peace

I feel so peaceful right now! It's a wonderful feeling. Do you know why I feel peaceful? Because I just got Plava and Little F (who I'm taking care of today) both to sleep for their afternoon naps, in rooms that are side by side, with squeaky floors and a dog coming and going. How? I'm not sure I could tell ya, but it's a wonderful feeling.

The two little cherubs sleep and I'm downstairs on the computer. There's nothing like that feeling!!

And since I tend to tell all you readers about the tough parts of my full-time mothering job, I thought it would be nice to tell you that Plava is sleeping wonderfully at last. She's sleeping straight through the night. It started suddenly at about 10 months (which is 2 months ago now) and the rest is history. It's really strange. It was as if someone pressed the "sleep through the night" button and POOF!!

Getting her to actually fall asleep, however, has been very challenging lately. My goodness. It's gotten harder through the emerging of two top teeth, but now that they're out, it seems that she's gotten in a habit of not wanting to settle. Some nights it's easy, but I'd say 4 out of 5 nights it takes us well over an hour, or two, to lure her to sleep.

I can't tell you how nice it is to have Ryan back and have an actual "bedtime team" again. It was so hard when he was doing his musical every night. I really felt like I was losing it sometimes. More nights than not I would just give up after a couple hours and get her up. But now it's wonderful! We can take turns, giving each other a break when patience runs out, and consulting each other on our next plan of action.

Yes, the cards were dealt and we were dealt a baby that has a tough time with sleep. Oh well! She's still wonderful! It seems like every day we just gaze at her and tell each other how great it is to have her with us. What was life like before her? Really! What was it like?

Having a baby is like turning your house upside down. It seems like a crazy thing, but you soon realize that although it's tough to learn how to walk on the ceiling, it's far more exciting up there than it ever was down below! Wow. I don't know where that came from.

So yes, babyland is amazing. It's so fun having Plava along on our adventurous life. It's so much fun considering her needs with everything we plan to do. It's so much fun to even just go for a walk; not only can Ryan and I have some good talks, we also have this cute little kid along with us who loves to join in when we're laughing and chatter away to herself the rest of the time.

It's great having a baby. My goodness, she's hardly a baby anymore. She'll be one year old this weekend, and I can hardly believe how amazing this year has been.