Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Things I Learned Today

Ah, Tuesdays. So emotionally restful and physically busy all at once.

I've come to rely on Nana's helpful presence not only to get some much-anticipated, uninterrupted assistance with childcare, but also to get stuff done around the house. However, the past two weeks have worked against me physically and illness and/or absolute exhaustion have forced me to let her last two visits go unutilized in the latter regard.

Not so this week. I have a playdate to host on Thursday, and I was itching to get things accomplished.

I had a pretty productive day, and in the process, I learned:
  1. Mia can nap independently. She took two hour-long ones in her mini-crib today. The second one required me to sit in with her for the first 15 minutes and pat her butt a couple of times as she drifted in and out of sleep initially, but that still gave me 45 minutes of physical freedom!
  2. Thanks to above-referenced naps and Nana's crucial help, I think I might just be able to manage hosting the Thursday playdate with a shred of pride intact. I had every expectation that I'd have to host the playgroup and a stunning expose on the usual horrifying state of my home all at the same time.
  3. There is hope for my laundry room. I got an impressive amount of laundry cleaned, dried, folded and out of the back room, if I may say so myself.
  4. Abby and Michael both get pretty spooked by the vacuum cleaner, still. (Well, in Abby's case it's "still"- in Michael's, it's kind of a new thing.) It's clear that they don't see it in action enough. Mia, on the other hand, seems to find the noise of it soothing.
  5. Michael is now the proud owner of four one-year molars, though the top two are still only about 25-50% exposed. He's also so, so, so close to talking. I'm almost certain we can claim his first word to be "yeah," but he's so quiet and gun-shy it can be hard to tell if he's saying it, or if I just think he is.
  6. Abby can add up to three in her head. (Okay, I learned this yesterday, but I've got to include it somewhere before I forget.) A couple of weeks ago, she was talking about how she had one of something, and another of something, and concluded that she had two of the thing. I don't remember the specifics of what she was talking about, but I remember being floored because she was not looking at or pointing to anything, she was recollecting, and calculating in her head. So, imagine my amazement when yesterday at lunch, after lining up her two yogurt cups, asking for more, and being denied, she said, "Abby gets three yogurts!"  She may have had two objects as a visual that time, but she imagined the third all on her own.
  7. Mia appears to be setting a natural schedule for herself, which seems to be 60-90 minutes of wakefulness followed by 60 minutes of sleep in a constant rotation throughout the day. I'm making a mental note to try to more closely follow her lead in the future, and provide her with more opportunities for private, uninterrupted nap time in the crib, especially because....
  8. ... Mia is quite cheerful, talkative, and full of smiles when she's well-rested and her tummy is feeling good. Here's hoping I see more of that side of her tomorrow. And the independent naps! My goodness, the naps! Can't ever get enough of those. 
Perhaps the all-consuming fog that tends to shroud those first couple of months is finally, slowly, lifting now. The rose-colored glasses I wore during the honeymoon of the first few weeks were tossed aside sometime ago, and I could do with some bona fide sunshine again.