This has been a terribly difficult week with the baby. I guess we should be happy that she is sleeping through the night and sometimes even as long as nine hours straight. But even nine hours of sleep doesn't seem to help with the crying. She cries all the time.

For a parent it is heart-wrenching when you don't seem to be able to help your child. At first it is probably gas that makes her cry and as that keeps her from sleeping the crying escalates the more tired she gets. And from that point onwards we take turns walking around the house, rocking the baby every possible way to keep her quiet at least for a while. Yesterday she only kept quiet in my arms when I kept walking. If I stopped even for a little moment, she opened her eyes and the screaming began again. If I sat down the same happened, even if I kept rocking her when I sat. I should probably put on my pedometer every morning and check how many kilometers the baby makes me walk.

Since the Oscars and Independent Spirit Awards I've been dying to get back to my script writing. But the baby has made perfectly sure that I don't have a minute for myself during her waking hours and by the time she falls asleep for the night I'm so exhausted that the only thing in my mind is sleep. But then again I do have a lot of time to think while I carry the baby around the house and that is something I need to get ahead with my story.

My mother and I have made films since I was a kid, but they've never really been my films. My mum likes to do comedy. She has this a bit old-fashioned take on it as well. Her films are fun little stories were characters are essentially always nice, even the not so nice ones and the story is funny and ends happily ever after. They are by no means bad or boring, they plot has funny twists and turns and she isn't a bad writer at all, but they are not at all the kind of movies I would like to do. I do like comedy, but even the best comedies have something more to them. Take Juno for example; it's one of the funniest comedies I've ever seen, but the story isn't actually at all funny and that makes us all relate to it. And in any case I want to do drama.

I haven't decided on a topic yet. I have several that have popped into my head during the last couple of years and stayed there and grown. I guess I'll eventually get them all down to paper (or computer more likely), but now I need to choose one to begin with. perhaps tomorrow I'll write a little about each idea here and see if any one of them feels better than the other. Now I'll just go and dive into bed while the baby still sleeps.

The town I live in is mostly populated by elderly people. When we moved here, it actually made into the local newspaper that the population of the town had increased by two. All our neighbors with the exception of the next-door neighbor are elderly. The part of life closer to the end is very present here. We see grand-children visiting their grandparents and playing football in their backyard or hanging up the Christmas lights or helping out with gardening. We see the elderly ladies gossiping by the mailboxes, comparing their illnesses and those of their husbands.

The couple living in a house behind ours used to spend their winters in Spain and always entertained a lot of guests in their lovely garden during the summertime. The lady of the house was borderline OCD when it came to her flowers and lawn. She had a man mowing her lawn every week. It was almost like her life was ruined if the grass grew an inch. She complained to us about our backyard, which faces their garden and even went and raked leaves from our yard, because she had guests coming over and our leaves bothered her that much. We tried to explain that with the renovation of the house, we didn't exactly have time to work on the yard yet, but she wouldn't hear of it. Her backyard was always immaculately kept and she obviously took a lot of pride in having the prettiest garden on this street. Then her husband began to behave weirdly.

My grandfather had Alzheimer's and me and my mum recognized the slight uncertainty in his walk and the blank eyes when he greeted people, faking that he knew them when he in fact had no idea who they were. In the beginning my grandfather was unbelievably good at faking it to the people who didn't know him that well. Once when he was out walking our dogs with my mother someone asked him what was the name of the dog he had on the leash. He laughed and said "Oh! She has so many names." He couldn't remember any of them of course.

Last autumn it was almost heartbreaking to see the neighbor's lawn overgrown and their garden table covered with leaves. It looked like no one lived their any longer. We actually saw the woman come home and stand by the table for a long time, looking sad and lost. In a way that table and the leaves represented how much her life had changed. She no longer could garden because she had to look after her husband all the time. Once I saw her run after him as he was walking towards the town center. Obviously he wouldn't have found his way back home. Now the husband is in a home for the elderly and we rarely see the woman. She still lives in the house, but evidently spends most of her time indoors.

It is quite humbling how the death is so close to us here. Even now when we spend every minute of our days with the baby, surrounded by the joyous screams of new life (note the sarcasm), it seems our neighborhood won't let us forget that we all will die some day.

Our next-door neighbor's father passed away this morning. He was over 80 years old and had been in and out of hospital for the past year, so in a sense it wasn't a surprise. But I guess one can never prepare for the death of a loved one, even when it is quite clear that it is going to happen soon. He was a lovely man and will be missed by many.

This is most of all a test post. The kind that hasn't got much insight or meaning other than that it'll offer me a look on the layout. I'm usually inclined to do my own layouts, but since I'm a sleep-deprived mother of a two-month old baby girl, I thought I'd rely upon those who possess more skill than I do and are kind enough to share them with the rest of us. Thank you kindly paintedlayouts.

There was a time in my life when I wrote a diary daily, sometimes even several entries a day. Now for years I've tried to get back into the routine of writing, but have failed time after time. So this shall be my umpteenth attempt. My mother suggested that it might be fun to write down some things concerning my life with the baby. She thought I would thank myself later for doing so. I tried to keep diary during my pregnancy, but I was too lazy to keep up with it. Now that the baby has arrived and turned my life as it used to be completely upside down, I actually feel like I need the outlet of writing. The discussions with my partner, who is just as sleep-deprived as I am, don't always offer the much needed opportunity to vent. We argue enough already out of sheer tiredness without me throwing all my insecurities and stress at him. What could be a better way to deal with those than a little journal-therapy. Worth a try anyways...

Now I shall go and do a little more layout tweaking, icon searching and find out what LJ has to offer for a newbie like me. See you folks tomorrow.