Dave commented tonight that it seems our garbage is constantly full now. I told him that's because I'm so much more productive! I'm actually cleaning up around the house now, getting rid of things in the fridge, going through those months worth of magazines, culling toys...amazing how much you can get done 10 seconds at a time while bouncing a baby around.
Then I took Julian and Katrina to Gabriel's pre-K, minutes too late to see their Halloween parade. But I did get pictures of his class, and then the whole school (well, the older kids)
After picking Gabriel up from pre-K, I actually dared to take all three kids to Trader Joe's. Eeps! But it worked out well. I gave the boys each one Trader Joe's sack to carry, and put various light items in the sacks, and they took their carrying jobs very seriously. Katrina slept the whole time.
I'm finding that these sorts of things (a grocery outing, a trip to brother's school) are a little more possible and predictable when I make a point of nursing baby every 2.5 - 3 hours. When I'm at my wits' end and nurse her after just 2 hours, she consistently doesn't nurse well (a bad thing when battling thrush) and cries afterward anyway.
Once again, a great afternoon despite Julian's not taking a nap (too much construction upstairs, and he resisted a living-room "campout"). We also took some photos of all the kids lying down, at Gabriel's request: he wanted to see how much bigger he was than everyone else! They both insisted on being next to the baby for these pictures.
But the no-nap thing was OK, the boys had an early dinner and we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. I took a fussy Katrina in the Baby Bjorn, which basically worked. It was nice to reconnect with our neighbors -- I haven't talked to any of them even since being pregnant! So un-community-like, even though we have very nice neighbors, and some have kids exactly the same age.
Yesterday evening was tough; lots of baby crying and waking up 10-20 minutes after falling asleep, and being inconsolable inbetween. I think she's just tired, so I'm now trying to get her calm, then put her down, maybe give her the pacifier and stroke and rock her, then let her fall asleep on her own. When she wakes up and cries, I pick her up, try to calm her down and go through the whole thing again. Last night it was about four hours of this, with nursing every 2 hours or so. But then we had a great night and she only woke up once and went right back to sleep after nursing.
Something tells me I'm not the only mom relieved Halloween is over. It was fun, but now I'm ready to put costumes, parties, parades, and piles and piles of candy to rest for another year.
10/31/06
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