{waving the white flag}

Well, I have just about had it with all this baby-schedule crap. This babe has his own schedule, thank you very much (Don't get me wrong, he is a wonderful sleeper. He's already snoozing 6- 7 hours straight at night--"Halle!", as my wonderful friend Missy would say). He definitely has his dad and Uncle Paul's stubbornness.

If you know Jason, this might be hard to believe. If you know my brother, on the other hand, it might not.

When Jason was little and his mom put him in his room for time-out, she had to stand outside & use all her weight to keep the door shut because he would try to get out. When he realized he was barricaded in, he would start chucking toys at the door Rambo-style like they were hand grenades.

When Paul was little and he was spanked, he refused to cry. He would grit his teeth, furrow his brow, and take it like a man. There was no way he was crying on anyone else's terms but his own.

When I was little, if you even looked at me like you were mad, I'd tear up and start to apologize. I am a peace-keeping, people-pleasing, everybody-get-along soul.

Not this tiny dude.

I've been trying to get Ave to be up for an hour and a half, then sleep for an hour and a half. Some days, he's totally game. Then, some days (who am I kidding, it's most days), when I put him down for his nap, he looks up at me and frowns. He doesn't cry: he makes a legitimate, upside-down-U, frown. Bottom lip totally puckered, sad-eyed like a puppy dog.

If I leave him, he enacts his fool-proof master plan of loosening his diaper so he can wet the bed and make me feel like freaking Hitler.

If I pick him up, I swear he won't look me in the face. It's like he's saying, "Well, once you apologize, we can play nice again. But not unless you mean it."