Hello. I took a little break in there, didn't I? I try to be more-or-less consistent about writing & saving entries on a regular basis (even if I get tired & have to go to bed before they're uploaded), but I've been doing a few new things around here. It's party season in this house, and I'm spending a great deal of time with other people. Which is fabulous, except that I've forgotten how to interact with other people. I do very well with the 2-minute interaction at a sales counter: money out, baby admired, purchase completed. I just run into trouble when I'm around someone for longer than 2 minutes. Things sort of fall apart, especially when the fact that I feel like someone's unscrewed my head and poured in half a tonne of wet cement slips out and it brings the conversation to a shuddering halt. That sort of thing. You know.

Everybody left us alone after Sunday, but then another time-sucking development...er...developed. This came to be known as The Nursing Essay That Ate Our Good Spirits And Hope For The Future (tNEtAOGSaHFtF). Starting this year, my mom is upgrading her blue-collar college credentials to snooty upper crust university credentials. Why does this keep me from churning out scintillating updates about my baby's sleep habits, you ask? Well, because I'm only qualified to do two things in life: 1) feed my baby several times a day and 2) teach someone how to write an essay. My mom's first draft was awful (fragmented and completely undocumented), so we wrote an outline together and she rewrote it from scratch. Then I made extensive corrections to the wording, fixed the citations, typed up a proper APA bibliography, reformatted the fucker into a decent font & size and printed it out. It took almost 6 hours to do, and I'm starting to feel like I deserve a credit on the title page. Still, at least I didn't have to research a paper on nursing shortages.

Speaking of scintillating updates about the baby's visits to Sleepytown, Blake is still awake far more than he should be. We're making tiny mincing strides with his naps now that we've finally learned that cranky babies should be asleep and not up playing with Daddy. He wakes up a few times during each nap, but at least he's down for almost 3 hours a day. And I really don't mind having to stay within earshot. Hey, all my good stuff is within earshot. Good naps have led to better nighttime sleep, and we're awake far less in the night. No fewer times, mind you, but at least he's not screaming for an hour in the dead of night anymore.

His night-time routine is going gangbusters. We do the same things every night, and while it's not a magic wand, I have noticed that he falls asleep at the exact same time every night (7 p.m.) It's almost eerie – he can be squirming & squalling & fighting me with every bone in his body at 6:59, but at 7 o'clock his eyes close and his body turns slack. The very coolest thing about this is that I can put him awake in his crib most nights, confident that he can find sleep on his own. Considering that he spent several months sleeping with my nipple corked firmly in his mouth, this is improvement beyond all measure.

In four days I'll have a new scientifical report on his night-time sleeping. Fun! I even geeked out in Excel and figured out how to make a pie-chart. So there's pie-charty goodness in your future! Oh, yes!

I should call it a night. We have our very first swim class tomorrow at 9 a.m., and while Blake will be wide awake for it, I may not be unless I go to bed sooner than soonest. So that's the update! Buh bye.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 7/06/2004 09:27:00 p.m.