In the Evening

Every evening about this time, after Jilly has been in bed for a little while and Marshall goes to sleep, and after I catch my breath from my workout (Curse you Jillian Michaels and your hard yet extremely effective DVDs!), I sit down and, for the first time all day, think about me.  What do I want to do with the hour or so that I get completely to myself before I go to bed?  Usually, one of two things happens.  Most nights, I look around at the messy house, then start straightening up, doing dishes, cleaning bathrooms, preparing Jilly's meals for the next day, all before getting myself ready for bed and passing out as soon as my head hits the pillow.  Then there's nights like tonight, where I decide that maybe I can be lazy for a night.  I skip my workout, look around my messy house, and think "Meh, it can wait."  Because I'll be honest, I'm tired.  So very tired.

Jilly has quite the routine at this age.  We wake at 9 (give or take a half hour), eat, then she plays in the exersaucer while I get some breakfast and try to wake up enough to be fully functioning.  Then we play on the floor for about an hour.  These days, this means Jilly rolls and scoots around getting into stuff while I see just how not-childproofed my house is.  "No, Jilly, Daddy's xbox is not a toy.  No, Jilly, we can't try to eat cat hair.  No, Jilly, we don't pull things off the coffee table."  She's not even fully mobile or pulling herself up on anything yet and she's already sooo busy.  Before I know it an hour goes by, and she's ready for her nap at 10:30.

Now, nap times are sacred to a parent.  Unfortunately, my sacred time only lasts 45 minutes at most, so I try to cram as much into nap times as possible.  The morning nap is my shower and get ready for the day.  By the time I'm showered, dressed, and at least partially made up for the day it's usually pretty close to wake up time, so I try to start getting lunch around for us during the last moments of precious sleep.  Then we play until 11:45, when she's into the high chair so I can finish our lunches, and lunchtime begins.  After lunch comes clean-up, which usually takes a while since Jilly likes to try to feed herself and makes a huge mess.  Then at 1:00 is her afternoon nap.  She usually naps for an hour (woah!), so I clean up the kitchen from lunch, sweep the floors through the house, switch laundry, make Marshall lunch, and then Jilly wakes up.  We play, read, whatever, until 4, when she naps again, then Marshall entertains her so I can make dinner, we eat, play, bath at 8, then book, song, and bed at 8:30.

Marsh goes to bed at 9, then the house is quiet.  It's in that moment when I think, "Where did all my time go today?"  I never feel like I get much accomplished, and yet I never stop moving.  My house always looks like a mess, and yet I feel like I'm always cleaning.  How the hell does that happen?

Anyway, this evening I'm doing nothing for a bit.  But, it's already 10:30, so bedtime is any minute now.  I'll tell you what, writing this out explains to me why I'm always so exhausted!  I kind of miss having some time to myself to focus on things I love to do.  On the same hand, taking care of Jillian is what I love to do most, so I guess it all balances out!  I hope as Jilly gets older and can entertain herself more (and separation anxiety is over!) I can balance my time a little better to work in some time just for me to do what I want!

I'm ba-ack! With "Adventures in Nursing: the Acrobat"

So, I think this is the longest I've gone without blogging anything.  Vacation, man!  Get off my back!  *Looks around shiftily.*  Anywho, my vacation was amazing.  I wish I could say I feel refreshed, but it was exhausting.  Now I just find myself homesick for that hecticness as I sit around with nothing to do but hang with Jillybean all day.  Fortunately, hanging with the Bean just so happens to be the highlight of my life.

My vacation was mainly just visiting family.  Jilly ate up the attention like no other, just as long as I was the one holding her.  She did okay near the end, but she just wanted her mommy pretty much the whole vacation.  But what can one expect from a baby who's never met anyone or been anywhere other than with her mom and dad and a small group of close friends?  She did awesome.

I don't have too much time to write tonight, so I'll write about my vacay later.  But for now, I'm going to write a short bit on "Adventures in Nursing."

The day before yesterday, Jillian decided that the only way she'd eat is in the side-lying position.  For my non-nursing friends reading this, this means I lay down on my side, Jilly lays on her side, tummy to tummy, and she eats.  This has always been her favorite way to eat, but until Wednesday she'd eat however she could because the girl loves her food.

Now, Miss Fuss has recently started to scoot around a bit.  She can scoot in circles like a pro, and she can go backwards, but she's learning to army crawl forward at the moment, at least when she's not getting super frustrated and just looking at me screaming.  ("Why aren't you moving me?  What do you want from me, Mom?  JUST PICK ME UP ALREADY OR MOVE ME AND STOP MAKING ME TRY TO DO IT!!!!")

Yesterday, as she was eating, I noticed she was kicking off me with her legs, and rolling onto her stomach.  All the while, she had her brow furrowed in concentration and was grunting a bit.  She scooted a bit, pulled off and laughed, then continued eating.  All the while I was just kind of staring like "Uhhh..what are you doing, love?"  After a few minutes, she moved herself into a full out backbend, then straightened herself out so she was perpendicular to me.  And yes, she was still eating with an occaisional giggle thrown in. 

Today, she somehow managed (I was napping with her so I'm not 100% sure how this happened), while nursing, to turn all the way up so her body was pressed against my face, once again still eating the whole time and giggling. 

Apparently, we have to eat in the side-lying position only so she can turn me into her little mealtime jungle gym.  I have a feeling the older she gets the more shenanigans while nursing I'll experience.  My little crazy kid!