The unfortunate thing about piecemeal motor skills

Growing is fun, and frustrating, judging by Gillian's general disposition as she learns new things and acquires new skills. She is now waving and pointing with purpose (the pointing is exciting for us, because now we can name what she is pointing at, which I assume will help with word-object associations). She likes nothing better than beginning a fresh morning with raiding her toy basket-it's like Christmas every day how she delights in pulling things out one by one, examining it intently, then putting it aside to pull out the next thing.

The recent challenge for her is that she has figured out how to sit up from a lying down position BUT cannot lie down from a sitting position. Since she learned to do this in her crib (we caught her red-handed holding onto the leg of one of the animals in her mobile, which was going "click-click-click" instead of rotating and playing music, sitting up and mighty proud of herself), it presents a problem. Especially when a) she doesn't feel like going to bed when she really should (she will sit up to play as soon as we leave the room, and then there is no way she can go to sleep, and re-entry to lay her back down gets her all excited thinking she's getting rescued); b) she wants to go to sleep but is sitting up and doesn't know how to lay down; and c) the very nice mobile is very long, and even with lowering her mattress, she can still grab it and eventually, we assume, she will break it.

This morning was very painful. She woke up very early and sat up and had to be put back down in a laying position; she woke for a second time at 4:15 (very early for her lately) and after nursing, we put her back in her crib. Within moments, we heard the tell tale "click-click-click" which told us she was not only sitting up, but torturing the mobile. I went in to try laying her back down and rubbing her back. Instead of being soothed to sleep, she pulled her knees under her belly and pushed up to sitting right there in front of me and raised her arms up and started pontificating. About what, I'm still not sure. I picked her up and brought her back to bed, where she yapped and yelled and sang and played with my hair and kicked both of our backs (we hoped by ignoring her, she would settle down). No dice. We tried giving her more milk. Nope. We tried rocking her and giving her more milk and putting her back in her crib. When I left a little after 6, she was in there yelling and yapping and singing, two hours+ after she awoke last. Probably as she was sitting up. And even if she wanted to go to sleep she probably couldn't. This will be one of my unfavorite phases, I can tell.

And to top if off, whining and low grade fever are back. Teeth or threat of teeth imminent. At least it seems like it. But, I have learned a little humility here- he who thinks he knows knows not and is delusional. Particularly in parenthood. It took 2 months between her first sure teething symtoms and teeth with the bottom two, so I'm not holding my breath.