Sleep

This is not going to be the rant about the lack thereof that you think it's going to be.

Or at least, it's not just going to be that.

Some nights are terrible.  Some nights, she just won't go to sleep in her basket (pictured right).  She's perfectly happy sleeping on my chest, but sweet as that is, it just doesn't work for me.  I can't co-sleep.  I can see why it would be a good thing, but the fear, it is just un-overcomeable.  We brought her into the bed one night early on, when she wouldn't sleep AT ALL, and ever since then, I wake up multiple times a night sure that I am clutching the baby, or sleeping on the baby, or have somehow thrown the baby across the room--and she's not in the bed with me at all!  Never was!  She's in the next room even!  But I do this every night.

So no co-sleeping.

The terrible nights involve trips across the house to the knitting room, because it is as far as possible from other humans, and because it has an ipod player.  This child loves her some music.  She'll be shrieking, and you'll turn on some rock*, and all will be well.  Instantaneously.  She will stop crying, you'll keep going with another couple of songs, and she'll fall asleep.  Great, right?  Except for how it doesn't necessarily last.  She'll sleep on you, but not in her basket.  The basket is death to sleep.  (This holds true during the day as well--if you want the baby to wake up for whatever reason, just put her in her basket.  Works like a charm.  Keep her on your chest, and she will sleep for however long you can manage not to move.)

But the terrible nights are--I'm holding my breath as I type this--becoming fewer and further between.  We haven't had a screaming crying in the night baby in over a week.  What has happened instead is, she wakes up, she cries, I go in and feed her...and put her back in her basket.

She's awake when this happens.  Drowsy, but awake.  During the day, this would mean crying within four minutes.  But now, at night, she burbles and grunts for a while, but then she drops off to sleep.  It's miraculous.

I still can't breathe.  Please let this continue.  It is life-saving.

One night, and maybe this story isn't quite as sweet as I think it is, but when it happened I just about wept from the sweetness of it all--one night she woke up and had a huge diaper.  I fed her before changing her, because this is a girl who can multitask--she always poops while she eats.  So I went to change her, and she'd had a leak, so I had to change her outfit too, and she was incredibly unhappy about the whole thing.  Understandably.  There she was, all soothed and full and happy, and now she's being manhandled and stripped naked and wiped with wet things and it's all very unpleasant.

She made her feelings very loudly known.

When I was finally finished, and it took a while because she was struggling so, I picked her up and held her close, and she just sighed softly and pressed her cheek against mine and went to sleep.

Maybe I could have put her back in her basket at that moment, and maybe not.  In any case, I didn't.  I sat in the chair and held her for a couple of hours instead.

*Her favorites, in order: British Sea Power (I'm not exaggerating.  She loves them.  That's my girl), Creedence Clearwater Revival (her brother had a thing for John Fogerty too), the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, and, just for kicks, Iron & Wine.  She does not much care for Bruce Springsteen.  We've had words about that.