No sleep 'til london

Emmie’s all smiles, these days. Maybe it’s due to the holidays, or something, but she’s giving out these cheeky little grins with a generosity that rivals the reformed Ebenezer Scrooge. All you need to do is walk into a room and her eyes start to sparkle; the fact that she’s got no teeth only makes it cuter.

Better yet, the opposite rarely happens when you leave - Emmie’s been pretty good about entertaining herself in our absence. Dunno if this will change soon; I’m expecting it might, once she makes the cognitive leap towards ‘object permanence’ or whatever. But right now, things are pretty easy with her.

Sleep, however, remains the sore point. Emelyn simply isn’t a fan of the big doze. It’s hard to keep her down for more than 45 minutes if she’s alone, and she gets squirmy and fussy whenever her naps last less than that. Plus, getting her back to sleep once she’s up for more than 5 minutes is super-tough, so recent nightlife has consisted primarily of sitting quiet in the living room, and bolting up the stairs if we hear any noise from the bedroom. (No, no, we’re not taking a cry-it-out approach… not just yet. However, our attached neighbors move out in a week, so things may well change.)

The amusing bit, of course, is that we’re on an already-noisy street (and this is one thing that’ll be weird about returning to the US - the sonic buffer of a suburban front yard and a free-standing house will feel a bit eerie, I imagine) so we’re falling for a lot of false alarms. The cry of a cat, the squeal of a bike tire, the high-pitched giggle of pub-goers - they’ve all sent us running for the crib.

Not quite sure this is sustainable. We’ll see…