I've been called "perky" more than once in my life, and the terms "cheerful" and probably "annoyingly cheerful" have been thrown around, but I may, in fact, shoot rainbows out of my very eyeballs today. Why? Eh, just a few simple things, like...
1) Sleep! I'm going to risk jinxing it yet again by saying that, as of this week, Ellie is sleeping the best she's ever slept. I had read that a recent study found that a bath and massage before bed actually do improve babies' night sleep, so I gave it a shot...because, honestly, if I'd read that research shows babies sleep better when their mothers eat raw goat testicles, I'd probably be snacking Bear Grylls-style at this very moment. Nine months of sleep deprivation have made me (almost) that desperate. Whether it be coincidence or not, she's gone from 3-4 hours at a time to 6-8 since I started the new routine, so you'd better believe that baby's getting a bath and a veritable spa treatment every night from here on out! My dreams of staying up past 8:30 pm (which translates into time with Bear, time to get stuff done, and even just time to unwind...hooray!), having the energy to exercise, and being able to get out of bed without wanting to cry are all starting to come true, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. If we're both lucky, you may never again have to hear me complain about how tired I am!
2) TV: Speaking of Bear Grylls, there's a whole lotta good TV on these days. And again, by "good," I mean "entertaining and not involving death, doom, and/or destruction" which is about where my standards lie these days. Don't even get me started on child-in-jeopardy plots, exploitative news stories (no, I don't need to hear "the dramatic 911 tapes" involving something horrible happening to some poor person), or tragedy-as-entertainment shows like "Law & Order SVU." Really...don't. I'm pleased as punch to sit back and watch as, last week, for example, "The Bachelor" takes time out from the hot tubbing and back-stabbing to wax philosophical about "what this show is all about" and throw down the "here for the wrong reasons" gauntlet. That, my friends, is a good time. Add in some "Man vs. Wild"--man, that guy has to be easy to cook for, right?--some "Project Runway," and a little "Biggest Loser," and you've got yourself a happy MamaBear.
3) Rain. Here in Where We Live, people bust out their parkas when the thermometer hits 68 and the news channels go nuts with "Storm Watch Insert-Year-Here" every time it sprinkles, so take it with a grain of salt when I say that it's raining cats and dogs here. In any case, I'm lovin' it, because every day it rains means a few days we don't have to run our sprinklers, and it's supposed to pour all week. If there's anything in this world that makes me want to dance on tables, it's seeing our water bill drop below the $100 mark, so keep it comin'!
4) Bug-a-Bug. She's rocking on all fours, pulling herself up to stand, waving her little fool hand off, and generally putting on a cuteness clinic all the time.
Oh, and did I mention that she sits herself up like a pro nowadays? Today, she fell asleep sitting up in her crib again, and unlike yesterday, I daren't try to lay her down and risk waking her up. I hope she's not as uncomfortable as she looks!
Here's a video in which I tried to compile all of her latest parlor tricks: waving, pounding, doing piggy-face, and "jumping" on command. As a bonus feature, Keira makes a surprise and slightly bizarre cameo:
1) Sleep! I'm going to risk jinxing it yet again by saying that, as of this week, Ellie is sleeping the best she's ever slept. I had read that a recent study found that a bath and massage before bed actually do improve babies' night sleep, so I gave it a shot...because, honestly, if I'd read that research shows babies sleep better when their mothers eat raw goat testicles, I'd probably be snacking Bear Grylls-style at this very moment. Nine months of sleep deprivation have made me (almost) that desperate. Whether it be coincidence or not, she's gone from 3-4 hours at a time to 6-8 since I started the new routine, so you'd better believe that baby's getting a bath and a veritable spa treatment every night from here on out! My dreams of staying up past 8:30 pm (which translates into time with Bear, time to get stuff done, and even just time to unwind...hooray!), having the energy to exercise, and being able to get out of bed without wanting to cry are all starting to come true, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. If we're both lucky, you may never again have to hear me complain about how tired I am!
2) TV: Speaking of Bear Grylls, there's a whole lotta good TV on these days. And again, by "good," I mean "entertaining and not involving death, doom, and/or destruction" which is about where my standards lie these days. Don't even get me started on child-in-jeopardy plots, exploitative news stories (no, I don't need to hear "the dramatic 911 tapes" involving something horrible happening to some poor person), or tragedy-as-entertainment shows like "Law & Order SVU." Really...don't. I'm pleased as punch to sit back and watch as, last week, for example, "The Bachelor" takes time out from the hot tubbing and back-stabbing to wax philosophical about "what this show is all about" and throw down the "here for the wrong reasons" gauntlet. That, my friends, is a good time. Add in some "Man vs. Wild"--man, that guy has to be easy to cook for, right?--some "Project Runway," and a little "Biggest Loser," and you've got yourself a happy MamaBear.
3) Rain. Here in Where We Live, people bust out their parkas when the thermometer hits 68 and the news channels go nuts with "Storm Watch Insert-Year-Here" every time it sprinkles, so take it with a grain of salt when I say that it's raining cats and dogs here. In any case, I'm lovin' it, because every day it rains means a few days we don't have to run our sprinklers, and it's supposed to pour all week. If there's anything in this world that makes me want to dance on tables, it's seeing our water bill drop below the $100 mark, so keep it comin'!
4) Bug-a-Bug. She's rocking on all fours, pulling herself up to stand, waving her little fool hand off, and generally putting on a cuteness clinic all the time.
Oh, and did I mention that she sits herself up like a pro nowadays? Today, she fell asleep sitting up in her crib again, and unlike yesterday, I daren't try to lay her down and risk waking her up. I hope she's not as uncomfortable as she looks!
Here's a video in which I tried to compile all of her latest parlor tricks: waving, pounding, doing piggy-face, and "jumping" on command. As a bonus feature, Keira makes a surprise and slightly bizarre cameo:
5) Kiwi Peewee. This kid brings the fun wherever she's at, and is full of enough "Thanks so much, Mom"'s and "I love you SO much!"'s to more than make up for her occasional burst of three-ness. Plus, she has a stellar vocabulary, thanks to
...buckling her own car seat buckles (even the highly challenging crotch buckle that's eluded her until last week) all by herself...that's ALL BY MYSELF, MOM, SO DON'T HELP ME NO MATTER HOW LONG IT'S TAKING ME!!!
...and doing Valentine's Day crafts that involve using large amounts of glue and who-cares-what-else:
Then there's Bear (who'll be the subject of his own lengthy list one of these days), and Chocolate Malted Crunch ice cream, and the awesome reusable produce bags I finally remembered to order and now love so much that I delight in buying produce, if you can imagine that...
Like I said: simple things. I may just have to order one of these:
Oooh, I just love that chocolate malted crunch, ever since I was little and used to get a cone of it whenever we went to Thrifty's.
ReplyDeleteOh our toddlers!
ReplyDeleteFollowing you from MBC. You can hop in my blog http://olahmomma.tiddlediddle.com
You can also join us in spreading the word (every weekend) to help Haiti by visiting this link: http://olahmomma.tiddlediddle.com/blogs/2010/01/17/make-it-a-charity-weekend-help-haiti/
Thanks and have a great day!
I am so excited that she's sleeping better! I'm going to try that bath and massage thing tonight.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! What a great post to read...you totally uplifted my day. I'm soooo glad to hear you're getting much better sleep! We have the bath ritual too to help with sleeping...don't want to get you too excited, but Henry's up to 8 hours of straight sleep now. Also, I soooo agree with you about tv shows...I have the hardest time watching the list of shows you listed! Thank goodness for Food Network. The girls are getting sooo cute too!
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