Just goes to show, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about...

There is a guy in my office whose wife just gave birth to a sweet little baby girl two weeks ago.  And like any new parent, he's been walking around the office in a fog this week, as said sweet little baby girl doesn't go to bed until midnight, and follows that up with middle of the night wake-up calls at 2-ish, 4-ish, and 6-ish.  As the most recent new parent on our floor, he stopped by my desk yesterday, looking for reassurance that it does, in fact, get better at some point.

I told him, of course, that it does.  I told him how Brigid started sleeping for six hours at a time before she was six weeks old.  I told him that now, she refuses to be rocked to sleep.  Once we finish her pre-bedtime routine, she starts reaching for her crib, and she is not happy until she can curl up into a little ball, put her thumb into her mouth, and put herself to sleep.  I think he went away knowing that there is a light at the end of the sleepless tunnel, but not feeling any better about the fact that he was currently in that sleepless tunnel.  And I smugly congratulated myself on surviving that time period, as well as birthing the most independently awesome sleeper of a kid that I could have imagined.  Even as I was getting her ready for bed last night, I was idiotically thinking how happy I was to be beyond the point when I had to hope she'd go down for the night without too much fuss because she always went down for the night without too much fuss.

So, it should come as no real shock that last night, things didn't go remotely as well as they normally do.  I'm talking full on screaming coming from that child for absolutely no reason that I could discern.  She does not scream uncontrollably.  She cries sometimes, yes.  She throws a little fit now and then.  But, generally, we know how to calm her down, how to quiet the complaints.  Last night, there was nothing I could do to stop it.  I finally managed to calm her with a lot of walking, a lot of rocking, and a monkey lovey that I actually let her sleep with for the entire night.  Although Steve has been of the mindset that she's old enough to sleep with something in her crib, whether it's a lovey or a blanket,I've been a little hesitant to start something that didn't seem necessary.  Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, and other such cliches, and last night I gave in. 

And once again, I was reminded that I know absolutely nothing about baby sleep habits and that Brigid possesses some kind of super power that dings every time I start getting too confident in my parenting skills.  Other things I  know nothing about?

*How do you stop a one-year old from sticking her finger up her nose and laughing hysterically at your disgust?

*How do you stop a one-year old from grabbing the poopy diaper out from under her while your changing it, leading to smeared poop on every surface of the changing table, as well as up her legs and on her stomach?

*How do you teach a toddler that giggling at her farts is not really something we should be doing?

*How do you convince a toddler's father that Oreos are not something that need to be introduced into her diet at this age?

*How do you ever hope to survive this whole raising a kid thing, and does it ever get any easier?

(If anybody has an answer to that last one, and the answer is no, could you just keep it to yourself?  I'd like to think I'll be a pro at this at some point, just to keep some semblance of sanity in my life.  Thanks!)