Instruction Manual Not Included

I should have known that as soon as I said how perfect a baby Emma is that things would come back to bite me in the rear - I know that God has a funny sense of humor like that! For almost the whole last week my perfect little angel has been waking up at least once in the middle of the night! Which is treacherous now that I am used to getting sleep uninterrupted. I think that now that I do get a full nights rest, I am more sleepy throughout the day than when I only got four hours in a row! Funny how that happened. 

So my first thought was that she was teething...my happy, smiley baby had turned into a grouchy, whiney little girl no matter the circumstance. She had also not been napping well, which is also unusual - this girl is AWESOME at being on a schedule, making my Type-A-need-for-structure side satisfied. I did think that it could be a growth spurt, but on the third time in a row of our middle of the night escapades she was up not once at 1:30am, but AGAIN at 5:00am. Of course I fed her the first time, but thought for sure she couldn't be hungry only 3.5 hours later. In my half-asleep blurry state of mind, this HAD to be a teeth issue. Not wanting my poor baby to be in so much pain that she couldn't sleep, I gave her some Tylenol, which knocked her right out. Yay, sleep for everyone! 

During the day she was still grouchy, so I tried everything we have at home to help her little gums - frozen teethers, Humphrey's Teething Relief Pellets, I even tried ot rub Tylenol on her gums (which is practically impossible considering her need to lick my finger if it comes even remotely close to her mouth)...did this ALL day long with seemingly no relief.

The next day we wake up and she is back to her self! Crazy. Then I remembered reading somewhere that around 6 months is typically another growth spurt and at her 6mo check up, the pediatrician agreed that it probably was the case. Especially considering that she is in the 75-95th percentile for height and over the 95th percentile for weight! This of course makes me feel like mother of the year - drug the baby instead of feeding her! :) Poor girl. If only they came with instruction manuals! But, in my defense, the pediatrician said that teething pain can also come and go and look just like these last few days have. Hooray. 

I guess the moral of this story is that as soon as you think you have them figured out, they change! I think that is another sign of God's sense of humor - give you just enough to boost that confidence up probably a little higher than it should be, only to bring you back down to reality with a good kick in the pants! And for me, that kick in the pants came at 4:30am this morning. Here's hoping that we are completely back to normal and a great night's sleep is in my not-so-distant future.

Here are your photo-nuggets for the day...

It makes her SO MAD that she cannot get that monkey into her mouth. LOL:

Here she is checking her fan mail! Be sure to write her...