Sleeping on through

Well this morning was Day 2 of the boys sleeping through the night. We've been putting them down a little later the past few nights -- between 11:00pm and midnight -- and they're making it to 6:00am. Hopefully that 4:00am feeding is a thing of the past. We were worried that Thursday night was just an aberration, but last night they had a repeat performance. So while we're not completely ready to say we have two boys sleeping through the night, obviously Amy & I are thrilled and hope that this trend continues.

Owen has become nearly a full-time stomach baby this past week. The kid is rolling over with ease now. Rolling back on his back is a bit more of a chore for him, but he likes being on his stomach so much that he doesn't usually fuss once he gets there. It makes Amy & I a bit paranoid since babies are supposed to sleep on their backs -- according to what you read now....which could change by next week of course -- but at a certain point if he's strong enough to roll over there isn't a lot we can do. So we just keep an eye out for him.

Amy & I got some time to ourselves Thursday night. Our neighbors came over and watched the boys for a couple of hours so we could go out to eat. I don't know when the last time I enjoyed two hours away from home so much! It was relaxing just to hear "restaurant chatter" as background noise. And it only took a couple of odd glances from the people sitting next to us when we tried to give them pacifiers while we ate before we realized that we were out in public and didn't need to do that. ;-)

Finally, the vehicle purchase took an extremely frustrating turn yesterday. I've been going to four Honda dealers in the area trying to whittle the price down to what we wanted. Yesterday we decided to go with the lowest offer which was pretty close to our number. But when I called the dealer to accept it, the guy reneged on his offer. To make matters worse, he tried to tell me that his offer didn't include tax, tag, yadda yadda yadda -- the car dealer song-and-dance. I lost it frankly. I can accept it if the guy had been up front with me and said, "I sold the van since we last talked, and now I don't need to go as low as we discussed." But for him to say that I misunderstood his original offer just set me off. C'mon, I have a meticulous spreadsheet with a tab for every dealer documenting every conversation & email I've had. Ugh. As I've said before, I honestly despise -- absolutely abhor -- the car buying process. I think it's the single most painful consumer purchase one can make, worse than buying a house.

On the glass-half-full side, we'll trudge on. The 2006's don't come in for another 45-60 days so we have chances over the next two months to try again. There are still three other dealers who aren't slime that we can deal with. Our dream of a 'Baby-on-Board' sign, soccer ball decal, and 'My kid is an honor student' sticker isn't over -- it just got postponed a bit.

At least we're getting more sleep now to deal with this kind of stuff. Cheers!