Clockwork

I worried a lot before Jilly arrived about how to get her on a schedule.  I kept trying to picture in my mind how exactly I would make it so she would understand when to sleep, eat, play, nap, etc., knowing that it would be important to do so, but baffled at how you get a baby to do those things.  I'm surprised at the fact that she seems to have a schedule of her own that I've just adopted.  Maybe I'm just lucky, but in my head I never pictured a two week old having any structure to her day.  Although, I pictured a two week old as crying all the time, never sleeping, and pretty much doing nothing exciting or interesting besides laying there between crying and small amounts of sleep, to be honest.  I was wrong.

Jillian's day is pretty much clockwork.  We wake up at 7:30-7:45 a.m., get a fresh diaper, then eat breakfast in bed while Mommy watches the tail end of some celebrity gossip show on AFN and the start of Law & Order (which, for the record, doesn't interest me much but does make time go by much faster during feedings).  We get up, Mommy puts on some music, and we sing, cuddle, dance, and play until shortly after 9:00 a.m. when we take our mid-morning nap.  This is when Mommy enjoys a cup of hot tea, plays on the internet, writes blogs (sometimes, hee hee), and showers and gets ready for the day.  We wake up a little after 11:00 and eat, then play and have tummy time and snuggle until 1:00 p.m., when we eat again then take our afternoon nap.  Mommy sometimes sneaks a little nap here, too, or she calls her mommy for a nice chat.  Around 3:30 we wake up and eat, then after snuggles have some bouncy chair or swing time to look around and make funny noises.  We eat again at 6:00 or 6:30, depending on when Mommy decides to eat her own dinner (and we usually plan our food for as soon as she gets done fixing hers without fail).  We spend some time on the couch playing with Mommy again or take a bath here instead, then at 8:00 we eat again, and then it's bed time.  We wake up to eat at 11, sleep, 3 a.m., sleep, then start our day again at 7:30.  Although we have occaisionally gone until 8:30 before waking up.

I'm really satisfied with this.  She's always so happy, and that makes me happy.  It's amazing to me how routine she is, and it makes it easy for me to plan my day.  I feel so lucky to have such a cooperative little baby. 

Seriously, I thought I'd have a terror on my hands.  I wanted a baby so bad, I had myself convinced that when it finally happened I would have a demon child to deal with, because I couldn't possibly get lucky enough to finally have a baby and have her be perfect.  But instead, I have a baby who's as close to perfect as you can get.  It's baffling, lol.

Speaking of baffling (interesting segway here), Marshall is gone this week doing the Med Board thing.  He left on the 2nd, and won't be back until the 10th.  I'm getting pretty nervous about what the outcome of this will be.  He did meet with his attorney yesterday afternoon, and his attorney is very confident he'll be able to get Marshall returned to duty.  Yay!  I hope this isn't just a case of giving us false hope.  I don't want to rug ripped out from underneath us, so to speak.  It makes me really happy to hear this though, and I could tell in talking to Marshall last night that he feels way better about the situation, too.  So now we can just hope that the attorney is right and Marsh will still be an active duty Airman next week.  His hearing will probably be on Monday.  He has to get a few last minute things turned into the attorney today to show he's good at his job. 

I wish I could be there with him.  He's at Lackland Air Force Base right now for this, and won't have anything to do but relax this weekend.  He's planning a trip to the Riverwalk for some shopping, and I jealously want to be there, too.  I can imagine it in my head: me, Marsh, and Jilly strolling around, looking at all the stores and in the mall, stopping for some Mexican food (ooh chimichangas!), and enjoying our day together.  I miss him a lot, especially in the evenings.  Jilly can get kind of fussy right before her 11 p.m. feeding as I'm getting ready for bed and changing her diaper, and I really miss having him here to hold her while I brush my teeth and put my PJ's on.  He'll be home soon, though, hopefully with good news.  Hopefully I'll get a phone call from him today with an update on when his hearing is officially!