long winded rants

my kid seriously confuses me.  i'm sure every mother says that but i just needed my turn to say it too.  baby has gotten consistently harder since she was born.  her first four weeks of life were by far the easiest for me.  the next four were also insanely easy and even the next four.  well, the past four weeks have been somewhat difficult, as were the four before that and the four before that.

i can't even attempt to fully chronicle how things have been in terms of eating, mood, sleeping, playing over the past two months but if you read baby's one year post and how scattered and disorganized it was, it should give you a small idea.  let's start with eating.  baby has been teething like crazy lately and so her eating has been all over the place.  sometimes she's just in too much pain to eat and sometimes she eats like a horse, like all of the refrigerated food is soothing her aching gums.  lately it's been more of the later.  this kid eats a ton.  why on earth is she so skinny?!?!  about a week ago she was eating in her chair for a full hour.  she had strawberries, spinach, half a roma tomato (tomatoes are definitely her favorite food by the way), a big bowl of oatmeal, some other stuff i can't remember, and then an entire peach.  talk about a bottomless pit.  within the past two days she's eaten three good sized sweet potatoes... in addition to all of the other stuff i've been feeding her.  anyways, there's no point to this paragraph other than to say that my kid eats more than i do and i can't get her to gain weight.  i'm going to start feeding her straight lard one of these days.

also, for the past fooooorrrreeeevvvvveeeeerrrrr baby has, for the most part, been waking up once a night to nurse.  she would occasionally go four of five days sleeping all the way through the night but then teething or traveling would happen and things would get screwed up again.  last friday i was on the phone with my dear friend carolyn who i go to for most of my parenting advice.  we have very similar parenting styles and she has a kid 9 months older than baby so everything is still fresh on her mind when i call her from the store about what baby spoons to buy (long and skinny so they fit in baby jars) or what kind of toothpaste to buy (flouride free because your baby will swallow it all).  we both let our kids play with golf balls and eat food they find on the floor.  she also recently taught me how to buy stuff for a crock pot roast meal which turned out beautifully.  anyways, all of this is to say that i trust her parenting advice a lot.

two weeks ago i started weaning baby.  i don't want to talk about it.  in our little family of three, one of us is really happy about the weaning process and two of us are definitely not.  take your guesses.  maybe when i'm more emotionally stable, i can explain more.  until then, send your condolences my way and give me your virtual e-shoulder to cry on.  well, baby was not taking the weaning well and immediately got very clingy, whiney, anxious, and everything else bad during the day.  after two days of that it lessened slightly and i thought it would keep getting better.  it did not.

she started waking up TWO times during the night to nurse and then not wanting to go to sleep without a pacifier as well if she couldn't fall asleep nursing.  soo many things wrong with that situation.  call me crazy but i've always loved getting up with baby during the night to nurse her.  in fact, chris has never gotten up with baby during the night.  ever.  i haven't ever let him.  call me selfish but i want that baby all to myself.  and after not seeing her for a few hours, i'm definitely ready for some snuggles.  anyways, that's once.  once is good.  twice is not good.  twice is bad.  especially when it's a baby who's wanting a binky and not going peacefully into the night.  so enter dear friend carolyn.  she counseled with me and we came to the conclusion that i should try letting my baby cry it out during the night.  i'd never done that before!  and the thought was terrifying to me.  but that night i did it.

she woke up and cried for ten minutes and stopped.  "that was easy" i thought.  six minutes later, the crying started again.  it wasn't screaming, just a sad cry.  and it went on and off for over an hour.  it would get muffled at times and stop at times and then just be low at times and i'm not sure of it all because i managed to doze a little during that time too.  morning time came and my baby still loved me.  the next night she woke up around midnight before we even went to bed.  i had christopher get her so she wouldn't see me and want to nurse for comfort.  he rocked her forever and put her in her crib.  she cried for ten minutes and was out.  that was saturday night.  and ever since then, she's been sleeping the full 12 hours with no interruption.  is this going to end in a day or two like all of the other times or was that little bit of crying it out enough to do the trick?

i feel like she has the the power to just make a decision on what she wants to do.  like crying in her crib.  her whole life (all one year of it), she's gone through days or weeks of no crying before naps/bed and days and weeks of needing to cry for five, ten, fifteen minutes before dozing off.  for the past several weeks at least it's been mostly crying before bed and naps.  especially the last two with this whole weaning thing.  ever since i started weaning her, she'll cry from the minute we go in her room.  i can't even read a story with her and it makes prayers a little irreverent.  but then last night i took her in, same as before.  she started to fuss and i sat down with her to nurse her (i still do occasionally) and she nursed for a few minutes and then was fine.  i put my shirt down and instead of throwing a fit, she snuggled against me.  then we read a book together... peacefully.  she turned the pages and tried to read too.  i held her while we said a long prayer together and i held her again.  i wanted to cry.  who knew i'd missed a happy bedtime routine so much?!?!  then i put her in her crib, waved night night and walked out.  and i didn't hear a peep until 8:30 this morning.  nap time today was also happy.  story time and cuddles and waving goodbye.  i couldn't believe it.  and then tonight as well.  seriously?!?!   i mean really, it's like she finally decided not to have a huge screaming fit before bed and naps and decided to be sweet instead.  what else could have caused the night and day change like that with seriously no warning at all.

i can't figure this kid out.  i'm not sure that i want to either.  i just hope she continues to get happier.  we've had some rough times lately.