Behind the Lines of a Sleep Strike

I'm tired. I'm tired as I write this and I'll be tired when anyone reads this.

The problem, you can probably guess from the title of the post and the image above, is that a good night of sleep has been hard to come by in our house lately. Like, really hard. Lovely little Annabelle, who turns 2 in September, has developed some quirky sleeping, er, waking habits in the past couple months.

And man, I am tired.

As I wrote back in March, after 18 months of being a great sleeper, Annabelle went through the 18-month sleep regression. But several weeks later, the regression regressed and we were back to our 7 PM - 6 AM routine. A bath, a few books, a kiss on the cheek and it was off to binge watch House of Cards. While watching Frank and Claire lie and cheat their way to power in Washington, Bridget and I would have carefree chats about politics, snow, and the future. Ah, the good, old days.

Then on May 10 (thanks, Day One journal app) Annabelle woke up at 3:30 in the morning with vomit in her crib. We cleaned her up and figured our bed was the best place for her for the rest of the night. The next night, same thing. Vomit, our bed. Next night, same thing.

And since then, well, it's been kind of a nightmare.

Annabelle stopped throwing up that third night (just a stomach bug, we think), but she was suddenly scared of sleeping in her crib. She'd eventually fall asleep, but not without one of us in the room. Then, almost on a schedule, she'd wake up around midnight or 1 AM and scream until we finally relented. Some nights we slept on her floor or in the wooden rocking chair in her room, but other nights we were just too damn tired and brought her to bed.

(If you're a parent, this is where you're judging us and saying: Never bring her into your bed!) 

We tried the "cry it out" technique one night, but she screamed for 3 1/2 hours and then fell asleep standing up. With the light on. (That's the picture you see above. I snapped a quick shot to celebrate the moment.)

It was a brutal night and we decided it wasn't for us. We also decided that our bed wasn't the best spot (Annabelle tends to form the middle of an "H," which isn't good for anyone) and we started switching off nights in the guest bed with Captain Sleep Strike.

But now we're in a tough spot. Sleeping well at night, it is well documented, is incredibly important for your health and well-being. (The New Yorker had a great three-part series on sleep this week.) Without enough sleep, it's hard to perform well at work and, well, at life. And we just don't get good shut-eye.

Instead, we sit for an hour with Annabelle until she finally falls asleep. Then, a few hours later, she's up and we're drawing straws to see whose turn it is. Is it sustainable? Maybe for a bit. Is it good? Not for anyone.

So, friends, if you have any advice or words of wisdom, our ears are wide open. Unfortunately, so are our eyes.

The 18 Reasons Why 2012 Was The Best Year Ever

Without question, 2012 was the greatest year of my life. And, well, our lives. Bridget and I became "The Briddons" in March and it's been nine months of growing closer. That's not to say we both aren't the same independent (and very different) people we were in 2011, but most sentences now begin with "We." So, in looking back on 2012, here are the 18 things that made it our best 366 days ever:

1. We celebrated five wonderful weddings -- including our own -- with friends and family. We may be biased, but we think ours was the best.
2. We never have to deal with the stress of planning our wedding again.
3. We ran a half marathon.
4. We're healthy.
5. We -- and Oscar -- survived the great hambone disaster of 2012. (In short, my mom, excitedly gave Oscar a hambone, which he excitedly devoured. We all smiled and laughed. Then we realized dogs are never, ever supposed to eat cooked bones. It was a tough and fairly disgusting couple weeks.)
6. We locked up our love on the Seine River in Paris.
7. We stayed in the nicest hotel room ever in Enniskery, Ireland. There was a damn TV in the bathroom mirror. In the mirror!
8. We enjoyed a week of paradise -- and ate about eight pounds of ribs and sushi -- in sunny Mexico.
9. We sat on a riverbank on a glorious sunny day in Breckenridge, Colorado, which, for my money, is the nicest town in the United States.
10. We bought a leather couch. (Weeks ago, Bridget and I decided it was best to wait until next Christmas to make the purchase. So, naturally, I'm staring at it in our living room right now.)
11. We saw the Lumineers, The Head and The Heart, Bon Iver, and Ben Harper -- four of the best concerts in recent memory.
12. We won the New Yorker Caption Contest. (One of the coolest things about this was when the guy at the framing store let out an unsolicited laugh when we brought it in.)
13. We went to a San Francisco Giants game, a Red Sox game, a Patriots game, and a Celtics playoff game. (Mike went to the Celtics game, but, you know, the whole our thing.)
14. We booked our one-year anniversary weekend at the Chatham Bars Inn. 
15. We went to Cambridge, 1 and West Side Lounge a whole bunch of times.
16. We got a MacBook Air and an iMac. (We really, really like Apple products.)
17. We started a blog. This is our 42nd post.
18. We were fortunate enough to do the first 17 things.

We only hope that 2013 can somehow rival 2012. It's a tall order, but if Kanye and Kim Kardashian can make it, hell, anything is possible. Happy New Year, everyone!

Really? Another Magazine?

To say Bridget likes magazines is like saying little kids like ice cream and ponies. Or rednecks like Budweiser, mullets, and cars on cinder blocks. Or this kid liked getting a Nintendo 64 in 2006.

We're not talking like. We're talking love.

In fact, we're talking 22.2 pounds of love. I just weighed the last couple months of her magazines five minutes ago so I could get my facts straight. My question here is simple: Why? Why in the world does someone need all these magazines? (To be fair, this is not necessarily unique to lovely Bridget. There are several other women I know who would rather lose their left arm than their subscription to Marie Claire.)

Every day when I check our buckling mailbox, it's the same. Or, I guess, more correctly, it's different. Some days it's Rolling Stone, Entertainment, and Boston. Other days, it's Lucky, Women's Health, and Real Simple. But every day, like it or not, they come.

Does she read them all? Heck no. In fact, many of them sit in this snazzy container I bought her for last Christmas for months. ("A magazine container, Mike? How romantic!" ... "I know, I know. I spoil her.) I, on the other hand, find a couple articles in Sports Illustrated or The New Yorker and then go about my business for the week.

So, please, readers, help. Help me understand this little idiosyncrasy. What is this obsession with glossy pictures and regurgitated articles about hair, gardening, and the new exercise that will cut your weight in half by tomorrow? Are magazines just for comfort? Do they really add value? Are they just there to keep the scale busy?

Thoughts and comments are, as always, welcomed.