Letters and Sleep

As I'm writing this, Patrick is playing with his letter puzzle, the one intended for ages three and up, and he's astounding me with his knowledge--or perhaps his memory. We've made it through all but about six of the letters, and I've helped him with only one so far. And really, I can understand how he can mix up a V and an A. I won't pretend he knows the names of all the letters yet, but I wouldn't put it past him. He hears each letter every time he does the puzzle. At the moment, I suspect it's more that he remembers where he saw the letters in the puzzle last and can match up the shapes pretty well. Still, I think he's pretty smart for being able to do that much.

Nathan, on the other hand, is sleeping peacefully in his bouncer chair. He's continuing to stretch his time between feedings overnight, now going eight hours on a fairly regular basis. I'm proud of him, but not as proud of him as I would be if those eight hours started closer to the time I'm ready to go to bed. As it is, I'm still getting up between three and four in the morning for his "morning" feeding. Fortunately, he usually goes right back to sleep after that feeding for about four more hours. I'm probably getting enough sleep after all, but it's getting kind of old to have the sleep interrupted every night.

Yet somehow I don't mind it much, despite my complaints about the interrupted sleep. I know I won't have opportunities to cuddle with my little baby alone in the middle of the night for much longer. There's something so sweet about those special quiet moments with no other distractions, and I suspect I'm going to miss them when they're gone. I do miss them with Patrick. So as long as Nathan still needs to eat in the middle of the night, I'm going to cherish those snuggly moments. I'll get chances to catch up on sleep later, but I won't have another chance to get these bonding times back when they're gone.