Swingset and Weaning

Today is a dreary, rainy day. Kaelyn and I were supposed to go to the zoo with a friend and her son but it's cold and wet and just an all around nasty day. Especially for May! So we're stuck inside. I'm sure this picture shows how Kaelyn will spend much of the day...gazing outside wishing we could go out! Especially since Sean and my dad and his dad built her swingset this weekend!

The job (according to the box) was to take two people two hours. However, it took two people, and sometimes even three, more like 6-7 hours. But the good news is the swingset it built! Kaelyn tested the baby swing we put up in place of one of the regular swings. She seemed to approve. She slid down the slide several times too and enjoyed that. But I don't like that part much because I have to lift her to the top and then help her slide down. I was worn out after 3 slides! Another reason we want to be outside! It'll give us even more to do. When it's nice...if it's EVER nice again! I see a trip to the library in our future today.

I'd been working on Kaelyn's napping lately. As in trying to get her to go to sleep herself. The first few days were rough and even after those first couple of days she would protest a little. But yesterday and so far today, she hasn't even cried at ALL when I put her in her crib! We look at our books, I sing her song, then lay her back and we rock for just a minute or two to relax and then into the crib she goes! Sometimes I hear her rolling around in there for a little bit but she must nod off pretty fast. It's heaven!! I get a lot done not worrying about her waking up and wanting more rocking. Yesterday I ran and showered during the first nap and napped and read during the second. Today will probably be much of the same. It's REALLY nice to have a little time to myself during the day. And not even have to get up at 5am to get it!

Since the napping seemed to be going pretty well I decided to try to cut out the morning nursing session. I needed Sean's help with that because Kaelyn has regularly been getting up at 4 or 5am to eat and then going back to bed. So over the weekend he started getting up with her if she got up at those times and after some patting she would go back to sleep. Then when she gets up around 6 or 6:30am I get her up and RUSH out of her room so she doesn't see her nursing chair and start complaining! The first day she didn't care at all. I brought her downstairs and gave her some yogurt and she drank some milk and all was well. She was REAL grumpy for large parts of the day and I don't know if that was why or not, but it was a rotten day. And I was about to explode by bedtime!!! I was SO ready for her to eat! Anyone who's ever nursed understands that! The second day she was VERY upset that I didn't nurse her right away but once I got her downstairs and got a few bites of yogurt in her she was happy again. And she was SO good for most of the day so she must be surviving okay. This morning she didn't complain again and all has been well so far so I think we're succeeding in cutting that nursing session! I miss my email time in the morning, but what do you do!

And, in combination with the new napping thing, I think she's falling asleep better on her own at night. Last night she nursed and then when she was done, instead of continuing to nurse herself to sleep she just popped off and looked at me. So I rocked her a couple of minutes and threw her in bed and she rolled over and that was that! Way cool.

I did also attempt to give her a bath in the tub WITHOUT the blow up duck tub, though, last time my mom was here. That was a HUGE failure. She screamed...like SCREAMED the WHOLE time. It was her fastest bath ever. She was so upset she was shaking. I don't know if she was scared or mad or what. That kid does NOT like change! Since I wanted to try to stop the morning nursing session I went back to the duck tub for now. I don't want to mess with more than one routine at a time. But it would be really nice to not have to drag that duck tub whenever we go somewhere!! We'll have to try it again sometime. She didn't like the duck tub at first either when I switched from the little baby bathtub to that but she lived and and loves it now.

Ah kids, there's always something! Now if I can just get her to eat anything but baby food! She does love zuchinni bread and gram crackers as well as her veggie puffs but so far anything else gets spit out. I've been giving her real food to play with at supper in hopes that she'll put some of it in her mouth at some point and like it. So far no dice. She did put a little piece of bread in her mouth the other day but it came right back out. I can dream! She'll have to switch over eventually...right?! :)

Hopefully this rainy day won't make us TOO stir crazy. We went to get gas in my car this morning just for something to do! If we can just make it until after lunch we'll hit the library to break things up. Tomorrow isn't supposed to be rainy, but still cold, so we may have to come up with more to do then, we'll see! I am starting to dread winter already...what will we DO all day everyday?!