Went back to my parents’ home for the first time since Allie was born. Some relatives met us there yesterday. I brought Allie to meet Grace’s parents (5 houses up from my parents’, but they’re moving to NorCal soon). All the adults were charmed. She’s charming when she’s out. She smiles, coos, flaps her limbs for the audience. She collected lots of red envelopes, which made me feel guilty. She also napped on her tummy on my parents’ couch for 2.5 hours, then poopied afterwards as I fed her. She was great at her second Gymboree class today, too. She’s not like this at home except for the hour after she wakes up around 8am (during which she charms me with her smiles, singing along to my singing to her with coos).

Mornings are still hard and stressful. Naptimes are worse. I cry nearly every naptime as I can’t get her to stop crying and go to sleep for more than 3 minutes at a time. She’s taking longer and requiring more intervention to go to sleep at night and in her early morning feedings, too. Awareness, I suppose.

Right now Mr. W had put her to sleep on a cushion in the living room on her tummy and they’re napping together. I tried that tummy thing earlier this afternoon and failed and went nearly deaf in a ear as a consequence. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to do anything. Even something I took for granted, breastfeeding, nearly put me to tears in two afternoon feedings as she pulled away after a few sucks and cried “leh.” I have milk, so I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m scared to do the frantic research I did with baby sleep, because that had messed me up so badly, put me in a tailspin, gave me more things to worry about, feel inadequate at accomplishing, confused me with more conflicting theories and tactics.

I’m looking forward to my first psych appointment on Thursday.

If I cried uncle, will Allie hear me?