The way it works in our house is that I am responsible for putting Anderson to bed. Lately, this has been as simple as putting him in the crib and reading him a bedtime story (Goodnight Moon is our current favorite). Every now and then I have to bounce him on the exercise ball in the living room while I watch a little soccer, or MythBusters.

Last night Andy decided he'd had enough with this pleasant system. Instead of nursing himself to sleep, he worked himself up. Instead of falling asleep after Goodnight Moon, he fussed more and more for twenty minutes. And instead of falling asleep while I bounced him on the exercise ball, he proceeded to wail. Now, ordinarily this wouldn't bug me too much, except it was already pushing eleven p.m. and he wasn't showing any signs of calming down. This was horrifically frustrating.

I hate the feeling of frustration, especially frustration towards somebody I love so much. I try to compensate by showering Andy with hugs and kisses whenever this happens, but the underlying feelings are definitely still there. And frankly they're much more upsetting than whatever caused the frustration in the first place!

Our bedtime routine did end happily last night. After a while I was afraid that I was going to jab him in the back of the throat with my pinky, so I got up to fetch a pacifier. As soon as I got out of the living room Andy fell asleep. Literally, steps into the darkened dining room I had a quietly slumbering baby in my hands. I was so shocked at first I wasn't sure what to do. Eventually I just crept into the nursery and laid him in his crib, and then explained to the equally shocked Laura what had happened. Our theory is that Andy is getting to the point where his interest in the world is overtaking his interest in falling asleep. Instead he just gets cranky and freaks out. So I guess what this really means is that I can no longer expect to put him to sleep while watching a little TV.

Things have been super busy around here lately. It seems as though every spare moment is taken up watching soccer games (indeed, right now I'm watching Argentina-Mexico). Since there are sometimes 4 a day, I've been watching them all on Tivo delay, and sometimes in fast-forward. I did discover that the slowest fast-forward on Tivo is 3 times faster than real-time. That means I can get through a whole game in a half hour. Somehow I still ended up going to bed at 11:30 a few nights.

Laura got me a fantastically awesome Father's day gift that she already wrote about. She is right, I'm very glad to have it. She was very coy about what she was getting me although I did manage to deduce that she was getting something framed. However, I was very shocked and very touched when she revealed this beautifully framed picture of my mother.

Tonight we went to a "New Parents BBQ" with some parents that we met at our childbirth classes. We tried not to brag too much about how well Andy sleeps. But really, we have the perfect baby, and after listening to everybody else, I appreciate it all so much more. It was kind of funny though: every baby started off the night fairly calm, but by the time we left at least half were crying. And the other half? They were asleep.

Speaking of Anderson. He's started to coo a little. I'm not really sure why its called 'coo', since its really more of an 'ah-goo'. Sometimes he says it with a side of gurgle, which is my favorite of course. He also gets a serious kick out of Daddy blowing raspberries. You can almost always count on a smile. Finally, when bathing today, he gave what sounded like an actual laugh when I cleaned under his armpits. He doesn't seem to be ticklish anywhere else though (clearly taking after his mother!).

4 years is so last year. This year its all about the 5 year anniversary. Etiquette says I'm to shower Laura with wood (or more modernly, silverware). So for this years present I went foraging around the Lower Mystic Lake. I think I did pretty well. I sent that through the wood chipper and gave Laura the results in a trash bag this morning. She didn't seem to appreciate it the way I thought she would. She should be glad I didn't send our silverware through the wood chipper!

The last 5 years have really flown by. At least, until about 2 months ago. Now they go really really really slowly. Just the other day I convinced myself for a few minutes that Andy was in fact 3 months old. I had to actually count out the months on my hand. Its hard to believe that at our next anniversary, Andy will be a running, talking little toddler with a personality of his very own.

Happy Anniversary sweetie pie!
Here's to another year of wedded bliss!