major sleep developments

I am almost giddy.
First, the bad news. We went through a couple days of really (really) crappy sleep. I made the mistake of giving Lucy some zucchini bread for her birthday, forgetting that it had egg in it. She hadn't had egg before.
We were up for three nights straight.
On the third night, after nursing her six times from 10-1 am (instead of sleeping), I got a little tired. She looked pretty peaceful, so I decided to go in the other bedroom to catch 40 winks before she woke up again.
I fell asleep, sure I'd wake to the sound of her crying, and Dyami tapping my foot.
I woke to the sound...of crickets. I looked at the clock. 3:30.
Should I go back in the bedroom? Why would I, when she was sleeping so well?
I rolled over and went back to sleep.
And woke, at 6 am, to the sound of....garbage trucks.
Still no wakings? I was incredulous.
I went back into the bedroom, since it was almost time for D to go to work.

Well, it turns out that she had woken up at 2, 4, and was about to wake up at 6. While I was bummed for Dyami, it did mean that the unthinkable had happened.
He had coaxed her back to sleep without me. And he said it had only taken 10 minutes or so each time. That's faster than if I nurse her.
That's very good news. But wait, I'm not finished.

First, more bad news. Nursing Lucy to sleep has been progressively harder. Like impossible. A few nights, I've persevered for 40 minutes, only to finally give up, have Dyami drive her around in the car for twenty minutes, where she falls asleep. Since gasoline is a non-renewable resource, I just don't feel great about doing it every night, but nursing her to sleep has been like nursing a chimpanzee on crack. There's flailing! And hitting! and kicking! and pinching! And obviously I can't unlatch her and say nurse nicely if I want her to fall asleep. And it's not because she isn't tired--she has been overtired in the past--so much so that we've put her to bed even earlier to see if it helped, which it didn't.
So last night after about twenty minutes, I gave up. "You can drive her around," I said, "or take a try in the bedroom yourself, but I can't do this any more."
So he went in there, and ten minutes later came out...alone.

She was asleep.
We have decided that she doesn't seem to want to nurse to sleep anymore.
This is an extremely exciting development.
If Dyami could put her to sleep easily, and get her back to sleep, that means I could leave the house at night without feeling like a doctor on call.
It also means that when I go to school for the first time next week, I won't go feeling like I'm leaving Dyami with a crack-addicted chimp that he has to entertain for four hours.

In other words: freedom.
I have trouble getting my mind around that.
Oh, sweet freedom.

To add to the exciting developments, when she woke up last night at nearly one, I patted her back to sleep instead of nursing. She was complaining (but not super upset) for about ten minutes, and then she finally rolled over and started breathing evenly.
Then she woke up at three and seemed a little more insistant about nursing, which was fine.
and then she didn't wake up till morning.
Oh, sweet sleep!
If she just woke up once in the middle of the night, that would be fabulous. Oh, spectacular.

I feel like whooping, online. Here it goes: WHOOOOOOP!
I'm still giddy.