Something strange is happening.  Pictured here smiling gleefully while brushing his teeth, my little boy has morphed into someone very different recently.  And I really hope this change is temporary. 

Last night, he was like Bizarro Jonas. He ate dinner at Grandma's house, and John had him home by 8 pm.  Normally he would have just come in and gone to bed without any issues, but he refused to go to sleep.  He stood at his door screaming and crying his little eyes out.  Holly the Doula was coming over, so we kept putting him back in bed and letting him try to calm himself down.  After 45 minutes of non-stop screaming and banging on his door, I couldn't handle it anymore so I broke my own rules and brought him downstairs with us.  I would normally never give in like that, but this was unlike anything we've ever experienced.  I've never heard him scream like that.  I know he's not sick either.  First of all he's never cried like that when he was sick, and He's been acting strange in many ways over the last month or so. 

Last night after Holly left, we put him back in bed and of course he started screaming, so I decided to lay down next to him.  This is a very unusual thing for us.  He NEVER needs/wants anyone to lay with him when he falls asleep.  In fact, if anyone is next to him he WON'T go to sleep, but last night was just the opposite.  As long as I laid next to him perfectly still, he was totally calm and drifting into sleep.  But the minute I tried to get up, he'd start bawling.  I stayed with him until my back was aching from trying to teeter on his tiny-little-toddler bed, and then I decided it was Daddy's turn.  My god…. leaving the room to get Daddy was heartwrenching.  As soon as I got up, Jonas jumped out of bed running after me crying hysterically.  I know that OTHER kids do this at bedtime… but not MY kid.  Jonas has always been the World's Best Sleeper.  I have never witnessed anything like this out of him before.

So Daddy laid with him until Jonas fell asleep at nearly 11 pm (!!!) and he was still sleeping when we left the house at 8 am this morning.

Now… over the last month I've been chalking his behavioral changes up to simple Toddlerisms.  But the more I talk to other experienced moms, the more I realize that Jonas's behavior change is more likely a reaction to this impending birth, and my stress associated with it.  I know that I'm a nervous wreck all the time.  I know I'm not focused on Jonas as much as I used to be.  I still love him so much my heart aches, but I'm very much inside myself right now, thinking about almost NOTHING other than this birth.  And I now think that Jonas is absorbing all of my stress hormones, which makes me feel terrible.  I don't want him to be stressed out.  I don't want to make him feel insecure or unstable.  I want so badly to calm myself so that he doesn't have to feel all this anxiety, but I honestly can't figure out how to deal with his feelings when I have no idea how to deal with my own right now.

I just keep thinking that this is temporary.  After Jules comes, though there will be a period of adjustment of course, I think the harmony will return to the house.  Hopefully Jonas will then understand what all the commotion was about, and we can get busy being a family again, instead of being totally absorbed with pregnancy-related-feelings.

Oh Jonas.  I love you so much.  Hang in there, buddy….. we're almost there.