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Monday, December 15, 2014

Life lately

E, my child who would only sleep in the Ergo, suddenly decided that she prefers to sleep on her bed and have a (somewhat) predictable nap schedule. This change will make it more challenging to be out and about with HP in the mornings, but overall, I love it. Now I can focus more attention on HP while she's napping in the mornings, and then they both (!) nap in the afternoons. Seriously amazing. Fingers crossed it lasts.

Having Neil home over the weekend makes everything easier. With him watching the kids, I can get other stuff done around the house, and vice versa. In addition to normal life, we managed to season all four of our cast iron pans, lanolize two wool covers to go with our new overnight diapers*, and take a load of stuff to Goodwill.**

On a slightly less positive note, we attended Neil's work Christmas party on Friday night. Neil was hesitant for us all to come, thinking it would be more stress than it was worth. I pushed hard to all go (because the other option was for him to go by himself, and I love a good Christmas party and wanted to attend), so we did. And he was right; it was stressful. E didn't want to fall asleep in the carrier like she usually does (see note above), so she was exhausted and crying most of the time. It didn't help that the other baby present, who is exactly one
week younger than E, alternated from being alert and happy and dozing
in people's arms. Not our child. HP did great--especially considering he stayed up two hours past his bedtime--but a two-and-a-half year old on the loose in a new house needs constant supervision. Confession: at one point in the evening, this happened:

Neil: Where's HP?
Me: I thought you had him.
Neil: Nope. Neil starts walking through the house looking for him. I scan the crowd from my perch on the couch (I was feeding E at the time) and spot him. Outside. He had opened the door onto the back porch by himself and was pressed up against the glass door looking in on the party. I guess he needed a break from the action...

The thing we love most about Christmas parties is the food--obviously. I can summarize the general feeling of the experience by saying this: it was the first time I have left a party hungry, because there just was not time to eat. The whole time I kept thinking, this is just a season. Next year they'll be older and it will be a different story. Or we'll hire a babysitter. Problem solved.

In Christmas related news, I am inspired by the Girl Next Door podcast to bake Christmas cookies for our neighbors. I think HP will love this project, and I have been wanting to get to know our neighbors better. We'll see if it actually happens since it may feel like one more thing to do, in which case, I will happily abandon the idea in the name of sanity.

How was your weekend?

*We got the diapers for E, but are going to try them on HP, too. He's been in disposables at night for the last year or so because we could not find a cloth solution that he didn't leak through. We have heard good things, so hopefully this is it!