(no subject)

Did my last entry make Alex sound too good to be true? Ha. Today she's driving me up the freaking wall.

She was up last night from 12 to 2. No good reason, as far as I could see - she seemed sleepy, even closed her eyes readily, but just couldn't settle. I rocked her, put her in bed and tried to soothe her there, tried to sneak downstairs only to have her start crying again, rocked her again. She was insistent that my hand had to be placed just so: heel pressed against her cheek, fingers cradling her head. She'd pick it up and move it there, if necessary. From 12. To 2. She just hasn't been doing this, for ages, so I have no idea what made last night different.

At 11:15 this morning she started to act tragic - crying easily, hurling herself at me and rubbing her face against my shirt, and so forth. Nap signals. I took her up to her room and started rocking her, but she kept flipping out, arching her back and screaming, even while she still looked awfully sleepy in between freakouts. I let her down, and she played happily while I sorted out her clothes storage. She still looked bright and energetic at noon, so I decided that it was time for lunch.

As soon as I started trying to feed her, her eyes drooped. She cried and cried. She rubbed her face and head, of course getting handfuls of cheesy pasta stars all over her hair in the process.

So I took her back out of the high chair. Screams! and screams! as I washed her face and hands. I carried her up, rocked her for a few minutes, and put her in bed. If she doesn't sleep for at least an hour, I don't know what on earth I am going to do.

Today's final Alex rundown.

She napped for exactly one hour and then woke herself up by accidentally banging her head into the crib rails. Hard. Before she was ready to wake up at all. I managed to get her to doze in the sling for another twenty minutes, but it still felt like a very inadequate nap.

In the sixty seconds it took me to go to the bathroom, she figured out how to get the top off the Vaseline jar.

She emptied a Ziploc bag full of Cheerios all over the living room floor.

She continued to have tragedy fits, and ignored about 60% of her dinner.

She pretended to feed her doll some Cheerios, which is the first time I've ever seen her pretend. To a psychologist, that's a major milestone, although it may not seem exciting to anyone else.

And!

She took about four steps without holding on to anything - a new personal record, and the first unsupported steps that were clearly differentiable from a controlled fall forward.

Walking! (A little bit, at least.)