Just a quick note that we are still alive and relatively well.

I say "relatively" because Veronica has lost her schedule. See, for the past couple weeks, Jason and I could count on two things: Minimum two-hour naps, plus sleeping through the night from between 1-2 a.m. to 4:30-6 a.m. Veronica was even getting to a point where she was sleeping for 5.5-6 hours a stretch at night. It was glorious, especially in hindsight:

From Tuesday until today, Veronica has slept no more than 2 hours at any stretch, with most naps lasting a mere 15-30 minutes. In between these short sleeping sessions, she's been wide-awake, horribly gassy, spitting up, drooling, and just generally not feeling well. Last night she hit a 3.5 hour stretch, with another one today, which makes me hopeful she's getting her groove back. This will mean she's not so exhausted, but lord knows that Jason and I need it just as much as she does.

In the meantime, I am grateful to Jason for giving me a "night off" - two now, counting tonight, and most likely tomorrow night as well. This means that he's on baby duty and I am not to be awakened unless it's absolutely necessary (which is what I do for him on work nights). And we actually got to go out to dinner on Tuesday evening, courtesy of my friend Colleen and her boyfriend Sam - they babysat her for an entire evening. Carlos is coming down tomorrow night and might even watch her so that we may catch a movie; even if he doesn't, the company will do us some good (as have other visits from friends, both local ones and long-distance, as my friend Carrie was here a spell on Sunday.) Although Veronica is a very good baby, and we love her very much, I can't say I'm sorry to get away from the stress and fatigue for a while, hoping tonight to get enough sleep so that I can finish sentences and no longer trip over my own feet from utter exhaustion.