Denis is off on a business trip in warm, sunny California while I’m stuck here in the cold snow. (Which is melting, revealing a winters’ worth of dog poo.) I’m such a wimp – he’s only been gone for 12 hours, and I’m already feeling the heavy burden of responsibility of being the sole caretaker of two dogs and a baby.
(Ignore the fact that both dogs are sacked out on the couch and the baby’s sleeping soundly in her crib. It’s a very heavy burden. Honest.)
Last night Carolyn went to bed a little later than usual, a little before 10 PM. Normally she wakes up an hour after we put her down, and then every 45 minutes to an hour and a half after that. By 1:30, we usually give up and bring her to bed with us.
At 3 AM I woke up and thought “um, why isn’t the baby in bed?” This was followed closely by the thought “oh my God, I haven’t gotten up with Carrie at all yet!” That thought was accompanied by the sinking feeling of dread every parent probably gets the first time their baby sleeps for a significant stretch of time. I tiptoed quickly down the hall, heart in my throat…and there was my beautiful little girl sleeping on her tummy (I put her down on her back) with snuggle puppy tucked under one tiny arm.
She woke up at 3:30 and I brought her to bed with me, but she slept for close to 6 hours in her crib, on her own. Dare I hope for a repeat tonight? I think if I hadn’t rushed in there at 3 she might have slept longer – I have to confess, I laid my hand on her back just to make sure she was still breathing (I’m so paranoid!) and she was restless for that next half hour, while I lay in bed listening to the monitor.
I’m going to go to bed now and see how much sleep I can get before Carolyn wakes up – or before I wake up wondering where she is!
I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I thought the movies were fantastic, but the idea of it becoming a musical sort of scares me.
Today I took Carolyn to the car wash. Instead of upsetting her, it put her right to sleep. An hour and a half later, she’s still sleeping.
Do you think the car wash is open at 1:00 AM?
Caffeine is evil. I stopped drinking caffeinated coffee 15 months ago because I was tired of the headaches I would get if I didn’t have the exactly perfect amount of caffeine at the exact right minute of the morning. This turned out to be a Good Thing, since I didn’t have to go through caffeine withdrawal at the same time as morning sickness when I found out I was pregnant a couple months later.
Fast-forward to six weeks ago.
My parents bought Denis one of those pod coffeemakers for his birthday. I stuck to decaf coffee pods. For about, oh, 4 days. Then, after a particularly bad night dealing with a non-sleeping baby, I put in a regular pod. (Oh, just once won’t hurt.) The next week, I did it twice. Then the next week I had regular coffee every morning.
And ever since then, I’ve had awful, awful headaches that no amount of advil or tylenol can cure.
So this morning, I quit caffeine cold-turkey. I didn’t even have decaf coffee lest I be tempted – or in my sleep-deprived state simply put in a regular pod thinking it was decaf. And, of course, I now have the headache to end all headaches. Between that and the coming night of non-sleeping baby duty, I imagine I’ll be waking up in a very sunny mood tomorrow…
(Quick, someone hide the regular coffee pods!)
I have a soft spot for granny-square afghans. I hate putting them together, but I love how they look. My cousin Benjamin’s first birthday is coming up, and he was admiring one of Carolyn’s granny-square afghans. So…I have 21 days to crochet a duplicate. I feel kind of guilty duplicating the pattern. It’s sort of unusual, and I don’t if the person who made it for Carrie made up the pattern or not. I feel like I ought to ask permission to make one. I guess since I’m not selling it, it’s probably not a big deal.
I bought lime green, bright turquoise, and dark purple yarn for it. It’s a very yummy combination. If it weren’t so dark I’d take a picture, but by tomorrow there might be more than a couple of squares to take pictures of anyway.
It’s strange – it’s been ages since I crocheted more than a simple border on something I’ve knitted. But just as soon as I picked up the crochet hook it all came back to me. And equally as soon – once I crocheted the first square – I remembered why I hate putting these things together. So many ends to hide. Ugh.
Dear Carolyn,
Today we went to visit Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa. Kathy and Benjamin were there, and as I put you down on your blanket on your tummy, I said to Kathy, “she still hasn’t figured out how to roll from front to back.” You gave me a Look, and in one smooth move you were on your back. Sorry!
(So if I tell people you still haven’t figured out how to sleep through the night, would you be willing to prove me wrong about that too?)
Love, Mommy
Yesterday I received an order from Amazon with three more books for Carrie. Two of them are, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, about puppies.
Here’s a list of the books she currently owns – the bolded ones are the ones we read to her nearly daily:
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Alphabet Foil Fun Baby Faces Baby’s First Bible Songs Catholic Book of Bible Stories Counting Kisses Doggies Find the Puppy Friends of All Sizes (cloth) Good Night, Baby Good Night, Sweet Butterflies Guess How Much I Love You |
How To Count (cloth) I Love You (cloth taggies) Julie’s Jungle Language Nursery Little Windows: In the Park Mirror Me! My Many Colored Days My Puppy (cloth) Noah’s Ark (cloth) Peekaboo, Puppy! Puppies |
Richard Scarry’s Best Storybook Ever Snow What Fun! Snuggle Puppy Some Dogs Do Spot’s First Easter That’s Not My Bunny That’s Not My Dinosaur That’s Not My Puppy Where Is Baby’s Belly Button? Where Is The Green Sheep? Where’s Spot? |
Her favorites really seem to be the Usborne books (Puppies, That’s Not My Bunny/Dinosaur/Puppy) – I think because the illustrations are simpler and more contrast-y than most of the others, and the pages are thicker and easier to grab. Out of 33 books, a whopping 11 are about – or have as main characters – puppies! Ah, well, I suppose she’ll eventually learn that there are other animals besides puppies, right? Besides, she gets so excited about her puppies, and the ones on the Baby Einstein Neighborhood Animals DVD we Netflix’d. (For the record, she also giggles at the bunnies and mice on that DVD.)
Oh, and before anyone gets on my case about buying so many books for a baby who can’t appreciate them yet, several of them were gifts. And she loves “reading” books. She looks at them, tries to turn the pages, pats at the touchy-feely bits, and tries very hard to eat them. (We’re working on the “no books in the mouth” rule. Now if we could just get Murphy to follow that rule – apparently, board books are quite tasty…)
…and Carolyn actually slept for four straight hours in her crib! I don’t know what was different about last night, or how to make it happen again. At least it proves that there are not, in fact, scorpions in her bed, and she is capable of sleeping more than 45 minutes in there. I would have thought that the wind howling past her windows would have woken her up, but maybe she needs one of those white noise machines to sleep?