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I WILL NOT!






While Maddie’s nights are getting better (future blog on that still to
come – don’t want to jinx the no-hitter), she’s got this almost fear of
falling to sleep that she struggles with constantly, and has for months.

Madeleine
fights going to sleep like a woman struggling against drowning. The ocean
of sleep struggles to pull her under and she kicks and claws her way back
up, desperate not to succumb to its deadly lure. I’m not sure why, except
that she’s in hyper-drive every minute she’s awake and perhaps she doesn’t
want to miss anything.











Whatever the reason, though, she will physically wrestle with herself as
she goes to sleep. If she’s nursing at night or before a nap, her arms and
legs flail wildly; she’ll grab her feet and hang on tenaciously like
they’re a lifeline to wakefulness. She’ll make protesting noises in the
back of her throat and whimper as she realizes she’s no match for her foe.
And as suddenly as it begins – and it is sudden; she goes from a cuddly
nursing bunny to a wide-eyed desperado in seconds – the wrestling match is
over, she heaves a big sigh, and is out, limp in my arms.

If she’s
not nursing and we lie down for a nap together the struggle turns much
more vocal: she cries and screams like a tortured soul, fighting to roll
over and get up, to sit up, to do anything except lie there and fall
asleep. And as with nursing, she’ll abruptly throw in the towel with a
deflating breath, hurtling headlong into sleep without a backward glance.

And
here’s the weird thing: she regularly goes to bed at night wide awake.
She’ll nurse a bit, then roll herself off and fling an arm out with a
contented smile: happy to be full but ready to move on from Mommy. I’ll
put her in her crib, certain she’s going to start crying, and she’ll lie
there, perhaps talk and gurgle a bit, and then suddenly be asleep with
nary a wrestle.

I don’t know what’s going on, and why some nights
it’s a fight while others she looks to it eagerly. I love that part of her
personality, though, and imagine it’s something to do with how much she
loves life and how unwilling she is to miss even a second of it.

That,
and how much she loves hanging out with her uber-cool mom.

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