You know you are exhausted when.

A was home yesterday during C's 1pm nap. So we thought we'd be all sly and get into bed for a bit of a cuddle. We were asleep within 2 minutes. Hahaha! Our life is so different now.

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Birthday party in 8 or so days! The theme is monkey/ jungle. Our daughter is rambunctious and silly and has garnered the nickname "monkey" - so the theme is appropriate.

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She is a cruiser and a furniture climber. The cruising is fine. The furniture climbing is freaking me out. Knock on wood, so far so good. She is actually pretty good at getting herself up onto and down off the couch. Every now and then I have to swoop in and catch. Especially when she was first acquiring her mad couch skills and she'd ease herself down, face first!

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Back to work on Monday. And this time I am not pumping. She nurses 4-6 times in a 24 hour period. She is drinking goats milk when I am not around. I just don't want to pump anymore - it is hard work (and time consuming).

Her 24-7 Mama For Now

The days are just going by. In a nice way. I am enjoying this last little while that I have with C as her 24-7 mama until I go back in September.

In the mail yesterday came my schedule. I know what I will be teaching and in what room. All I need to know. For now.

Hard to believe that September is around the corner. Last year at this time I was big and pregnant and uncomfortable. Sleeping better in the day than in the night. And waiting waiting waiting.

Now it is a different kind of waiting.

Poor Little Biscuit Needs Her One Nap

C is down to one nap per day and it takes place at exactly 1:00. If you miss it, you are screwed. Do not go shopping and miss her nap by an hour and assume she will sleep in the car-ride home. She won't. And it'll screw up her bed-time. She will alternate between giddy/ wired and craaaaaaaanky. You will say to her, "sorry baby we won't miss your nap time ever again..."

Random C Doings

She's been clapping, waving, and pointing for awhile.

If you ask her: Where's your belly? She will point to her belly. She also points to her teeth.

She kisses.

She stops playing and gives me hugs and then goes back to playing.

She plays the Ha-Ha game with her baba. The game goes like this, C says Ha, then baba says Ha, then C says Ha, baba says Ha, and so on, until C lets out one big haaaaaaaaaaaaa and then the game starts over.

She would only eat fruit if we let her.

Coasting Along

Just coasting along lately. Can't believe it is August. Can't believe my baby is 11 months old today. Can't believe I'll be back to work in about 3 weeks.

Revelation on Attachment

The days are just sort of slipping by. In a good way, I suppose. I had some tough days with C and her naps... and then it got easy. She has been a bit clingy and for the first time choosing one of us over the other. [She is choosing me]. I had a strange revelation about that - and the revelation had to do with my own mother and my own attachment to her. See, my mom said to me when I told her that C has been choosing me over A, "well you have to nip that in the bud. She has to learn to go to either parent..." I love my mom. I have done a lot of therapy around my mom issues. I realised that C's attachment to me is not something I need to nip. Right now C feels she needs me, needs to express her need for me, something. She doesn't need me slipping away and distancing myself and forcing her to go to A. The revelation: my mom distanced herself when I tried to attach. And this is why I have spent many years feeling not exactly attached to her, somehow distanced from her, and really unable to pinpoint the feeling. This is why attachment to my mom - or connection with my mom - is something I've had to work on. More and more I get my mom - I know some of her history with her own parents - I've seen the ways in which they interact (or used to when her parents were alive) - so yeah I get it. But C coming to me and preferring me is what C needs to do. We need to attach. There will be days too when she chooses A over me. A is cool in all of this and really gets it. I suppose A is part of the reason I had the revelation in the first place. So there you go. I am learning things.