So the very night I wrote my last post, I went from feeling all sorts of delight about my dear sweet baby girl to really not liking her very much at all. True story. If you guessed it was due to a sleep disturbance, you would be correct. That is usually my breaking point, as you may have learned from previous entries. Lost sleep is no joking matter in this household, although it does occasionally cause bouts of hysterical tear-filled laughter.

I do try to be compassionate with Leni, really I do. Obviously she needs her sleep as much as my husband and I, and whatever is causing the late night wake ups is just as, if not more, unpleasant for her. It’s just that it doesn’t seem to ever really get better, no matter what strides we feel we’ve made. We’ll have a good week here and there, but inevitably she’s waking up at 1am again. And it’s usually very challenging to get her back to sleep. And by challenging I mean, 1-2 hours of the soothing/crying-it-out, followed by 1-2 hours of playing (when that fails) and then, on really bad nights, taking her into our bed only to have her wriggle and chat for another hour. I used to refuse to bring her into our bed, but lately I am too spent to be principled about it, frankly.

So Tuesday was one of those nights and it’s been pretty wonky almost every night since.

But here’s the good news (and possibly the origin of the sleep inconsistencies this time around): she took her FIRST STEPS! SO EXCITING! I probably should have lead the post with that piece of news, eh?

She’s been practicing standing up from sitting constantly, this last week especially, and then on Friday (hours past her bedtime) she stood up and took one, two, three steps. I actually think her goal behind standing was to facilitate her dancing, but with a little encouragement, she indulged us with a couple steps too.

We haven’t had a repeat performance just yet, but she’s really getting quite skilled at standing (and dancing) without any support (and losing her balance without any injuries!).