poor baby.

Andrew and I were just talking today about when Bennet was a tiny baby and he refused to nap in his crib. He would sleep from 7 PM to 7 AM in his crib, but he would not nap there! He'd only nap in his swing and, although I knew it wasn't a good thing, I let him get away with it for a few months until I finally decide to try the Ferber Method on him. For a month, I dealt with all the crying of "Ferber" until I finally broke him of his swing-napping. Finally, our battle of wits ended and I won...Bennet was napping in his crib and the swing was packed away in our basement.

It's ironic that this afternoon we had this conversation. I now remember the specific event that sparked my desire to end swing-napping. Bennet was taking a nap upstairs, I was on the back porch with the baby monitor when I heard a weird crying that I had never heard before. I went upstairs to find that he had fallen out of his swing onto the floor. I had never been able to belt him in because, until he was 5 or 6 months old, Bennet insisted on being swaddled in order to sleep. I couldn't get the belts of the swing around him when he was swaddled - we had to choose - the swing or the swaddle. In the end, the swaddle won...and I won - Bennet napped in his crib.

I say that the above-mentioned conversation with Andrew was ironic because it was about a fall and because we had it this afternoon. When we came home this afternoon, Bennet suffered his second traumatic fall - off of the changing table.

It was probably a 3-foot fall. We've been saying it would happen for a while now. He never holds still on the changing table. Still, that's quite a fall...onto hardwood floor...I'd secretly hoped it would happen on Andrew's watch so I didn't have to feel guilty.

I turned my head for one second. One second, and I heard a thud. I turned back and my poor, sweet baby was on the floor - not on the changing table where I'd left him.

He cried for seriously a half hour. I cried, too. I was heartbroken. After we all stopped crying, Andrew called Grammy Gale and, in all of her nursing knowledge, she suggested we put an ice pack on his sweet, little head. He had a big knot on it.

We iced his head until bedtime, and now he is sleeping soundly upstairs. I'm still feeling sad, but I know he'll be ok. Poor baby. What an afternoon.