Reality Check

Okay, so apparently Emma is truly psyhic. The night, and I mean the night, I wrote my "mountaintop" entry, the sleeping stopped. Just stopped competely and was replaced with constant night wakings -- as in EVERY HOUR. It has taken me this long to come to terms with this fact and share it will all of you. Which reminds me, this is officially my last "sleep habit" entry. Not that I believe in superstition or anything, but I swear the second I let myself get comfortable with this mommy thing, I get humbled. Plus I'm sick of hearing my own whining. On that note, I might as well mention that naps are gone too. Oh yeah, we don't do anything in moderation around here. It's all or nothing. I'm lucky if I get 45 minutes out of her again.

So why the waking? That question swims thru my head every nanosecond of the day. What did I do? Maybe her matress should be on a 33-degree angle instead of 35? Maybe the new organic rice cereal we put in her bottle upsets her stomach? Or maybe it's the carrots she reacted to a week ago? Maybe she's teething? An earache perhaps? Or maybe, just maybe, this is the life of a mom -- no sleep. Accept it.

But I can't. My brain tells me there is a reason for everything, which is why I am literally driving myself insane...

But I digress. The good news is that we can rule out the earache thanks to the absolutely unnecessary doctor appointment I made on Thursday. I did find out, however, that she is most likely getting her first tooth as indicated by the bump on her lower gum. "Oh, so that's it!!" I think as a rush of peace washes over me. That is, until the doctor gives me a reality check with the dreaded word "but"... and I quote: "BUT those bumps can appear and reappear several times before the actual tooth appears, so it could be a while still." Great.

Thank goodness MIss Emma is the cutest baby ever or I might have to sell her to the highest bidder... (hopefully ya'll know I'm kidding).

But I really do think she's teething. She's chomping on things more than usual and the drool faucet is on overflow. Thanks to her cold (yes, ANOTHER cold!), it's thick, stringy drool, which is oh so fun to clean up. But then I get that gummy grin and can't help but kiss on her. I think she literally gets kissed a thousand times a day from me alone. Isn't that why God gave her cheeks?

Our princess is also having a grand old time moving around these days. She's not crawling, but she is constantly on all fours. I see that little turtle head peeking up at me over her crib rail every time she wakes up -- totally adorable! She also keeps rocking forward and pushing her butt up in the air as if ready to get a running start. And as of yesterday, she can officially get herself from a laying position to sitting up, which was totally random. One minute she was complaining that she was on her back, but by the time I got to get her, she was sitting back up. I quickly looked around to see if Jeff decided to take a half-day, but then she did it again. This time I got to see her stategy... she rolls over from her back to her belly, gets up on all fours and scoots herself back onto her butt and sits straight up. So grown up, my little one. It's so weird how much they can teach themselves. I'd love to take credit, but this was all her!

Oh, and "dadadadada" is her word of choice, especially when she's happy. Of course, she only makes "M" noises when she's sad or hungry. But I guess Dada deserves it. You should see how happy it makes him!

So that's where we are at. I'm convinced she'll be crawling soon, so stay tuned. I'm hoping to figure out some of the programs out there that allow me to post video footage for ya'll. We'll see if I can get it up and running. If anyone has any pointers or suggestions, let me know!