So I'm slowly but surely working on training Ruu (or Roux, as my french-loving friend Emily likes to spell it) to actually take naps. It makes her a much happier baby overall, although it can sometimes take as much as 20 minutes for her to give in to sleep. I don't let her scream and wail the whole time, of course... I set a timer for five minutes so that I *make* myself give her the chance to settle down on her own. If she's not settled after five minutes, I go in, check her diaper, see if her swaddling has come undone, pat her, comfort her as needed, and start the process again.
Some days, it can be agonizing. Those are usually the days when I haven't slept well the night before, and my emotional skin runs thin. It's simply amazing how much sleep-deprivation can affect my attitude and physical state. For instance, yesterday I got a dreamy amount of sleep--two stretches of 4 hours each--and felt like the sun had risen twice, just for me. Today, after a slightly more fitful night, I feel okay, but there's still a heavy haze hanging right around the front of my head, compounded by the allergy season too.
She puts everything in her mouth now. Toys, blankets, bits of lint, my hair, and whatever else she can get her little hands on. She has quite a grip; more than once she's pinched my arm hard enough to leave a mark. Mamou (her grandmother on Steve's side) says she seems "unusually strong" for a baby. And while she knows how to roll over, she's taking her sweet time with crawling; flailing her arms and legs hasn't lost its novelty.
As for feeding, she still detests a bottle (we've moved from Avent to Gerber and now to Nuk nipples... next up will be Playtex). She'll suck on it and play with it (pacifiers too), but it's nothing compared to The Real Thing. She, however, can't get enough of being fed rice cereal with a spoon--it's her (and Daddy's) favorite time of day. In a way it's a huge relief that the solids are going so well; I feel more at ease with leaving her with other people if there's a way she can take food aside from The Real Thing. And as Melanie and my sister-in-law Meg found out, if it really comes down to it, she will take breastmilk from a medicine dropper.
So the hunt for babysitters and the desperate planning for the upcoming months has begun; I have a 3-week teaching gig at a summer camp where I'll need to be gone from 9 to 5, which will be tough on both of us, but I have faith that by July (when camp begins) she'll be much more happily independent. My next two photography gigs are 3-5 hour stints; nice warm-ups to my first full-day wedding on May 17th.
I just have to have faith. I've been doing everything I can to get her to a place where it'll be easier for both of us. I just have to have faith.
