Held Against My Will

Tonight I was held against my will.  Sort of.

Let's go back a bit, to last night.  When we went to put Little Miss to bed like we always do, she started to cry.  Occasionally she will cry for a couple of minutes, but it's gotten pretty rare since she discovered how much she loves her Fisher Price projector/music box.

After a couple of minutes I looked at my dear hubby and we tried to figure out if Little Miss would settle on her own.  Just then she began to shriek, an angry, upset cry/scream somewhat exorcist-like.  We figured that she was NOT going to sleep just yet, so the hubs heated a bottle and went to get her.  She drank up her bottle and then was super alert and giggly.  To be honest we had a lot of fun with her as she giggled and played for another hour.

She eventually went to sleep but dear hubby had to rock her to get her to settle.  We've not had to do this as a regular thing before, so we just figured her teeth (or lack thereof) were bothering her.

Well, tonight told us that it might be starting a habit.  She only got a short nap in the car this afternoon and was rubbing her eyes by 6pm.  In order for mommy to not have to rise and shine at 4am (good times people), we try to keep her up until 7pm at the very least, if not a bit later.  She had her bottle and was sleepy, but again woke right up when she heard my voice.  Daddy spent some time with her and was able to get her to stay up until 7:40pm which is awesome.  He put her down like always and left the room...and the crying began.  It started as the tired, moan like crying that we generally ignore and it usually turns to whimpers and then sleep.  Not tonight.  It went on and on and on and on...it outlived the energizer bunny for sure.

We haven't really developed a 'plan of action' (which we need to do for consistency) so when dear hubby went upstairs he took her out of her crib and put her on the floor with him to play.  She began to scream again.  I decided to keep her in her room in the dark and rock her for a bit.  It's not a habit we want to get into, but gosh it's nice to get a little snuggle and baby falling asleep on you!  Until I realized that I could not put her down.  As I settled in to rock my sweetie, I didn't notice that she somehow wound her fingers around my necklace and held on for dear life.  Once she fell asleep, I went to stand and noticed her fist around my necklace, and went to gently move it.  Nope.  She had me in a death grip.  I tried to gently pry her fingers off of it to no avail.  I started to giggle as I realized that I probably could have let go of Little Miss and she'd have hung by her one little fist on my necklace.  The visual was just too much!

It took me almost 10 minutes to forcefully gently pry her teeny fingers one by one off of my chain.  As each finger was peeled away, it would immediately curl up in a fist like motion again, which made getting the next one off a bit more difficult!  Eventually I pried her off of me and gently placed her in her crib.

Now off to strategize with my hubby as to how to avoid making this a nightly routine!