Santiago & the Late Night Tricks

I've come to the conclusion that Santiago is a private person.  It's been obvious all along that he prefers to do his entertaining off camera.  (Pull out the camera, and he just turns off, hence the serious faces.)

But last night he took it to a new level.

Yesterday I  decided that since he was 5 months old it was probably time to start rolling over.  We got down on the floor and practiced.  He could do it with help, and sometimes got really close on his own.  But once, when he almost got over onto his belly he fell back and hit his head, resulting in a lot of crying, and the end of our rolling lesson.

 [trying really hard, but not quite there.]

Fast forward to 11:45 pm.  I'd been sound asleep for almost an hour when I heard whimpering from Santiago's room.  [He never cries at night, unless he's hungry; which he wasn't.]  Just go back to sleep, I thought while still half-asleep.  But it just got louder.  Then it turned kind of desperate.  So I forced myself to get out of bed.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that he'd rolled himself over!  He was now facing down on the mattress like a beached whale, unable to move.  He hated it, to say the least.

So I laughed at the fact that he hit one of his first "milestones" and nobody was there to even see it.  (And wondered whether he did it in his sleep??  Or if he routinely wakes up and plays around??) But that's way too much thinking for midnight, so I flipped him back over and went to bed.

Fast forward several more hours.  I was dead asleep.  And heard whimpering, which got louder, and then turned to full on yelling.  So I went to check on him, and just as I'd suspected, he'd done it again.

And that happened again 30 minutes later.  At that point I think he was so excited about his new trick that he didn't feel much like sleeping.  So I couldn't sleep either. [Although believe me, I tried.  There's nothing like the kind of non-sleep you get when  you're laying on the bed next to your wide-awake baby while he kicks you and scratches you with finger nails you know you should have cut by now but just haven't gotten around to...]

Which means we eventually just got up.  My first order of business was teaching this baby how to roll onto his back, so the next time he decides to do tricks late at night while everyone else is sleeping he doesn't end up on his stomach like a prisoner in his own body.  And also so I can get a good night's sleep!