Tired of bedtime

It's been a while, I know. My little man is almost a year old already. Boy, has time gone by in a frenzied hurry. I often repeat how I miss my "little baby". B-man is toddling about and babbling. He has been crawling for a long time now. As far as I can remember, he started around six months old. At about ten and a half months old, he started to take some steps. He's up to five steps in a row before he gets nervous and plops down on his diaper-padded butt.

Our little boy has learned how to point, clap, "gimme five", feed himself, among other skills. I just can't believe how much he has learned in less than a year. I am so proud of my boy.


The latest dilemma we've been facing is bedtime. We have an established routine to read to Brady every night before bed. Because his attention span isn't as long as necessary for detailed books, we keep it simple. He brushes his eight teeth (or we try to brush and he sucks the baby toothpaste off the brush) and then we read "five little monkeys jumping on the bed" every night. Brady tries to babble along with us. I think he knows the words. Since he's practicing to walk, he has learned to explore the world so much that when it's time for bed, regardless of how exhausted he is, he fights it. Luckily we've only had one long crying-spell night. He's been whimpering and whining for a few minutes before going to sleep lately. I'm relieved he doesn't go into his all-out panic attack mode like he did a few night ago. I've never been a fan of crying it out and felt really bad about leaving him in his room. It's just not like him to cry like that at bed time. He usually opens his mouth for his pacifier, grabs his blankey friend and goes right to sleep. I think he's learned to protest. Hopefully this transitional period into toddlerhood phases out quickly.