Lullaby and Goodnight

It has been a rather full day. I got started on it rather later than I would have liked, but that's pretty standard, these days. Yesterday was Arazyr's and my 7th wedding anniversary. KatyBeth went to hang out with her grandma and grandpa for the evening, while we went out for dinner and a movie. We went to a Mongolian barbecue place for dinner, since it is the kind of place that is difficult, at best, to navigate with a baby along - might as well go while we could, we figured. The movie was "Iron Man". I liked it, it was fun. About the only thing that marginally bothered me was that the one bad guy was way too good at controlling the "evil suit", on what was supposed to have been his first time in it. It wasn't nearly enough to spoil the movie, though, so... if you like lots of action and explosions, I'd say go see it. (:

Anyway... Grandma and Grandpa said she was very good, and they had a lot of fun. KB did take a rather late evening nap, though, which meant she was up until about 1:00am, though that is not as bad as I feared. Prior to that, though, she slept very little, that day, so it isn't surprising that she needed to sleep late, today. In the afternoon, we ran errands for something like 3 hours, making six different stops. Unfortunately, the drives between them were fairly short, and she rarely got to sleep more than a few minutes, before I had to take her out of the car, again, and she wasn't doing so well sleeping through that, today. She's been a bit erratic on sleep in general, of late. I asked the doctor about that yesterday, when KB was in for her 6 month appointment. Her only recommendation was to try to get KatyBeth on a regular schedule, which she has thus far resisted, despite Arazyr's and my efforts. The doctor did say that KB is getting to the stage where what sleeping habits she develops now are likely to stick for a very long time, and that, if we could tolerate it, we might consider letting her cry it out - even though it might be hard, now, it won't hurt her, and it may save some additional suffering, later. Between yesterday and today, I've started piecing together a new routine, which includes a bedtime snack of mashed banana (KB has been cleared to start on solid foods other than rice cereal, and banana is supposed to help one sleep). There has been some exhausted crying prefacing naps and bedtime, today, but I really think that lately, it has been getting to the point where she's exhausted and wants to be asleep, but doesn't really know how to put herself to sleep. It has been getting harder and harder to calm her and lull her to sleep. So, I've been laying her down, lying down next to her, letting her nurse if she wants, and cuddling her, until she stops crying and goes to sleep. She's cried herself to the point of those big gaspy hiccups, which really tears at a mother's heart. I know some people might say I'm setting myself up to always have to cuddle her before bed, but I can live with that. When you have a baby, crying happens. If needed, I can cope with my baby crying - but I won't leave her to cry, all alone.