where there's a will, there ain't nothing else

maple and mama
Originally uploaded by maple's mama.

When she was very little, Maple went with the flow. She slept and ate and talked and played whenever the mood struck her. But at six months, we have started setting our watches to her patterns.

She likes to nap at 10am and 3pm, and be in bed by 7pm and up at 7am. If we're out of the house past her bedtime, she whines and moans until we deliver her to bed. She has also discovered that sleeping at night is an evil that must be avoided at all costs. During the daytime, she goes to sleep without much of a fuss, but at night she wails for about half an hour before begrudgingly giving over to unconsciousness. Fortunately she doesn't have a problem staying asleep for most of the night, but getting there is as frustrating as a prozac orgasm.

For a while I was worried that something was wrong (okay, so I still am). Is the mattress is giving her brain cancer? Or is the polyester in her fleece pajamas leaching contaminants into her bloodstream? But Papa, who is always a voice of reason around here, asserts that she is just getting older and smarter and is resisting sleep -- perhaps out of a fear of missing out on something fun. She seems pretty happy most of the time except for bedtime, so it is probably not a big deal. We just lay on the bed with her and rub her back while she shatters glasses and attracts all the neighborhood cats. When she finally falls asleep, the entire street applauds.

We are making slow but steady progress on weaning. We had to back up a bit a couple of weeks ago, after two nights of sheer torture when we tried to bottlefeed her for her first nighttime feeding, but she seems to be doing well and we'll try it again soon. She has also developed a pathological obsession with bananas. She loves them, but refuses to eat anything else. We tried applesauce, but she turned into Jim Carrey ("The Mask") and whipped her head back into the high chair to escape the tartness. Then this morning we tried rice cereal. After two bites she started to cry, so I tried a bite to see what all the fuss was about. Let me say for the record that I have no idea why any creature would eat something so despicable. We threw the entire box right into the trash. So for now we will keep feeding bananas to our sweet little monkey. I think next week we'll introduce her to the world of happy fats with a bit of avocado.