The devil's hour

Winnipeg Grandma is always asking us what is new with Max and his development/behaviour and for once, we have a doozy to share.

Max has exhibited entirely new and rather crazy behaviour for the last two nights. He has a head cold so he hasn't been sleeping very well. Normally when he wakes up crying in the middle of the night, one of us takes him into bed with us to get some more sleep while the other parent slinks off to the spare bed to get some quality zzzs. This usually works well; he wriggles a bit but then settles down for the rest of the night. For the last two nights, he has done something totally different. We've taken him into bed and he has settled for a bit but then at 3 am both nights, he has sat up in bed wide awake, called our names and proceeded to hop off the bed to play. Last night, he actually grabbed my sweatshirt off the floor and handed it to me to put on before we went downstairs. We proceeded to have some juice, some snacks, play, and read books in the basement for the better part of two hours. After the two hours of playtime, he reached out to be picked up and put his head on my shoulder to tell me that he was ready to go back to bed. He did the exact same thing with John the night before.

We are totally stumped. He is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the two hours of playtime in the middle of the night. He isn't groggy at all. John and I are a different story but we are surviving.

We'll keep you posted on whether these devil's hour playdates continue.

In other news, Max is learning his own name. He is pointing to himself and saying something very close to Max when prompted. We play a game where we alternate between Mama, Dada, Dédé (Max's version of baby - he is having some issues with making a clear 'b' sound), and Max. It is so interesting to see him developing a real sense of his own identity.