The young and the restless

Or, "The old and the tired," depending on who you're talking about. OK, I know, we're not old. But boy, a few nights in a row of not enough sleep will make anyone feel old. Evelyn is usually a consistently solid sleeper who goes to bed at 6:30-7pm every night and wakes up at 6am every morning, give or take a few minutes in either direction. But the last few nights in a row have been fraught with (albeit brief) bouts of crying and general restlessness. We think she's teething, but we've been thinking that for a while, and all I can say is that I better see some new teeth soon!

Last night, I was positive that she'd have a nice solid night's sleep. After all, she hadn't slept well the 2 nights before, and yesterday she had 2 nearly 2-hour naps during the day. I figured, she's caught up on her sleep and she's going to sleep great tonight! (The whole sleep begets sleep thing...) Well, she didn't cry last night, but she was just awake and my Mommy radar hears everything. Basically I spent a restless night listening to her being restless, and then she decided that 5am would be her wakeup time this morning. As is usually the case with extreme fatigue, I actually had a lot more energy today at work than usual. But I know I'm going to crash soon (and I'm praying for a quiet night tonight).

If it's not teething, we think it could be the fact that she's learning to do so many new things all at once, and it's all just a lot to take for such a little person.

She's a little speed demon these days, crawling around commando style all over the house. Here, she's showing off her expanding repertoire of skills, combining a few of her favorite things in life - noisy toys, crawling, yelling, and door opening (or closing, as the case may be):


Just yesterday she learned how to pop those little baby cheerio things into her mouth by herself. I nearly fell off the stool when she did it! I'd only started giving those to her recently so she can work on her fine motor skills (yes, everything must be a learning opportunity), and she hadn't really made any discernable attempts to feed herself before. She had a cheerio embedded in each fist, as usual, and then she started sucking on one of her fists. I was telling her, "You have to open your fist first Evelyn..." and all of a sudden I realized that she had a cheerio in her mouth! In the next 5 minutes, she managed to get 3 more in there, each time with a little more dexterity (I use that term loosely). She even started grazing them with her two bottom teeth, holding the cheerio precariously at the edge of her closed fist.

She's also got a couple of new games that she likes to play with her Papa. He starts it off by shaking his head from side to side while making monkey sounds. She watches, and when he's done, she shakes her head (sans monkey sounds). Repeat. This game goes on and on for a while and it is hilarious. Another new one is where her Papa squeezes one of those squirty toy things to blow air in her face. She looks at it and then blows right back.

With all of these new things happening within a span of just a few days, it can't be coincidence that she's been sleeping poorly, can it? I am just dreading the day when she learns how to stand up in her crib and shake the railing, a skill I am sure she'll debut in the middle of the night...