Milestone!

So I just had to share the big news... Amelia is doing so much better at night now! Huzzah! For a few nights this week after her bedtime nursing session, she went progressively longer and longer without night nursing (2am, 4am, 6am) and last night she didn't ask to nurse until 8am. Huzzah!

I've been sleeping in the queen bed and James has been sleeping on the twin in the next room. We still like each other just fine, of course, but recently this has been the sleeping arrangement most likely to result in us all getting enough sleep.

Anyway, what usually happens is that I nurse Amelia, hand her over to James, and then they go fall asleep on the twin mattress in Amelia's room. Sometime in the middle of the night, Amelia usually wakes up crying looking for me and desperately wanting to nurse.

Last night, though, she apparently needed to fall asleep with me. So that's what happened. But! Sometime in the night she ambled back over to her room and cuddled up with James without waking either of us. I actually had to search for her in the night when I woke up to pee for the third time (ugh, pregnancy is fun) and she was GONE. WHUT?

Sometime later she woke up again and decided she needed me and came back to sleep in the queen with me. Only she didn't nurse... she just wanted to cozy herself in my armpit. Gross, I think, but whatever floats the kid's dreamboat.

So I'm super excited about last night for several reasons. Mostly I'm excited that she ambled back to her own room on her own. But also, I'm glad she is nursing less at night. It's been disturbing my sleep more severely lately.

Now if only I could tell you that Amelia night nursing less and spending more of the night in the other room with James were actually helping me sleep.

Baby Delta is making nighttime AWFUL. I've been getting up at least four times in the night to pee. And then I can't fall back asleep because I feel sick and/or too hot and/or headachy and/or anxious and/or sore all over. Last night I was all of the above. Fabulous. Yeah, so the last half week has been horrible for me.

I hear that around age 14-18 months, little kids are still extremely needy (must have Mother ALL the time, no exceptions!) but are also hard to keep up with thanks to the whole "must run everywhere", "must climb ALL the things", "must destroy ALL the things", "must flail ALL the limbs when near Mom's face", "must create ALL the messes", etc., etc., etc. Amelia has fit into this stereotypical development stage PERFECTLY.

It has been extremely demanding on me, particularly during the last few weeks while I've been feeling groggy. (I am SO tired ALL the time. I attempt to stay in bed until noon every day and then take a nap later.) Amelia is so difficult to deal with a lot of the time. Now, I do not mean to say that she is a bad kid or an unhappy kid or an angry kid or any of that sort of thing. She is SO happy. I seriously don't think I know of any other kids her age who are so happy, so friendly, so boisterous, or so loving. She is very, very nice.

Everybody at church thinks she is so well-behaved... and by this they mean she doesn't really get angry and throw evil tantrums. She is definitely mischievous and laughs maniacally as she constantly gets into all sorts of trouble. Amelia is simply irrepressible and always adventuring in some way.

She is NOT quiet in church, nor do I think she even remotely has the capacity to sit still, but to my surprise even the people I was sure would say, "Why can't you get your kid to sit down and shut up and act like a tiny adult?! What is wrong with you? You are obviously doing this parenting thing wrong!" ... Well, instead they are saying, "Why, isn't she just the sweetest thing? So well-behaved. Not like some brats I know..." So I don't get it, but I'll take it.

Oh, and the pediatrician told me, "Yes, I know you're tired. But Amelia is the happiest and most well-behaved 18-month old I've seen in months." She told me this while Amelia was driving me bonkers with her energy level. In some ways, I apparently have got it easy right now. For instance, I suppose we don't ever have any battles of wills.

Maybe the secret is this: if the kid is grinning ear-to-ear and isn't mean, it doesn't matter how many grey hairs or bald spots or black eyes or bruises or bags under-the-eyes or quasi-electrocution hairstyles or twitching facial features Mom and Dad have. That is one good kid.

Theoretically, Amelia should be approaching a new stage: emerging independence. Oh my, this sounds like exactly what I've been dreaming about and my current energy levels warrant.

We are actually beginning to see this happen, I think. Sometimes she plays by herself for all of fifteen minutes. Egads! Sometimes in the night she actually rolls over and takes up the OTHER half of the bed instead of sleeping on top of me! Sometimes (semi-regularly) she lets us completely abandon her while she sleeps! (This is good. Given the frequency that I'm waking up in the night to pee, I shudder to think what would happen if she bolted upright each time I got out of bed in the night... Ooh, ooh! Last night, even, she did wake up when I got out of bed. She looked up to see what I was doing... and then laid back down and went back to sleep. Of course, this did happen after a few instances of her following me to the bathroom to see what I was doing in the night, but still. Success!) Oh, and of course, the transition to nursery could not be going more easily.

And, of course, the biggest evidence that she is getting more independent... more SURPRISES. I found her giant blue ball inside the dryer today. James found that she had ripped off all the pull tabs on our soy milk food storage. (Ugh.) Art on the walls. Sticker wall art ripped off the wall and shredded into pieces and spread throughout the house. Cheerios in the heater vents and inside the computer case (... ... ... I do not like the implications of that one). Baby covered in pen and/or marker. Toilet paper EVERYWHERE. All our apples pulled off the table, each of which have one or two mysterious bite marks in them (Bunnicula?). Pieces of tissue shoved up into the innards of our printer. Giant puddles of water dangerously close to things that should never under any circumstances have puddles of water nearby (i.e. computers).

Love and surprises,
Jenna, Amelia, and Baby Delta