Who is this child?

Because I'm not sure I know him anymore.  For the last few days he has been in a rotten mood.  In his defense he has had a cold for the better part of the month of March.  Its about done, but he has this cough that keeps hanging on.  It mostly bothers him at night when he's laying down.  I can't elevate one end of his crib, because he rolls around so much he would just end up facing the wrong way and it would be counterproductive.  We were giving him tylenol at bedtime to help him sleep, but it didn't seem to make much difference.  So I got some ibuprofen to try instead.  That seemed to really do the trick.  I don't know if it just calmed the inflamation in his chest (since ibuprofen is an anti-inflamatory and tylenol isn't) or if it was somehow stronger and made him sleepier.  We gave him the ibuprofen two nights in a row and although he slept like a rock both nights, his days were just awful.  He still seemed so tired, he was reluctant to get up in the morning, and he was just really fussy all day.  Of course I had to go to work while he was like that, which made it that much harder to leave him believe it or not.  Even though he wasn't fun to be around, I just felt bad not being there for him when he was feeling bad.  Chris and I discussed it at length and decided that maybe the ibuprofen, while knocking him out cold at night, was not allowing him to get a good restful sleep.  Not that he was getting that before, when he was coughing up a lung every night.  His cough did seem a bit better yesterday so we decided to try putting him to bed with no meds last night.  He was a nightmare through the process of getting ready for bed, but then he nursed like a champ and went right to sleep.  Much to my surprise, he slept through the night.  Never heard a peep out of him, just occassional rustling as he moved to get comfortable.  He slept all the way until 8:00.  He woke up in a great mood this morning and wasn't fussy at all until after lunch when it was time for nap.  So we're hoping that things are going to be better from here on out. 

I was really beginning to worry that it had nothing to do with him being sick or tired, and that it was a phase he was entering where he was going to throw a fit every 5 minutes when he didn't get his way.  He is getting frighteningly independent lately.  He is absolutely fearless, and it scares me to death.  His newest accomplishment is that he can now climb up on the couch.  That eliminates the one little sacred island where I could put things he couldn't get to, an end table sandwiched between the couch and the chair and ottoman.  So much for that!  Now we have to pile everything up on the counter that separates the living room from the kitchen.  I have to get up to go to the remote to change the channel.  I have to get up to go get my phone whenever Chris and I email back and forth during the day.  I can't even use the laptop when he's awake.  We are probably going to have to rearrange the furniture as well.  And the worst part is that I can't leave him alone in the living room anymore because I don't trust him to be on the couch by himself without trying to dive off the back onto his head or climb on the end table. 

I am really not looking forward to entering the stage of parenting where discipline is necessary, and we are right on the cusp of it.  But the rewards outweigh the costs.  Although it is a pain for me that he can climb up on the couch, I was so proud of him the first time I saw him do it.  After watching him throw his leg up time and time again just to slide back down on the floor and scream in frustration, it was a beautiful moment when he succeeded.  The proud look on his face mirrored my own.