Oops

A few moments ago I hit "publish" on a post that I am still working on. Can I blame that on being tired? Probably, but either way just ignore that one if you had already spotted it. I took that post down and will republish later today.

Oops.

For those of you who had the pleasure of reading half a post, are you just dying to know how it ends?

A Little Something for Your Monday

We all have our things. Like few things make me happier than grocery shopping. Much like Mondays, there is so much potential in a grocery store, especially the good ones. To give you some idea of how much I love a good grocery store, I drive 30 minutes each week to Trader Joe's, and every once and awhile I'll drive 45 minutes to the Whole Foods. In the next state. I know. But the bulk food section! And the fresh fish! And the cheeses, oh the cheeses.

What makes Alyce happy is taking her most favourite things of the day into bed at night. Receive a new card? Bring it to bed. Spend the afternoon building a tower out of blocks? Bring them, too. Develop an unusual attachment to your Mama's Charlaine Harris books? Don't forget to bring them to bed.

This is what happened last week when Alyce received some new rain boots. Is there anything more exciting than finding out that you've grown so much bigger that you need new boots? The sparkle in her only brightened when she spotted the green frog boots sitting on the shelf at Target. Naturally, she wanted to wear them to bed that night.




Who are we to stand between a girl and her rain boots? I expected her to settle down after the initial excitement and take them off after a few minutes. Wouldn't the feeling of big rubber boots be uncomfortable under the covers? Not for Alyce, who slept thirteen (glorious) hours wearing her green frogs.





I hope everyone enjoys the little things this week as much as Alyce does.



P.S. Inventory of her bed that night, for those who are interested: fairy princess, eagle, mermaid shirt, small purple pillow given to her by a sweet woman at synagogue, Tinkerbell postcard from grandparents, Valentine's Day card from grandparents, my Club Dead book, baby bottle for her dollies, my recent Martha Stuart Living, new swimsuit (swimming classes begin this week!), toothbrushes still in new packaging. Not shown: elmo, big bird, water bottle, crocheted blanket from our friend, Kaylie, and sparkly Valentine from Kaylie. Somewhere in that bed fit tiny Alyce. And her boots.

A Taste of What's Coming

Spring, that is.

Delaware was gifted with two incredible Spring days this week. When I lived in Alberta we would occasionally enjoy an unseasonably warm day in February or March, and I enjoyed those, too. But those days were always bittersweet because everyone knew that spring wouldn't actually show up until May. Whereas last May in Delaware I was forty-one weeks pregnant during a heatwave. Spring arrives a bit earlier here, and for that I am grateful.



So what do you do when the weather turns lovely, after a cold winter? You search for those cicada skins you buried in the fall, of course. At least that's what Alyce did. And she found them. She also offered the remains of old cherry tomatoes to the squirrels, along with a few old cheerios. She's a giving soul, that one.

What I can say for sure about this week is that everyone's mood improved. A lovely twist after a rough week. I hope everyone was so lucky!

That Face

(Update: And I only write this quietly, in parentheses, in case she hears me. Shira slept beautifully last night, waking only to nurse once and woke for the day at 5:30--which is actually an improvement. I got to sleep last night for multiple hours in a row. I woke up this morning and did a little dance. )

Alyce told me to make her look silly.

Done and done.



Yesterday was the first day of operation no preschool/daycare/nanny. Ok, we've never had a nanny, but if we did, we would have gotten rid of her, too. We're all about saving money right now and it just works best for our family to have both kids at home.




Poor Alyce doesn't realize that she's not going back. Today Matt took the girls to the gym while I was at work. He was called away from his treadmill because Alyce had told one of the employees that she didn't go to daycare today because she's sick (the only times she's not been at daycare in the past is if she's sick). She is not sick. Nevertheless, Matt was reprimanded by one of the employees for bringing a sick kid to the gym. Hilarious. Sorry Matt, but our three year old got you in trouble. By lying (sort of).




What a face.





It should be an interesting week.

Even Alyce Tells Me I Look Tired

This is not a blog about sleep, but it is a blog about my life. So here we are: I'm exhausted and you get to read about it.

Shira's night sleeping is all over the place. We had made the decision to sleep-train her (nursing her only once through the night), and things were going well. She was making it until around 1:30 or 2:00 before nursing, and then waking up every hour or so until 6:00. I would let her yell and cry each of those times, but not get her out of bed (keeping in mind that Shira is sleeping in our room, so not jumping out of bed to make the yelling stop takes a lot of restraint).

Before I continue, I realize that there are many people who don't agree with any kind of sleep-training or crying it out during the night. I think people should do what works for their family. What is best for our family is that Shira and I get some sleep, plain and simple. I realize, however, that not everyone is with me on this, and to this end I was blown away by the comments I read last week on a blog post over at Strollerderby. Holy cow, those are some mean comments. Parenting can be really challenging some days, so let's not make it worse for ourselves. Yikes.

Anyway, back to me.

Matt went out of town for two nights and all hell broke loose. We don't have a baby monitor (forgotten in Canada on our last trip), so I needed to leave all the doors open between my room and Alyce's room. My little wisp of a light sleeper woke up at Shira's first stirring and began sobbing in her bed, make Shira quiet, Mama. What could I do? Say no that little voice? Hardly.

So Shira quickly realized that she had a free pass to nurse anytime she wanted. What's that, Mama? You don't want me to breastfeed again? Ok, then, I'll just yell really loudly. I wonder if that will wake up Alyce... So we went from progress to waking up ever hour, all night long. After nine months of not getting enough sleep, I became a zombie. I was that kind of tired that I stopped driving for a few days. If you had been looking for someone to drive a forklift last week, I would have had to turn you down (as much as I want to help). Instead I stayed home and did the following:

-Hit my head on the corner of the cupboard.

-Hit my head on my fridge.

-Walked into a different cupboard door.

-Invited a friend of Matt's over for dinner and instead of baking the the mushroom tart on parchment paper, I grabbed the waxed paper. The smoke of the melting wax made the rest of the house smell, well, like melting wax. We ordered pizza.

-That same night I was baking my new favourite chocolate dessert and I couldn't for the life of me find the stick of butter I'd taken out of the fridge. Only after ten laps of the kitchen did I discover that I had placed it on the table in front of our dinner guest, in another room. Poor thing thought I was serving butter for dinner.

Matt returned home, finally, and sent me for some extra naps this weekend. Life looked sweeter by Sunday. Shira is back to nursing once a night and keeping me up from 3:00-6:00. Baby steps. Exhausted, sleepy, stumbling baby steps.

Nine Months

I have never been so tired in my life, but she makes me laugh and she is all mine.

That said, go to sleep, Shira.

Happy nine months, or as your pediatrician said at your appointment yesterday, Happy .75!

Oh, Transitions, Why Do You Taunt Me So

Remember when I mentioned that there were other changes coming, besides my not applying to an education grad program for the coming year? The other change begins tomorrow afternoon, around four. As of end of day tomorrow, Alyce will no longer be attending daycare/preschool. She will, instead, be supervising things at the house with me, and some mornings, Matt.

We both feel a bit rotten about the whole thing. Alyce l.o.v.e.s her school. She started there a few months after we arrived in Delaware, when she was thirteen months. She'd just started walking and was the tiniest little fairy of a girl. We had enrolled her somewhere else a few weeks before but pulled her out once I saw that the teachers enjoyed yelling at babies. Who enjoys yelling at babies? They do, it turns out. But it was all to the good, because we ended up finding a small children's center, filled with the warmest of people. Alyce was instantly smitten with her teachers and she never looked back.

Working hard on her Valentine's cards for her friends.

What Alyce did not enjoy, was not having 24 access to milk. My milk, that is. While other kids were showing off their collection of bottles, little Alyce was crossing her arms and stubbornly waiting for my boobs to show up. Every day for months Alyce would not let a sip of liquid pass her lips until four in the afternoon, when I would walk through the door and she would yelp and latch on before I could even sit down. But like everything else, habits changed and she was soon drinking milk from a cup, just as tomorrow she will start driving and applying to art school.* Why do they always grow?

Now she is potty-trained (thanks mostly to her very patient teachers), talks a ten miles a minute, lovingly bosses her friends around, and strolls though the center as though she owns the place. In many ways we have her amazing teachers to thank for her confidence and general know-it-all-ness. (Or is that last one from me? Never mind.) We are grateful for the kind women who welcomed Alyce every day and respected the fact that Alyce was going to sing all the time, all day long, no matter if it was quiet time or circle time. They let Alyce be Alyce, and for that we say thank you.

Our house if full of change right now and while we are in this transition between old jobs and new, it is best for our family that Alyce stays home with us. As much as we adore her school, it isn't free, and since I can be home most of the time, we've decided to try something new. Three mornings a week Matt will stay home with the girls while I work and take my American literature class; the rest of the time it will be all girls, all of the time, at our house. This will be a big transition for all of us, but ultimately a good one. There are moments I'm a bit suspicious that my patience can stretch enough to include a three year old jumping bean in my every day routine, but then I get over myself. And Shira? She's losing her mind, excited.

Shira helped, as only Shira can.