Tonight went much like last night. Only later, but that's because Kara came home late from bookclub. She also nursed Katherine an extra time, but basically Katherine's sleeping like a dreamboat.

I on the other hand, inflicted the torture that is internationally renowned actor Christopher Lambert on a pool co-worker who won the prize in a raffle. Yes, the management team at my company raffled off prizes for Christmas involving activities for each manager. The unlucky employee who drew me (and who's name will be protected here, we'll call him, Bartholemew), the prize was either me shoveling him out of a storm, or dinner and watching a bad movie. Well, there ain't no snow, and he rents, so tonight we watched Fortress 2: Re-Entry, which is now on DVD with Dolby 5.1 sound in letterbox format, of course. Did I mention that this employee will probably not enter any more raffles? Yes, well, hey, at least the pizza was good.

After a tense day, we had a breakthrough. Kara has been increasingly anxious about how to handle bedtime. I know I can't understand what it means for her when the baby is crying bloody murder. It doesn't affect me in the same way. Anyway, she called me during the day, because she talked to our doctor's office, and they basically told us that having her cry for an hour and checking in on her was the wrong thing to do at this age. They said we should not allow her to cry that long, and give her plenty of support, rock her, etc.

So Kara was pretty freaked out, because she's thinking, how on earth is this child going to fall asleep, and how have I permanently damaged her by letter her cry all that time. So I calmed her down. And tonight was a breeze.

I had a few errands to run after dinner, so I fed her, and then went out. Kara gave her a bath, and she was really, really tired by this point (after 9:30, I think). So we sat down to watch a few shows on TV, and let her fall alseep. I held her during this time, and she woke up a few times, but she basically slept. Then, at 10:30, we both went upstairs. I put her down in the crib, and rubbed her head. Kara put the covers over her. She stayed asleep, we left. End of story.

Totally awesome. No crying, no nuthin. She's still sleeping up there now, and we are very happy campers.

It was another hour-long night of crying baby this evening. She was really tired, but we just couldn't get to to sleep. We did two things differently, though. First, we stayed with her after we put her in the crib, and tried to comfort her. Second, we went in every ten minutes instead of every five. Neither seemed to help all that much, although her crying had a different pattern this evening. Basically, though, she falls asleep when she is so exhausted from crying that she literally can't stay awake. She'll stop crying for just a second, and then fall alseep in that instant. In fact, yesterday, she stopped crying, fell asleep, rolled her head to the side, dropped the pacifier out of her mouth from her muscles going limp all in just a few seconds. I'm a bit worried about it, but she's been super great during the day. I think the extra sleep she's now getting is really helping. So we'll keep at it.

Oh, and one other thing. Yesterday, I was able to clear out our bedroom. I took out the co-sleeper, all the blankets, toys, and burp cloths, and we now have a real bedroom again, which is a wonderful feeling. The rocker is in the nursery. The nightlights are gone. And suddenly our bedroom seems huge. Very, very nice.

Last night went OK. It took her a long time to fall asleep - almost an hour. Part of the problem was that after about a half hour, I went in during one of the five minute checks, and I could smell her diaper from across the room. It was then that I made a tactical mistake. I changed the diaper, yes, but I didn't do it in the right way. The way you're supposed to do it, is to be very quiet, professional, and business-like, if that's possible, wiping the butt of an 11 week old baby. But I talked to her, and laughed, and was generally very unprofessional. I can't help it, because for some twisted reason, she likes to have her diaper changed. She starts smiling and cooing the moment you get her on the changing table. It's really very cute. Also, I didn't know that I was supposed to be boring about it, but apparently that helps the baby not get too excited, and is less disruptive to her falling asleep. So we effectively doubled the amount of time it took, almost an hour.

About 15 minutes or so after she went down, we started to hear little noises, so Kara went up and sat with her, and then fed her. The really nice part is that she fell right back asleep after nursing with no crying. She was barely awake during the nursing, according to Kara. She went to sleep this time around 10:45. So Kara and I went to bed, basically. She slept until 6AM or so, when Kara nursed her again, but again, she fell right back asleep afterwards. And she was still asleep when I left at 8:15.

So the getting her to sleep part really is sucking, but once she's asleep, it is going great. Kara and I are both feeling kindof strange about it, though, because we don't really know what the process of having her cry herself to sleep for an hour is teaching her, but we're sticking with it.

We saw Millie today for lunch, which was really nice. She's been sick, and so we haven't taken Katherine to see her. But she's been feeling better, so we went over today. She looked good. She was drinking on her own, and ate a pretty good lunch.

Today was a pretty quiet day, mostly we did chores and stuff. I feel pretty adult these days, what with all the laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc. There's something about being a parent that makes that stuff all kick in I guess. Anyway, based on the experience of the last two nights, we are trying to put Katherine down, um, right about now, actually, so I really gotta run. She's been acting really tired. So Kara did some things to wear her out, and now it's time to give this puppy a try. We'll see how long she sleeps, or how undisturbed. Given how smooth the last two nights have been, tonight will be the night she wakes up every hours, and I'll be a mess for work tomorrow.

Miracle of miracles. Not only did Katherine not wake up to eat last night, she didn't really wake up at all. Kara woke up around 7:30 this morning, and, of course, rushed into the nursery to see if Katherine was still alive (a pretty common paranoia amongst new parents, I'm sure), and found Katherine happily sleeping away. She slept until around 8 AM, when I think Kara woke her up. So she slept for 9 hours, and didn't eat for 12 hours. That's pretty unbelievable for a less than three month old baby. Kara is still very apprehensive about the whole thing, and I keep telling her, man, if you told most parents of an 11 week old baby that your baby could go 12 hours without nursing, and sleeps 9 hours a night, they'd want to kill you.

Keep your fingers crossed, knock on wood, and all that crap. It's still only day two.