Quickie

Gonna be a short one today.

There is not a whole lot new here this week; Sam is working on homework (is actually not going in to work this week or next, to get his projects done). Elizabeth is sleeping.

E has been getting better at sitting up on her own. She can actually stay up for several minutes, until she wants to go somewhere else.

Speaking of going somewhere else, she can get around pretty well now. She still does her little army crawl, but can get her knees up under herself and push forward. Lately she has started to scoot backward, too, which frustrates her. She doesn't quite know what she is doing.

Sleep has not been as much of a struggle lately; I've been feeding E around 6 or 6:30 (solid food), then giving her a bath (a necessity after eating), getting her ready to sleep, then giving her another chance to nurse. By 7:30 or 8 she is in bed, and is out till about midnight. At that point, she sleeps till sometime between 3 and 4, when she wakes up hungry, and then wakes up for the day between 7 and 8. That works out really well for her to take a nap at 9:30 or 10.

I've figured out that the morning nap is the only chance I get to accomplish anything. I wish I was good at kicking myself into gear.

Wednesday afternoon was spent mainly working on my revised chore list, where I laid out the weekly tasks in month calendar form. I had one of these set up long before Elizabeth arrived, but of course with a new baby, everything except survival flies out the window. Now that we have regular naps and bedtimes, I can actually try to get more of a handle on things to keep myself and the house under some semblance of control. The advantage of this list is that I have things marked down on certain days - some things a few times a week. Ideally, they will get done on the day they're listed. But since I am not that fond of any of this cleaning business, I will most likely not do all of the things. In fact, I have not done any of them since I made the list a couple of days ago. And the beauty of this set up is that if I miss it on one day, I know I can catch it the next time it shows up on the list. There are things listed that must get done for the continuation of normal life (groceries, laundry, etc.), and they are the main goals for each day. Then there's the other stuff - sweeping the floor, or exercising.

Well, the old dog is fussing to go outside, so I should probably listen to her. It makes a good stopping point for me to quit and post this for now.

But first, here is my current favorite picture of Elizabeth:

The plan for the day

Good morning!

I just put Elizabeth down for a nap about 25 minutes ago, and I am going to try to get a few things accomplished before she wakes up. Hopefully I'll get another hour out of her.

First, I want to get some chicken started in the oven. Going to try to just lay it out on a pan and roast it - it's a whole chicken cut up (totally worth the extra $1 in my mind). Normally I have a solid plan for every meal for the week, but this week has kind of been a mess in that regard. I don't know quite what happened. I guess we will eat baked chicken tonight (with veggies and rice or something), and tomorrow I can start some chicken soup. I think that's what I'll do. We'll see.

Then, it has been my goal for the past week to clean the bathtub. It has been way too long since it was cleaned last, and it's embarrassing to think about it. Fortunately, I've put it off long enough that today if I do it, I'll get points (ha! maybe that was my subconscious excuse for not doing it - aside from the fact that it is my least favorite chore in all the world).

Off topic - what is the chore that you most detest doing?

If I still have time afterwards (not likely), I will drag the glider/rocker out of the garage and clean it up. We picked it up from somebody's curb, and threw it in the back of the Suburban a couple of months ago - apparently they were cleaning their garage. It still will need a new cushion for the back and seat, but I'll be that much closer to having something I can sit in to rock Elizabeth.

On another note, Elizabeth is now 5 months old on the 8th. I can't believe how quickly it has gone by! For some reason I kept just anticipating when she would reach 3 months old - I'm not sure why - and so that made me relieved, and now every month and every milestone after that I have been so thrilled!

She sits up, kind of wobbly, but for longer periods of time each day. She also scoots herself with a pretty good "Army crawl", where she drags herself along by her elbows and pushes with her feet if she gets some traction. Every once in a while she puts her knee down and pushes off, like a real crawl "step," but she hasn't learned to anticipate the forward motion to catch herself with her hands, so she throws her face into the floor. Fortunately, she doesn't seem to mind the nose dives.

Last night Elizabeth ate a whole container (2.5 oz) of Prunes, and she ate more at one sitting than she ever has (of solid food, that is). The reason I bought prunes was because she had been having some issues getting the solids to come out.... well, those prunes work wonders! I'll have to remember, though, that even though she loves them, she should not eat a whole container in one night. Or maybe they should be mixed with something else. Like bananas.

Twice this week I have gone for a walk around the block, which is a 1.1 mile loop, about half of it involves some uphill climbs. The weather has been perfect, and Elizabeth loves to sit and look at everything. It helps to wear her out, too. The great thing is that I am finally getting some exercise. It's something I need to work into my routine. I think that if I schedule it, I should be able to make myself exercise at least two times a week - three would be ideal.

We have finally gotten a sort of routine down for the day. Elizabeth goes to bed around 8 PM (more or less), and she still wakes up twice during the night. I could definitely live without the middle of the night feedings, but this too shall pass. She wakes up for the day around 8 AM. Then she goes down for a nap between 10 and 11 AM, sleeps for about 90 minutes (on average), then goes down for another nap around 1 PM. When she wakes up around 3 or 4, she is up for the rest of the afternoon, unless it gets to be a really long day, so she'll take a short nap later. During that afternoon nap, I try to work on dinner, and then I feed her some kind of solid food, and out of necessity I give her a bath, let her play while Sam and I eat dinner, then nurse her and put her to bed again. This has worked pretty well for the past week, with some deviation once in a while. I could definitely get used to having a solid routine!

I just made waffles, because my dear friend Stephanie just gave us the waffle maker that they were given for their wedding and never used. We are thrilled. There are 4 or 5 waffles sitting out that need to be packaged and put in the fridge or freezer (as if they'll make it to the freezer), so we can throw them in the toaster for breakfasts for the weekend.

Well, I hear Elizabeth crying, but she needs to go back to sleep. I will go turn on the white noise and see if that calms her down.
Maybe I will get my plans accomplished. Maybe not.

Off I go! Have a good weekend!