Sleep sleep sleep

We are profoundly exhausted in our house this week. Over the last month Kate's sleep has gotten gradually worse at night (flashback to baby Molly at 6 months, twitch twitch). I was responding by just nursing her every time she woke up but once she added an 11:30 feeding I couldn't do it anymore. I learned my lesson last time around that this extra feeding quickly becomes a habit that is so hard to break.

So, for the past week I've been trying to ever so gently nudge Kate back to having at least one longer stretch each night without nursing. We're making progress. She's now going 6 or 7 hours without nursing (and still having very wet diapers and getting plenty to eat, including at least two feedings between midnight and 6:30 a.m.). However she is not going 6 or 7 hours without waking up. She's still waking up crying about 4 hours after going down for the night. I hold her and pat her and talk to her, often in the dark basement so she won't wake everybody up. It usually takes at least 20 minutes to get her back to bed, whereas nursing was generally over in 10. It wakes me up A LOT more.

Last night was the worst yet. She woke up a little after 10 and didn't get back to sleep until 11. She seemed to be in pain whenever I tried to lay her down -- arching her back, crying, etc. -- so I really thought she had an ear infection. I got her in to see a nurse practitioner this morning and found out that, nope, she's in excellent health. So I don't know what's waking her up at night.

It's weird that this is so much like what Molly went through at this age. And it's bumming me out that I'm not any better at fixing it this time than last. I really thought I had some skills and that this time would be different. Who knows, maybe it will be. Molly didn't kick the frequent night nursing habit until she was 8 or 9 months old. I really, really hope I can get Kate settled sooner than that.

Meanwhile, stuff has been happening during the days that I'm vaguely aware of.

Tuesday morning as we were getting ready for school the sun came out in the middle of a heavy rain shower and we saw this rainbow over our neighbors' house. It was actually a double rainbow. Such a lovely way to start the school week.

I have almost no energy for hobbies right now, but what little time I do have has been devoted to forums on baby wearing. I've got a long strip of fabric that I hemmed into a woven wrap and I've been practicing tying it in various confusing and absurd ways. Why this is necessary, I don't know. I guess it makes me happy to think if everything on Earth disappeared except bed sheets I could still carry my baby around and have two hands free to push Molly on the swings.

Molly stayed for lunch bunch every day this week without me in the building (OK, I snuck in early on Thursday to hang with other moms, but she doesn't know that). This lunch thing caught me off guard, but now we're getting up to speed. We got Molly a bento box thing and this week she got out her cookbook and said she wanted to make the recipe for bagel faces. We ended up packing bagel faces all three days. One day she even ate it. :)

And while Molly was at school, Kate and I have been having a lovely time. When preschool is 4 hours long, that gives Kate plenty of time for a nap plus play and errands. Here she is in a grocery cart in the parking lot of Shaw's, all decked out in hand-knit woolens (handed down from Molly because I don't have the energy to knit anything anymore, but shhhh, don't tell).