I Think Spring is Creeping In

No, that statement is not based on the weather. While it was sunny today, just a few days ago it was cold and blustery and POURING rain outside, and I hear that more rain is expected next week.

But inside the house, things are changing. Rooms are getting cleaned up and rearranged. The Bug is too big for her co-sleeper, so I'm putting it away. She's too able to sit up for the bouncy chair to be safe anymore, and she doesn't want to be in it anyway, so I'm putting that away too. The swing also very suddenly lost its magic over her and she is also trying to sit forward and get out of that when I put her in it, so yep, I'm putting that away too.

In a small way I am a little sad that The Bug is already too big for these things, that she is growing so quickly and - yes - crawling (more on that later). But in a very large way, I am practically having a party to celebrate being able to get these things out of the way. The swing in particular takes up so much space, and there is no really good place to put it. The bouncy chair has been out in the hallway at the top of the stairs because we used it in different rooms and that was a good middle place to put it so I could pick it up on my way to whatever room it needed to be in.

Our new sleep situation is as follows: We have pushed our California King bed into a corner of our bedroom and all four of us are sleeping in it. In order for all of us to have enough room, we turned ourselves sideways on the mattress. Slipshod is the only one who notices any difference in length, but his feet aren't sticking out. Because he sleeps with his knees curled up a little bit, I think. But he seems to be sleeping just fine and isn't upset about the arrangement.

The Bug is getting used to sleeping with us all night every night now. At first she was not liking it much but I have now figured out that was because she didn't want our covers on her. She would kick them off and then get cold. So, back to the Halo sleep sack for her. We only had one in the small size so I have ordered a medium from the diaper service, which they will bring with our next delivery. Yay! For now she is in the small sleep sack and it is still longer than her legs, so it is working. She is warm and sleeping better.

Speaking of her sleeping better - I don't know how excited I should get about this because maybe it's just for a couple days - but The Bug has suddenly started sleeping well again! I am STOKED. The night before last she woke up a lot during the night but her last bunch of sleep before we all woke up in the morning lasted 5 hours. That's much better than things were going for a long time. And last night was even better. She slept for 8 hours from the time I put her to bed until 3:45am, and then she was awake for a little bit and nursed. Then she slept for nearly 3 more hours until we all woke up at the usual time. YEAH! I am not feeling the effects of longer sleep chunks yet, but hope to soon. Right now my body is still in crisis mode, I think, and can't quite believe that it has been allowed to sleep for 4-5 hours at a time.

Back to putting away baby things. Now we take the next step, and again I have mixed feelings. You see, we are done. I don't want to be pregnant or go through labor again, and I am at my absolute limit with two children. More power to the families who want and have more, but this is it for us. Because 95% of the parenting is on me, and I think I might actually go crazy in the throw-her-in-an-institution kind of way if I had three kids or more.

That means, goodbye baby things. I have already passed along the 0-3m and 3-6m clothing to some good friends who are expecting twing girls any day now, and the rest of the clothes will go to them as The Bug grows out of them. The baby swing was a hand-me-down to us, so I will give it away to another family who needs it. The bouncy chair was very cheap so I will give that away as well. I'm planning to sell the co-sleeper, but the rest of it can just go.

While I know we're done, at the same time it feels a bit rushed to be shooing these things out the door. But why wait? Somebody else can use them and they'll serve no purpose in our garage.

As for crawling... The Bug has been making new leaps every day in her attempts to move toward objects, across the room, etc. For the past month or so she has been able to push herself further and further backward, frustratingly away from the objects of her desire. These days, she also turns sideways when moving backward, so she's making the movements she can do work for her. For the past week or so she has worked very hard on getting her bootie up in the air and rocking. She made a few successful moves forward on her hands and toes, with a couple lip stands along the way. Now she is trying harder to get her knees under her, and tonight right before bedtime, she truly crawled a bit on her hands and knees. I had a feeling she would get the hang of this faster than Sweet Pea did. Sweet Pea was already moving across the floor at this age, but she was doing the "Army crawl," which I also called "swimming," from 8 months to 11 months. I think The Bug is going to discover true crawling any day now and just go from there.

Interesting note: She STILL does not know how to roll from her tummy to her back. Sweet Pea has tried to show her, but The Bug doesn't care - now she's mobile!

Sweet Pea LOVES to play peek-a-boo with The Bug, and the bug loves it just as much - maybe even more. It is so cute to watch and hear them play, and exciting for me to see them be more interactive, because sometimes I can actually leave them playing and go do something else across the room. For instance, last night while they were in the family room playing peek-a-boo in their play tent & tube, I walked a few feet to the kitchen and set the table and got dinner ready. Oh, how I have waited for these days - and I imagine it will only get better, though I know that with more mobility will come more screaming. Sweet Pea is not excited that The Bug can get to her toys now. She's good at sharing some of the time, but on her terms. She refuses to accept that we are not going to buy The Bug her own set of Legos, building blocks, etc. and that what has until now been hers is now theirs. But, I imagine that will come soon enough. And there will always be disputes. They are siblings, after all.