Good Day/Bad Day

It's been a mixed day. Ethan woke up at 5:15 this morning, screaming his head off. I couldn't even nurse him back to sleep, so I finally gave up at 6. He was fairly happy this morning, despite almost 2 hours less sleep than usual, but I was admittedly grumpy. After his morning nap, we headed south to do some final Christmas shopping for the in-laws, go to Fresh Market, and go downtown to the sheriff's office to apply for a concealed weapons license (back story on this to come in another post about our past two weekends). In short, a lot of time in the car and not a lot of running around time for Ethan. By the time we got home, it was past 2, we hadn't eaten lunch, and we were all a bit worse for wear.

After a quick lunch, I left to go to Harris Teeter to see if Ethan would finally agree to nap in his crib if he realized Mommy wasn't an option. He's been refusing to sleep in his crib during the day since Sunday, probably because he spent most of Saturday away from me and has been clingy ever since. I was gone for almost an hour, and I could hear him screaming before I even got inside the house. So I dropped my bags, ran upstairs with the wrap, and he was asleep within 5 minutes.

By this point, it's 4 PM, I'm hungry from not eating enough from lunch, and I'm just worn out from a long day. SOOO I cracked open a $6 pint of gourmet ice cream that I got for free. Whoever said you can't eat your feelings was full of it. I felt much better after I ate about half of it. Ethan woke up screaming after about 40 minutes, but I nursed him back to sleep and he slept for almost another hour, waking just before 6. He was ridiculously clingy all night, but I still managed to fix dinner, eat dinner, and snap the following picture of the day's grocery purchases:


Thanks to coupons, I only paid $2.30 for everything above. The picture makes me exceptionally happy, which is probably sad, but I don't really care.

Before bed, we put up the personalized growth chart that came in the mail today. It's a fabric decal that has reusable adhesive so it can be moved when Ethan graduates to his big-boy room. It retails for $29, but I had a coupon code that allowed me to only pay shipping. It matches the room perfectly! Pictures to come later, perhaps.

Ethan screamed for a minute or two when I put him down, which he doesn't usually do at night, but after his fussiness all day, I wasn't exactly surprised. He's been asleep for almost an hour now, so I can only hope he'll sleep better tonight.

It's been a bit of a rough day, but there have been small happinesses that made it bearable and even enjoyable at times. And, really, I guess that's all you can ask for.