Night terrors
Last night while we were watching the evening news, Claire suddenly woke up screaming. It's not unusual for her to wake between 11 and midnight, cry for 10 seconds then fall back to sleep. But this was different--she wasn't crying the "I'm thirsty" or "I'm so tired" cry. She was really freaked out.

We went up to see what was the matter. Even when I held her she wouldn't stop crying. She didn't want a drink and wailed inconsolably regardless of which of us held her. I thought the two parent ruckus might be too much, so I sent Joel to bed and tried rocking Claire on the twin bed in her room. As soon as he shut the door, she screamed even louder and started kicking.

I started to worry that she had gas pain or some other health problem, so I switched on a table lamp with a low watt bulb that we keep in her room to get a better look. She seemed to calm down almost immediately.

It was a mommy Aha moment. My baby is becoming a toddler! She's now afraid of the dark.

When Joel had left the room, he'd cut the ambient light coming in from the next room. Ah.

I put Claire back in her crib and gave her her favorite blanket. She flopped sleepily on it and looked up at me as if to say, "what took you so long to make the bad dark to go away?"

Now she has her very own night light.

Next stop, tantrums and picky eating....