Bugger off, sleep, who needs you anyway?

I've heard of Ambien, and have seen women gulping Benadryl in the airport bathroom and popping pills as the flight attendants teach us how to use our seat belts, but it wasn't until Anika that I realized the temptation of these sleeping drugs.  Not that I would ever drug my child, mind you, but oh how I have wished desperately for an on/off switch.  The other day, we tried for six hours -- SIX HOURS -- to get down for a nap.  I could've napped about twelve times during that six hours, but Anika stayed strong, laughing in sleep's face (well, actually, she was mostly crying, to be honest), and you can imagine that my patience (what little there is of it) left the building long before that six hours was up.  I tried every trick in every sleep book and online posting that I could find, short of giving her camomile tea or other weird home remedy concoctions or OTC drugs.  She needs to learn to sleep on her own, and the cry-it-out method has resulted so far in the following:  Anika, 1,000 points for stamina and 500 points for authenticity; Mom, zero points for failing to produce any sleep outside of my own arms, and negative 20 points for that call to Aunt Becca where I unceremoniously bitched for twenty minutes.

On Friday, a friend gave me this book on a cry-free method to attain sleep, and you want to know something ironic?  I have been doing everything that book says.  The routines, the setting baby down while asleep, the immediate responding and trying again and again and again and again to get her to lie down and stay there.  The blankie, the music, the shhhhh sounds: everything.  Glad I didn't actually have to buy the book, because it would've been a big waste of money.

Mando and I have concluded that Anika is a strong, independent personality, who happens to prefer sleeping whilst suction-cupped to her mom's body like a little monkey.

And you know what?  I kind of like it.  The snuggling, the sweetness of it all, the fact that I know she is alive and breathing and the joy I see in her face when she wakes up in the morning and sees her mom and dad next to her.  She is growing, she's healthy, and I shouldn't worry about the fact that she seems to need a lot less sleep than the "experts" say.

But oh, what I wouldn't give for a few hours each day to just recharge myself.  And perhaps a few less times of being kicked by her surprisingly strong legs in the middle of the night.  Little baby toes digging into your thighs is actually more painful than you'd think.