Sleepless Nights...

We are in the process of trying to buckle down with Roxanne's sleep habits, and holy moly it's not easy. For months now we've been trying to follow the "No Cry Sleep Solution" methods, and they've gotten us halfway, but we are apparently stalled out. Roxanne still insists on coming back to sleep with me halfway through the night and all of our gentle methods seem to not working. The last couple of nights we have been letting her cry, but still going in and patting and talking to her frequently. She just gets so incredibly worked up that it's hard for everyone. And when we hit about 3:00 am I end up bringing her back to bed in a sleepy stupor. I also have been feeling incredibly guilty about all of this, since I feel like I failed her by not teaching her better sleep habits. But I have honestly been trying to follow the gentle methods I read about. I guess you can find write-ups about any parenting technique you want to. But for the past few weeks Roxanne gets in certain modes during the day where she is unsteady on her feet and falls constantly. I'm sure most of you have seen her at one time or another with a goose egg on her head or bruises on her face. She just wipes out like fifty times a day and I've recently become convinced that it's at least partly because she's overtired on a regular basis. Since she sleeps about 11 hours at night and 2-3 hours a day for naps, I'm convinced the problem is the frequent wakings during the second half of the night. And it affects me, too. And Justin. This house needs some sleep! But we're working on it. I'm going to talk to the pediatrician about it at Roxanne's 15 month check up in a couple of weeks.

Oh, and today Roxanne face-planted on the driveway at work and really scraped her upper lip. The inside of her upper lip was also bleeding, so between the two wounds, she was really really bleeding. She also scraped her elbow up. It was absolutely horrifying. But of course Roxanne only fussed for about 7 minutes. The dog got out at the same time, and Ben and Josh were running around like monsters, and I was crying and trying to get Roxanne's lip to stop bleeding... It was not a graceful time. I still feel guilty, but I realize I can't keep the baby in my arms at all times.

Ugh, now on to some pleasant things! Roxanne is getting more and more verbal lately. And for some reason, the last couple of days she has been extremely affectionate with EVERYONE. When she sees Ben's parents she walks to them with her arms open and when they pick her up, she gives them lots of kisses. The same goes for Josh's parents. And with me and Justin, every time we pick her up, she rubs our arms and puts her head on our shoulders. It's so nice, and I'm trying to keep it going. She has even been hugging and kissing Josh and Ben all the time. They are coming around to it, but at first they were a little less than thrilled... Ah, boys.

She's also doing better with feeding herself. At dinner, we can even give her a bowl with yogurt in it and a spoon, and she only makes a slightly giant mess. And she's using a fork pretty well, too. Especially with her favorite foods, like lasagna and other types of pasta. And pears. She loves pears. The photos are from her eating some leftover spaghetti she had at Nana, Mike and Leah's house. She loves it!