Settling into the Routine

We've been settling into some sort of a routine with Aubree if you can call it that with a 4-week old. She is still sleeping for a good portion of the day with some alert time for awhile after she eats and then she's ready to hit the sack again. As far as the nights go, I feed her around 11 pm (which means I'm to bed around 11:45), then again at 3, and then at 7 am. So I'm getting a fairly good stretch of sleep in there. I try to work out the timing of the 7 am feeding so that I'm done nursing by the time Calleigh and Duncan get up around 7:45 so that I can get their breakfast and make Duncan's lunch. Fortunately Aubree is usually sleeping during Calleigh's nap time so I'm able to get some winks in myself. Sometimes it's a quandary because it's my one time a day that I have "me" time and I'm torn between getting some other things done vs. taking a nap. So far, a nap usually wins out. Of course, I don't get to enjoy a nice long 3-hour nap like Calleigh does because inevitably, Aubree has to eat sometime during that stretch. But I take what I can get. As I mentioned in my previous blog, the evenings are proving to be a challenge because it's when she's fussy and needs constant attention. You just roll with the punches though.

Friday was to be my first grocery shopping experience with both of them in tow and by myself but Elaine called shortly before I was to leave and offered to have Calleigh come over to go swimming. I was quite willing to take her up on the offer and shopping was much more pleasurable with only a sleeping baby. Elaine said that she would be happy to have Calleigh come over every Friday when I do my shopping and all I can say is, I have a great mother-in-law! That definitely makes my life a lot easier for sure.

Friday night we went over the cousins for waffle night. I do believe that Calleigh is developing a little crush on David. She spent a good portion of the time playing with him (and Yully, to be fair). I've mentioned before that Calleigh is into what people's names are (meaning, their whole name) so she goes around calling him David Thomas Wall now.

On Sabbath, Aubree went to church for the first time. We had only gone to Sabbath School the week before. Of course, she did spend most of the service in the mother's room nursing where I dare say we'll end up most weeks since that time coincides with when she needs to eat. We stopped in to say hi to Aunt Wanda after the service and were pleased to see Uncle Dick and Keegan (his daughter).

Saturday night we dared to rent a movie. I wasn't sure how we were going to pull it off with a fussy baby distracting us. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to handle having her on the boob for two hours straight. Fortunately she fell asleep while she was nursing and I was able to just hold her on my chest while we finished the movie. We watched "The International" which we thought was pretty good. Definitely some nice European scenery in it.

Sunday we took care of some errands like getting veggie food at the ABC and checking out strollers at Babies R Us. This stroller thing is getting to be a thorn in my side. It's impossible to decide on a double stroller - - side by side vs. one of the long ones. The pluses of the long stroller is that they can fit through narrow aisles (like in a store), they hold a car seat (which is needed right now), and Calleigh hopefully would not be able to reach Aubree from where she would be sitting. One the downside, their heavier and bulkier and can possibly be harder to maneuver. The side-by-sides are obviously lighter and less of hassle but so far, we have only seen really expensive models that accept a car seat. Obviously at some point in the not so distant future, Aubree would be able to just sit in the stroller without a car seat but then you have the problem of Calleigh being so close to her. Would it be a constant battle to get her to leave Aubree along? And the other issue is that, although Aubree can eventually sit in the stroller without a car seat, what about the times she's already asleep in her car seat in the car? It would be nice to keep her asleep in the car seat and just transport her as is into the stroller. Decisions, decisions. Seriously, they need a stroller rental place like they do with cars so we could rent one for a few days to try it out. Because honestly, until we use one in real life, I'm not sure if we'll be able to really know what type we want. I need to see what the return policy is for these suckers so that if we get one and it doesn't work out, it can be returned.

Last night we went to Ron & Elaine's for some swimming and salads. They had a nice little surprise for Calleigh - - a Little Tykes Fire Engine that she can ride in! They had seen on the news that these were the highest selling cars (the news had given a teaser on it so that viewers would try to guess if it was a Camry or whatever) and decided that Calleigh needed one. So after taking 2.5 hours and some stress to put it together, voila! Calleigh was quite delighted with it.

That's about all that fit to print for now. In closing, I'll just mention that my favorite Calleigh thing at the moment is when she takes Aubree's hand, peers into her face, and says "Hi Aubree. This is your big sister named Calleigh."