Missing Her

Sleep is going well.

I'm back in my room. It's good to be back.

And after sharing my dilemma with my neighborhood moms' group (all moms of babies born summer 2011), and hearing that it's common amongst her peers to wake up at 5:30 am, and reading this in Weisbluth as well... and also seeing how extremely tired she gets from hanging out in her crib until 7 am (not crying, mind you, but not sleeping much), I decided to feed her. For two minutes. And she goes back to sleep for another hour or so.

I can live with a 5:30 am feeding, especially during the week when I often get up at 5:45 to exercise anyway.

I don't know why, but tonight I am missing her. She's been coughing in her sleep and I'm debating if that's a good enough reason to justify taking her out of her crib and bringing her to bed with me.

I love the idea of co-sleeping, if we could do it without nursing, though I feel like there's some reason it must be a bad idea. And some reason I haven't done it up until now. But I can't remember what it is.

She's getting ever closer to crawling. Nastya has to put a bigger blanket down on the floor for the babies now, and they still end up off of it, and opposite ends -- Eleanor is officially moving backwards now also. It's pretty funny to see this big blanket with lots of beautiful wooden toys on it... and the babies backed up into the corners of the room.

Eating is only so so. I'm trying to give her more foods but she's not showing much interest. I got this gorgeous raw cottage cheese -- it's a very slight pale yellow because of all the beta carotene and high butterfat from grass fed cows. And Calliope won't touch it. Not even if I put it through the food mill. Not even if I mix it with breastmilk. (I actually whipped out my boob and added straight-from-the-spigot warm milk, hoping to tempt the Princess's palate... instead, she shrieked outrage that milk was being sprayed somewhere other than her mouth. In other words: colassal fail). Tonight, I tried (again with) avocado (last time, it made her vomit), mashing it up very carefully and adding breastmilk, this time from the refrigerator. Another fail. She did eat some squash last night and today for lunch. She tried babaganoush a couple of times and seemed to like it. Two nights ago, I offered it to her again, and she liked it at first but then abruptly burst into tears. My friend's four year old had just accidentally knocked her over so I thought that was it... until my friend pointed out that Calliope's chin was fire engine red (she had hit the back of her head when she fell so it wasn't an injury) and her cheeks were flushed as well. I stopped the babaganoush and gave her a little water. I few minutes later she found the lid of the babaganoush and put it in her mouth (it didn't have any visible food on it) and she abruptly began to wail anguished cries again. So I think there was something to it. I actually noticed my own lips were a little itchy and burning from the babaganoush as well (my siblings and I all have this reaction to eggplant sometimes... my sister says it's an allergy but I'm always a little skeptical). But I was fine with another brand of the stuff, and so was Calliope, so who knows?

We had our first swimming lesson last week!

Due to sleep issues -- namely, an early waking, followed by an early waking, and thus readiness for a nap right when lessons started -- it wasn't a hit at first. I reluctantly nursed her on the side of the pool while the other parents blew bubbles with the babies in the pool, and although she clearly wanted to nurse to sleep, water or no, she eventually rallied, and by the end, she was having fun kicking her legs -- which looked ridiculously tiny in the pool, like a doll -- and enjoying the water. I'm hoping the schedule will work better next time. It was fun, even if quite short considering all the prep work and travel time.

The big news is that... I'm considering real estate. As in, buying a place.

I've been trying to convince myself that this is a bad idea.

That I should stay with renting. And keep my finances liquid. And my options open.

But you know, at the end of the day, I really want to own my own place. It feels like putting down roots. And I'm ready to do that. To put down roots.

Even if it's really terrifying.

I might have to move a little further from the park, though I'm hoping to not be more than one additional subway stop at most. But I think I can find something that would be affordable, that wouldn't be more than the monthly rental cost for a two bedroom. Which it looks like we may be needing sooner rather than later... if I don't fall into co-sleeping...