Read Part 1
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4:00 pm Elise is still napping. I throw a load of laundry in the wash and take care of some emails I’ve been meaning to respond to.
4:18 Elise is awake. I hear her half crying, half talking to herself so I get her up and we go to one of her favorite places in the house…in front of the full length mirror in our bedroom. She loves loves loves mirrors. Pair that with being on mommy’s shoulders and you get some monstrous giggles and smiles.
She’s usually still fussy when she wakes up from her naps, so I find it beneficial to get her in a happy mood as soon as possible, because fussiness can escalate very quickly if it’s not treated (just realized I say that like it’s a disease).
4:33 Mirror time is over for now and we go breastfeed. Then she decides she’s full and wants to check out what’s going on in the neighborhood {answer: pretty much nothing}.
Then I lay her on the floor with some of her favorite toys while I snarf down a snack, move the laundry to the dryer, and change my clothes so we can go for our walk before it gets too dark outside. She gets excited when I pick her up and scratches me while flailing her arms all about. I make a mental note to clip her daggers finger nails.
5:15 Diaper change, then I bundle her up and put her in the stroller. In the process, I accidentally {duh} bump her head on the metal frame, and 3…2…1…cue the crying.
I feel really bad and contemplate skipping our walk, but she forgets about it quickly, so I very carefully put her in the stroller without causing further injury. As soon as I can get a smile out of her, we leave. I run for 10 minutes and then we walk for 30 minutes.
6:00 Elise eats sweet potatoes and applesauce while I have some yogurt and start chopping vegetables for dinner. Grandma S calls and says they are free to Skype, so we spend about 15 minutes chatting with them. Thank goodness for Skype & Facetime—even being far away from her grandparents and uncle/aunt/cousin, she can ‘talk’ to them and get to know their faces and voices.
6:30 Daddy arrives home from work to spend some quality time with Elise before she goes to bed. Work has been pretty crazy for him recently, so he comes home to hang out with her, then finishes doing work after she is asleep. I go work on dinner while they run off and play.
I hear him say “Wanna go drive the car?”.
7:00 Bath time for Elise. I usually give her a bath 3 times a week since she’s not exactly crawling around in dirt yet and mostly just needs her hair to be washed once it gets too greasy looking. Lately, she’s had an obsession with putting anything and everything in her mouth, so I give her a clean washcloth to keep her from grabbing the one I’m using out of my hands.
7:15 I pass her off to Todd while I put dinner in the oven. We have a system going where I give Elise her bath, then he reads her bedtime stories and puts on her pajamas. I don’t even offer to do the storytime/pajama part anymore because I know he loves that time with her.
7:25 Time for bed. I breastfeed her for 20 minutes til she’s calm & relaxed, then I give her about 500 kisses and lay her down. We say our bedtime prayers and I sneak out of the room.
7:45 I take a quick shower while dinner finishes cooking and Todd works in the office. Then we eat dinner while watching The Biggest Loser. We’re fun like that. This part of the evening is when I finally get to relax and decompress, so I hardly ever do much more than sit on the couch and enjoy some mindless entertainment {except on Thursdays–that’s when I go to our church SHARE group for a couple hours}.
{stuffed chicken + zucchini gratin + small glass of white wine}
10:00 Todd goes back to the office to do work and I watch reruns of FRIENDS while I blog.
11:00 Time for a ‘dreamfeed’ with Elise. Todd helps change her diaper, then I feed her.
Tonight is our last time doing this, so I’ve gradually been decreasing the duration I feed her, and we’re down to 8 minutes.
{Anything less than that is not worth waking her up from sleep, but I needed to make sure my body also gradually adjusts to this weaning. We’ve been doing the dreamfeed almost every night for the past 6 months, and it has worked great for all 3 of us. But, she doesn’t need it anymore and hardly stays awake long enough to eat anything, plus I would really like to be able to go to bed earlier.}
I get a manly burp out of her, breathe in a big whiff of her baby scent, and lay her down in her crib. She cries for a few seconds, so I put my hand on her tummy and she’s back asleep for the rest of the night.
11:30 Bedtime for me. Todd comes to bed shortly thereafter. I probably don’t actually fall asleep until midnight though.
Sometime in the wee hours of the morning (i think), she cried. I had no idea what time it was, but before I could even think to check the clock, she must’ve fallen back asleep. Bad dream, I guess.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Wednesday, 8:00 a.m. I wake up to my alarm. We have Pre-Toddler Play Group every Wednesday, so I have to slightly adjust our day to make sure she still gets a good nap in before we go sing and dance.
And so begins another day……………
. . . . . . .
I feel I should make it known that not every day runs this smoothly. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by her excellent naps and minor fussiness.
{For instance: this morning before Play Group, she woke up from her nap after 45 minutes, so we laid on the daybed together while she calmed back down and slept another 30 minutes. We ended up being a bit late, because I didn’t think ahead enough to brush my teeth/get dressed/pack our lunches/change her out of her pjs beforehand, so I did all of that once she woke from her extended nap.}
And while I do try to have a nice dinner every night, some nights it ends up being take-n-bake pizza or leftovers.
She’s a relatively happy and easy-going baby, but yes, she cries. She has fussy times and won’t let me sit her down or put her in her jumper. Somedays I just have to tell myself that it’s okay if the house is a disaster, I only have time to eat a Clif Bar for lunch, or don’t change out of my pajamas until Todd calls to say he’s heading home from work.
So I hold her and hug her as much as she wants, because soon enough, these days will be gone.