refreshed and fully recovered from my trip to palm springs. I have complete control of my left pinky and everything. My left hand is still a little weak, but considering the strain I put on it, it is coming along fine.

Today marks a great moment. One I am so scared to post about as I don’t want to jinx anything, but Minnow. Slept. All. Night. He went down at 10pm–we started the whole put him to bet ritual at about 9:15. He slept until nearly 8:30am. WooHoo. For the past few nights he had been waking at about 4am for a feeding and then would go back to sleep and sleep until about 9am. I am hoping this is not a fluke. I really like not being tired.

Okay, so I have been doing a lot of thinking about weaning Minnow off of his bottle, especially as his 1 year birthday approaches. How exactly do you go about this. I know I could go online and search it out, but I thought I would ask my wonderfully experienced readership how you did it. How long does it usually take? Which bottles go first? Etc.

I have recovered from the ride. There are a few things that I have learned through this adventure of mine. It is not a good sign when the ride you are doing–105 miles–is more miles than you have ridden in nearly a year (if you add all the mileage up). So, to say that I wasn’t prepared for this ride is an understatement. I also learned that it is not generally a good idea to tackle a long ride in a place where they farm wind for electricty–we were lucky on the day of the ride but there was some wind. I also learned what friendship means. I rode with my best friend Chris. We have been best friends for 22 years. She is the one person outside of my family whom I would move heaven and earth to help. She is an incredible woman and an incredible athlete. She had never ridden a century before this past weekend, but she runs marathons and rides her bike often–much more often than I had since my last century in 2005. I must confess, since my last century I have only ridden my bike outside about 10 times. I had no place out there riding 105 miles on Saturday. But I was out there and my best friend Chris who could have finished the ride in about 6 hours stayed with me the whole ride. She encouraged me when the pain was so intense I didn’t think that I could pedal another stroke. I rode for her as much as for myself. I know that she would have quit with me if I would have said that I could not physically go on. I know how much she wanted to ride a century. She trained for it. I could not and would not quit for her. That brings me to my one more thing that I learned. There is nothing that I cannot do. I rode through the worst pain of my life. I knew after 25 miles that I was not ready for the ride, but I continued. I would not quit. I took breaks and stretched, but I pushed my body beyond what I thought it was capable of doing. I might have pushed to hard–my left hand is still a little weak and I cannot quite move my pinky all the way. I think we all want to know what we are made of and I am happy to say that I found out.

I also learned that I absolutely hate the dessert. I am sorry for all of you dessert lovers; but the dessert is ugly. It is scenic, I will give it that but I could never live there. I need signs of life. I need green and lushness. But it was a nice trip–it was warm and it had that going for it. We did get to go to Joshua Tree and that was really great. I am posting a few photos from our trip.

the most amazing man in the world asked me to marry him. It was a wonderful day and he is a wonderful man. I love you Hubby….

I made it. It was a complete struggle considering I rode more yesterday in one day than I did since September. It took 7.5 hours to ride 105.7 miles….and a lot of tenacity and determination. More to come….

And more importantly will you ever come back? This whole lack of sleep–waking up in the middle of the night is really starting to takes its toll. I want Minnow to sleep all night. For the past week or so he would wake up and I would give him only water–trying to wean him from his middle of the night feedings–and he would take some and go back to sleep. Well the past 2 nights he has been up at 1:30 and I give him water and he cries for the next 2 hours. At first, I didn’t know what was going on. I thought maybe it was his teeth, but the ones on the horizon have all popped through. I finally–because hubby and I were going in sane–gave him a bottle and then he wanted to play and laugh and talk, etc. Finally he decided sleep was good at about 4:15 am. Then he wakes at about 7 and once he is held goes back to sleep for another hour or so. Again, this. is. not. something. they. tell. you.

I am at my wits end. I know that there are kids who don’t sleep through the night until they are 18 months–heaven forbid Minnow be one of those. I don’t worry that he is not getting enough sleep as he isn’t a crabby kid, he plays and is very active all day. He takes 2 naps–both about 90 minutes each. I feed him often and he has about 4 bottles during the day (6-8 oz each) and that is all I can get him to drink.

Any tips? I miss sleep. Maybe he is gowing through a growth spirt. I would like to hear from those of you who fed your babies at night and those who weaned them. What are the pros and cons of each? I don’t want Minnow to think that night time is when we eat. I want him to understand that night time is for sleeping? I need night time to be for sleeping.