random stuff

I have a headache today, so I've been pretty useless. The house is a sty, but at least I've spent more time with Margaret than usual. She and I went out to dinner last night while Henry and Wes stayed home. Henry really can't be taken out past bedtime anymore, so we decided that our Tuesday night dinners with friends would be a parent switch-off and we'd take turns. The idea was to take Margaret, but after last night I'm rethinking that position. She was exceptionally whiny and clingy, so I barely got to participate in any adult conversation (which of course is the point of dinner with friends, not to pay $20 for average-tasting food). My initial thought is that I haven't been paying enough attention to her lately, so I played with her a lot today, and although she watched a lot of tv (and is doing so again right now), I actually watched most of it with her. We played ball with the globe beach ball and bonked Henry in the nose a few times, danced as Belle and the Beast, put together a puzzle, read a few books, and watched some Sesame Street. I took a 30-minute nap in her room, until she started poking me to wake up, but I guess that doesn't count as quality time with her. I need to make sure I make time with her on a more regular basis, which is why I've been so scarce online lately. I need to focus my online activity a little more and not spend the entire day refreshing my email.

Margaret seems to be enjoying school so far this year. There are only a few kids from last year in her class, but she seem to like the new teachers ok. I signed up to be the room parent for the Tuesday/Thursday class, so watch this space later for me kvetching about how no one else ever does anything. Although already all of the parties have a parent signed up to coordinate them and none of them are me, so that's a good sign.

Henry has developed a subtle "tell" for when he wants to nurse...if I'm holding him, he butts my chin with the top of his head while simultaneously drawing his legs up, which he's done for months, but now if he's sitting across from me on the floor or in the exersaucer, he'll duck his head as if he's head-butting me from afar. It's a little flirty, which is absolutely adorable. I don't really want to teach him any words or other hand signs for nursing, because I want him to always duck his head at me like that.

Henry is also trying to pull up on things. If he's fussy now, I can almost always solve it by holding him in a standing position. He can't crawl yet, but he has the reach of a yoga master. He can sit in a lotus position and reach nearly across the room for a toy, but without flipping to his belly. Once he's on his belly, he'll either forget that he knows how to roll over and complain, or he'll fall asleep.

On the sleep note, after a troublesome week last week, Henry has gone back to the sleep habits of the world's easiest baby. First of all, he's as regular as a clock. He takes his first nap 1.5 -2 hours after waking, and his second nap at 1. If I try to drag it out until 2, I'll have the crankiest baby alive. Even if he had a late or long morning nap and has only been awake for an hour, he STILL wants to sleep before 1:30. To get him to sleep, all I have to do is cradle him with his pacifier, rock a little and make a few shushing noises, and his little eyelids droop. I put him in the bed, and he rolls onto his side, then his belly, and he's asleep. If he wakes up at night before 3, which he hasn't been doing too much, I just pop that pacifier back in his mouth and he's asleep again. The other day after nursing him around 4, he got all wiggly and animated and wouldn't take any more breast, so I just put him in his bed and he went right to sleep. Apparently, he didn't want to sleep in our bed, but in his own! I hope he's not getting too attached to that bed, since he's about to outgrow it. I think I'll try moving him to the crib next week.

OK, I should start thinking about dinner or something.