The difference between the first time around and the second:

With Kate at 6+ months I brought up the highchair and started preparing little bits of food for her. (Though she didn’t really start eating regular meals until about 8 months.)

Ember is now 7 months old, I have yet to bring up the highchair at all but once in a while I’ll put her in Kate’s booster seat or on my lap to try bites of whatever I’m eating, be it banana, squash or potato salad.

Poor Ember doesn’t seem to understand the whole eating thing. She’s just recently started watching me inquisitively when I’m eating. The first few times I offered tastes of food (baby food that time) caused such a reaction – and it was NOT a good one. I generally don’t put food in their mouths but Ember was just clueless so I touched the spoon to her lips a little bit. She threw herself backwards and gagged in an exceedingly comical manner. I admit it: I laughed hard. She did not seem at all interested in trying any more food at that point until while on vacation Den gave her a tiny little taste of ice cream. I shot him a disapproving mom look but it seemed to have changed Ember’s mind about at least trying things in her mouth. Prior to that she really didn’t put anything in her mouth but her hands – no toys, no teethers, nothing. I think she has a strong gag reflex; like I mentioned previously she even gags at pacifiers and bottle nipples. Now I’ve noticed her mouthing some toys (and other things like wrapping paper, whoops). Now when I hold out my fork or spoon she actually opens her mouth and leans forward to eat it…. and then of course shudders, makes a horrible face, and spits it all out. At no point has anything actually been swallowed. She’s making progress, though! And she’s developing very good control with pushing things out of her mouth, heh.

If this had been Kate I may have worried about it but with Ember I just offer a taste, wipe her chin and shrug. She’ll figure it out eventually. Right now I kind of appreciate not having to deal with feeding her.

This year was Christmas at my parents’, which means a long day of travel to Canada. It also means no writing because I was very tired – and I don’t like to advertise the fact that no one is home at our house until after the fact!

The travel on the way there went better than expected, overall. The night before we left we told Kate we were going on an airplane to see Nana and Grandad and she liked that idea. Unfortunately her concept of time is pretty non-existent, so the “tomorrow” fell on deaf ears and she was crying at bedtime because she wanted the airplane. Once we were at the airport and in the airplane she was great. About an hour into our first flight she said, “Done airplane. Out? No airplane.” Considering we still had approximately 5 more hours of flying left that wasn’t so good! But she dealt with it. The car seat was installed on the plane for Kate, and that was mostly a good thing… except when she woke up confused from a bad dream and was freaking out until we took her out and held her for a while. We had a movie and some TV shows loaded on the tablet for her to watch, which was good. She also had a good time just playing with her daddy and a stuffed animal. She also slept quite a bit, very thankful for that… it was an early morning and no one likes a tired and cranky Kate. Ember did fine, sleeping and waking and grabbing everything she could reach. In the airports I wore her and she was a happy and very quiet little girl.

It was certainly an adjustment being at my parents’. The first night Kate collapsed in her bed and didn’t rouse until late morning, she was so exhausted from traveling. The next day, however, was a different story. She’s in my old room and there’s a TV in there, a bookshelf, a mattress for Den. She was bouncing on the beds, reading books and stacking VCR tapes all long after we put her to bed. It got a little better as the days went by, but only a little bit. Kate was still waking up at 3am, hyper as hell, crawling all over everything and asking to watch movies – which we let her, because she was waking her sister up. It was mostly Den getting up with her at night, but a couple nights I did all the night wakings for both kids just so he could get a night’s sleep. Both kids functioned on very little sleep for the entire two weeks. Kate was perpetually in that crazy-psycho-hyper-overtired mode that every parent knows and hates. Ember just cat-napped her way through it all, but she doesn’t get phased by lack of sleep like her sister does.

Being home, as always, was just such a wonderful thing to me. I love just being in that house, familiar things everywhere I look. It just is really hard knowing that I can only go back once every two years, that I can’t drop in with my children, can’t just hang out watching movies all the time. I also got to meet my brother’s girlfriend (first girlfriend!) and we got along really well, I could see hanging out with them if they lived close.

The kids had a lot of fun, I think. Kate really loved having Nana’s attention, she got to bake cookies and put together a gingerbread train. She loved Grandpa’s real train downstairs, she kept begging to go down and see it again – and she was very good about not touching it. Nana had picked up a ride-on car for her to use, as well as random other toys and bowls and stickers and things. Mom kept apologising for not having many toys but I think Kate was just as happy with the bowls and spoons as with any other toys, plus she did get some things for Christmas. She did watch some TV, enjoying my old collection of VHS and a couple new DVDs. We discovered that she loves Monsters Inc and Toy Story 3 (in addition to her prior favorite of Toy Story), but had zero interest in Finding Nemo. My brother’s girlfriend brought over her dog one day and Kate totally spazzed out with excitement. She was shrieking with joy and running around and laughing so hard she could barely breathe. It’s a smaller breed, a young dog, and they were pretty evenly matched though the dog was a bit confused as to why suddenly he was being chased around. My brother’s dog, a rottweiler, did interest Kate but he’s so big that she was a little bit shy. She really wanted to play with the cat, but needless to say the cat did not want to play with her!

Ember was just miss happy girl, same as usual, despite the fact that she had a cold when we arrived and a non-stop runny nose. (The congestion cleared the second week…. and then she caught another bug. Now she’s all snotty and snorty again. Sigh.) Everyone just loved her, even my verifiably crazy uncle. She has been practicing a lot of new sounds lately, including very loud shrieks, motorboat noises, growls, and mimicking vowel sounds. Laughter is the most common sound – the kid just loves to laugh and smile. She continues to be a totally easy-going kid, hanging out with me wherever I go and not really needing much besides something to grab with her hands, a clean diaper, milkies, and now and again a nap. She is not a fan of being left alone in a room, there were times when everyone would go to grab food/bathroom/check something and we’d forget she was just sitting in the living room and she’d let out a cry to say “Hey, what about me?!”

It was all around a really good trip, a nice vacation for us to not worry about food and housecleaning and to always have someone around to hand a kid off to (especially at 7am after getting little to no sleep!). It’s just so damn expensive – I now need to pay our credit card and I don’t really want to look at it. Between the flights, the dog kennel for our dogs, the catsitter, the baggage fees and airport meals plus the stuff we bought while there… well. There’s a reason we only make the trip every two years.

That plus the trip back home was not quite as smooth as the trip there. We were all so very tired, having slept for maybe a couple hours before getting up to get to the airport (thank you, Ember, for choosing that particular night to freak out and not sleep at all), I had a headache, we had two stopovers, Kate slept on the short flight so she wasn’t tired enough to sleep on the long 4 hour flight. When I think back I can’t actually think of any one thing that made the trip horrible, I think we were just so worn thin by that point. And then we finally got to our house at 11pm and neither kid would sleep. Thankfully now it’s been two days and we are all catching up.

Pictures to come later.

I had forgotten how kissable and huggable 6 month olds are. Strangely Ember has gotten more and more cuddly as time goes on, and now she loves being snuggled up on my shoulder as I kiss her cheek and rub her back. So I do it often, despite the line of snot she always leaves on my shoulder right now. I LOVE cuddles. Which is weird because I am generally not a touchy kind of person. With animals and my own children, however, it’s a very different story!

I think Ember is teething hardcore. I say “I think” because it’s still just an educated guess, teething is one of those things that may or may not be true until you actually see the tooth erupt and then you can be all “Yeah I knew it!” But she is sucking on everything, the drool is out of control, and the nose never stops running. There have also been a couple nights recently where she was tired and fussy but then started kicking and screaming at me when I layed down with her. To say that is not her usual is an understatement. I think it may actually be completely unprecedented. She never cries at night! She was a very unhappy girl and I could just tell it was more than tired with a sniffly nose, it was something hurting her. :( The next day I tried tylenol before bed and she puked all over me. Super. The day after that I tried ibuprofen. Success! I gave it to her about half an hour before I tried putting her down and she went out peacefully.

I just really hate teeth. I feel like just as you get into a nice routine with your baby the teething starts and everything goes to hell at night. I was starting to move her into her own bassinet and now I’m lucky just to get her asleep, period. I still try to put her down at the same time as Kate, but it’s hit or miss and she wakes up a half an hour later. It takes me so long to get her fully asleep that I often don’t even bother to try getting her back to sleep, I just get her up and let her sit with me for a while. It used to take me 5 minutes to nurse her and get her asleep so I could leave. Now it’s like 30+ minutes. She’s not eating, she’s comfort nursing (which tickles and is not a very pleasant feeling when it continues on for such a long time). But she’s not sinking into a deep enough sleep to let go, she remains right at the edge, whimpering and snorting randomly, and when I try taking my boob away she wakes up hysterical. It is very frustrating! My poor baby doesn’t feel well and I hate that, but eegads I can’t just lay there all day with her! She’s only been taking one nap a day because I only have the time to put her down when Kate is also sleeping, and also by waiting until mid-day she’s really tired and tends to take a 3 hour nap instead of a 30 minute nap. Thank goodness for one good nap.

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On the topic of sleep I feel myself very torn. Ember is a pretty “normal” kid when it comes to sleep – not high needs like her sister was. I think it would be pretty easy to get her sleeping in a crib (when she is well, at least). I know from the start I just started cosleeping mostly out of habit, it’s what I’m used to with a baby. It would be nice to be able to sleep in my own space again, and it would be nice to encourage her to sleep longer stretches without waking up freaking out for a boob. But…. and here’s the problem: I am loathe to give up this time with her. I’ve been through this before and I know that changing a sleep routine is pretty much an all-or-nothing deal. Right now her sleep association is nursing. Once she has a new association I’m going to have to be consistent – no more nursing to sleep curled up in the bed. Every time I think I should just make the change I think about how this is it, she’s my last one, once she’s in her own bed that’s it for babies sleeping snuggled up with me. And I get sad and end up cuddling her a little bit longer.

Yes I know, older kids can/will start coming in to crash the big bed. Kate doesn’t do that yet – she sleeps until morning and that is that. I’m sure at some point when she’s sick with something and Ember is in her own bed I’ll end up bringing Kate into our bed for an early morning snooze. We actually kind of look forward to it (as long as it’s just mornings!). I fondly remember sneaking into my parents’ bed when my dad would get up for work… I’d snuggle in to his spot, the sheets all warm and soft. Or on weekends I’d wait until my mom got up first and I’d dive into her spot.

But still… it’s not the same as a sweet little baby kneading my shirt with her tiny little hand. As uncomfortable as it can be to be stuck between her and the husband it still seems worth it.

After we put Kate to bed we could hear her singing and talking and thumping around for an unusually long length of time. “Did she poop today?” I asked Den. He told me he had not changed any poopy diapers. Neither had I.

An hour after that, as I was attempting (and failing) to nurse Ember to sleep I heard Kate start crying. Den went in to see what the problem was and sure enough it was a poopy diaper. She needs to work on her timing a little bit. After a change she was wide awake and pointed to the living room with an “Go out dere!” We were still up so we just turned on some cartoons and let her play with her blocks for a while.

She asked for crackers and Den went and got her some. She was carrying a pillow around, then would put it on the ground and sit on it. All over the room she’d do this. I thought it odd, but children are nothing if not odd. It wasn’t until Den went to get her a cup of water that Kate pointed to the floor next to her and said, “Picnic! Mama picnic!” She even went and grabbed me another pillow to sit on. So there we were at 11pm, sitting on cushions and sharing a bowl of crackers in an impromptu picnic. She was very pleased about the whole thing. I’m not even sure where she got this idea of a picnic, it seems a little out of the blue to me but she’s been coming up with a lot of pretend scenarios lately.

Years from now, after I have done many horrible things in the eyes of a child and later a teenager, I hope she looks back and remembers days like these when I had picnics with her in the middle of the night.

Somehow Ember is now 6 months old. Seriously, when did that happen? How did half a year already go by?

She is such a sweetheart. She’s still a very calm, mellow baby who will happily sit in the living room playing with blocks and toys. She turns them over in her hand, bangs them together, waves them around… but she doesn’t put them in her mouth. Weird.

At 6 months old she is still entirely breastfed, she has not had any solids yet. In fact she is now completely refusing bottles of pumped milk. I’ve gone out a couple times recently and she has refused to eat anything at all until I come home, even if that’s 5 hours later. Now granted she does sometimes go that long between nursing anyways, but if I was out and she was hungry she used to at least take some from a bottle. Den said he tried yesterday and she gave him the most disgusted look ever and screamed at him. So. That complicates things a little bit! Starting solids at some point soon will at least give her some option when I’m out and hopefully she’ll take some breastmilk from a sippy cup. I don’t mind limiting my time out (obviously, since this hasn’t been much of an issue for us), but it’s nice to know that she has options. I also have a freezer full of milk that I would cry if I had to toss. (And because I know people will bring it up: I’ve tried donating it. I’m on an SSRI, so it doesn’t surprise me that no one wants it.)

Today was her doctors appointment, which I almost missed due to a flat tire. (I was late, but they got me in.) She weighs 16lbs 9oz and is 25.5 inches long. That’s around 65th percentile for weight, 30th for height. Apparently my kids are just shorties! Ember is over 2lbs heavier than Kate was at this age an nearly an inch longer. She is certainly not a petite thing like her sister. But we all knew that just from her leg rolls! Hee hee.

Kate has started touching the side of my face as I lean over her as I tuck her into bed at night, just as I always gently stroke her forehead and cheek when I sing to her. When I stand up to leave her room at night she says, “Ni-night mama. Yuv you.” She rubs my back during hugs and rests her cheek on my shoulder. When Ember is crying Kate crouches down next to her, and asks, “Emmer, you okay?” She mimicks all these things, picking up these mannerisms and expressions and enfolding it into who she is, learning compassion and care – learning how to love. I’ve read some things lately that reminded me that not all children get that much.

Ember now frequently reaches her hand outstretched towards my face. If I get close enough to grabs my lip or pats my cheek in that not-quite-under-control-yet way of babies. She laughs with delight when I say “Nom nom nom!” and pretend to eat her fingers. She also gets very excited about random things and loves to jump in her jumper. She also attempts to jump in the exersaucer, but that doesn’t go as well.

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Both kids have been sick all week and I am pretty frazzled to be honest. Kate doesn’t act sick but she has a stomach bug and there are many diapers of horror. There is much gagging going on in this house. Ember doesn’t have the stomach bug (yet?), but she’s all congested and every time I turn around more snot is running down her face. And because of the congestion getting her to fall asleep is a huge pain in the ass – I have to lay down with her for a good 15-30 minutes and she won’t let go of my boob. This is a big problem during the day when it’s me home with both girls! And after all that work getting her to fall asleep she frequently wakes up after only 30 minutes because she was snorting. She’s also spending all night cosleeping in my bed because I don’t dare move her once she’s finally asleep, and that means I’m getting very little sleep because I can’t get comfortable. (And when I do finally fall asleep one of the two children wakes up crying.) The kids don’t even appear to have the same virus so on top of everything I’m paranoid that someone’s going to get the other thing. I had a minor form of both but am over it now.

Ember is also starting to drop down to two naps a day instead of three, which means that instead of one nap at the same time as Kate’s she’s now napping before and after. They pretty much tag-team me, one waking up just as I get the other one to sleep. Bugger. It was ever so convenient to have two sleeping children at the same time.

It is Christmas time!! I am so flippin’ excited. I just love the Christmas season, and I’ve already dragged out my tree, lights, stockings, wreaths. Kate is very excited by the “kwis-tas twee!” and very helpfully took all the ornaments off it and put them all in a basket. Later however she helped me put them all back on and they have stayed that way for an entire day.

Thanksgiving went well enough, even though I am still rolling my eyes at the American tradition of Thanksgiving a month before Christmas. (I mean, come on! That’s too close!) The food was great, our girls were very well behaved and happy, and there was no family drama like some families seem to suffer from. The girls really didn’t get much nap that day, as we were at one relative’s from noon until 4, then drove to another relative’s from 4:30 until 8. Kate slept in the car and we circled the block a few times; Ember took a couple naps in our arms. But despite the lack of sleep they were both in a good mood and well behaved. Kate spent her time playing with toys, cousins and an uncle who likes to play chase and tackle. Ember sat on the lap of this grandma or that grandma, just checking everything out. I got a few comments of, “Is she always so quiet? I haven’t heard a peep out of her!” She did let out a few complaints when she was hungry and tired, letting me know it was time to take her in the back to nurse her. (She’s at that stage where if there is anything at all going on she will not nurse, just cranes her head everywhere!)

I frequently get a happy, my family is awesome feeling. Because, well, they are. My girls are both such happy personalities (usually), well-behaved and sweet. My husband is also pretty awesome, and I don’t mention it enough!

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Kate is getting a little more into crafty things, which makes me quite excited. I’ve always known that she has a thoughtful personality – she likes to figure things out before trying them. I didn’t realize just how much, however, until recently when I watched her with crayons and playdoh. She doesn’t like to experiment. If I had her something new, like playdoh, she looks at it, pokes it gently, then puts it down and looks at me. Even after I show her some things to do she wants me to do them for her. Same with drawing. She is capable of drawing some simple things, but she doesn’t like to do it, she wants me to do it because I do a better job. I encourage her over and over again and I’ve been working with her to do some of it herself – I’ll draw the body, she can add on legs and arms. I’ll roll the playdoh, but she can make the shapes with it. It’s tedious work, but very exciting when she realizes she can do something and wants to do it again. I love the joy and pride in her eyes when she draws something (like a very squiggly line that’s in the approximate area of the arm) and I say, “Wow!! That’s so good, Kate!! You drew an arm!!” She’s going to be a tough one to watch go through school, I think. She absolutely thrives under praise but she totally loses it if something goes wrong or someone gets upset.

Ember, on the other hand, already shows signs of being nothing at all like that. Obviously she’s pretty young so things will change as she hits toddlerdom, but all signs point to her being unphased by what other people think or do. I think she’s going to be a child who jumps in headlong, who learns by doing and experimenting. She could also be the child who gets into everything and drives her parents crazy. We will see.

Doing it all the second time around has really been no less amazing. It is still so exciting to see Ember learn all these new things, like passing an object from hand to hand. I could see her thinking about it, moving her hands, and I held my breath with nerves. And then she did it, she gripped it with the opposite hand and let go with the other. That was a few weeks ago and she is quickly becoming a pro at it.

She just started sitting up on her own. She has the strength now, easy, but she gets so excited about things that she throws herself straight backward! I make sure to keep a pillow (or myself) behind her. Despite her core strength she still doesn’t roll over yet. She’s almost there – so close. From her back she is constantly rolling onto her side to play with toys, but her lower arm is still pinned underneath and she can’t quite get all the way over. It will any day now.

She can be a very quiet baby, I often forget she’s in the room – and so do other people. I’ve been taking her out to various get-togethers and parties and everyone remarks on what a quiet baby she is. She doesn’t cry or fuss, she’s just happy to sit on my lap and watch everyone and everything… and try to grab anything that gets close enough. She really lunges for things, too… catches me off-guard still. She’s usually quite serious-looking. She’ll smile and laugh and then go right back to serious-baby. She always looks very intense.

On the other hand she can be in moods like she was this evening, blowing raspberries, laughing hysterically at everything, and jumping all over in her jumper. She was one happy kiddo and I have no idea what triggered it but it was friggin funny. I swear I would say “Boo!” all evening long if she kept laughing like that! Even just her leaning back to stare at me while sitting on my lap would trigger her to blow a raspberry, laugh, and excited flap her arms like a bird.

For many months Ember’s body just felt unfamiliar in my hands, so different from Kate as a baby. Now it’s second nature how my hands fit, where her legs roll, how her neck is so warm when I nuzzle it with kisses. Especially at night, when she is laying next to me nursing, my hand curved across her back, her legs are already long enough to rest on top of my thighs. Babies are perfection. I wish she would let me cuddle her more, but I take what I can get.

We have the cold that never ends. Actually I’m pretty sure it’s two colds, one from Kate and one from Denis. I had a very minor sniffle for about a week and was feeling better when it felt like a second wave hit me upside the head (and throat). Both girls have runny noses, and Kate had a croaky frog-voice for a few days that was both hysterically funny and kind of sad. The good side is that no one’s sleep has been messed up this time around, which is huge!

On the bad side we hadn’t left the house in over a week. Kate gets extra dramatic when sick, and add that to not getting out and having fun enough and she was a friggin disaster by the weekend. Denis came home on Friday and I said, “BYE!” and grabbed my purse and ran out the door. I am still not feeling great but since I am an adult and don’t rub my snotty nose on everything in sight I figured it was safe for me to be around some other adults for a little bit. It’s amazing how much it helped for me to get out for a couple hours a day! I no longer feel like locking myself in the bathroom to sob while Kate throws yet another tantrum. And because I am in a better mood and able to spend quality time with Kate she is responding well and getting back to her happy not-a-little-shit self. Also, could be because Denis – the fun guy – is home and playing with her too.

Kate is being quite the little chatterbox lately, and a lot of what comes out of her mouth is amazing, sweet, or hysterical. (Although if I hear her yell “Mama!!” in my ear 50 times in a row again I may lose my shit. I AM RIGHT HERE! I keep saying “Yes Kate?” and she just keeps yelling “MAMA!” Aggghhh!) I have a lot of funny things to share – some I already mentioned on Facebook but I wanted to put them down here to keep them!

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Den trips on toys frequently. Now when he does it Kate glances over and admonishes, “Careful, Daddy.” (You can tell we say that to her often!)

When he managed to stub his toe and gave a yelp she asked, “You okay, Daddy?” He gave me a look that very clearly said OMG my heart is melting!

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Hiding and finding are big games around here. Kate always says the same things, with the same toddler inflection.
“Where paci?” (Or whatever object she’s looking for.)
“Don’ find it.” (= I can’t find it, or I can’t see it.)
“Dere ’tis!!” (= There it is)

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I put Ember straight down for a nap when I got back from an outing. When she woke up I went and got her but apparently Kate didn’t see. After a little bit Kate turned around and saw Ember sitting there. She gasped. “Emmer! You back!!”

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Kate has very nicely been offering toys to Ember, but is unprepared for the grip on that kid and her inability to get the toys back. The other day they are playing nicely and then I hear Kate’s sweet little voice: “Emmer, let go! Let go! Thank you, Emmer.”

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Kate’s big into the alphabet and phonics right now. She was pulling out flashcards of animals and we were practicing letter sounds.
“Goat!”
“Guh. Guh. What letter says guh?”
She’d go and pull out her G letter. “G! Guh-guh-guh! Goat!”

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Kate was following along a video for letter sounds, she gleefully shouts out as it goes along.
“C-c-cat! D-d-dog!”
And so on through the alphabet.
“O-o-octopus!”
Then it showed a parrot for P. “P-p-…. bird??”

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Not to be outdone Ember is also making noises. Happy shrieks, “Ah!” sounds, and now some close-mouthed “guh” sound that she keeps experimenting with. She’s not a particularly loud kid, though…. she gets very intent on what she’s doing. (Unless you count the noise from her banging her toys around. She really likes to whip those suckers and smack them around. Dainty, she is not.)

I think Kate is having an adjustment period now that Den is home. Unfortunately she’s taking it out on me. She’s super happy whenever Daddy is home, she gets all I’m so freaking excited I’m going to run back and forth and Daddy will PLAY with me ALL NIGHT OMG! And really, I love her joy and excitement. It’s awesome! I love how he jumps right in there and lets her stand on him, hang off of him, push him around with different games. Unfortunately when he’s at work – which he has been all weekend – she’s driving me freaking insane. She isn’t sleeping well and she wakes up sobbing because her paci fell 3 inches to the side and she can’t find it. She throws tantrums over every little thing, from screwing the lid on her sippy cup herself to throwing something in the garbage can. And most notably she is refusing to sit with me on the couch. It’s almost like she’s too wired to sit still, but at the same time she’s sobby and hyper-sensitive. Yet when I pick her up she squirms and says, “Down.” If I ask her if she wants to lay on the couch with Mama she says, “No!” It sucks because that was our daily routine, every morning we’d get up all bleary-eyed and tired and lay on the couch together watching TV. Sometimes just 10 minutes before she hopped down wanting breakfast, sometimes an hour or more while we waited for Ember to wake up. I loved that time with her, and I also really feel like it helped Kate organize her thoughts and start her day… not that she needs it, but it worked. Now she’s just a mess.

Ember has a little cold and for the first time something is really messing with her sleep. She napped okay, but yesterday she wouldn’t go to sleep until 10pm and today I got her down at 10… and back up at 10:30. Her nose is stuffed up and every time I take her in the bedroom she’s just screaming from being overtired and pissed off that she can’t breathe right. When she woke back up screaming at the top of her lungs she woke Kate up. Yay. (They’re in different rooms still… but the walls aren’t exactly thick.)

I hope all of this settles down and things go back to normal soon. Especially because we have several transitions planned and I’m not doing a damn thing while they aren’t sleeping to start with. I’ve decided it’s time to get Kate a twin bed so that we can move the crib into our bedroom for Ember. She’s going to be rolling and crawling in the next couple of months and she doesn’t seem particularly keen on the cosleeper. She’s been sleeping in my bed while Den was away and since I have to transition her into her own bed I figure we might as well just make it the crib instead of doing one thing now and another switch later. Then at some point we need to tackle the “paci fairy” and somehow convincing her to give up her pacifiers… I have no idea how to do that one though, since not only does she use them in her mouth but they’re her comfort objects that she carries around. And then potty training. And I have no idea what order all of that is going to go in.

Right now, though, I’d be happy if my kids went back to sleep. Somehow while writing this post I ended up with both kids awake and sitting with me. They must have a cold. :(