Night terrors

We almost went to Austin to visit my family for the 3-day weekend but a 30 minute uncharacteristic scream fest from Anna Friday night on top of the night terrors and car seat crankiness made us re-think the situation. That plus I get on a plane first thing tomorrow morning and this is Paul's first weekend back since Cowboy College. The best thing was for us to just stay put this time for 3 days of much needed down time around the house.

For some reason she's been falling asleep on the car rides home from school since I've given her paci back, and when I take her out of the car seat, she continues to sleep in the house. Hard. There are 2 things that worry me about this:

1) She NEVER NEVER sleeps in the car seat.
2) Of the 4 times I can count that she HAS ever fallen asleep in the car seat, she immediately awakens in the transition when we try to move her to her bed. Nap over. Check.

So the fact that she's falling asleep in the short ride home from school combined with the night terrors (once to twice per week) worries me a little. I hope it's all just a phase maybe having to do with cognitive development or the molars and it'll just pass. I've read they're associated with changes in sleeping patterns (not getting enough, overtired, etc) but we haven't changed her routine or anything. Everything I've read on night terrors says they can pass over the course of several weeks. Can I take that literally because it's already been four weeks?

They start always around the same time every night, after the first 2-3 hours of sleep. She sits up, screams and cries, and when we try to comfort her, her eyes are open and she pushes us away. Oh yeah, she also kicks and flails like we're pissing her off even more. I've read to just let her be till it stops. It's true: every time Paul tries to comfort her with words or songs or anything, she starts up even louder. If you just sit by the bed for the 5-15 minutes this lasts, she'll eventually just stop and lay down and go back to sleep. It's really weird. I'm getting used to them but they still are unsettling to Paul. He still tries to comfort her to no avail. Still, I'm going to put a call in to the pedi just to make sure we're not missing something.

In fact, it's like we're trying to keep her awake all the time in the car seat now since we've given her paci back. It's weird.

Again, like everything else, I'm sure it's just a phase.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I get to go to Colorado! Well, it's just over night and it'll suck without Anna and Paul but I'm on the Colorado State University Advisory Board for the College of Biomedical Engineering and our agenda looks like we're going to get so much accomplished in the entire day we're meeting. So I'm excited to make some headway. And to visit my old university campus.

This is how my future will go, you see:
I probably have about 10 more years here at NASA before moving on to become a professor at CSU. Just when we'll get settled into Fort Collins, I'll get a call from NASA to be an astronaut. I wish it wouldn't be in that order, but since it's how I see it in my mind, this is how it will go. It's so darned inconvenient. But I guess I'll cross that road when I get there.

Now I need to go find a blackberry cobbler recipe that I can make really quickly. This is precious Anna nap time...