better to laugh than to cry

My newest challenge with Charlie's sleep is now helping him stay asleep. He was doing great for maybe about a week, sleeping 6 hours at a time through the night. The length has slowly decreased and we are now at every 2-3 hours waking through the night. It's wearing me thin. We put him down tonight at 7:00 and he was up at 9:30. I tried getting him back to sleep, nursing always works so I resorted to that.

           Nursing is a nice time to think. It's either very relaxing or frustrating for me, depending what I choose to think about. And tonight I chose to think about the "why" questions of Charlie's sleep patterns. So I was frustrated. As I finished nursing Charlie, his eyes were droopy and I knew he would go down without a fight...until I heard that familiar sound come from his bottom that lasted for more than five seconds. The sound came with a lot of baggage and distinct odor. It was one of Charlie's famous dirty diapers he does about twice a week. I called Andy for some assistance. He's a wonderful husband willing to help at any moment!

We were ready with wipes and a plastic bag. As I opened the diaper I was surprised it wasn't as big as it sounded. But still very messy. As I'm wiping, the goopy stuff continues to run out of his bum. And it got a lot more messy. When we finally got it under control, I was doing one last clean swipe about to put a clean diaper on. Andy is holding my phone to shine the light on Charlie's bum so i could see. Then we had this conversation.

Andy: "what if charlie peed on your phone? Would you want a new one?"

Me: "no I would just clean it" and in my head I thought "this boy has got all his fluids out there is no way he has any more left in there!" and of course during this thought Charlie gives me a nice good spray (luckily missing my phone)! By the end of this diaper change Andy, Charlie, and I all had to change our clothes.

        I heard a quote once and wish I remembered who it was by but it says "it's better to laugh than to cry" and tonight that was our experience. We all had a good laugh. Charlie was even cooing through it all. I think he planned the whole thing just to get out of sleeping! That sneaky little boy, oh how WE love him!!!!

  

This is where all the diaper changing goes down!