Ferber and Oatmeal with a side of Insanity

I have been on blogger hiatus lately. I'm sure my REAMS of fans have noticed!

Today, instead of an *amusing* (at least, I think they're amusing) anecdote about my rapscallion offspring, I will offer an inside peak of what's going on in my head.

Kye stopped sleeping through the night just after Thanksgiving. Now at 9+ months of age, he's still not doing his part to ensure maternal sanity. After lots of soul-searching, weepy half-tantrums (in the privacy of my bedroom), and a stern conversation with our pediatrician (I conversed, he was stern), I have decided to go Ferber.

For the uneducated, the Ferber Method is a technique to get your kids to sleep through the night. It involves several nights of blood-curdling howling from Baby, stuffing head under pillow by a guilt-wracked Mama, and hourly elbow jabs from Husband reminding Mama about his 7:30 a.m. meeting tomorrow.

Ferber does allow Mama to quickly check at the beginning of each new wail cycle to ensure the safety of the child, but this results in raised hopes and teary smiles from Baby. This wrenches at Mama's heart and causes her to pick him up and cuddle for a minute, making the inevitable parting even worse as Baby realizes he's been tricked again.

After several nights of this, we had some partial success last night. Kye made it from midnight to 5:30 in one stretch! I was so excited.

There were some side effects, however. I was a little disoriented at having so much sleep that making breakfast became quite an adventure.

First, I made coffee with half the amount of beans that I usually use. Frowning at the taste, I looked into the filter and noticed that I had ground them espresso-fine. That would explain the coffee dust at the bottom. So I had weak, sandy coffee.

After that I mixed up some oat porridge for myself and the kids as I do nearly every day. I started off intending to make 2 cups of finished product, for which I usually use 1 cup water, 1 cup milk, and 1 cup of oats.

Into the pot went the 2 cups of mixed liquid, followed by 2 cups of oats. It was thicker than I expected, and I quickly realized my mistake. I hurredly added 2 more cups of liquid and 1 more cup of oats (I don't know why either). That didn't quite do it. I thought hard about my process. Once I realized that I was at 4 cups liquid and 3 cups of oats, I added 2 more cups of liquid to come to the right consistency.

We all had our fill of porridge and a large Tupperware-stored supply for tomorrow and Monday.

I blame it on too much sleep.