that no one is around to witness. Well, I suppose all of the important people are here... Captain, myself, and A-game.
Sleeping has been hit or miss around here for the past few months. More for me than anyone else. But, as of Thursday night, that is no more. Alden has been sleeping in his own room. In his crib! On his back! Mouth agape and just snoring along. I won't go into detail as to HOW we got there but it involves a lot of patience, determination, and a little thing called teamwork. Somewhere in the fourth hour of soothing baby down, I remembered why I liked Dustin in the first place. His focus on potential. He believed that Alden had the potential to sleep on his own while we coached him along. He believed that I had the potential to wean our son from our room. And he believed in his own potential for keeping us all in line doing so. There was a lot of back patting that night as we encouraged each other along into the wee hours of the morning. And, finally, as a family we slept separately. Together.

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