~ Watching My Baby Daughter on the Babycam ~
Unexpectedly
You smile sweetly in your sleep
And I smile right back
10:18p 1-26-12

Allie seems to have some trouble settling into sleep. She kicks around and sucks on her fists for awhile first. It used to be a minute or two; now it seems like half an hour. Even after her middle-of-the-night feedings which thankfully is only one during early morning (between 4 and 6am), she doesn’t go right back to sleep anymore. It takes her 10 minutes or more during which I watch her anxiously as I pump behind the feeding. This morning, I had to go back in mid-pumping and feed her on the other side because she started fretting after being put down despite not being awake enough to take the other side the first go-round. But she did have her last feeding last night at 8:20p-ish, fell asleep finally around 9:30p, then didn’t wake for her next feeding until 5:45a-ish. Sounds like a good night of sleep, but I had insomnia. Mr. W was snoring next to me, the cat was asleep, the baby was asleep, and I laid there counting down the hours I had left to sleep before her next waking. I wondered about herbal teas and whether they stained teeth like regular tea. I wrote haikus in my head looking at her tummy going up and down on the baby monitor. Then at 10:45p, the stepdaughter came home. She has a habit now of coming in by opening the garage door which is right under the baby’s room even tho she doesn’t park in the garage, so it makes me jump and anxious to see if the garage opening and closing woke the baby up (it usually doesn’t unless the door between the garage and house slams). The garage door didn’t seem to wake Allie up, but the conversation the stepkidlet held on her cell phone in a normal [daytime] volume of voice as she walked in the house, followed by the bathroom and bedroom doors closing downstairs, did. The baby fell right back to sleep but I was laying there stuck listening to the conversation in the dark downstairs about some discussion held about drugs as the stepkidlet walked around the kitchen talking. As soon as she went back into her room and closed the door, her voice was muffled enough for me to finally fall asleep. I wish we had more carpeting downstairs for noise control. *sigh*

Mr. W suggested that maybe now that Allie’s sleeping better and longer through the night, I’m more rested so I’m less tired. Maybe. But I still took a long time to fall back asleep after Mr. W got up at 4am, since I still expected the baby to be up at that time. She wasn’t. So I laid there listening to his kitchen noises, occasionally checking the baby monitor. She slept through it all, it seemed. She usually sleeps through Dodo’s yowling now. (Not meowing, the loud echoing deep “owwwl” he does repeatedly right outside her door after he eats. I still don’t know why he does that.) I’ve been able to cut the yowling down by turning on my cell phone in the dark and flashing it in his direction. It distracts him and makes him aware there’s someone there so he stops the howls. I finally fell asleep after Mr. W left the house, but had nightmares of showering at my old bathroom at my parents’ house, knowing I was alone, and noticing suddenly that a darkness was creeping over the bathroom. The door to the bathroom was opening, and I thought quickly for a rational reason like the cat, but I knew Dodo wasn’t at that house. I freaked out and tried to scream. Then I woke up, saw it was past 5:15am, checked the baby on the monitor, saw she was well asleep still. And then I worried that she was sleeping TOO long and would throw off her schedule. I’m a headcase.