I failed in getting Allie to nap in her crib this morning. She wailed and wailed, and I lost it. I was holding her in my arms sleeping up against my shoulder when Mr. W came back from his massage around 11:30a, and I refused to hand her over because I was afraid she’d wake up. She didn’t nap more than 30 mins or so at all her naps yesterday, and it took forever to put her down in her crib, and she also refused to go to sleep last nite and Mr. W ended up having to swaddle her to keep her from flinging her arms and legs about in her fits on her back, and he rocked and held her, and she didn’t fall asleep until more like 11:30p despite our maintenance of her bedtime “routine” at between 8-8:30p. I was just defeated this morning, and mouthed to him, “I can’t do this.” I felt like I was an utter failure at the one thing most important to me to get right — her sleeping schedule. Then I sobbed as he quickly took Allie from me and told me to go upstairs and take some time for myself. I cried but still came down to clean up the two spots of Dodo vomit (which thankfully was on tile this time). There’s just always stuff to do.

The afternoon started the day better; after a feeding we took her to San Juan Capistrano for a late lunch and stroll, and she didn’t fuss in the carseat the entire time. She smiled at me, spit up, and admired her dangling bugs hanging over her carseat. We ate at the Hummingbird Cafe (Greek) at the Capistrano train depot, and altho they didn’t give us the pita bread that was supposed to come with the Greek salad, or the chips that was supposed to come with Mr. W’s gyro, we didn’t care. I convinced myself that the worst that could realistically happen was that Allie would cry, and that’s not gonna kill her. Mr. W said this is the right perspective. But somehow at night when she’s not sleeping, we’re all tired, and Mr. W has to get up in a few hours for work and I can’t get her to stop screaming, it FEELS like the end of the world.

When we came home, she I let her nap on me since she so badly needed sleep from her crappy night sleep and naps yesterday. Mr. W took her from me and put her down on a sofa cushion after half an hour and she stayed asleep on her stomach (fully supervised by us). This happened TWICE, two naps, the first about 2 hours, the second this evening was an hour including the half hour she slept on me. Too bad we can’t place her on her tummy in her crib for night sleep.

After she woke from the evening nap, she was crabby and screamed. Mr. W gave her gripe water and after that, she tooted, calmed down, and he read a Dr. Seuss book to her on his iPad. She sat there in his arms quietly, sometimes cooing along (as she does when I sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” with her). Then I started my nighttime routine to put her to bed earlier. Unfortunately, I added a lavender baby oil massage to the routine and she was probably too hungry to tolerate that. She cried “leh” so I tried to dress her. The onesie shirt would NOT go on. She started screaming at the top of her lungs and for the first time since I had her, I got PISSED. I eff-worded all over the place and used it as an adjective, adverb, noun, however I could use it. Mr. W told me the baby oil made the clothes stick and I shouldn’t have altered my routine. Anyway, with a raging headache and now sweaty, I calmed down enough to feed her at 8. She burped each time easily, was sleepy, and when I put her down and exited, she was mildly awake. I expected her to cry and that I’d have to go in her room for another long night of pacifier-stuffing, but I wanted to take a break and wash my face, remove my contacts first. I didn’t hear her. Either I’d gone deaf, or…I peeked in the cam…she was ASLEEP. AT 8:30p. This was the earliest she’d gone to sleep for her nights, EVER. Even when I finished a feeding at 8:30p before, she fussed and kicked until 9:30p, earliest.

Thank you, God. Thank you, Allie. So I’m now having dinner standing up in the kitchen.