Kids and Canines: 365 days of playing, growing, and learning: Day 180- me and my night owl

Jackson's hanging out with me on the couch watching Thomas again- it's the only thing that gets him to sit and calm. I gated him into his room and listened to him scream for 7 minutes while I took a phone call from a very awesome friend who is willing to come and dog sit this weekend. She also has offered to come do a late night with me if this continues, I'm lucky to have such awesome people here.
I've also gotten a lot of sleep advice, which I really appreciate. I've consulted my August Moms group and found that there are MANY August toddlers doing this right now, which leads me to believe that my instinct is correct, it's a developmental stage. I can't do the screaming or the crying, he can't do the lonely thing right now and there is way too much going on in the next 10 days to try and tackle this right now. We are going to visit family this weekend and next weekend and I have the last week of summer school next week. None of those conditions are good for addressing sleep issues as they often bring them about. So lets add one more thing to the major goals for July in my world of parenting. July is going to be a busy blog month! Jackson will start potty training (or potty learning for those who are politically correct about it), Jackson's sleep issues need addressed (or hopefully he'll have given them up by then), Vivienne needs to move to sleeping flat (the pack n play in my room if Jackson still isn't sleeping well or the crib if he's doing better), Vivienne needs to start napping on her own, and Vivienne will start baby led weaning at the end of the month. So just thinking about all of that makes me exhausted! But, like all things, we will take things one at a time, with patience and humor and it's OK if it all doesn't get done by August, but I have faith in them :)

Today we had a pretty low key afternoon since we were all lacking sleep. Jackson took a good nap and right toward the end of it, I finally got Vivienne to sleep. He, of course, woke up a bear and then woke her up. We had about 20 minutes of rotating screaming babies fighting for my attention, but a promise of the playground and we got over it. We headed to JRES playground today with Miss Kristina and wore ourselves out (or so I thought). Then we headed home and had a good dinner. Jackson got his hair cut (sorry Mamaw) but he was a hot sweaty mess with all the hair he had. Then Jackson helped Dada in the garden while I put Ms. Vivienne to sleep. I took over the bedtime routine and he almost gave in, but after half an hour he realized what was happening and "mama chair please!" started. Me in the room is a disaster since he wants to perform, whether I'm paying attention or not. Then I left him gated in the room after telling him it was time for bed and I would check on him, I thought his screaming was going to wake up Vivienne again, so now we are back to the couch. It's slow working, but it does work with little effect on the baby. Oh well, I have a feeling he will be so worn out from this weekend with family that nights won't be too much of an issue.