Rare event

Tonight was the oddest thing. Ronan hadn't slept well today (only took a 45 minute nap, early in the day) and was pretty cranky and tired. So after playing for a little while after his bath, I jokingly asked Ronan if he wanted to go to bed (it was still nearly an hour before his normal bed time). To my surprise, he jumped up and ran to his room. Then he came back out and waited expectantly for his bedtime milk, so I gave that to him and he took it back to his room and stood next to his crib, drinking it. Overall, he went to bed pretty easily (he still needed a little help getting comfortable after he was done with his milk, but nothing too difficult). I'm still waiting for the catch here. Maybe that'll come tonight. :)

One of the things that's helped somewhat with his sleeping is that he's finally found a stuffed animal that he loves to sleep with. He found it a couple weeks ago - it's a stuffed snow tiger that actually used to be mine. He loves that thing. Carries it around, makes sure I take it out of his crib in the morning, and he falls asleep cuddled up to it, often stroking the whiskers or brushing them against his face. It's so cute. And I like that it's something of mine. Just makes it special.

In other news, I'm going to be doing a sleep study in a couple of weeks to check for sleep apnea. I've been so exhausted over the last six months and while I'm sure a good chunk of that is due to school and chasing Ronan around, I've noticed that it really doesn't matter how much sleep I get at night or if I nap during the day - I'm just always beat. I had a physical yesterday and everything looks good, so the sleep study is the next step. At the very least, if it rules out any physical issues, I'll know it's simply stress-related and will have to figure out a way to either reduce such stress, or more likely, get used to not sleeping well.

Aside from that, not much is going on. Ronan is so much fun to watch, although he can really wear a person out! He's so curious about everything and gets into all sorts of stuff that he shouldn't. For instance, he's currently fascinated with Tom's desk drawers. Loves to open them and pull things out (like scissors, so not a good thing). He's getting a little better at stopping if I ask him to either "leave it" or "close it" but sometimes it's just too tempting to stop. I think it's harder on Tom because a.) it's his stuff and b.) he doesn't understand why "no" doesn't work, especially when Ronan "knows" he shouldn't be doing something. I'm no saint; I get really frustrated sometimes when he does the same thing over and over after I've told him not to, but I try to keep things in perspective. I imagine it adds to the frustration though if you only get to spend a couple hours with your child and it seems like so much of it is spent trying to stop a behavior. Yet another reason why I hate the night shift. But it'll all work out in the end.