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Ho Ho Home
Dec. 31st, 2005 12:03 amWe made it home yesterday, in a car stuffed to the gills with our daughter's Christmas gifts (which have inexplicably managed to expand exponentially now that they're in the house, sort of like those sponge animals that start out as pills and expand to 20 times their original size when submerged in water) with our teething demon child in tow.
Well, perhaps it's unfair to blame the poor baby in pain, but it's a bit hard to feel full sympathy when the mouth pain means she doesn't eat enough during the day, and therefore wants to eat all. night. long. When I had a dream Wednesday night that the devil was offering me free childcare in exchange for K's soul and I was very resistant in my dream, but started to be awfully tempted when I woke up after yet another night of six hours of interrupted sleep, I decided it was time for a night off.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
longstrider periodically takes K in the guest bedroom for the night so I can get some sleep, and readily agreed to do it last night. Finally, a good solid block of sleep after what's felt like ages of sleep deprivation. I was acquiver with anticipation.
And then I woke up from a bad dream after five hours and couldn't get back to sleep. Oh dear God, I'm tired.
(As an aside, I'm not sure why Stephen Sondheim musicals seem to feature so prominently in my nightmares. I know why Sweeney Todd does - I saw it at a very sensitive and squeamish 13, and it scared the bejabbers out of me, to the point that I had nightmares for years about being trapped at a Sweeney Todd performnce as it was starting. But last night's dream was Assassins, which I love and have thoroughly enjoyed when I've seen it live, so I'm not sure why it would inspire nightmares. Although one of the Assassins kept slitting people's throats with a straight razor, so perhaps it was just Sweeney Todd bleeding over in a new way)
Christmas was lovely. We got some nice gifts and had lovely meals with both of our families. The travelling was very smooth, except for perpetually forgetting pieces of my breast pump. I discovered when we arrived in Grand Rapids that I had forgotten the breast shields and had to make an emergency trip to Babies R Us (on the opposite side of town from my parents, on the busiest commercial street in Grand Rapids, two night before Christmas. Fun!). After Christmas, we left K withlongstrider's parents and sister and went to see a movie in Traverse City. We were going to visit a friend of longstrider's afterward, only to discover that while I had carefully packed the new breastshields and collection cups, longstrider had forgotten to take the pump out to the car.
Today, I was going through the bag of K-feeding implements and discovered that everything I washed and left in the drainer at my mother's the morning we left to come home was in fact still in my mother's dish drainer, including, you guessed it, the new breast shields. Thankfully, I no longer need them. I'm almost inclined to leave them in Michigan to prevent this from ever happening again.
K has made huge strides in sitting up unassisted in the week we were gone. Last week, she could sit maybe ten seconds when sat up, and she can now do several minutes unassisted and a good long time with a little bit of support. She got a baby gym from my mother, so she will have plenty of incentive to sit up to use it. She's also 3/4 of the way to rolling back to front and has gone all of the way a couple times. She now rolls onto her side, then gets stuck because her arm is in the way, and eventually gets upset enough that I help her by putting my hand against her foot to give her a little more leverage. I'm sure she'll get it pretty soon, assuming she ever lets us put her down again (along with teething come great clinginess).
Off to bed now, since Leech Baby is finally down. The plan tonight is for me to take the night feedings, but forlongstrider to get up with her in the morning so I can sleep longer if I want. Ideally, this will result in more sleep overall since periodic night nursing means I won't have the problem I did this morning of _having_ to get up just as I might have gone back to sleep because of my rock-hard aching chest.
Well, perhaps it's unfair to blame the poor baby in pain, but it's a bit hard to feel full sympathy when the mouth pain means she doesn't eat enough during the day, and therefore wants to eat all. night. long. When I had a dream Wednesday night that the devil was offering me free childcare in exchange for K's soul and I was very resistant in my dream, but started to be awfully tempted when I woke up after yet another night of six hours of interrupted sleep, I decided it was time for a night off.
longstrider periodically takes K in the guest bedroom for the night so I can get some sleep, and readily agreed to do it last night. Finally, a good solid block of sleep after what's felt like ages of sleep deprivation. I was acquiver with anticipation.And then I woke up from a bad dream after five hours and couldn't get back to sleep. Oh dear God, I'm tired.
(As an aside, I'm not sure why Stephen Sondheim musicals seem to feature so prominently in my nightmares. I know why Sweeney Todd does - I saw it at a very sensitive and squeamish 13, and it scared the bejabbers out of me, to the point that I had nightmares for years about being trapped at a Sweeney Todd performnce as it was starting. But last night's dream was Assassins, which I love and have thoroughly enjoyed when I've seen it live, so I'm not sure why it would inspire nightmares. Although one of the Assassins kept slitting people's throats with a straight razor, so perhaps it was just Sweeney Todd bleeding over in a new way)
Christmas was lovely. We got some nice gifts and had lovely meals with both of our families. The travelling was very smooth, except for perpetually forgetting pieces of my breast pump. I discovered when we arrived in Grand Rapids that I had forgotten the breast shields and had to make an emergency trip to Babies R Us (on the opposite side of town from my parents, on the busiest commercial street in Grand Rapids, two night before Christmas. Fun!). After Christmas, we left K with
longstrider's parents and sister and went to see a movie in Traverse City. We were going to visit a friend of longstrider's afterward, only to discover that while I had carefully packed the new breastshields and collection cups, longstrider had forgotten to take the pump out to the car. Today, I was going through the bag of K-feeding implements and discovered that everything I washed and left in the drainer at my mother's the morning we left to come home was in fact still in my mother's dish drainer, including, you guessed it, the new breast shields. Thankfully, I no longer need them. I'm almost inclined to leave them in Michigan to prevent this from ever happening again.
K has made huge strides in sitting up unassisted in the week we were gone. Last week, she could sit maybe ten seconds when sat up, and she can now do several minutes unassisted and a good long time with a little bit of support. She got a baby gym from my mother, so she will have plenty of incentive to sit up to use it. She's also 3/4 of the way to rolling back to front and has gone all of the way a couple times. She now rolls onto her side, then gets stuck because her arm is in the way, and eventually gets upset enough that I help her by putting my hand against her foot to give her a little more leverage. I'm sure she'll get it pretty soon, assuming she ever lets us put her down again (along with teething come great clinginess).
Off to bed now, since Leech Baby is finally down. The plan tonight is for me to take the night feedings, but for
longstrider to get up with her in the morning so I can sleep longer if I want. Ideally, this will result in more sleep overall since periodic night nursing means I won't have the problem I did this morning of _having_ to get up just as I might have gone back to sleep because of my rock-hard aching chest.
