A visit from Grumps...

My dad was in town this weekend, so Landon got to spend some time crawling to (and all over!) him, playing with his lanyard keychain and bouncing on his lap. Even thought Landon has only seen Grumps a few times, he definitely seems to recognize him whenever he visits. It's nice to see him bond with my side of the family, since he sees them so rarely.

Unfortunately, the pictures and video I took this weekend are really, really bad. So instead of heartwarming shots of Landon bonding with my dad, you get more photos of Landon bonding with his rubber duck during bath time.

Landon barely uses his binky anymore...but he's formed a real attachment to the head of his rubber ducky. 

Landon recently has decided that naps are optional - he simply refuses to sleep during the day. All things considered, he's really good at night (unless he's teething), and will put himself to sleep if I lay him down when he's still drowsy or if he wakes up in the middle of the night.

But nap time is a different story. I've tried so many different tactics. Instead of set times (i.e. making nap time always at 11 a.m. or 1:30 p.m), I have started waiting until he gets drowsy - which usually happens after a bottle. This weekend, as soon as his little eyes could barely stay open, we headed to his bedroom. And as soon as his little body touched the mattress, he was screaming and flaying and flipping out.

I resorted to letting him cry it out - if you haven't done it before, it's heartbreaking. I know he was fine - his diaper was dry, he ate before I put him down and there's nothing in his crib to hurt him. But hearing him cry non-stop is heart-wrenching. And Landon isn't one of those babies who cries for 20 minutes then decides, "Well, mom's not coming right now. I'll play some." No, he cries for 20 minutes, then screams his little lungs out even louder when he realizes that I'm serious about not coming back.

Twice this weekend he screamed for an hour before finally falling asleep. The worst part? He napped for about 30 minutes before waking up. A hour of torture...for half an hour of nap. Not the ROI I was expecting.

So please, feel free to share ideas and ways to get Landon to nap!