Busy Baby

Posting (and e-mailing, or anything that involves sitting down at all) has been almost non-existent this week because my life has suddenly become incompatible with computer time.

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With the weather so lovely lately, and especially now that the sandbox is set up for the summer, the kids are outside a lot. The girls are engaging in more imaginary play as they get older, and it's really fun to listen in on their games. They also enjoy games like Simon Says and Red Light/Green Light, which I've been playing with them.

I think it's great for them to be outdoors. They get lots of exercise and sunshine along with the requisite copious amounts of dirt and sand. But we don't have a fenced yard yet, so I've been spending quite a bit of time outside with them or hovering very near the open patio door.

When we're not outside, we've been doing a little schoolwork and lots of coloring and reading. We're reading The All-Of-A-Kind Family right now. I loved the series as a child, and it's so much fun reading it to my girls. They read to themselves a lot too, and AJ enjoys reading to her sisters. They're still doing their chore charts every morning and evening, and I'm working on developing my own routines as well. Even just having all the beds in the house made every morning makes such a difference.

Baby E has become a full-time job all by herself. She is, as I've often heard young children described, busy. Very, very busy. She's hard to keep up with both figuratively and literally.



That kid can crawl fast! She's not only pulling to a standing position, but also moving along the furniture a bit while she's up there. Baby E could win any quick-draw contest with the speed of her hands when she sees something within reach that she's not sure she's allowed to have, but knows she wants. She's eating more solids now, too. Tonight at dinner I gave her a little spoonful of rice and the insides of a few green peas, just to see what she'd do with them. She ate quite a bit of the rice and didn't touch the peas. (She dislikes peas, and she somehow knew exactly what they were.)



She is sleeping better at night, thanks to DH. He's been putting her to bed almost every night, and is actually succeeding at teaching her to sleep. The first 3 nights or so she was to fidgety to let him hold her, so she screamed for an hour or so while he sat in her room talking and singing to her, patting her back, and whatever. Now he rocks her almost to sleep and then lays her down, and she only wakes up 1 to 4 times each night (usually 2 or 3). She's been going to sleep sometime between 9 and midnight and then going back to sleep after each feeding until around 8:30 a.m.

Baby E is still picking at her ears whenever she gets bored, so I'm trying to keep her occupied and keep her fingernails clipped constantly. You can see in some of the photos how red her poor little ears are. She makes them bleed almost daily. Swabbing them out with hydrogen peroxide as the pediatrician recommended seems to help a bit, but not much. My ears itch, too, so I wonder if it's the pollen in the air.



The last few days I've been using any bit of spare time (usually nap time) to do a bit of housework and sewing. I'm making some fitted diapers, covers and pocket diapers for Baby E, since she's growing out of the ones I'd made before. I'm making some changes with each new diaper to gradually perfect my homemade diaper patterns. Hopefully I'll be able to sell a few once I get it figured out. I have enough diaper-making fabric here for a small army, so I need to use it up somehow. :)

I also figured out a great use for a set of socks I'd bought for myself that shrunk in the dryer. The ankles were too tight to pull the socks on comfortably, so I'd thought they were a complete loss. But then I discovered that if I cut off the toes and sew fold-over elastic on the cut edges, they make great legwarmers for Baby E. The heels land right at her knees. [Instructions for making them here.]

I'd seen BabyLegs advertised and liked the idea, and now I'm hooked. The legwarmers protect Baby E's legs from carpet burn and keep them warm, but they leave her feet bare for crawling. The best thing about them is that they make diaper changes so easy. Believe me, with this little wigglebug I'll take anything I can get to minimize the intense wrestling match every. single. diaper change has become! Now that I know I like them, I'd like to try some of the real BabyLegs--they're so much cuter (cute patterns, and no baggy spot at the knee), and I'm wondering if they'll stay up a bit better without leaving a red mark on her thighs.

I had been writing blog posts mainly while sitting down to feed Baby E. But lately nursing sessions last all of about three minutes before Baby E is off again, so I'm not sure how much computer time I'll get in the near future. Plus, DH introduced E to the keyboard pounder, so now she's more insistent than ever that she wants to type whenever she's near the computer.

We're working on spending more time together in the evenings and on getting to bed earlier, in addition to developing daily routines. Getting up earlier is next on the agenda. :)

Speaking of going to bed early, I've stayed up far too late writing this post. I'm going to try not to continue doing that, so don't be alarmed if posting is sporadic for a while. Hopefully once I get settled into the new routine, finish my current projects, and get used to Baby E's new stages, I'll be able to budget a little more time at the computer again.