Thank Goodness for Daddy

There have been a few big events at the Paulson house in the past few days. Monday night Annabelle and I were getting ready for her bath. Every time she is in the bathroom she wants to sit and go to the bathroom, which actually works out well so I can get her bath ready and she isn't running around. She usually sits there for a few minutes with out doing anything...but this time she actually went! I am sure it was just luck but we still made a big deal out of it and she seemed proud.
We have also taken away her nuk/pacifier at bed time and nap time. She hasn't had it available to her during the day for a while and she knows that when she gets it it is time for bed and when she gets up most days she will give it to me. I didn't want to take it away before Cole was born just in case she had some regression but she seems to be doing well. Sunday was the first time we didn't let her have it and nap time went well - she cried for a minute and then she was done and we did our normal routine. Bed time went even better: we went into her room, read some books, turned off the lights and rocked and she went right to sleep. I told Brian that this is way to easy. Monday night I tried to put her to bed before Brian left for his meeting and it did not go so well - she screamed! After trying to rock her for a while and her not wanting anything to do with rocking I put her in her crib and left the room. She was still screaming so I gave her a few minutes and went back in. At that time I picked her up and we went into the kitchen so I could show her that the nuks were gone. I told her she was a big girl and didn't need them anymore. Once she saw the dish where we kept them was empty she seemed to be ok. I should have known to explain it to her instead of just hoping she wouldn't notice what we were doing - she is too smart for that. We went back in to rock and she sat quietly but never closed her eyes. We rocked for quite a while and I heard Brian leave. Luckily Cole was sleeping when he left and I hoped he would stay asleep until Annabelle gave in. That is not what happened. After about 45 minutes Cole woke up and Annabelle still would not close her eyes. I told her that I was going to put her in her crib and go check on Cole. She just looked at me and whimpered "no" - it was so sad I didn't want to put her down. As soon as I got up to set her in her crib she was crying again. Normally she will fall asleep in a few minutes but I think tonight she was so worked up she wasn't able to relax. I went into our room to start feeding Cole and figured if she was still crying when I was done I would go in there and check on her. Brian ended up coming home shortly after I put Annabelle down. He decided to go and check on her and she was quite in seconds and sleeping within a few minutes. Turns out Daddy has the magic touch.
Cole is starting to have more awake time during the day which is fun. He is also starting to coo and is really starting to focus on looking at things. Nights are still going well for the most part. In the past few days there have been a few nights that were a little long. He would eat and fall asleep but then when I put him down he would be up a few minutes later. We would try to give him his pacifier but that would only work for a minute or two and then he was fussing again. As soon as you would pick him up he would be fine. I tried swaddling him, not swaddling him, putting him in the bouncy chair and nothing seemed to help. Brian and I were talking last night and we do have to remember that he is only 3 weeks old. Last night he was back to his normal routine, he went to bed about 10:00pm then was up at 12:30 and 4:30am to eat and then went right back to sleep and stayed sleeping when I put him down. I will say today I feel much more rested.