The Perfect Working Mommy Night

I finally had what I envision as “the perfect working mommy night” and wanted to document it because it may never happen again.  The irony, of course, is that I had today off work, but Guinevere still went to daycare, so it counts as a “working mommy” night to me even though I didn’t go to work.

I picked G up from daycare at the normal time.  She was super smiley and adorable when I got there, which made me really happy because the last couple time I’ve picked her up, she’s been a cranky-pants.  I’m guessing she had a lot of fun at daycare today.  Aaron and I were both super sick over the weekend (either food poisoning or stomach bug, not sure which), so I’m sure we were pretty boring to be around for the past two days, and daycare was much more fun in comparison.  I didn’t really start feeling back to myself until about noon today, so I’m actually really glad that I had today off work and G had daycare!

When we got home, Guinevere and I played in her room.  I sat her down on the floor with her big stuffed dog, Eric, behind her (just in case she fell backwards) and just let her play and explore.  She’s sitting so well now!  I was even able to leave the room to briefly get dinner started and when I got back, she was still happily playing with her toys.  I think she’s getting close to army-style crawling.  I put her on her tummy and put her toys in front of her and she started swaying and attempting to move her legs.  She just hasn’t quite got the coordination down yet.  Then she gets frustrated and starts doing the “Superman” (both arms and legs up in the air).

Sitting in her room.

After playtime, we ate dinner together.  I gave up on the whole puree thing for tonight.  She seems to like feeding herself much better than me spoon-feeding her.  So I gave her some puffs to eat while I finished making dinner.  Then I gave her some food off my plate: broccoli, zucchini, cauliflower, chicken, and a piece of biscuit.  She seemed to love it all – though, she loved the broccoli and zucchini the most.  

Chompin' on broccoli.

Then I gave G bath.  She laughed and giggled the whole time.  It’s the first time since she was a newborn that she seems to really have enjoyed the bath.  I was singing to her, and she started “singing” back.  Of course, it helped that I was really just humming “da da da, lalala” – so it wasn’t hard for her to repeat it.

After bath time, I gave her her final feeding of the night.  She drifted off into that beautiful “milk drunk” dream state . . . for about five minutes.  Then I put her in her sleepsack and read to her.  I attempted to read a book about puppies in Spanish, and then followed it up with “Goodnight Moon.”  Then I sang her a couple songs and put her to bed. 

Normally that part is the worst part – this is when I leave her in her room and set the timer for 10 minutes and wait for her to wail herself to sleep (which seems to usually take 8 ½ minutes lately). But tonight, I heard one cry as I left her room, but by the time I got to the monitor to turn it on, she was asleep!  I was able to clean up from dinner and type this blog and will still be able to go to bed at a decent hour!  And that is what I consider a perfect night. :)

Mommy moments

Now that Guinevere has been in our lives for over half a year (is it ridiculous that I’m already starting to plan her first birthday in my head?), I just wanted to share some of my favorite moments of being a mom.

1.     That moment first in the morning when I walk in Guinevere's room and she rubs her eyes and recognizes me. Her face breaks into a huge smile and her eyes say, "Oh it's you!!! I'm so glad you're here!"  It warms my heart every time.  I love that she now recognizes me and seems to prefer my presence (or Aaron’s) to anyone else (sometimes too much so - she can get very fussy if I leave the room for too long now, but I guess there are worse problems to have).

2.     That moment when Guinevere falls asleep during her last feed of the day.  She's so beautiful and peaceful.  And I know that moment will not last long.  My baby is not one that you can nurse to sleep.  She falls asleep while eating, yes.  But the moment you pick her up to move her, she wakes up.  Sometimes she remains drowsy enough to go back to sleep - most of the time, she wakes up wide awake, no matter how sleepy she was before, and does NOT want to go to bed.  This is one big reason why our bedtime routine involves story time after feeding and before bed, which brings me to my next favorite moment . . . 

Milk drunk.

3.     Bed time stories.  One of the things I've always looked forward to about being a mom was reading to my kid at bedtime.  I will admit that I was a little disappointed the first couple times I tried to read to Guinevere.  She squirmed and fussed and did not seem to enjoy it . . . granted, she was only about 3 weeks at the time.  Now she really seems to enjoy it. She smiles as I turn the pages – and even turns the pages herself sometimes.  She definitely has favorite books.  Right now, her favorites are "The Napping House" and "The Hungry Caterpillar."  She also seems to like it when I read some French nursery rhymes to her - she looks up and me and stares at my face while I'm reading.

Reading her favorite "The Napping House."

4.     Watching my baby learn to eat.  As you know from my last post, we are now introducing Guinevere to the world of food.  So far she's a pretty good eater.  She seems to prefer the finger foods to the purees, which is fine with me.  But probably the most magical moment thus far has been watching her eat and love veggies!  Her favorites are cucumber and broccoli.  One of the best moments was last week when I gave her banana for the first time.  She had a piece of banana in one hand and a piece of broccoli in the other. She tasted both, contemplated them for a bit and then starting voraciously gnawing on the broccoli and dropped the banana.

Eating broccoli.

5.     Listening to her "talk" to herself.  Her "vocabulary" now includes several consonants.  She loves to say, “dada.”  I’m sure she doesn’t know what it means yet, but it’s still really cute to hear, and of course, Aaron LOVES it.  No “m” sounds yet, though, which means no “mama” yet. Every time she says “dada,” I say “Very good!  Now can you say mama?  MmmmaMmmma.”  She’ll stare at my mouth with a slightly amused, incredulous look that seems to say, “Mommy, you’re silly, of course I can’t say that yet.  But I would like to figure out the mechanics of it.” She’ll get there eventually.