and then there was this...

I am so behind on photos right now, the last thing I need to do is blog.  Unless it's my photo blog, because I'm behind with that, too. 
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Is it bad that I am still hung up on Iris cutting her own hair?  It's been a couple of weeks, and I've cleaned it up as best I could myself, and also took her to Great Clips but it just keeps getting worse.  I see photos of her from earlier this fall and I think, Man her hair was finally starting to grow in!  Dang!  Why'd she have to go and hack off her own "bangs" (aka give herself a subtle mullet, which the Great Clips lady only intensified...).  Arg and then I feel so guilty for being hung up on something so silly as a hair cut.  Especially when I have done some pretty awful and daring things to my own hair...
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Trying yet another new thing with the boy's bedtime routine in response to him doing a new thing.  I hate it.  But it is working fabulously so I can't hate it that much.  Lately instead of laying in bed with me sitting near him and dozing off, he'd just sit up in bed and stare at the door, like something was going to happen.  He wouldn't fall asleep, and he wouldn't lay down for anything.  I was basically pinning him to the bed.  And it felt funny and weird, so I changed it.  He didn't want to lay down, and I didn't want to sit there with him just waiting to get up.  So I left the room.  And I've been sort of inadvertently following the CIO, where you go in and soothe them every 10 minutes or so, but just leave the room after they calm down.  The first night, it took 6 trips in with him to fall asleep and he slept through the night.  The second night, 4.  And he slept through the night again.  Tonight, it was only 2 trips.  I can't remember the last time I've gotten 2 nights in a row of uninterrupted sleep.  I'm hoping for a third, but I'm not going to believe it till I see the clock when he wakes up in the morning.  The crying is wretched and he has a drippy nose so his voice is hoarse now, too, and he sounds so pathetic.  I think my only nagging unease with this whole cry it out thing is Dr Sears trying to guilt me into believing I'm a bad parent.  His Baby Book was like my child-rearing bible, my go-to source when I was uncertain.  But, like pretty much any parenting book, there are some chapters that just had to get thrown out the window.  I am haunted by his warning to "be wary of sleep-trainers".  Well, I guess now I'm one of them.  But it is working, I am sleeping, Asher isn't waking up 5+ times per night, and our bond isn't lessened- he is still so much a momma's boy, his friends are going to make fun of him.  
Now if only we can get them both back in one room, I can move on with my life and perhaps quit mentioning sleep every time I blog. 
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Asher's vocabulary at 16 months:
trash, jeni-dog, teeth, Pop, Grandpa, diaper, more, milk, shoes, ball, Mama, Dada, Iris, Liz, Elwood, outside.
he also makes horse, cow, dog noises.  The horse is my favorite.  oh, and knows the sign language for milk, more, eat, and diaper.  and he has his own sign for "all done".  Iris has made up her own sign for chocolate milk.