*Asterisks Will Be Needed

It seems clear that I will need to add the following addendum to every post:

"*Noa reserves the right to change her mind, her behavior, her routines, and her mood at her will. Furthermore, Noa does not bear the responsibility of notifying parents of said changes.
Parents willingly assume the duty of keeping up with said changes and surrender the right to go back to the way things "used to be"."

With that said, Noa did not want to go down for her nap in the "usual" way, choosing to cry when we put her in the swing. Instead, she wanted more awake time, and then a long walk, during which she fell asleep in the baby bjorn on her daddy's chest when we were at the end of the 2-plus mile route. We worried for a second that Jeremy would be held captive if we were going to keep her asleep. but as it turned out, we transitioned her easily to the swing and she is sleeping peacefully.

Here is a shot of her asleep at the end of the walk:




I just cannot get enough of this sweet face. Aaaahhhh. Anyway, where was I?

Noa's sleep routines are changing fast. Like I said, it seems like she is more or less accustomed to a morning nap, and she will sleep for 2 hours or so most times* (see disclaimer above).

Anyhow, for the last week, the nighttime sleeping has been more tricky, and she is waking up more, wanting to eat and cuddle. She is actually able to sleep through most of her agitation, but I am not, and this sleep deprivation has taught me a few interesting things:

1. That the smell of days- old baby puke on the sheets actually smells a lot like fish-food flakes

2. That evolution seems to be on a coffee break where human mothers and babies are concerned, because if it were still looking for things to improve upon, I dare say the following might have been changed by now:

a) babies would no longer need to sleep so lightly because there is little risk of being picked off by a hungry hyena in the middle of the night, hence, very little need to be able to wake up at a moments notice to climb a tree for safety

b) dads would lactate too, 'nuff said

c) moms would be able to breastfeed while lying comfortably on their stomachs, instead of that side-lying nonsense which strains hips and necks, and encourages dads to take up more bed space

3. That when you are seriously sleep-deprived, at those times when you actually DO get some sleep, your brain prioritizes REM, or dreaming sleep, and so I am now having upwards of seven or eight really strange dreams every night. Sometimes I am only asleep for 20 minutes, and the only way I know for sure that I slept at all is that I was just bear hunting with friends from high school. The dreams can be fun, and it is great that I am getting sleep at all, but the downside is that when I do wake up, I don't feel that well-rested because my dreaming self is so darned busy. The worst is when I dream that I wake up and feed her and put her back to sleep, and then I wake up and realize it was just a dream and that I need to feed her again.

If I could just dream that I am sleeping....................................................