gobbledygook: My little papoose

Over the last week or so, Emma has refused to sleep in her crib. It's her new thing. Whether we put her in awake, sleepy, or sound asleep, she instantly bursts into tears. She will sleep in our arms or in her swing, but as soon as her little head touches the crib mattress, forget about it. We're not sure if it's because she was sick and is still kind of cranky, or if it's just a new phase she's entering now that she's more aware of her surroundings. Either way, it's totally frustrating. We used to be able to swaddle her up, lay her down at the first sign of tiredness, put her mobile on, and she'd be asleep within minutes. Not anymore! We've spent hours consoling her, talking to her, begging her, bribing her, and trying everything else we could think of to get her to go back to her old ways. But she just won't give in.

After days of trial and error and much observation, we've realized that the joke is on us. When we put her to bed, Emma is clean, warm, well fed...what else could she want? The answer? She wants attention! Emma has finally learned that when she cries, Andrew and I will come to her rescue. When we walk over to the crib to console her, just our presence is usually enough to calm her down. And when we finally submit to picking her up, she's all smiles. So, even though it hurts us, we've finally started to let her cry it out. And low and behold, within a matter of minutes, the crying turns to fussing, then the fussing turns to sleep. Finally.

Anyway. The video below is the ultimate proof that we have been snowed by our darling little daughter. It's taken seconds (literally) after one of her "I don't wanna" crying fits in the crib. All I did was pick her up -- still swaddled -- and lift her up calling her "my little papoose." (A nickname given to her by my mom due to the swaddling.) Apparently Emma thinks the nickname (and perhaps the joke she's been playing on mommy and daddy) is funny, because she's laughing in the video. I'm glad we caught it on tape.