For the Love of Pete, Sleep!

Stella suddenly refuses to take naps. She's almost always been a sleep-fighter during the day, but now it's reached epic proportions. Sunday she didn't sleep at all from 2:30-8:30pm, and Tim finally got her to sleep by sheer force. He has much more patience for rocking her bassinet and saying "shhh" over and over again than I do. I spent the entire afternoon trying to put her down, then picking her back up when she would cry. He finally took over at 8:30 and, hallelujah, she slept! I guess I should consider myself lucky that she sleeps through the night beautifully. We put her down about 10pm, sometimes earlier if she's fussy, I usually wake her up just before I go to bed to feed her, about 11 or 11:30 (although not always, it depends on how long it's been since her last feeding), and then she sleeps until about 5:30am. Then she goes back to sleep usually until 8:30am, which is earlier than I like, but I'm able to get a good 5 or 6 hours in a row, which rocks. But oh, those naps, she just doesn't want to take them! I was reading reviews of sleep books on Amazon, which left me more confused than when I started. They really are more geared towards babies that don't sleep at night rather than ones that don't sleep during the day. And I hate parenting books because they are usually so "all or nothing". The only ones I've read are "What to Expect the First Year", T. Berry Brazelton's book, I can't remember the name of, and The American Academy of Pediatrics. Those are all pretty unjudgemental and "just the facts, mam".
I'm sad too because my card reader will not work. That's why there haven't been any new pictures of Stella posted for a few weeks. We did get portraits taken at Sears Saturday, which is where the shots at the top came from. I can't believe the Sears website allows you to save those. I'm totally "breakin' the law, breakin' the law!" They turned out really great, I can't wait to get the prints.
Last night we had an awesome July 4th party. A bunch of folks came over and we had beer, barbecue and breastfeeding. Ah, what a difference a year makes. Last July 4th we were all at Tim's old company's July 4th party watching the fireworks. There was beer and barbecue, although I had no beer then. I had just read The Fastest Way to Get Pregnant Naturally and I was following his instructions to be a teetotaler. And little did I know, I was just a wee bit pregnant. Stella was a tiny developing speck! That's so crazy to think about.