Penny slept through the night last night! I didn't think she would - she was sleeping pretty restlessly when Matt and I went to bed, so I was anticipating an early wake up, and possibly even more than one. But I woke up to look at the clock at 2:30, and again at nearly 4, and she didn't start talking to herself until just after our alarms went off at 6.

Of course, shortly after she was fed and dressed, she turned into the Baby Of Anger for no apparent reason. Given the choice between waking up for 20 minutes in the middle of the night, and a crying baby for an hour in the morning, I'd have to take the loss of sleep.

It didn't occur to me until I was halfway to work that maybe the reason for her anger was that the outfit I'd put her in today has some pretty stiff decorations sewn to it that might be a little scratchy on the inside. She was pretty angry about her Christmas outfit that had a lot of stuff appliquéd to it, too.

Something to remember, I guess.

Work was pretty annoying yesterday. We had a bunch of stuff to deliver, so like always, I spent most of the day twiddling my thumbs, puctuated with bursts of frenetic activity. I didn't leave the office until nearly six.

On the plus side, I managed to get quite a bit of writing done. Well, quite a bit for me lately. Even though Penny's not here to distract me, I seem less able to concentrate on things these days. Is it the persistently interrupted sleep? Or maybe it's just something that happens to parents.

When I wasn't writing or frantically trying to validate documents so we could get them out the door, I was trying to get my reservations straight for my trip to DC at the end of the month.

It was supposed to be straightforward. AmEx has a special corporate travel line we can call to make reservations for all kinds of travel things. I called the number, and was told that I had to set up my profile in their online database before they could process me. Couldn't I set up the profile over the phone? No.

And then the lady told me the wrong login userid, so I couldn't log in to set up my profile. I had to e-mail them for help and wait for a response. Then I had to log in, spend half an hour setting up the profile, and then call back to make the reservations.

I should've just made the damn reservations myself. Three nights in a hotel. It would've taken all of about two minutes.

(In case you haven't guessed, I'm not too terribly excited about this trip. I don't think the training is going to be an approach I can use, I'm more than a little nervous about leaving Matt and Penny for so long, I hate going to DC anyway, and did I mention I was nervous about leaving Penny for so long? All the reassurance in the world is not going to make me sleep any easier for those three nights.)

Ah, well. Life goes on. And I have paperwork yet to do.

--Liz