Worse Than Claire

Long night last night.

She tossed and turned and turned and tossed.

Also with the kicking and the grabbing and the scratching.

For a while (45 minutes at three a.m.) I sat in a chair in the dark with her in my lap, trying to convince her to sleep.  While I gently rocked her and hummed a soothing lullaby, she strained to reach as high as she could and clawed frantically at my face.  Do you know how hard it is to keep humming soothingly when something is trying to claw its way into your mouth?

Earlier I had made the mistake of looking down.  Her eyes glinted at me through the darkness like those of a feral cat.  Happy to have gotten my attention, she giggled happily, and decided that sleepytime was over:  time to play now!

If only we could lock her in the basement--but alas, we have no basement.

Okay, fine.  I wouldn't really lock her in the basement (without turning on the baby monitor).

Anytime I express these sentiments to Annie, she looks at me blankly as if to say: "Do you expect sympathy?  YOU don't have to breastfeed."  Often she looks at me blankly and just goes ahead and says it too.

BTW, her--Sophie's not Annie's--feeding has taken on a ferociously feral turn lately.  She gobbles her milk/formula and is unamused (she shrieks!) when we try to take a break to wipe her mouth.  And those hands!  She grabs the bottle and wrestles it this way and that.  Sometimes she wrestles it right out of her mouth.  She'll lie there panting for a moment and then shriek at the bottle for having the temerity to remove itself from her mouth.

This is one of those things that, if I point it out, will cause Annie to stare balefully at me.