Okay, I lied.

Two new infant sleep books that I ordered just came in the mail--Weissbluth and Ferber--and I started reading them tonight. I guess I still have hope that the experts can help!

Bad Nap Day

Daisy took a total of two half-hour naps today.

I was especially disappointed because I had planned to make today an orderly, by-the-sleep-book day; the last few days I've been gallivanting all around the city with Daisy, going on walks and meeting with people, which has been fun for me but which I realized was depriving Daisy of precious nap time. So today was supposed to be different.

Her 9:00 nap lasted *exactly* half an hour. That was discouraging, but I had high hopes for her 1:00 nap. In the meantime, I was proud of myself because I took Daisy in her carrier and caught the bus, went to the bank (where I unfortunately, wincingly, slipped into my bad Royal We habit and said, "We are here to close our CD"), and arrived home just in time to get her to take her 1:00 nap. I thought she'd be exhausted because her morning nap had sucked so much, and I knew I had done everything right and had the timing down perfectly, according to the sleep book expert people.

But that nap lasted half an hour, too.

By the time I tried for a third, late-afternoon nap, she was just laughing at me. As I fed her a meal of winter squash and rice cereal, she chortled at me, alternately slapping her high chair tray raucously and biting on it. Then I took her into the bedroom for sleepy-time nursing, and although she complied by nursing a little, she continued chortling into the boob while alternating squeezing it and slapping it with her hand. Exasperated, I put her in her crib and left the room. She screamed till I couldn't take it anymore. I picked her up and sat in the glider with her, rocking and singing gently. She laughed at me, struggling to sit up while I struggled to keep her in a reclining position on my lap, kicked her legs vigorously, and slapped at the air. I returned her to her crib. She outscreamed me and I came back for her. "Fine. You win," I said grudgingly as I lifted her out of her crib. She had a big, beguiling smile on her face.

I was too fed up to play with her so I stuck her in the Exersaucer for awhile, which was hardly a punishment. Now she is sitting in her Boppy pillow, waving a straw and occasionally scraping it along the sides of the Boppy. What an exhausting child. I honestly don't know how she can get through the day on ONE HOUR of daytime sleep when the books (yeah, yeah, yeah, the books) say she should be getting something like three and a half.

One thing is for sure: I am not buying any more sleep books.

Why Crawl?

I wonder if Daisy will bother learning to crawl. She has figured out how to get everywhere she wants to go through a series of rolls, combined with twisting and turning to change direction. Why would she be motivated to crawl? Sigh. The other babies her age that I know seem to be picking the crawling up more rapidly. Not that I am comparing notes! :-)

So I should probably say something about myself, huh, since my blog has become almost entirely about Daisy. Uhhhhh. I have developed an irritating (to me, at least) habit of saying "we" when I am talking about myself, as in, "We'll have the tall caramel latte." No we won't; *I* will. Daisy has seeped into my brain and is making me resort to the royal We.

Okay, I'm just going to have to chuck this plan of talking about myself for the time being. Here are some things about Daisy:

--ever since she was born, she covers her eye with one hand while she nurses. It's like the pleasure is so intense that she doesn't want any stimuli from the outside world to cut in and disturb her. She still does this at 7 months.

--she really loves music. She can sit and listen to a CD for a long time without any other form of entertainment. I need to sign up for a music class with her.

--she really loves water. No matter how tired or fussy she's been, if I pop her in her bath, she's happy. I need to sign up for an infant swim class with her.

--she talks almost constantly, in babble that has the inflection of sentences. "Dada" is still the primary word, but there are also lots of hingies and babas and things like that, too.

--she's been laughing for quite awhile but she seems to laugh more and more frequently, the older she gets. She is ticklish in several places; thinks it's funny if I kiss her hands or make her feet kick me in the face; and finds it hiLARious if someone imitates the thing she just said.

--her favorite toys are probably a pair of measuring cups, though she still also loves lids and plastic cups...and the phone, and my computer.

--she EATS now! Sweet potatoes, squash, and pears were the breakthrough foods, but now she seems fairly enthusiastic about anything I give her.

--she has favorite pages in the books we read. These pages seem randomly selected to me. For some reason, there are just pages she prefers. She'll stop page-turning and linger on the page, going, "Heh!" loudly and slapping the page violently with her hand. These preferences carry on from week to week, too. So, like, she loves the Salvador Dali page in my baby modern art board book (thanks, Mom--never would've guessed such a thing existed), the Tom Tucker page in Mother Goose, and the "Boomberry, Zoomberry!" page in _Jamberry_ (best baby book ever--thank you, Amy, for the recommendation! It's a little like a baby acid trip, but I suppose you could see it as just extremely imaginative and creative, rather than LSD-inspired).

A Bagel and her Grandpa

7-month Bagel

What's stuck in my head today?

I went to the animal fair
the birds and the beasts were there.
The old baboon by the light of the moon
was combing his auburn hair.
The monkey, he got drunk;
he sat on the elephant's trunk;
the elephant sneezed and fell on his knees
and what became of the monk?

There are many alternate versions of this song, and in some of the them, the monkey is not drunk. Also, they tend to end with "That was the end of the monk." I guess my version didn't want to upset the kiddies with this terrible ending, although it didn't mind the idea of making the monkey an alcoholic.

EDIT: Oh, wow, that's interesting. I just found the lyrics to our version online, and the word "drunk" appears as a link. You click on it, and it says, "Drinking too much isn't good for monkeys! And it isn't good for YOU either, and could lead to serious problems and addictions. In fact, addictions of all types can be very serious health concerns. Please visit the Too Smart to Start website of The National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information. You should also visit the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and NIDA's Mind Over Matter site to learn more about addictions. And check out their Marijuana: Facts for Teens and Facts for Parents website. Also check out Tips 4 Kids, Prevent the Addiction and FDA Kids!"

25 for 25, people

The questions must not have been very hard....

(Stolen from Matt's blog)



I am smarter than 97.42% of the rest of the world.
Find out how smart you are.

Total, TOTAL disaster

Total.

I just wanted to send out a quick apology to anyone I owe an email or phone call to-- my life has gone so far beyond hellish that it's become a hilariously dark, dark comedy. First crying, then laughing ensued, then a blend of the two so closely intertwined the difference cannot be discerned by mere mortal ears. The state of affairs cannot be described in language. Perhaps a dissonant, loudly clashing, atonal piece by Philip Glass could begin to represent them.

To briefly summarize, we are moving; the move went disastrously wrong and maybe if I have energy someday I'll describe it on the blog; and I have no internet access because something's wrong with our DSL service. I am creating this post at work but I won't have much time. Both Mark and I have been on the brink of total nervous breakdowns and our physical health has been suffering (especially Mark, who I think has developed migraines in the course of this move, or some kind of headache that makes you need to go to the emergency room it's so bad). My mother has been helping us or we would be dead-- dead, dead, dead. She has also been sleep-deprived, like we are, and in terrible back pain from taking care of the baby and helping clean the old apartment. I think she and Mark will soon be in a fight to the death over the last remnants of my Super-Powerful Pain-Destroying Meds left over from my Cesarean section; she needs them for her back, he needs them for his head. If we're all still alive in a few days, and if we ever get internet service, I will catch up on email, blog, and phone calls!

The sad thing is that, as melodramatic as this post sounds, it doesn't even begin to capture how dire things are. Aaaaaaaaaaa!

EDIT: Irrelevantly--can there be "last remnants"? I am thinking I should have written simply "remnants" and that "last remnants" is redundant. Hmmm. I am just psychotic enough to care, deeply, about this issue, given the way every more important thing in my life is falling completely to pieces.