exhausted, and catching up

Gus has been sleeping through the night recently, which is nice - to say the very least. He goes down at 8 and gets up at 6. And while I worry and jump at every noise thinking it's going to wake him (last night the baby gate fell on the wood floor and the dog barked right next to his door) nothing does. It's proof to me that attachment parenting works and that letting a child cry by themselves alone in a room does not teach them anything other than that you won't respond to them no matter how upset they get. I'm grateful for the sleep, but I feel like getting more sleep actually makes me more tired during the day. I guess the human body can adapt, and mine has adapted to less sleep. Getting 8 solid hours now makes me groggy in the morning and sleepy during the day. I try not to nap, since that doesn't seem to make me feel more awake.

It's possibly just a stage of the pregnancy too. Now in my 7th month, I'm feeling so very pregnant. I feel like this pregnancy has been so much physically harder, though it could just be selective memories. My back aches at the end of the day (don't remember my back aching until 9 months last time) and just going up the stairs is exhausting. Of course I'm usually carrying a little guy up the stairs with me, one who squirms and looks around, tries to get down, wants to be picked back up again, then put back down. I keep reminding myself that last time around, I was sleeping 8 hours a night, taking it easy in the evening, and spending 8 hours at my office, mostly sitting. I don't get nearly as much time to rest, even though I'm home for most of the week.

I'm looking forward to this summer for so many reasons. Gus will hopefully learn to go down stairs instead of just up, so I can stop freaking out every time he gets to the top of a step, looks down, and smiles gleefully as if he's about to take a step. He will also hopefully learn to stop eating dirt. That's just a pain in the butt - we love playing outside, but it is inevitable that he will get a handful of dirt and shove it in his mouth just as you get to him. We go in once he does that, but he's still too little to understand consequences. I'm asking the doctor about it next week - how much dirt can really hurt him? Can I just let him eat it until he learns it doesn't taste good? I'm also excited because a lot of the house plants will go outside, and I can finally stop blockading him from half of the dining room. For more than 2 minutes, the dining chairs may be at the table, instead of laying on their sides.

I'm also really looking forward to those newborn days with the new little baby. Last time we had so much happening that we didn't get to just stare and awe and goo at the baby. Dave will be home most of the summer, and if things go as planned, he'll spend a lot of time taking Gus over to the store with him after the baby is born, and I can sit, relax, nurse, and - huzzah! set the baby down and walk away for 2 seconds. I'm looking forward to those days of carrying little baby in the sling again, just all that closeness and sweet baby near you. I know there will be night wakings again and all the other difficult things that go with little babies, but this time the learning curve isn't so steep, there isn't so much to figure out all at once.