The Family *roll

People are asking me how I spend my days. When Ellie is awake and happy, we play on her mat and I learn over and over again how much is too much shaking and jiggling before she throws up. I sing her songs and do dance moves to get her to giggle and smile. Once she becomes a little more tetchy I carry her around the house and tidy up. After a while she gets sick of that so I pop her in the Baby Bjorn and we take walks around the neighborhood with Belly. I feel as if I know the 10 square blocks around our house like the back of my hand: there is the street of ridiculously tiny houses, the house with the farm for a backyard, the house with chickens, the street of houses I wish we owned etc. I know the corners with garbage cans where I can throw out Belly’s poop. I know which streets to avoid because there are too many squirrels for Belly to chase. I know all the gardens I envy and the houses with paint colors I love. I know exactly how far I can walk before I need to turn around since the baby will start fussing if I push her too much further.

I also love going downtown to the library and popping into the stores. And now I love the knitting store. I’m not particularly handy and rarely have the patience or planning capacity to engage in crafts. However, since having the baby and entering a stage of life where a 10-block radius of small-town Minnesota or my baby’s face can entertain me for hours, I seem to have the patience for knitting. I taught myself to knit using You-Tube and more or less the entire knitting section of the public library. And I can make stuff! I’ve made mittens for Ellie and Leo and am working on scarves and hats for the whole family. I’m immensely proud of the work and find the process itself incredibly soothing and satisfying. Also, walking into a yarn store is heaven: the colors and textures of yarn are pleasing in so many ways. And clothing my baby is pretty neat.

I also made apple butter last week from apples we picked at the local orchard.

It’s almost too much, isn’t it.

Sleep Update: Ellie’s sleeping got really bad again and we ramped up our Weissbluthian crying-it-out plan with impressive results: Ellie has only woken up once the past 2 nights. As before, I know things can change for the worse again but these last 2 nights have recharged my batteries immensely.