Good lord

I think there's a day when it hits you that you are fully responsible for taking care of a baby. You would think that would happen when the nurse hands her to you for the first time, but I think the human mind is a little more complex than that.

I think the enormity of the responsibility finally sunk in last night, when I couldn't coax her to sleep to save my life. She was only cranky for two brief periods of time. The rest of it, she was just alert and not ready to sleep. I, on the other hand, was REALLY ready to sleep. Maybe the whole thing doesn't hit you until the first time you have to completely reconfigure your own needs because the baby needs something different from you. All she needed was someone to stare at and make her feel safe, and that was the moment I went from being someone's daughter to someone's mother.

Or maybe I'm being melodramatic. It could be the sleep deprivation talking, but she's napping now and I think if I put the laptop down, I should be able to catch up now.

Of course, if she keeps making those little cooing noises, it may have to wait while I stay up to listen to them.