The difference between day and night

Whew! We've had a rough time the past few nights in this house. Bear has still been teething, and while I'm happy to say that his mood has been SO MUCH BETTER during the day, the nights have been pretty bad. He's been waking with more and more frequency. It started with twice a night, moved up to four times a night and then last night, he woke every hour (even with Tylenol with Codeine!!) until I gave up at about 3:00am and slept on the couch with him. He slept draped over my stomach, which apparently suited him well, because he woke up giggling at one of the dogs trying to jump up on the couch. I, however, did not fare so well. I like my bed. I hope we get through this soon! And to think--it seems like this is only one tooth we are dealing with (tooth #9 for Bear, a 1 year molar), so does that mean the other 3 one year molars are going to be this brutal? I pray that they will not! We need a break!

Like I was saying earlier, the daytime has been so much better for Bear, and I haven't even been giving him much ibuprofen--sometimes none at all until bedtime. We had lunch yesterday with our much missed friends, Nancy and Kaitlyn. Bear and Kaitlyn spent a fair amount of time touching each other's heads and "kissing" when they saw each other. What actually happens is Kaitlyn leans in and tries to hug Bear and he smiles or giggles and burrows into my shoulder like he's shy. It's cute to watch! Anyhow, Bear has moved into a phase where it is very difficult to take him out to eat, because he just wants to crawl around on the floor wherever we go. I let him do this the other day at Barnes and Noble, provided he stayed in the children's section and wasn't pulling books off the shelves. At a restaurant however??? No sir. I chased him once when he got away from me and then declared it was time to leave. I suppose it was inevitable that he'd get naughty at restaurants, but it makes me a little sad. I love going out to lunch with my friends or out to dinner with Max! We don't do those things too frequently anymore, but when we do get to, it's enjoyable! I guess I'll be able to go out to lunch again when Bear can walk and we'll go to McDonald's or ChickFilA or somewhere else with a play area. Right now he just scares me in those things!

Speaking of play areas, I took him to the park after lunch yesterday. It was pretty deserted, because it has been raining here FOR DAYS, but the park wasn't as wet as I thought it'd be. Bear played on the swings for a bit and then we moved on to the slides. He went down the slide three times by himself! I caught him of course, but I really think he enjoyed it! He rode, with my help, a little rocket and a little motorcycle on a spring. He tired of those quickly, so I decided to show him the big kid climbing area of the park. I'm so glad I did, because he spent the next 20 or so minutes playing in this little tube that led to a slide. The tube had a little hill in it and Bear tried to climb that little hill forever! There was an older boy in the tube that kept sliding into Bear, and after I reminded him that Bear was a baby and couldn't get out of the way so fast, the older boy slid into Bear very gently. Bear got a kick out of that! I think he thought he was playing like a big boy!

I'm so glad he got the opportunity to go down the slide by himself yesterday, because look what was on our doorstep when we got home!!

Our new Kangaroo Climber!


Bear had a blast sitting up high on the little platform:


And peeping out the little portholes:


And just playing in general:


The neighbor kids, who are a little older, came over and showed him how to use it. He had so much fun chasing them around! We eventually want to put it outside, but our yard is such a swamp due to all the rain, we figured we'd let it dry up a bit before doing that. Thank you so much Grandma and Grandad J. for this early birthday gift! Bear is going to love it!