10.10.07 - mama's studio
Photo by Otto. I feel like I'm cheating a bit by using his photos, but I do like this one more than any of the photos I took yesterday.
Honestly, I'm getting burned out on the Project 365. I'm going to keep with it, to challenge myself (and because I'm a stubborn bastard who said I was going to do this!), but it's feeling a little "eh" to me. Some days I feel like I see a lot of things that are interesting/worth shooting, and others I just come up emptyhanded... and it's been a lot more of the latter recently. Ah well, that's part of the point of the project, right? Find something interesting in your uninteresting daily life, see differently, make an image.
Tuesday when we were cleaning up, I asked Otto if he would like his own little bed to sleep in, and he very enthusiastically nodded and said "yeah yeah!" and then helped me move his old crib mattress into our bedroom, and we set him up with a special little bed. He slept in it all night for the last two nights (we transferred him after he fell asleep in the big bed)... we'll see if this lasts. He likes his little bed a lot. He plays in it during the day, lying down to read books, and seems very proud of himself when he wakes up in it.
Meanwhile, the actual getting-to-sleep part is not going so well. We're having increasing amounts of bedtime drama, and it's really starting to wear on me. We have a bedtime routine (change diaper, brush teeth, story, nurse in bed) which used to work, but where he used to fall asleep after/during the story or nursing, now he pops back up, wide awake and ready to play. He gets out of bed and rambles around the room. If I leave the bedroom door open, he'll go into his room and start bringing more toys into our room (holy shit, one night there was this epic battle when I wouldn't let him bring a whole set of mega-blocks into the bed). I'll read a second story, or nurse him again, and then he's up again. I pretend to be asleep, and he comes over and pulls my hair, or slaps me, or sticks his fingers up my nose. Last night we started bedtime at 8:45, and at 10:15 I was at my limit, so I just left the room and shut the door. He cried for a few seconds and then got his Game Boy and played that until he passed out.
I'm starting to run out of ideas. I really would like to have a tiny amount of time to myself after he goes to bed, but I have to get up for work at 6am, so staying up past 10:30 is really not an option. Any experienced mamas have ideas/suggestions for me?