A Week With PrettyGirl

Last week was the week that Nikki was on (paid) vacation, so I took off work to take care of PG. The week was... mostly good.

Monday went well enough. Because PG will only sleep in her crib if she's swaddled, and my swaddling skills are pretty bad, she wasn't getting much sleep. It might have been easier if she didn't fight it when I try to swaddle her (M always gets the same response.) I mean, c'mon kid, you're sleepy, swaddling will get you to sleep - don't fight what's good for you. This is, no doubt, the first of many things that are good for her that she'll be fighting.

So, because the crib was pretty much not an option, that left sleeping while being held, pretty much. That can be a bit of an inconvenience. I eventually compromised by letting her have a good nap on my chest while I watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Tuesday was a descent into the fiery pits of Hell. A few urgent projects came up at work that I had to take care of, since I did have access to a computer with the necessary software, and my boss was able to e-mail the files I needed to work with. PG picked that day to be very, very fussy.

Sleeping in the crib was still a no-go for any decent amount of time, and there would be no DVD-watching with her on my chest while I had to work. So she spent a lot of time screaming about how sleepy she was. She also got hungry a lot so she had that to cry about too. And I had that to take care of instead of getting my work done. 'Cause what baby wants, baby gets!

And on top of everything else, she seemed to fill her diaper constantly. One might wonder if her malaise was related to that.

I did get her to sleep a little on me while I worked for a little while. That was a bit difficult, being as I had only one hand to work with, and stretching my baby-holdin' arm to provide the occasional shift key press was somewhat inadvisable, since I didn't want to do anything to wake PG.

When I finally did get the work done, PG and I sat down to nap and watch The Thing (John Carpenter version,) respectively. I expected to get a long nap from PG, but she slept for about 15 minutes before waking up and getting back to issuing complaints about the world around her.

Naturally, she cheered up right before M got home from work and was mostly agreeable for the remainder of the evening. The exception being when M tried to swaddle her for the night. PG didn't yell and scream while she wriggled out of the blanket this time (in fact, she kinda treated it like a game,) but it was still a pain. Luckily, it didn't last long before she got sleepy and just gave in to us.

Wednesday was almost a polar opposite. The only real drawback was that both work projects ended up need some last-minute fixing, so I had to do even more work, but PG was the very picture of a sweet little baby. She slept plenty, even a few short naps in the crib, and wasn't too demanding for milk. Plus, she kept the diaper fillin' to a minimum!

During her fairly long nap during the remainder of The Thing, I kinda pinched her back in surprise with my hand when the Thing blood jumped up from the petri dish and screeched. PG was so zonked out, she barely even reacted.

By Friday afternoon, PG was sleeping soundly in her crib for as long as two and a half hours. How is such a thing possible? Did I somehow learn to swaddle well? Did M come by just to swaddle PG before whooshing away back to work? Nope and nope.

On Monday, M ordered a Miracle Blanket online. It arrived on Thursday. It is, indeed, a miracle. It's designed so that the baby (in this case, the ever-squirmy PG) has her arms pinned down by her own weight, thanks to flaps that cover the arms and are tucked under her back. It's really easy to use, and the results speak for themselves! For the first time all week, I got some time to play my computer games! Cha-ching!

Aside from the improved napping and not having to do stuff for work, Thursday and Friday were pretty much like Wednesday. Nothing too exciting. I did fall asleep while we were laying on the guest bed Friday morning, and PG started talking to me. I was dimly aware of her being all "ah uh ah oh lllanngg," and eventually made myself wake up, to be polite and to contribute to the conversation.

Last week, I was kinda looking forward to getting back to work (especially after Tuesday,) but I missed my little girl when I was at work today.

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In somewhat related news, PG had her first babysitter on Saturday night. M and I went on a date to see Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix and finally have that birthday dinner that M missed out on during the time of her actual birthday, since she had had a week-old baby at that point.

So a friend from her theater days came over to make sure nothing went awry while PG slept and to read Harry Potter 7. I'm happy to report that PG maintained her months-long streak of not waking up for at least 5 hours after being put to bed. M's friend was able to get through a hundred pages or so uninterrupted.