Good girl

Tonight, Ava reached a milestone: She put herself to sleep in her crib without any fuss.

At 8+ months, I'm sure there are plenty of babies who have mastered this skill weeks (months?) ago. I don't know who these angelic, magical creatures are, but I'm sure they exist.

But who cares about them?

My kick-ass baby reached this kick-ass milestone and I'm thrilled.

The night started out rather ominously. Dave's been in India for a few days, so Baby Girl and I were on our own... and she was NOT tired when bedtime rolled around. I saw the writing on the wall: a difficult bottle feeding with bloody-murder screams when I tried to burp her, an hour of rocking her in a feeble attempt to get her drowsy, another hour standing over her crib patting her back to keep her calm and quiet, another several hours of going in and out of her room when she cries on and off until midnight.

That's when I decided NO. No, we are not doing that.

So, instead of letting her scream-cry as I waited and waited for a tiny burp, I continued with the feeding .

Instead of rocking her for an hour while she did everything but get tired, I rocked her for maybe 10 minutes.

Instead of waiting until she was damn near asleep to put her in the crib, I dumped her little butt in there wide awake.

Instead of patting her back to lull her into dreamland, I bolted out of the room while she wasn't paying attention.

And then I waited. I made myself some dinner, fixed my broken DirecTV, fed the dogs and downloaded some Mad Men. Ava, on the other hand, crawled all over her crib. She stood up, she fucked with the baby cam, she rolled, she babbled, she slapped things... But she didn't cry. And somehow, some way, she was suddenly quiet.

I couldn't see what was happening, thanks to her baby-ninja skills with the camera, so I made a risky decision. I decided to sneak into her room to see what was going on.

I opened the door and it made a loud noise as it scraped against the frame. I froze and waited for the wail... Nothing.

I peeked in and saw a peacefully sleeping baby.

Is that MY baby?

My baby just put herself to sleep?

Without me doing anything?

Shock.

She was out cold by 8:15. Even if she wakes up 50 times later tonight, I still consider this a big freakin' deal. She is capable to going to bed on her own. And I am capable of enjoying it while it lasts.