yeah, passing like a gall stone

whenever anyone talks about all the lovely stages that babies and toddlers go through, the common refrain is "well, it'll pass..." and yes, this is true. the stages will pass. but the passing? it hurts.

for example, right now wile has dived headfirst with a mighty yowl into the separation anxiety stage. man oh man, has he ever. tuesday morning i ran out to the store to get soymilk and juice and left him with his father. his father, the closest person to him besides me, coming in second possibly only because of lack of boo-bas, with whom he shares dna and, often, a bed. i was gone 20 minutes. he cried the whole time. wednesday morning i left him at playgroup with stephen's mother while i went with sarah for her final dress fitting. at playgroup, with all of his friends and all the awesome toys and all the moms and sitters who he spends three mornings a week with and loves. he screamed bloody murder when i left; when i got back i met janet and shauna out in the lobby and they told me i better hurry up and get in there and rescue my son.

all of this is troubing, of course. it's hard to know that he's inconsolable when i leave him—and hard to know that whoever stays with him is in for a rough time. but really, i could deal very easily with this whole stage if those were the only symptoms. alas, they're not.

this is what my nights with wile have been like for the past week or so:

6:30 - wile bath
7:15 - wile into pajamas
7:30/8:00 - wile asleep
10/10:30 - wile awake, and not only absolutely not having any of stephen coming to put him back down, also not having any of me coming in, putting him back down, and leaving. he won't fall back asleep, so eventually, as i'm in a dark room, i fall asleep too.
1:00/2:00 - i'm wide awake, wile and stephen are asleep. i get up and do the things that i normally get to do between 8pm and midnight: email, fold laundry, brush my teeth, etc.
3:00/3:30 - back in bed
6:20 - wile's wide awake and ready to get up

this? this is not a healthy sleep pattern. i feel like i'm back in the newborn days. only back then i didn't have anything to compare it to. but now i've gotten addicted to my post-wile-bedtime hours, and the withdrawl is a bitch. my only consolation last night was that they replayed the newest episode of project runway, which i had missed at 10pm, at 2am, so i got to watch it.

okay, enough kvetching. go look at pictures of wile and his people sledding. that's iden in the camo hat, luella in the pink hat, and gwen sprawled in wile's lap....