I love you, I hate you, I love you

It's funny--I've never been a particularly emotional person, but I have cried more in the past 6 weeks than I think I've ever cried in my life. And I'm so all over the place. Last night when I was up with her fussy self from 12:30-4, I was thinking holy cow, what have we done? I was not particularly in love with her at that point, to say the least. Then today, she was tired & fussy but as usual, would not go to sleep. I tried to do what the book I'm reading says to do, which is put her to down for a nap when she's drowsy, but of course that doesn't work. I let her cry for about 20-30 minutes, and eventually she stopped. I went in to check on her and was horrified to find that she had thrown up twice and had rolled around in it so it was caked in her hair & on her ears. I felt like the worst mother in the world at that point. She started crying again anyway, so I picked her up & cleaned her off, and had a talk with her about how much I love her (through tears, of course) and right now my job is to take care of her. So if she wants to sleep on me, she can sleep on me. So then she took a nap for an hour & a half on my chest and had a very pleasant feeding after that. I'm a little concerned since she is sleeping again now (on my chest in the bjorn), but if she doesn't sleep well again tonight, I'll know that maybe naps aren't her thing.

So this book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, says that when they get overtired, it's too late. That we should put them to bed when they're drowsy and they'll go to sleep. WHATEVER. If she is not dead asleep in our arms, she will not go down, and it's hard enough to get her to go to sleep on us. We have let her cry it out a few times, but that doesn't always work either (hence my story above). I don't know how to avoid the overtired state, since she won't go to sleep until she gets there. We soothe her every way we know how, but we can't force sleep on her. I have not read much into it yet--just the parts that pertain to me for now. I guess it's like everything else--we have to do what works for us. Since every book I have contradicts the other one, the trick is finding out what that is. :)

I know this isn't the most interesting post, but I am doing this as a journal to myself and for her to read when she's older. My goal is to take some fun pictures in the next week or 2 so I'll have more to post, but it's so hard to capture that smile! Hopefully she'll give me more of them!