What happened?!

Maybe it's just been a bad 2 weeks for bedtime around here...but I'm starting to really miss how easy it was to give Maverick a bath and put him to bed when he was a small baby. (and I thought that was hard!)

Let's start with bath time. It was so easy to put him in the little baby tub, and he just laid there buggy-eyed while I washed him. The only 'tricky' part was making sure everything was rinsed well. (sigh)

Apparently Maverick thinks sitting down for baths are too babyish now. He gets SO excited to see his reflection in the knob that he goes C R A Z Y trying everything he can to get to it.

I end up soaked and covered in soap, with a death grip on Maverick so that he doesn't slip and fall while he's thrashing around. Picture a 3 yr old tantrum (stiff body, red faced one minute and wildly flinging arms & legs the next).

I tried covering up the knob. No bueno. Dern "object permanence memory"! ;)

Meanwhile, after the crazy bath comes bedtime. Which used to be so lovely, ha ha! I could lay Mav down in his crib while he was still awake, and he would seriously soothe himself to sleep. No problems at all. And he would sleep straight through 10 hours. Or even better, he would just fall asleep before he finished his night bottle.

Now, after his night bottle and we start walking down the dark hallway, he is already squirming to get out of my arms. He doesn't want to be held (because that would make him succumb to his obvious need of sleep), but then as soon as I lay him down he screams.

What ends up happening is this: I lay him down. He cries. After a few min I come in and soothe him. He cries when I leave. Repeat for 30 minutes until he finally falls asleep.

And then he wakes up at least once a night now, if not two or three times. If I don't get up and rock him back to sleep, who knows how long he would stay up. Yikes!

Please tell me this is just a phase!

Meanwhile, seeing this face all day does make it worth it I suppose. :)