The last 24 hours or so have been, all in all, pretty damned cool. Couple of little bumps, but nothing awful, and some pretty great highs.

High: Penny was in a really fantastic mood pretty much all day. She was cool and talking to herself at 6 when our alarms went off, and she stayed cool while I took my pills and fixed her bottle. She held the bottle wings and more or less fed herself while I checked my mail. She got a little fussy as we strapped her into her carseat, but Matt said she cooled down before he even got to the end of our driveway. She was in a good mood after she got home in the evening, happy and ready to play.

I remember thinking, It's days like this that make the screaming and crying days worthwhile.

Low: She got hysterical when Matt tried to put her to bed last night, and it took him a good twenty minutes to actually get her asleep in the crib.

High: She slept through the night again! That's five nights running - I'm almost thinking we can begin to count on it!

Low: She slept very restlessly, twitching and grunting and scratching at the sheets and bumper (scratching - with a single fingernail - is one of her new tricks). And since she'd gone down so hard, I was positive she was about to wake up at any moment. I woke up at least five times during the night and was awake for five to ten minutes, listening to the baby monitor and wondering if she was about to wake up and start screaming. It made for a rough morning for Mommy.

High: Matt, awesome amazing husband and father that he is, volunteered to get up right at six and take the baby, since he'd slept well, so I could get another little bit of sleep. While I snoozed for another fifteen or twenty minutes and then dawdled in the shower, he fed Penny, got our lunches out of the fridge, got Penny's bottles in her lunchbox, wrote checks for the daycare and cleaning service, and got Penny changed and dressed. He is SuperDad!

Low: The daycare requested yesterday that we start sending more bottles in with Penny, because she was getting hungry before their usual 2-hour feeding mark. I've talked about this before. Matt and I conferenced, and I called the pediatrician's office for advice, and we've got a list of things to try before we let them feed her even more often. Since it looks like she's forgoing her middle of the night feeding now, I'll stop diluting the bottles. If that doesn't work, we'll increase them from 4 to 6 ounces, and ask the daycare to please try to feed her on a 3-hour schedule instead of 2. And if that doesn't work, we'll up her from one solid meal a day to two, and start sending a little pre-mixed cereal in for her. We were going to hold off on adding a second meal to her day until she's six months, but she's eating so well, I don't think it'll be a problem if we have to go a bit early on that, too.

High: Matt had a friend back in Illinois, Ted, who made the greatest mix tapes ever. Matt still listens to them now, even though he hasn't seen Ted since college, and only corresponded irregularly. Yesterday when I got home from work, there was a package in the mail from Ted - two mix CDs, complete with custom covers. One of them revisits the very first mix tape Ted ever made for Matt; the other is dedicated to Penny. (Amusingly, the CD for Penny has something like five tracks in common with the CD I made for her just before she was born.) Matt was very, very excited and happy.

High: Papa John's pizza for dinner! Whoo! (Do not underestimate the effects of really good pizza on my mood. I'm addicted to Hawaiian pizza, and Papa John's has the best crust ever.)

High: The Hall was pretty sedate last night, but I'm glad it's up and running again. Penny's schedule even means that we both get to play, though one of us has to log in a little late. (Penny usually goes to bed between 8:15 and 8:30, and the Hall starts at 8.)

High: Penny's rolling over! Her very first roll-over was several weeks ago, but she never did it again, so I chalked it up to a fluke. When Matt got Penny home from daycare yesterday, he said they'd told him she'd rolled over a few times. I wondered if they were talking about the half-roll she's been doing for two months now, but when we were playing on the floor last night I got to see it for myself. She rolled over for me twice last night, and once again this morning. It's very precise and deliberate: Twist torso; flip leg up and over; twist hips until foot hits the floor; move arm out of the way; twist torso the rest of the way. I was so excited, I called my mother. (She wasn't home, and I had to leave a message. Alas.) Matt has yet to see it, alas. (The problem now is that while she can roll from her back onto her stomach, she has yet to figure out how to go from her stomach to her back - and she gets very angry if she's on her stomach for too long.)

Hip-hip-hooray for a really good day!

--Liz