Climbing stairs, separation anxiety, and anti-sleep tactics

On my last post, I was describing how Stone was taking his first steps. Yesterday (Saturday, 9/23) Stone figured out how to climb stairs... on his own. It was quite fascinating watching him figure it out and accomplishing a new feat. He didn't get too far up and we were behind him the entire time, but it was fun. But the day before, was not so-much-fun.

And then there is the separation anxiety..I mentioned in my post about his first day at school and how he didn't even blink when I dropped him off. He never has cried when we left him with family, friends, or in the church nursery. However, Friday morning when I dropped him off at preschool, he cried and crawled after me, almost out the door. That was heart-breaking! Especially when the day before I dropped him off and he didn't even look at me to say good-bye. (I think he was mad at me because he hardly looked at me all morning long because I let him "cry-it-out" going to sleep). But still, on Thursday he was fine, and on Friday he cried for the first time. He then cried again that night when we left him for a few hours for a Date Night sponsored by the church. And then again this morning (Sunday) when we left him in the nursey to attend worship and Sunday School. For all those moms out there who have experienced this, it's horrible, right!? I guess he is experiencing his first bought of "separation anxiety." I was actually getting used to the fact that he didn't cry when we left him with others and used to say with confidence, "He doesn't cry when we leave. He's happy!" The good thing is that he doesn't cry long and gets over being away from me quickly. That's at least a small relief.

Sleep. Who needs sleep? I think that is what Stone thinks when it comes to going to sleep at night. He fights it with the tenacity of a marathon runner--he keeps going and going and going! It's exhausting just watching him fight it and sad at the same time because it's obvious how tired he is. We've been reading a book on techniques of how to help our child learn to "self-soothe" but it hasn't really worked for our child. He has trouble "relaxing" which I know he probably gets from me.. I'm a horrible sleeper myself. And instead of playing in his crib when we put him in there, he cries because he wants to be held, rocked, and sung to sleep. I guess that's because that's what we've done since he was born, right? So now we are expecting him to learn to put himself to sleep and it's killing me. We haven't given up though and my mother-in-law has been helping a lot. Kevin is the tough one--it doesn't bother him at all for Stone to cry it out! But I can hardly take it. I guess that this too shall pass....