After all that sleep yesterday was it any surprise when Bella was wide awake at 3 or 3:30 this morning—whatever that awful hour was? I knew as soon as I put her down on the changing table and she began to coo and grab for her toy kitten that it meant trouble: she was ready to be awake and would not be having a light snack and then drifting easily off to sleep again.
Nor did she, though I really tried. It was not an easy meal, she writhed and wiggled, kicking me and pawing at me. I tried to doze, but was soon stiff and in that agitated state I enter when I’m really really tired but am prevented from falling back asleep.
And when she was done eating I put her in the bassinet. And sure enough she began to laugh and then, when I ignored her, to moan and then to cry. So I desperately feed her some more. And then tried again to put her down. By which point it was 5:30. And then I got truly desperate and poked Dom to get him to change her diaper. He brought her back when that was done and tried to hand her off: She’s already eaten I said. But he had to put her down because he needed to go to the bathroom. And then was my most ignoble moment. After trying to ignore the frantic cries, I gave up, picked her up and gave her a firm talking to. No, i’m not proud of my attempts to reason with a five month old. But I was very very tired by this point. (Did I mention I went to bed at 11:30? Not, in retrospect, the best night to stay up late.) So Dom came out and found me crying in the rocker with my wide awake daughter. He took pity on me and sent me back to bed and took her himself. But of course I couldn’t sleep because by this point I was too wound up.
So after ten minutes or so of tossing in bed, I went into the office where Bella was happily rolling on the floor. I played with her a bit and talked through my frustrations with Dom. Then I declared I might as well be up for the day and I could catch a nap later. And then I went back to bed and was able to fall back asleep.
I slept until a little after nine. With an interruption to turn off the alarm. And another one to briefly feed Bella and snuggle her to sleep for a nice little snooze. Dom came back to bed at some point too, I think, and then got up with her again.
And after all that drama I somehow did manage to make it to the Thursday morning libray hour after all. Only ten minutes late. But that’s another post altogether.
