Bye, Bye Daddy-O

Kevin left for Chicago on Saturday. Booooo. Well, he actually left for Denver and met up with a friend and they drove to Chicago together. After they toured the Coors brewing plant and watched a Rockies game. Man he's got the life. My only comfort is that is was Coors and not a respectable beer. Oh, and I get to keep the baby.

Once Kevin left Saturday and Sunday were really hard days for me. She was still feeling the effects of the vaccinations from Thursday and was crying a lot. She just wanted to be held all day and even that didn't always make her stop crying. I think a part of her recognized that Kevin was gone. He had been there taking care of her nearly every day of her life for the past two months and all of the sudden she was supposed to be happy with only me? Right, lady. Righhhhht. It figures that this would happen the weekend before I had two tests and a paper due. I'm telling you, she is a very gifted psychic and perpetually chooses the worst moments to be a [real] baby every time. Unfortunately for Kevin, it also figures that immediately following his departure Avelyn would bust out all the cool baby things she's learned.

She smiles a lot, is cooing here and there and is starting to try to interact with her toys. The smiling is my favorite. For the past two nights I have tried to put her down when she is acting tired, usually 8pm. Both times she only slept about 20 minutes before waking. Both nights I went upstairs before the usual wake-up screaming commenced to find a wide eyed baby with a gigantic open mouth, tongue spilling out smile frantically waving her arms to be picked up and cooing away. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. This clearly was not MY baby. MY baby screamed bloody murder when she woke up no matter how long she'd been sleeping. MY baby rarely acknowledged my existence unless I had a bottle to bribe her with. MY baby... is growing up.

Well, last night after waking she didn't actually fall asleep until 11:30 (bad for studying but I did alright on my test today). Tonight we laid in bed together and I read her all the books I read her every night: Baby Beluga, I Will Kiss You: (Lots and Lots and Lots), Guess How Much I Love You and Goodnight Moon. Every time I looked down from the books she was staring right at me and would light up into a huge grin and wave her hands. It was beautiful. One of those moments you wait weeks for knowing that in the midst of all the crying and the sleepless nights you will one day be repaid.

In the end reading the books didn't do the trick so I moved on to Plan B (also usually performed every night since Plan A is more for me anyway). We curled up together in bed, face to face and I sang to her. I don't have the best voice in the world but she loves it when I sing. I sang every song I could think of that sounded pretty/peaceful/drowsy that wasn't a nursery rhyme. Most of what I came up with were church hymns and Christmas songs. She enjoyed Holy, Holy, Holy (a fav of mine and Kevin's), 10,000 Angels, There's a Stirring, Hallelujah (the Jeff Buckley song... yeah I know but it's beautiful) and finally Silent Night. Silent Night put her right to sleep. Who would have thought? I didn't want to move her to the crib right away for fear she wasn't completely asleep so I laid there for a few minutes.... An hour later I woke up feeling like I'd slept for 2 days. I must have really needed a nap. [Duh.] Now she's sleeping peacefully upstairs while I pick up the house and waste precious sleep and/or study time blogging. Oh well. I know you were dying for the update.