As difficult as it is normally to deal with Charlotte's erratic sleep habits, it's exponentially worse when handling it alone. No matter how frustrated I'm getting listening to her "cry it out" (ha!) or bending over her crib soothing her, I know that if I get too wiped out I can pass the baton to Jeff. It was very hard this morning after the third round of crying and soothing and waking up again to go back to our bedroom and see Jeff's side of the bed, neatly made. I was all alone with an unreasonable child.

Charlotte had three great nights of fairly difficult bedtimes but then sleeping through the night. That streak was broken Monday night, the last night Jeff was home before leaving for Honduras. Tuesday she woke up at 2:30 and went to sleep at 4. Last night she was up at 1:30 and finally dropped off at 5.

When I look at that time span (3 1/2 hours!) I'm amazed I held it together as well as I did. I freaked out at one point, yelled at her ("go to sleep!") and then left the room and called my parents. My dad, for the record, sounds very lucid on the phone at 2:30 a.m. central time. Even though I still had an hour and a half of work ahead of me after I got off the phone with him, I felt better--comforted, less alone.

And this morning, after my piddly two and a half hours of sleep, my friend Wendy was kind enough to come over and watch Charlotte while I took a nap. I woke up feeling refreshed, even though I'm pretty sure I was dreaming about my new career as a car thief.

What will I do if she does this every single night? Just keep working, crying, and calling when need be, I guess. It's all I can do.