Putting a baby to bed on time is VERY important.

I never realized just how important it is for Liam to get to bed on time until two nights ago. 

We were over at some friends' house, which is a nice treat for us since it doesn't happen that often. Our friends have a 7-month-old baby girl, so it's fun to get together with them. It's nice to see that there's "hope" for Liam as he gets older -- one day he will sit up, eat solids, grow some hair, etc. :)  So anyway, we stayed there a little longer than we should have.

Liam usually goes to bed around 8 every night without any trouble, but we stayed at our friends' until around 9. Then we had to catch a taxi, so we ended up getting home at around 9:30. When we arrived at our apartment, Liam was currently asleep in the Moby. How nice. But the story doesn't end there. Liam had a poopy diaper, and I didn't want it to get all crusty and stuff all night long (not easy to clean up).  So I tried as hard as I could to change him without waking him up too much. But alas -- the poo had already began the crusting process! So I had to wipe a bit harder than normal. Before I knew it, Liam's eyes were as wide as serving platters, just staring at me as if to say, "I...am...awaaaaaake...." 

After the diaper change, I tried to put him to bed. But he wasn't having any of it. There he was, propped up on his arms, staring around like he wanted to play. By the time I shut the light off and closed the door, he was wailing. And it only got worse and worse. He was crying his loudest and hardest, for a long time. To us, it was very long. We tried to ignore it, but like I said, it only got worse. Finally, after about 20 minutes of enduring it, I went in and got him.

Poor thing. As I held him and shhh'ed quietly to him, he tried his best to calm down. But he had been crying so hard that it was hard to breathe in without a sob escaping. (You know what I mean -- all of us have cried that hard, even in our adulthood -- or is it just me?) I felt bad, and I knew he was just overtired and didn't know what to do with himself. He didn't know that if he just calmed down he would fall asleep, which would solve all his problems. So I held him close against my chest and walked around the house, saying "mommy" things in his ear. He finally calmed down and found his thumb. I walked around as long as my arms would let me (he's almost 14 lbs now), and then as softly and quietly and I could, I laid him down in his bed. No protest, no sign of distress, just peaceful silence. *sigh of relief*

Even though it was a stressful night trying to get Liam to just go to bed already, it was kind of nice knowing that I'm his mother and he finds me comforting. I felt like it was my first mommy test, and I passed. 

On the other hand, I think we'll be sticking to the 8:00 bedtime from now on.