sunday night fever

On one of the warm days last week we went to the park - Sara loves the swings!
And here she is with her daddy, rocking her new pink Robeez winter boots. That's her Xmas stocking in progress in the background.
We had a stressful couple of weeks around our house, and poor Sara has been having some rough nights. Teething? Really NOT fun for the whole family. Then again, as much as I pretend to have the mommy instincts fully developed by now, I really have no idea whether we're dealing with teething again or something else.

During the day she seems fine and is napping well, but last week for 4 nights in a row she sobbed and screamed when we put her to bed. It's just so unlike her, she's normally a great sleeper. At first we tried picking her up and cuddling her, which didn't seem to help, so we thought hmmm.... another tooth (#3) coming, perhaps? We gave her Tempra starting on night 2, and eventually after an hour or so she fell asleep either from exhaustion or because it worked. Then, on Fri. and Sat. night she was back to normal. Actually, we took her to visit friends on Saturday and our intention was to leave after dinner to make sure she got to bed at a decent time. We weren't going to venture a sleepover after how the week had gone! But... sometimes us mommies need a break, and a "short dip" in the hot tub while the boys watched Sara turned into a 2-hour soak and girl talk session! When we came back in, not realizing how long we'd been outside, Sara was sprawled out sleeping on the couch with her books strewn behind her... I'll post the picture we took when I get it from them, it was hilarious. Anyway, we got her home and into bed just fine. We thought the weird phase had passed. Until last night...

I put her to bed without any issue at 7:30pm, and she woke up crying pretty hard at about 10pm. I made sure she had her soother, but she started screaming and arching her back... she was inconsolable until I picked her up, and then she buried her face in my neck and fell fast asleep. I put her back in the crib after about 15 mins, and ... well, it started all over again. We put her between us in our bed and she stopped crying but proceeded to babble and grab our faces like it was playtime. I tried cuddling again but the cycle continued when I put her down. I gave her a small bottle -- no help. Magical Tempra -- no help. Seeing if she'd just fall asleep -- no way. Finally we dug out the old standby, Gripe water, thinking maybe she had stomach pain, and after about 20 mins she went back to sleep. By this time it was 12:45am.

It's so unbelievably frustrating when you don't know what's wrong or how to fix it, and you begin to feel like none of you will ever sleep again! As much as I would like to assume it's just teething (although we can't feel or see a new tooth), I can't shake the feeling that maybe something else is wrong. I was even wondering if she looks more pale in the last few days. Maybe she has a bug, but she's really fine all day. Maybe I'm feeding her something she can't tolerate, although unless it's meat I can't think of what it would be. Moms excel at worrying, so our big outing for today will be to the doctor's office this afternoon.

In happier news, I finally got around to re-doing my web site... I love my new Mac. I was limited to the iLife software but it was so easy and I'll be able to update the site much more often. It looks ok on our computer, so here's hoping it does everywhere else too. If not, maybe don't tell me today... please and thanks :)