It gets better

Maybe I shouldn't be appropriating that phrase (or maybe I should, lest it come to mean only one thing?), because this has nothing to do with coming out as a gay person. This has to do with coming out from under what felt like months (in reality maybe 2.5 weeks?) of very early wakeups from Jonah. 5:45 was starting to seem almost reasonable. 4:15 was starting to become too familiar. The constant was a loud, angry reaction to us telling him it was too early to be awake, and an ensuing wakeup from Abe because of the noise. I typically cursed Jonah silently from my bed and sent more level-headed Josh to hang out with him. We racked our brains trying to figure out the source: Going to bed too early? Too late? Eating too much or not enough? Night light angst? Bad dreams?

Last Wednesday, when he rose for the day at 4:15, I called his teacher at 8:15 to tell her he would not be coming to school that day. Embarrassingly, I broke down on the phone while speaking to her. And then, a half hour later, showed up to drop Jonah off to school. I'm not sure what I was thinking, threatening him with not going to school. He didn't really seem to care, he was so zonked. I thought maybe I could take him to the pediatrician, but when I called the office I just didn't have the nerve to say I needed him seen due to lack of sleep. Instead I left a message for a call back. And flipped through Ferber, anxious to find the missing chapter that would explain what was happening here. And couldn't nap myself, because I was on pins and needles, wondering when I'd get the call saying that Jonah needed picking up.

But somehow, he made it through the day. He was up from 4:15 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., without a nap. He was well-behaved at school. He was just really fucking sleepy.

The pediatrician called me that night. The one I tend to not like as much, being that she is rather gruff. I laid out the situation for her (she in disbelief that Jonah goes to school from 9-3, 5 days a week, like I was torturing him or something), and she said without hesitation, "He misses you. He's trying to get back some of the time with you that the baby gets now." Funny, my own mother said something along those lines when she visited a month ago. And I dissed her for it. Hearing it from someone other than my mother, I was more inclined to listen - just as when I struck out on my own in my early 20s and saw a dentist that had not been taking care of my teeth since I was 4, and he told me it was important to floss, I listened, and have flossed ever since. (For the record, the kinder, gentler pediatrician called back the next morning. She only wanted to talk Ferber, Ferber, Ferber. Go figure.)

Wednesday night I gave Jonah a bath (something I stopped doing when pregnancy made it too uncomfortable, and have continued not doing due to laziness). I read to him before bed. When he woke up at midnight, I took him back to bed and read to him again until he fell asleep. He woke at 5:45 and I got up with him. Thursday night, the same routine, no wakeup at midnight. I was up from 5 a.m. waiting to hear him, and he didn't wake up until 6:40. Same thing last night. I am so hopeful we have broken this bad cycle - stolen the seat, trashed the spokes, shredded the tires.

By way of showing me what is to be reaped when I sow extra time-seeds with my primogenito, Jonah did two amazing things today: drew the first stick figure we've seen him draw, on a birthday card for a friend (because it was a girl, he dispensed with his usual rollercoaster/train/truck mashup, and drew a princess for her), and even signed his name, after a fashion. Tonight, he sat at the computer for his usual post-dinner complement of Sesame Street clips on YouTube, then howled when I turned off the monitor, because he'd wanted to do some typing. I opened the multipage document we've been saving his typing to since he first started at the keyboard (age 2.5), expecting another long stream of binary or machine language. Instead, he wanted to spell words. He started with his first name, then his last name, then the name of a friend, then Abe, and finally (with assistance for the "au"), dinosaur. He sounded out the letters, located them on the keyboard, typed them. He can't quite read, but can type? It's blowing my mind.

Abe, not to be outdone, is cutting his two front top teeth at the same time. So Ferber is out the window lately.