Bedtime Musings.

Remember being a little kid and getting scared or lonely in the middle of the night, and how good-- almost miraculous-- it felt when your mom came in to sit with you or help you get over a bad dream? How strange and wonderful it is to now be the mom in that equation.

Nora is normally reliable about sleeping through the night without a peep, but tonight when I put her down in her crib she suddenly became brightly alert and just wanted to roll and scoot around, looking at all her toys. When she became enthralled by her Ugli doll, I took the opportunity to sneak downstairs to my pizza dinner. About five minutes later, Nora started to cry, so-- after trying to act tough and ignoring her for about 30 seconds-- I went upstairs and picked her up.

I sang a couple of songs to her (our usual set is "Blackbird" and "I Will" by the Beatles, and "Stay Awake" and "Somewhere Out There," both Disney songs), and then I set her back in her crib and gave her her pacifier. She was still awake, but after a little extra Mommy time she slipped easily into sleep.

It's times like these that I realize I really do feel like a mom now. I can't pinpoint the moment when having my own daughter went from surreal to normal, but these instances where I know I can comfort her, maybe in a way that nobody else could-- well, it's just pretty incredible, that's all.

Going Mobile!

This headline is a slight exaggeration, but today my little girl figured out that if she topples over from a seated position and then kind of levers her hips, she ends up on her belly. And from there, if she's industrious, she can scoot backwards in seemingly aimless circles. But if she keeps at it, she ends up where she wants to go.

Unless she gets stuck under her crib, which she briefly was today, reminding me of a hamster or some other reclusive family pet.

She can also get her whole torso up off the ground. I won't go so far as to say she's on her hands and knees, but she's almost there. I think she was just so happy about pooping after three days of constipation that she felt much lighter. (Lesson learned: when you introduce bananas, don't just give your baby banana after banana for days on end, no matter how much she loves them.)

I guess we need to start thinking about childproofing. Hoo boy.

Fuzzy Head

That fling I had with Yahoo Serious about 15 months ago has finally come back to haunt me.