We got the baby to sleep through the night. It’s been a week now. How did we achieve this stunning victory after eight months of me feeding her 2-3 times a night, and then picking her up and putting HRH back in the crib because OH NO, she didn’t want to SLEEP with us…she only wanted to suck on me and then be deposited back in her bed, where she would wake up again three hours later. That sentence did not actually end up being a question like I thought it was going to, but ANYWAY, it was tiny tyranny over here!

So one night, as we were trying to ignore her piteous howling because she didn’t need anything, it was the middle of the night, and she had already been fed, I snapped. I picked up my pillow and escaped to the living room. My companion was wide-awake-but-playing-dead next to me, so he immediately got hip and followed me with his pillow and our blanket. She cried for a loooong time, but eventually we slept.

And now we have been sleeping for a few nights, and we feel much better. Our light-sleeping Strudel is no longer disturbed by us rolling over, breathing, or GOD FORBID attempting to fight crime in our own bed. There’s nothing like that little head appearing over the side of the crib to make you knock that shit off real quick. I can see the furious look in her angry little eyes: “Mother. You weren’t attempting to provide me with COMPETITION, were you, MOTHER?” (Answer: HELL NAW.)

The trade-off for having her sleep eleven hours (THANK YOU, Giant Opinionated Head of Kanye West) is that we are now fully stuck on my companion’s futon from Ye Olde Wild Bachelor Bill days. I think you could probably guess, without me telling you, that it is not long enough for our legs, and that I can feel every slat under the “mattress”. On the other hand, the living room faces the East, so we wake up to the sun now, which is nice. So this is something to do now, until we get a bigger place in a couple of months, and it’s fine.

HOWEVER, what is NOT fine is the fact that my period has come back now that I’ve had a hormone decrease due to nursing less. So, still nursing, and more frequently during the day since there’s less nursing at night. Today I had to dust off the old menstrual cup and saddle up.

Which reminds me of when I was a checker at a grocery store during college…. Sometimes I would end up having really intimate conversations with women while checking their groceries. I would never initiate these conversations, but sometimes women, usually young ones like me, wanted to ask my opinions on certain products. Tampons or pads would roll down the belt–“Have you used these? What do you think?”–and it would come out that I used neither, because I only used a non-disposable rubber cup. They would think about this information for a few seconds.

“Is there an applicator?” I remember one asking.

“No, you just fold it up, and put it in. It’s easy.”

I could see she was having trouble controlling the look of disgust on her face. “But…you must get blood on your hands.”

“Yeah, sometimes. It’s not a big deal. I’m not really afraid of what comes out of my own body.” I smiled as I handed her the receipt.

She took her bags and stalked off, looking troubled.

This was in Phoenix, where a lot of young people wear tiny-ass clothes, because it’s fucking hot as hell, and everyone’s pretty tan anyway. A higher level of skin exposure than someplace cooler, like Seattle, is pretty much the norm. I sized her up as she walked out of the store. She looked like your standard issue Phoenix chick–short shorts, tan as hell, glossy dagger nails, and a tank top. She looked like she was at least in her late teens and if I had to guess I would say she was probably sexually active.

Okay, I know this is a little apples-to-oranges here, but stick with me. More than once I have revealed what I do about my period and have encountered that “EW EW blood” attitude from women who had boyfriends (and in one case, a husband). So it’s okay to let your fella repeatedly jam his penis into you, but you can’t reach in and fish out a little rubber cup? WHAT? Dude, don’t even talk to me about unsanitary, you penis-jammer.

I’m not at home nights, you know, all smearing my glorious female essence on my chakras or anything, but it’s your body. Get comfortable in it to the point where, if you had to, you could reach up there and find that missing Barbie head or button or whatever. I’m just saying.