Schedule Update and Progress

Well, it's been over a week since we started our new schedule.

And I don't think Nathan has ever slept less at night, poor kid.

Not to mention MOM has never been this sleep-deprived! Turns out I still hate mornings. And on top of that, a baby that wakes up every 2-3 hours, simply inconsolable, doesn't help!

We are loving the together time we get in the morning before Nathan wakes up. We miss the sleep we get, but this is making us go to bed at a decent time instead of doing who-knows-what until 1:30 am.

I love the time to get homework done for my Old Testament class. The independent study time in the morning really comes in handy (I love going to a church school so I can study religion every semester!)

A couple things have gotten in our way this week, but we're mostly doing just fine.

Also, my calves are feeling the burn! Maybe one day if I'm lucky I'll have Michelle Obama muscles :o)

As for Nathan, he's just not getting how to sleep. He's sleeping less now than when he was a newborn. After almost 7 months of barely ever getting REM sleep, we are SICK of it!

He's also started all this separation anxiety junk, which doesn't help! It's a total power struggle.

And a "closed-mouth whine", which would even make his sweet grandmothers wince with annoyance!
Good thing he's still cute!
(super underexposed, I know, but look at that face!)
We're figuring out creative ways to get things done while staying within about 5-10 feet of him. He gets really mad when he can see you and realizes that you're not right there with him.

This kid has had so many issues. I feel really bad for him, and part of me still insists there's something going on that we don't know about. No nurse or doctor gives us a second look. Are babies sometimes really just unhappy all the time and just inconsolable for no apparent reason? Even when they've had Tylenol and gripe water and have a full belly and clean diaper!?

We were making a list the other day. This poor kid has had:
colic
(until he was about 4 months old)
tracheomalacia
(underdeveloped trachea in infants that causes lung problems that they eventually grow out of; he just grew out of this a month or two ago)
an ear infection (at just 6 weeks old! Mitch was an ear tube baby, so this put us on red alert)
several colds
excema
(which showed up about 3 months ago)
chronic constipation
(that seems never to go away without Miralax and a suppository)
a random rash with no explanation
(we hadn't changed ANYTHING...they just told us to "let it happen again"...yuck!)
(this was taken during an oatmeal bath, after we got his rash under control. It was so bad that morning that we could barely look at him!)

All of these seem pretty common and unrelated. I'm just sick of all the ailments! My Nathan's miserable, he doesn't sleep, he forgets how to self-soothe when he's sick (because I just try to make him as comfy as possible, like the nurses have said to), and we don't feel like he has much of a life. At least not a fun one. After a couple weeks of feeling great, something else will pop up out of nowhere!

What happened to the great immune system nursing was supposed to give him!? And all my antibodies?

It doesn't help that he's been teething for the last 2 months, with no teeth in sight.

Should I be concerned, or did we just hit the lottery with this one!?
I can't help worrying all the time when something is ALWAYS showing up and going wrong!