Blindsided

So I was just watching Paren.thood on Hu.lu tonight, and there's this scene where one couple is at their eight month ultrasound, and they spontaneously decide to find out the sex of their baby.

So the tech positions the ultrasound machine just so, freezes the frame on the baby's face, and says,

"say hello to your baby girl."

And over here on the home front, I instantly errupt into dry, choking sobs. No warning.

It was a blindsiding kick to the gut, an almost painful, blunt reminder of the joyous miracle that imploded into my heart these past eight months.

Sleeping Through the Night... With a Twist

she slept through the night again! (still with me sleeping on the couch. so far, it's totally worth it.)

newest challenge: she's woken up at 5:30 am the last two days. very happy to hang out in her crib and chat and eventually suck her thumb and maybe doze a very little bit (one more time where the video monitor is helpful: if not for it, i'd be smugly patting myself on the back for not going in and thinking that as a result, she had gone back to sleep). as it was, it was fun to watch her practice getting up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth in her sleep sack.

but yesterday she then took a two and a half hour morning nap! she was exhausted.

this is obviously not ideal.

it's so strange how kids don't gradually ease from one phase to another... they lurch into them. without warning, a dramatic change.

so how do I teach her to keep on sleeping until 6:45? 

i'm not sure.

i decided to keep her in the crib until 6:45 regardless so i'm at least not rewarding the early waking (according to sleep books this can cause them to wake up ever earlier -- ugh!). this is hard to do because i miss her little self and hate to leave her alone in there when she is so cheerful... but it's also my time to exercise. yesterday i got her up and nursed her and then exercised afterwards but then i end up nursing her a second time right before i leave (because it feels weird to ME not to nurse her before i go, not because of her) and this throws off getting to work on time.

wondering if blackout curtains might help her to stay asleep longer? i've heard that garbage bags work for this in a pinch so that's what i am going to try tonight... if i get organized enough to get to a hardware store today to pick some up. i'm not sure that in NYC, a CVS will have giant black bags. the hardware store near work is wonderful and may have something even better but equally cheap.

the other idea I have had is to keep her up later at night... but she's pretty tired by the time 6:30 rolls around. so I think I will try "blackout curtains" first.

the big question: do i move back into my room tonight? or give it a few more days to let the whole no-eating-for-twelve-hours thing really sink in?

And can I just say: I feel so much more optimistic about life in general since I get to sleep until 5:30 instead of 4:30 am? It's a world of difference.

Infatuated

Drinking (kefir) from a glass is good and messy

I am newly obsessed (again) with my baby. She's just extra awesome right now.

I realized that one of the reasons I didn't enjoy our time off together all that much was that I was very focused on the EC, and on keeping her diaper free, and watching for any signals that she needed to pee or poop, and cleaning up resultant messes on the floor. That plus sleep deprivation was just a whole lot of unnecessary stress.

Lesson learned: first and foremost, enjoy your baby.

She is increasingly affectionate, with loads of kisses plastered wetly on my face (the nose is a particular favorite -- she likes to take my entire nose in her mouth and just very lightly touch her teeth to the skin, being careful not to bite down -- this is not my personal favorite). And she just giggles and laughs and smiles all the time.

Crawling is on the near horizon. This morning I put her down on my bed while I got dressed, which she was not happy about, and even while she was fussing, she was up on her hands and knees, rocking back and forth.

She is still scooting backwards, and gets frustrated when she backs into a piece of furniture that prevents her from scooting further.

Oh, and last night she slept until 5:30 am, cried briefly, then slept until nearly 6, when it appeared she was up for the day. (This was with me sleeping on the pulled-out-couch -- what a difference to sleep on an actual bed, even a not very good one, with sheets and everything!)

My mom suggested erecting a screen between our beds, and I may try that if my presence continues to be an issue. I'd really rather not move just yet. The financial difference of a one versus two bedroom is not insignificant. But I also don't want to spend my life sleeping on the couch, pulled out or not.

Project-Mama-Sleeps-In-Her-Own-Bed: Fail

I was so hopeful. And my bed was so delicious.

But it was not to be.

At 4:30 am, Calliope started to cry. I huddled under the covers. After a few minutes, she quieted.

Until 4:45. When she started to wail.

I hauled my weary self out of bed and went over to the crib and gently patted her back.

She quieted.

I went back to bed.

She wailed again.

I hauled myself back out of bed, and wearily traveled to the living room, carefully arranging the slightly-too-small throw blanket so it just covered my cold toes without leaving an unnecessarily large expanse of uncovered chest.

Silence.

She slept, then, until 7 am, when I was back in the room, freshly showered and getting dressed and trying to be grateful for the sleep I had.

Which, given that I managed to get to bed on the early side (is it a major undertaking for anyone else? I feel like I spend my entire evening deeply focused on that early bedtime, coaching myself and doing frequent time checks... it consumes an extraordinary amount of energy, really), doesn't feel like anywhere nearly enough. I'm feeling exhausted at work today.

Tonight I think I will force myself to actually unfold the sleeper sofa, and not just sleep on top of the folded up couch. I'm hoping another night or two there and then I can try my bed again.

Surely I'm not going to have to sacrifice my bed forever nor move to a new apartment just to sleep all night?

And for the Blogger questions... a lucky find, I think, though the blocker at work keeps me from fully exploring... trying clicking on the Blogger icon (I think it's just a big "B") in the upper left corner. I think that lets you see your Blogroll.

Two Nights and Fingers Crossed!

Calliope with kefir on her face (she loves drinking from a glass, but it's messy!) and the power of suggestion for her first word?

Calliope slept nearly twelve hours In. A. Row the last two nights! With no crying, no fussing, no feeding.

Yee haw!

Especially since the second night came after a daytime fever. I was sure we would be thrown off by it, but one dose of Motr.in (so glad she's old enough for it now -- I much prefer it to Ty.lenol since it lasts up to twice as long) and the fever was gone for good.

Mama was booted to the couch like a jilted lover. This was, perhaps, the secret to our success?

But I'm really missing my bed.

I'm tired. And a little sore.

Especially since sleeping in the living room when she had a fever meant multiple trips to the bedroom to check her. Mainly to attempt to monitor her temperature (without waking her) so I could decide by 6 am if I was going to work today. And I was sleep deprived from previous nights of CIO. None of which were all that extensive, but still.

Ultimately I decided to stay home. And of course, she appeared to be the picture of perfect health today. Maybe a little more sneezy than usual, but that was it. Happy, active, talkative.

Oh well! We had a nice day today, after we both had a nice morning nap.

Wish me luck tonight. I can practically feel my bed already. I can't wait!

Fingers crossed that me moving back into the room doesn't screw things up.

PS Blogger has suddenly, drastically changed. Can someone please tell me how to find my feed for blogs that I read. Not the "blogs I follow" list on the home page of my blog that you readers can see. I have another list of blogs that I get to when I log in. Like, I can see it if I click "template." I know this is not the fastest way to find them. Anyway, now I can find the list of what I subscribe to, but it doesn't show the newest posts. And I haven't a clue how to find them. I think this might be a "feed" I'm looking for, but I'm not sure. There are more blogs on this list than there are visible on my blog to all the readers as well as myself. Thank you! Sorry for the bumbled explanation.

PPS Please keep your fingers crossed for B (of the Candlelight and Pacifiers blog) who is out in Colorado at CCRM doing IVF and waiting for her follies to grow. Grow, follies, grow!!! Wishing her a very successful retrieval, fertilization, and transfer!!!

Scooting Backwards. With Headbanging.

Sleep Training Update

flinging her "I Can Do Anything" doll

The bathtub is just the right height for standing up and holding on

Clay class with the nanny (the description says that the clay is non-toxic at that all babies
taste it and realize it's not food and stop mouthing it... doesn't look like it to me!)

what's more fun than the swings???

Very tolerant of birthday party hubub and being passed from person to person

Sleep training continues.

I start the night in my bed, in the same room with Calliope. When she wakes up crying, I wait a couple of minutes, then get up, pat her back dutifully, and observe her becoming enraged.

Then I move to the living room.

I don't have a clock in the living room, and I'm sleepy, so it's hard to tell (and to remember)... but I think the periods of crying are getting substantially shorter. (Unless I go to "comfort" her again.)

Unfortunately, last night, she woke up at 4 am and at 5 am.

So Mama is awfully tired.

I'm thinking that maybe tonight, I should just stay in the living room the whole night. But it makes me nervous not to be there in the room with her.

So I don't know. I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. But perusing Ferber (which I hurriedly downloaded last night, worried I was doing something wrong) makes me think I'm taking a rather hard line approach. "Ferberizing" always sounds so horrible but it actually sounds pretty humane.

Except if returning to your child makes her far more upset. Which it does to mine.

It also makes me more tired.

So I think I'm going to drop that part.

Tiara's comment about co-sleeping without nursing sounds awfully nice... I think I would like to sleep with her. But I don't want to go to bed when she does. And putting her in bed with me without letting her nurse similarly enrages her.

Someone on a local parent listserve informed me that she doesn't believe in Crying It Out (when I specifically asked about CIO techniques) and then followed that up with the helpful tidbit that she just sent her husband in to comfort the baby. Oh, so you get to feel self righteous and stay in bed! How lovely for you. And obviously not possible for me.

At the end of the day, my beloved baby is securely attached. I truly believe that this is the best way to optimize both of our health and happiness. Even though I feel like talking about CIO makes me sound like a heartless bitch.

But we've otherwise had a lovely weekend together. I'm really enjoying her again after my week or two back at work. I feel like we both laughed a lot. Tonight, we were both in hysterics because of her face of horror and vehement head shaking after being given a bite of egg (well, I was laughing because of that, and she was laughing because I was laughing), and it was like we were sharing a joke. Not her imitating me, but us, two humans, having a shared funny moment. It was amazing. We both couldn't stop laughing. I loved it.

She is scooting backwards, which cracks both of us. She had been drooling a lot the last few days, enough for me to put the amber necklace on her (supposed to help with the pain of teething), even though she hasn't been complaining. Sure enough, a top tooth poked through this morning. She has rejected the new sippy cup I bought her (I bought three to try, but have only attempted one so far), but loves to drink from a glass (the result is predictably messy, but at least it's a quick way to get kefir, one of the few foods she likes, into her gullet). She's all about "dada" and "ida."

We went to a sign language class on Saturday, which was great. The teacher suggested starting with just "more" and "all done" until the baby gets the hang of it, and trying to sign every hour that the baby is awake. So I will teach Nastya the signs tomorrow. And every few bites, I would ask Calliope, "more? more yogurt?". She was definitely watching my hands. Apparently it takes a few weeks for her to try to sign herself. But I swear she was already trying to sign before the class -- she moves her hands purposefully and looks at me intently... I just don't know what she's trying to tell me. But the teacher said that "more" and "all done" cover an awful lot of ground, so we will see how it goes. I've also been doing the sign for "milk" because it makes me laugh, mimicking milking a cow. But she said that we breastfeeding moms can just do the signal one handed so that it's not quite so obvious to the rest of the world. It seems handy to me to have a signal for "want to breastfeed" though of course I may find out that she wants to breastfeed all the time!

Next week we start baby swim class. I'm looking forward to that. I bought a new swimsuit, with a skirt, and have resigned myself to just avoiding looking in any mirrors. My friend Emily and I went to a Russian banya (bathhouse) two weeks ago and I employed this strategy and it worked amazingly well. We are planning to go again next month. It was wonderful to do something so luxurious for the first time in a very long time, and it's quite affordable, especially with a shared babysitter.

I had my eyebrows threaded for the first time this weekend and I now feel resolutely positive about one aspect of my body.

And here's a video for no apparent reason. Like you need an excuse to show off your cute baby?

The Weekend of Scary, Scary Night Weaning (Or Is It "Sleep Training?")

Everything I read about "sleep training" seems to be about teaching a baby to go to sleep on her own, but that's not our issue at all.

Calliope goes to sleep beautifully. She is eager to snuggle down in her crib and pop her thumb into her mouth.

Of course, tonight I tarried in the bedroom to fold the clean laundry (it's so much better to wake up Saturday morning with everything tidy) and this, apparently, sent the memo that it was Time to Prepare For Imminent Mobility in the crib.

She thrashed and "swam" furiously but with great joy, squealing and hooting, while I folded clothes and pretended to ignore her antics.

Still, when I was finished and left the room, she didn't protest, it just took a little longer for her to wind down.

Three nights ago, I nervously reduced her night nursing duration to just one minute. True to form, and contrary to my dire predictions, she fussed for only a few seconds and then collapsed her sleepy body against mine while I carried her to the crib.

I was thinking that maybe I would reduce her to thirty seconds of nursing tonight, Friday night, but had also toyed with the idea of just going cold turkey and cutting off the feedings entirely. But then chickened out in my mind. I just wasn't ready.

Well, last night Calliope woke up early. Her one minute nursing was at 3 am instead of around 5 am. Fair enough. I nursed her (briefly) and slid her gently back into the crib.

And then, last night (aka this morning) she woke up for a second feeding at 5:15 am.

And I had a crisis of faith.

If I nursed her again, I was moving backwards. Two night feedings.

And yet, it was a Thursday night. The worst night to start "sleep training." I was planning to wait for the weekend, preferably one where I wasn't already struggling to recover from a cold.

But.

Nursing her twice in one night!

What would it mean for the weaning/training process?

Luckily, I had gone to bed, well, not early, but not as late as it could've been.

And so, I bit.

I didn't get up.

I let her fuss. She went from mild protesting to a more vigorous crying.

After three minutes, per the Go.ogle summary of the Fer.ber Method, I got out of bed and picked her up and whisper-sang our good night song in her ear while she fussed, and put her back on her crib.

She screamed.

I climbed back into bed.

She wailed.

Although we share a room, my bedroom is large, maybe 10 feet by 16 feet, and we are more or less in opposite corners of the room, so she can't see me all that well -- the head of the crib and the covers on my bed keep my face hidden. But she no doubt knows that I am there.

Curse or blessing?

Her screams tapered back down to cries.

After five minutes, as per Fer.ber, I climbed back out of bed and went to her crib. I patted her diapered tush gently and murmured gently to her for a few minutes before returning to bed.

Her cries amplified to screams again.

Drat.

I decided not to get up again.

Her cries quieted to whimpers, with gradually longer quiet periods, complete with the smacking sound that means her thumb had found her mouth. There were several periods of several minutes of quiet before she started up again.

I decided that since I was awake, I might as well exercise. And then the crying ramped up again.

So I got her from bed at 5:50 and gratefully snuggled her into my arms to nurse. She wearily collapsed against me and suckled peacefully.

Afterwards, I put her back in her crib, where she rested her head peacefully on the sheet and quietly sucked her thumb as I snuck out of the room.

I grabbed the video monitor and went to the living room to do my exercise DVD.

Moments after starting, I heard her babbling on the monitor.

I let her babble and then fuss for about twenty minutes before I went to check on her.

As soon as she saw me, her face lit up in an enormous grin.

I don't know about other babies, but with Calliope, a joyous baby is not a baby who is going back to sleep.

So I lifted her out of the crib for the last time, changed her diaper, dressed her, and brought her into the living room. Naturally, she wasn't interested in the boring old Exersaucer.

No, she wanted to sit on the floor and stare at the TV screen.

Oh, my child who isn't supposed to watch TV.

Even an exercise video is captivating.

And despite getting up nearly two hours early, she napped at the regular time today (she won't go to sleep early when the other baby is here because she apparently is too worried about missing out on the fun -- she keeps peering through the crib slats to ensure that Eleanor is in the portable crib, also taking a nap) and didn't take an unduly long nap in the morning or afternoon.

And was in great spirits when I met them at the playground after work for a playdate with some other local moms (and a dad).

Anyway, now I've pulled the plug.

I can't go back.

I've started this thing.

Night weaning... with a side of Cry It Out (CIO).

I'm nervous.

I don't know if I should sleep in the living room so she can't see me (but I don't really want to because my bed is so much comfortable than the pull out couch, and it's also a much shorter walk to Calliope.) And maybe my being there in the room is a reassurance to her, given that's what she's used to?

I don't know if I should go to her when she cries?

It seems like it made her a lot more upset last night.

Maybe I go to her but don't pick her up?

I don't know if I should only go once, and that's it?

Ignoring seems so harsh... but maybe less upsetting?

I don't even know if this is the right thing to do. But I'm tired of feeling like I'm dragging through life.

And as lovely as it sounds, I greatly dislike nursing in bed. Even when I'm not trying to sleep. It feels like I'm being gnawed on by a small, furry, extremely active animal.

Like a gopher.

Not in a good way.

So I don't know exactly what I'm afraid of.

Facing my demons? Or just worsening fatigue? Or the vague idea that I'm making a big mistake, and am Royally Screwing Up.

But I know, at least, you readers will be awfully glad to stop reading about my obsession with Calliope's sleep.

So [assuming this works] that's something.

The plan is no feedings until 6 am. Once we've mastered that, we can move the feeding back to our more normal 6:45 am time.

Please, if you have advice, share it. I feel like a total amateur over here.

Eight Month (Cell Phone) Photos

Holding cheese. Admiring my fascinating new pincer grasp.
Check out my toes, peeking out from under the tray!

Inspecting the cheese more closely.

Not to fear: I wouldn't dream of actually eating it by myself.

Learning to make stepping movements. Isn't her foot
pudge amazing???

Eight Months

She can stand for a long time now, and loooooves to do so.

I got some video of her in this position, wildly

gyrating her pelvis. 

Dancing to some internal music?

Calliope is eight months old today!

It's a great age. She's not yet mobile, which makes life easy, in some ways, though with the new separation anxiety, it means I have to stoop down, hoist her up, and swing her onto my hip each time I want to go to, say, the bathroom, or the kitchen. Or else endure mounting protests, which start with whimpers and escalate to cries... unless she gets distracted.

It's an open question, whether or not she will crawl or go straight to walking. She's not exactly close to either, but she's been standing for a long time now, since five months. She can now do brief periods of holding on with just one hand, a few seconds, and can also stay standing for an awfully long time, probably five minutes? (I'm scared to leave her alone in this position so she only gets to stay standing as long as I'm there to catch her.) There's a lot of leaning on her arms still going on. 

On the crawling front, I've seen her get onto her knees and rock exactly three times in the last week. She's not a giant fan of being on her stomach, given that sitting allows her so much more freedom to use her hands to play, so perhaps that's holding her back. 

It's funny, though, because at five months she looked like she was physically precocious, but now it seems pretty clear she's not, unless she starts walking a lot sooner than I expect. Still, it makes life easier for me so I am fine with it.

She's eating more. More volume, that is. Her milk consumption from the bottle was up to 9-10 ounces a couple of days! (That's 4-5 ounces every four hours while I am at work.) Last week, I started giving her solids for breakfast, all in the hopes that it might positively influence nighttime sleep. I am obsessed, I tell you, with sleep. 

Yogurt is the only food she will take reliably. Last night she tried ground beef, which she seemed to like, but she only had about four grains of it. The previous lunch, she ate two peas. I tried again with avocado, but something in the texture made her gag until she vomited up all her hard-won lunch. Sigh. I also got her to take a little bit of water. She prefers to drink from a glass but that is a messy proposition. Sippy cups seem to be too complex for her, though we did have limited success with a friend's Nu.by cup, and bottles seem to viewed as slightly unpalatable chew toys.

She found consonants! As of last week some time, we have moved from a liquid stream of just vowels (assuming you count "y," the "sometimes" vowel -- we have had "ay yay yay" for months), we acquired "da" and "ga." Exciting times, over here, at Chez Calliope.

She's starting to be a little more of a diva queen -- she protests vigorously and sometimes even has a little tantrum when I cruelly insist on putting her arms through sleeves. I wonder if it's an object permanence thing -- like, she wonders if she will lose her arms because she can't see them? Dressing her, I feel like I remember having similar issues with sleeves myself, long ago. 

She never complains about going in the crib anymore, however. We are back to only once a night waking and feeding. Phew. It seems that getting her bed late last week totally screwed things up, so I am committing to 100% having her in bed no later than seven for the next month, and preferably 6:30. This takes some focus on my part, because it doesn't leave me much time for nursing/dinner/bath/PJs/nursing again. Last night she refused the bedtime nursing for the first time and was in her crib at 6:15. She woke up an hour later and nursed then without fully waking up. It was funny that she was up for a "middle of the night" feeding while it was still light out.

We traveled to DC over the weekend and she got to bed a little late one night but she had had an extra nap so she was okay. Phew! I was very nervous about this. She was a total rock star, riding the subway, waiting in line for the bus, then riding the bus for three and a half hours, plus a car ride on the other end. She flirted outrageously with the other passengers and played peekaboo between the cracks of the seats. The lack of mobility was no doubt a huge help with bus travel. I brought her infant car seat and she napped there and even played a bit, but otherwise hung out in my lap. Watching videos of herself on my cell phone passed a few minutes, as did eating, getting dressed (I brought her in her PJs on the argument that we would have plenty of time to get her dressed on the bus, and why change her before what has become a daily blowout event. Yes, I just ordered a new kind of diaper to try.) I also brought a fine selection of our finest small toys. But naturally, the camera case was her favorite.  

So we are going to do one more night of a minute and a half of nursing, then go down to one minute of nursing. I'm hoping all goes smoothly and we don't have additional wakings as a result. If so, we will do one minute of nursing for three nights, then thirty seconds of nursing for three nights... and then no more nursing at night.

Talking to my friend Liz, in DC, who we were visiting, was very helpful. She was the one that gave me the Twel.ve Hours by Twelve Weeks book... but I somehow missed that she had done a Ferber type CIO program in concert with it. This explains why it has taken me so much longer than it took her! (Also, her daughter was exclusively formula fed by the time they did it, and formula digests more slowly and I do think it is thus helpful to sleeping through the night).

So, I'm facing some crying. Talking to Liz was helpful. But it made me realize that this is one of those times that a partner would be really helpful. I think doing Cry It Out (CIO) solo is tough. I might ask Auntie Salt Lick to spend a night with me. But it may be anti-climactic. And since I'm thinking that sleeping on the couch might be best while doing CIO... it may not be worth it to have company. 

It was wonderful seeing Liz, in any event. She has a wonderful husband, Jonathan, and a darling daughter Sophie, 18 months. And is 22 weeks pregnant with number two! 

She has way more energy than I remember having while pregnant. Just seeing her made me feel tired. But she was capably chasing after her daughter (and hoisting her up!) and cooking and cleaning and being all around superwoman. She had more energy than I did. (Of course, I seem to be coming down with a cold this morning, so perhaps that has something to do with it.)

Still, seeing her made me realize that I am not ready to be pregnant for a long, long time. Maybe ever? 

Of course, sleep struggles and being with Calliope full time last week might have had something to do with that. I thought I would love it, but I have to admit that I think I enjoy it more when time is more precious. (This makes me feel extremely guilty.) But maybe that was just sleep deprivation. We had a few nights of three wakings each, then two nights of two wakings, before getting back to one. And no matter how early I can manage to get to bed (not that early), getting woken that many times just leaves me feeling crappy all day long. So I think I'm still recovering from that. 

So I'm actually sort of glad to be back at work... I get so much more accomplished!... even though Calliope is still the most fun she's ever been. 

PS My computer has died, sadly, so there will be a dearth of photos until the new one arrives and gets set up. Hopefully that won't be an overwhelming project... but backing up all the photos from the old computer does sound, actually, pretty exhausting. I have backed them up in the past... but I'm not sure how long ago. And then I have to deal with not creating duplicates of everything. Ugh.

I am extremely thankful for a quiet morning at work where I am getting to catch up on things like blogging and diaper orders!

Results

So I did it!

I got up at 5:45 (okay, 6 am) on my first day off.

It wasn't terrible. I didn't die. I did a half-ass job on my strengthening DVD, but I did nearly finish the whole thing (I shortened the abs section because my abs were finished) and even had time for a shower because Calliope slept a little late.

And you know?

I still felt like crap all day.

The fact that she slept in, and I could've gotten another hour of sleep?

Killer.

So I lay down with her for a morning nap, though I got up before she did. And tried to accomplish things, but didn't, because I was so damn tired.

And had to lie down again during her afternoon nap, though I didn't manage to sleep.

So here's the deal: when you don't get enough sleep, you're tired. Whether or not you stick to a schedule or not.

Given that I am off of work for ten days, I may try again, in another day or two. Today was already much better, energy-wise, though I still wasn't able to get a lot done. But I did do an energizing workout on the elliptical which I actually enjoyed, during her nap.

I simply have to find a way to go to bed earlier. Where I will find the discipline to make myself do so... I'm not sure. That's the struggle. And the solution.

Starting now.

(Which is why my post is without photos.)

Resolution

So sleep still isn't where I want it to be.

Calliope was doing so great, had gotten to sleeping from 6:30 pm -- 5 am, then a 2 minute nurse (yeah, I time it... with a stopwatch), then back to bed until 6:30 or 7 am.

The wake up time was getting later and late, so my plan was to wait a few more nights, to see if it might get to 6 am or later.

Then she got sick, and all that went to pot. The first night, she woke up for the first time at 9:30 pm. And was up for two hours.

This is not a good way to start the night.

Because of course that was not the only waking.


Anyway, long story short is that sleep is not where we (and when I say "we," I mean "I") want it to be.

Yada yada yada.

You have heard this from me about a hundred times already. Sorry.

So here's the thing.

I long for weekends, when I can sleep in until, you know, seven. And then I nurse her in bed, and delay getting up for as long as I can until, you know, seven thirty.

And then I feel sort of crappy and tired and lazy all day as a result.

So here's what I'm wondering.

What if I got up at the regular time, more or less, which is 5:45 on the days I exercise. What if I got up and exercised and showered so that when Calliope woke up, I'd already be done with that and all fired up and energized?

You know that feeling when you're outside, nice and early, on your way to work, and you think, "gosh, if only this was a weekend, I could get so much done?"

Only you never, ever have that feeling on weekends, because it's already mid-day by the time you get outside?

So this is my challenge.

Can I force myself to get up early on a weekend, exercise, shower, and face the day as if it were a work day... only a day filled with fun?

Would that be awesome?

Or would I only get more and more tired because of never catching a break and sleeping in?

But maybe knowing I can sleep in leads to going to bed later, and thus, more fatigue?

All this to say... I'm resolving to try it.

Ack.

Let's see if I can make it happen.

Tomorrow, Good Friday for the Catholics (and Christians?) in the world, I am off.

Wish me luck.

Good night.

Blessing Only Slightly in Disguise

Calliope had her first fever last week. The nanny called me at work to tell me, and also to share that Calliope was vomitting.

My very first, but undoubtedly not my last, sick-kid-call.

I panicked, just a little, called the pediatrician's office for an appointment later in the day, saw one final patient, and had my medical assistant clear the rest of my schedule. I threw the stack of charts in a drawer and hurriedly hailed a cab.

And got home to see my little girl, smiling wanly at me from the safety of Nastya's nap.

Before fussing just a little to get to me.

As soon as I saw her, my heart melted in relief.

Of course she was fine. A baby that is smiling might be sick, but not sick.

Just to verify, though... I broke my own rule and busted out the neonatal stethoscope and portable otoscope. Lungs were clear and ears looked good. Of course.

I cancelled the pediatrician's appointment and spent the afternoon cuddling that hot little body.

I was so grateful to be there.

What a gift, to be the blessed source of comfort for a little person all my own.