How early is too early?

So as I was typing the title to this post... I realized it could apply to two things experienced just in the last 24 hours of William's life.

#1... How early is too early to get up? Easy answer = anytime before 5:30 a.m. If he gets up then, I'm not too bummed, because hell, it's only 1/2 hour earlier than the time I intend (note I say intend, not succeed) to get up. This past night/morning, however, Mr. William decided 3:30 a.m. might make a good time. He awoke SCREAMING like fire ants had snuck into his crib or something. Now, when he cries in the middle of the night, he usually soothes himself back to sleep in about 2-10 minutes. But this was SCREAMING. So I go charging into the nursery, convinced I have earache #3 on my hands. Fever? Nope. Vomiting? Nope. Tummy issues? Nope. Okay... teeth? He does calm down briefly as he munches hard on some pacifiers we stuck in the freezer for teething issues. But that only helps for a bit. He then proceeds to drink 7.5 oz of milk and JUST when I think he's falling asleep he starts going "ba!" all wide-eyed and cute. This is NOT the time to play, I'm thinking. Somewhere around 5:00 a.m. he falls asleep and I sleep fitfully next to him on our futon because he keeps smacking me or kicking me. Needless to say, caffeine was a necessity today.

#2... how early is too early for bulemia? Okay, I'm kidding here... but my son has started this charming new habit that made me think of this today. While he's struggling to poop (right on schedule after dinner), which in and of itself can make him throw up... he has started to put two fingers in his mouth and blow on them like he's trying to whistle. Tonight, while he did that he no longer looked like he was trying to whistle, but more like he was shoving his fingers down his throat and I thought "Fabulous, I have an 11-month-old bulemic." Perhaps I should stop referring to him as "chubbers"... maybe he's getting a complex.

You know what... i just thought of a #3. How early is too early to go to bed? Because as a mommy I'm finding that sometimes I want MY bedtime to be 9:00. Man, you just don't appreciate bed times when you have them.

Suffocation and other neurotic mother worries

I was thinking that it was lack of sleep that makes you crazy as a mother... but now I think it's the worry. I keep thinking, when will I stop worrying about him suffocating. If I put him down with a blanket or anything remotely soft, I find myself sneaking into his room a million times to make sure he's breathing. I know it's neurotic, but I can't stop myself. And then I thought to myself today... "it won't matter if I stop worrying about the breathing, because then I'll worry about something else."

These are the crazy worries that go through my head (don't laugh, you too will worry about nutty things as a mother) -
1. one of the kids at daycare will feed him something too large while Debbey is changing another kid and he'll choke to death
2. He'll suffocate on a blanket, toy, sheet, hood, sweatshirt, couch cushion, etc.
3. he'll be bullied in school
4. he'll be the bully
5. he'll choke and i won't know know how to dislodge it
6. he'll eat something and have an allergic reaction that i can't react to quickly enough
7. someday he'll play with friends near/in water and they'll drown him

It's terrible, but this kind of crap springs into my mind all the time. I swear.. I'm crazy. And someday, as he gets older I'll worry about no girlfriend or too may girlfriends. I'll worry about him being good at sports or math or music or writing. I'll worry about him meeting the wrong girl and then that he'll meet the right girl. I'll worry that he' not smart enough... or too smart. I'll worry that he's not happy, that he doesn't confide in me, that I'm not providing the best life for him.

Now my mother's constant worry makes sense. She always seemed to worry about how she treated us or how we felt about her, life, school, etc. As a kid with no worries, I thought she was nuts.

Now I know.

She's a mom.