LEEP LEEP!

Yesterday Essie had the most awake, alert day of her life. It was like she was at a day-long party or something. It started at around seven in the morning and I hadn't gotten quite enough sleep. I wasn't horribly underslept, I just didn't have quite enough under my belt. So I was not prepared for Essie's sudden baby party.

You can only hold a baby for so long before you need to eat or bathe or go to the bathroom or crouch in a corner and weep. When Ess is awake, though, she wants you paying attention to her because she's pretty dependent on others for her entertainment. If you lay her down she is not satisfied. She's no dummy. She knows you're not HOLDING her, stupid, and so she will begin to prompt you to get with the program and pick her up. She does this through adorable wiggling and baby noises and it takes her a bit to escalate to anything more serious.

I took this video during the approximate middle of the party:



Twitch, twitch, wiggle, wiggle, gasp, wiggle, twitch, gasp. No crying, no real anger. Just persistent, focused action designed to alert you to her non-held, fully adorable status. I tried hard all day to get her to sleep. I used all the tricks I knew and her grandma did too. Mimi came over at one point with July and Rowan, both of whom seem very taken with Essie and like to admire her and hold her. Essie stayed awake during their visit. Usually when they come over Essie is asleep or on her way to it so Rowan (who turns four this month) will say, "The baby is 'leepin." He's also accused me of choking her to death when I'm trying to burp her on my lap with her chin propped in my hand which is not as accurate an observation, but hey. He's four.

Anyhow, Essie stayed mostly awake and kept partying. After they left, though, the baby party was winding down and Essie was becoming that partygoer. You know the one. The one who likes to talk and who has reached the point of not really enjoying the party any more but don't want to actually leave yet. So they latch on to someone and talk politics or religion or some other possibly anti-social topic and it's strident and kind of off-putting and uncomfortable to the remaining party-goers. That's who Essie became. The baby party had gone on too long, she was no longer happy about it, her eyes were red and her grumps were grumpy.

She kept falling asleep for ten or twenty minutes, then waking up and saying, "HEY, what happened to the party?" This went on until I decided to just take her to bed already and I guess once we hit the mattress she got the idea and had a normal night's sleep from then on. A normal night's sleep means waking up every three hours and demanding food, but at least there is sleep in there, right?

Oh, man. It looks like she might be entering a partying phase of her life where she's more wakeful during the day and sleeping longer stretches at night which is FINE, I just want to be aware of it so I can adapt. I'm really looking forward to her sleeping through the night if she's the type of baby to do it!

Anyhow, today hasn't been quite as party-ish. Check it:



The baby is 'leepin.