Half baked

It is suddenly more difficult to bake...

...Or cook, or tidy up, or do anything around the house. That must mean that Claire is changing. She doesn't sleep for hours at a time on end the way she used to, but instead takes shorter naps and is awake for more hours of the day. This is good because she sleeps more at night which is better for all of us. Unfortunately her best sleep is in my arms because when I put her down she wakes up.

Strapping her in the Sugli is a good short term solution, but now that she's on the brink of 20lbs, I'm on the brink of breaking my back if I carry her around for too long at a time.

I used to stick her in the Bumbo chair up on the counter so she could watch me bake, but now that she has a tad more mobility she reaches out to grab whatever is nearby.  Last week she managed to reach the terra cotta kitchen utensil holder and tip it over sending the utensils all over the place.  And if she's not grabbing at things, she'll arch backwards to try pop herself from the chair. So not safe.

Today I was determined to try out a new muffin recipe so I plopped her in her ExerSaucer and got down on the floor with her to prep some of the ingredients. This worked for a while but there's only so long you can watch someone grate carrots before you'd want to cry. So she eventually started to cry and I put the muffin making on pause to feed her. There were lots of feeding pauses actually. I just pulled the muffins out of the oven now so I'd say it took about 3 hours from start to finish. Was it worth it? I'm not sure yet. I'll see once the muffins have cooled down and I try them out.

Water

My mother has turned me on to flavoured water.

She gave me some sprigs of lavender and mint from her garden to put into a jug with water. It's so refreshing and smells lovely whenever I take a sip. Before the lavender I tried pear slices and ginger and next I'll try mint and lemon.

This has inspired me to grow some edibles in my own garden. I kind of left the garden to go to seed this year because I simply don't have the time. Or rather I can't put the baby down for any significant amount of time to pull the weeds. Next spring should be easier so it will be a project to look forward to.

Lavender is one of those plants that I forget about until I get a whiff of it and remember again just how lovely it smells. MMMMmmmmm....

Party!!

Three birthday parties in 3 consecutive weekends and another coming up in two weeks plus the family get together for me & C next weekend. That's a lot of birthday cake!!

C & I spent a good several moments trying to remember what we did for our birthdays last year. We managed to come up with dinner at Marcello's, which I think is right. 

I can remember the details of Lauren's last 4 birthday celebrations, but it's getting more difficult to remember my own. All I ever want these days is a good meal and birthday cake to make it a good day. Anything else is bonus. 

The birthday giddy rush I get now is for the girls, and planning parties a week apart for the two of them will be something I'll look forward to every year. 

Simple pleasure #11 -peace and quiet

Two kids fast asleep in their beds.

Simple pleasure #10 - refreshing

Swimming in a cool pool on a hot day.

The graduate

Lauren graduated from the daycare preschool room last Thursday and will be starting in the kindergarten room tomorrow. She's one of 5 older kids moving to the new room this week and the remaining kids will graduate later in the summer.

There was a little ceremony at circle time that another mother and I attended where the kids received diplomas and learned what it means to graduate. They had no idea what the rolled paper diplomas were but it was very cute just the same. The graduates got their photo taken by the teacher and all the kids in the class got a bouncy ball and a ring. Circle time was followed by snack which included fruit, cake and popsicles as a special treat.

So little and reaching significant milestones already. I'll blink and Lauren will be graduating from University!

Go to bed already

Go to bed Caroline.

It's 11:15pm and I'm sitting at the computer surfing around and writing this blog when I really should be in bed. The alarm is set for 7am so I can get the baby up and get a head start on getting Lauren ready for daycare.

I can't help it though. Sometimes this hour to myself late at night is worth the risk. There's always a good chance that one of the girls will wake at 2 or 3 or 5 am and disrupt my precious slumber, but I'll take the chance knowing full well I may feel like a zombie tomorrow.

Oh well, as a very good friend of mine once said, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."