The other day, I had put my hair in Velcro rollers while Elliora was napping in the hope that I could coax my two-days-since-washing hair look a little more lively. When she woke up I had yet to take them out. Her reaction to seeing them when she woke up was pretty funny. First she was a little scared. Then, she realized it was still Mama under there.

See how she’s patting my chest? She does that when she’s happy and I’m holding her. It’s like her way of saying, I got my mama riiiight here, it’s all good.

I see these things on your head, Mother. Whatever could they be for?

And there you are in the mirror, with those funny things still on your head.

Wait, am I freaked out by this? Hmm, perhaps I am….nah, I’m not. It’s just funny.

pretty: I like playing with the shutter speed when there’s a fountain around. This one is in the main park in Erin and Rocco’s downtown.

happy: Annalie loved this ziplining thing on the playground in the same park. She went on it over and over and over again. There was a similar piece of playground equipment on the playground at our old church in Maryland, and she loved that one too. And she was pleased as punch with herself when she was able to go all the way across the rings on her own.

funny: Silly ice-cream posers. And goofball me, posing on Annalie’s scooter with Elliora on my back.

real: This is what happens when you accidentally fall asleep with wet hair when you’re putting the baby to bed for her afternoon nap.

Pretty, happy, funny, real is about capturing the context of contentment in everyday life. Via girlwithgreencard.

This little punk is in the thick of the eight-month sleep regression. Basically, her brain and body are in overdrive, learning and perfecting new skills like waving hello,

crawling,

pulling herself up,

and standing.

Not to mention all the teething that’s been going on.

Clementines make good teethers. Also limes.

With a nod to Jen.

Her two top teeth and two more on the bottom are working on poking through her gums, too. They haven’t popped through yet but we’ve been able to feel how swollen her gums have been in those spots.

And then of course there’s the fact that we just got home from three weeks in California and Oregon, which means she’s three time zones off schedule. And we’re back at home with our cats (exciting!) and all the toys that she hasn’t seen for ages (whee!) and all this familiar furniture she’s apparently been dying to pull herself up on for ages because as soon as we set her on the floor that’s what she immediately does every time (ZOMG being vertical is AWESOME!1!!).

There are many, many reasons for her to be having trouble sleeping easily and peacefully right now, is what I’m saying. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating to live through.

Last night, after three hours of me and Troy taking turns trying to gently parent Elliora to sleep—rocking, back-patting, nursing, walking, singing, etc.—we gave up and brought her out to the living room to play happily with her toys while we watched TV, exhausted. She went to bed with us an hour later.

Tonight she took a one-hour nap at 8 o’clock, fooling us into thinking maybe she was going to sleep better. Hahahaha, what suckers we are. She woke up at 9. Around 11 we brought her out to the living room to play while we caught up on White Collar. (Do you watch? We love that show. It seems to get better every season, doesn’t it?) She managed to keep herself awake and relatively happy till 1:30am. That would be 10:30pm PDT, which would still be at least two hours later than she ever stayed up when we were on vacation.

Babies, man. They’re so unpredictable. At least my babies are when it comes to sleep. Oh well. It won’t be too much longer and she’ll be sleeping peacefully again, I’m sure. By then I’ll probably be spending my days chasing her around and cursing our lack of child-proofing, wishing she were still trying to figure out how to stand up.