Baby Rory just put himself to sleep! It's maybe the second or third time he's done it. Granted, it's the morning, he's on his tummy, and he's on the bed. For safety's sake, yes, I'm watching him. He'll probably wake up as soon as I sit down on the bed, but still, it's progress. He's also fallen asleep in the swing a couple times (which is good for when I go back to work), even at night.
Sleeping was our biggest challenge with our firstborn. We co-slept and nursed to sleep. We held hands and sang songs in the crib, then patted down and even slept in the toddler bed. We all finally agreed that big Kindergarten boys didn't need help going to sleep, and now it's not a problem. #1 son still comes in to snuggle with us in the mornings, but only if it's still dark.
With boy #2, I'm making some of the same mistakes (like nursing to sleep. Oops.), but I'm also learning to let baby fuss to a small degree. I still really don't want to go the Ferber route, but if it's small, "I'm tired" crying, it's not that bad.
Roasting pumpkins was a lot easier than I thought. We had Rory's Halloween pumpkin and the sugar pumpkin Owen picked from his class trip. The jack o' lantern pumpkin I baked whole (it took about an hour), and the sugar pumpkin I cut in half, gutted, and roasted face down on a cookie sheet sprayed with a little bit of oil and covered in parchment paper until the skin was dark. The oil carmelized the sugar pumpkin a little bit, and enhanced the flavor. I had no idea there were some good recipes on babycenter.com, but both I used turned out really good. The jack o' lantern pumpkin tasted more like squash, so I used it for a risotto. Next time, I'll use more stock to rice. I used the whole box, not 8-12oz of rice as the recipe suggested, or a pre-made carrot-ginger or butternut squash soup for a creamier texture. It was a great side dish served with sweet apple chicken sausage.
Surprisingly, the sugar pumpkin yielded at least 3-4 cups of pumpkin, so I used about half for a cobbler, which is essentially a pumpkin pie bottom and a crumbly top using a box of yellow cake mix coated in butter. Sounds dodgy, but the butter hardens the powdery mix into a thick, crusty topping. I still have 1-2 cups pumpkin that's still good for a pie.
