Saturday, April 13, 2013

Decisions, Decisions...

It's been a strange day, in which our usual schedule seems to have flown out the window.

Not that I'm in love with our usual schedule. Ever since Abby's move to the toddler bed, wake-up time around here has shifted pretty firmly to 6:00 am (or sometimes, even a bit earlier). Michael has been partial to rousing at this hour for a while now, though he has been known to sleep in until 7:30 on occasion. However, Abby would nearly always make it to 7:30, so on the mornings that Michael chose to be an early riser, Tom would go up and spend time with him alone until Big Sister was ready to join the fun.

However, when it's Abby who is waking first, she often makes enough noise to guarantee that Michael will follow suit, and once they're both awake- well, I guess it's just time to push back breakfast.

Such was our morning today, until a friend stopped by just before 10:00 am with a nice, warm meal that turned out to work perfectly as a breakfast or brunch food. And so we all found ourselves eating "second breakfast," hobbit-style. Abby even chugged down the vast majority of an accompanying homemade smoothie, which she only begrudgingly (and just barely) shared with Tom and me.

Once Michael was down for his first nap, Tom wanted to take advantage of the rain-free weather and walk with the girls, so he put Abby in the stroller and Mia in the wrap, and stayed out with them until just after 12:00 pm. Upon his return, he reported to me that Abby had fallen asleep on the walk, and he wanted to keep going until she woke up. Michael, in the meantime, managed to sleep for over two hours, and woke up just before Daddy and the girls returned home.

Between our late breakfast and already-unusual nap schedule, the afternoon was becoming harder to plan. We ended up having a late lunch, and then hanging out in the basement until we determined that Abby just might go down for another nap, which ended up being close to 3:00 pm. This being around the time that Michael takes his second nap, Tom took both kids upstairs, and came back down with one.

Abby had settled into bed with no problems, but Michael, true to form, refused to nap (we have found that if his first nap exceeds two hours, he generally won't take a second). Of course, having learned from the other night's experience, Tom and I recognized that we would have to wake Abby no later than 4:15, a daunting prospect, indeed.

It worked out, in the end. Abby was highly displeased to be woken, but we offered a squeezie as a peace offering, which she gulped down and requested seconds of.

But then Amelia started having tummy issues, and spent a great deal of time that she would normally have been sleeping instead repeatedly spitting up, in rather impressive amounts. Now I have to wonder whether she's reacting to something I ate- like, say, the pretty generous serving of orange juice I had this morning- and whether I should have it again to see whether it's a problem, or just cut it out to be safe.

As a result, Mia conked out while I read Abby's bedtime stories, which was before I got a chance to change her diaper or swaddle her. In an act of near-defiance, I laid her down in her sleeper, figuring that if she woke, I could take care of business, and if not- well, she could just sleep.

But once she was down, it occurred to me that I might have some issues if she stays, like almost 100% certainty of a blowout (I know there's already at least one poop in that diaper), and an earlier-than usual waking to eat, followed by virtually no quality sleep on my part through 'til morning.

Despite considering all of that, I just can't disturb my sleeping beauty.


I look at her perfect, peaceful little face, and it seems to say to me, "Shh, Mommy. Just enjoy the time that you have."


And so I plan to.