We didn't need that soap dish anyway ;)

Its been an alright day here, but not necessarily "normal" or average.

Natalie got up on time with no trouble before hand. It seems she might be getting the hang of sleeping on her side without falling on to her tummy. The last two days, I've gotten up a few minutes early and I'm thinking I need to make it a habit. In the winter when its cold, I wanted to get every warm, cozy second in bed, but not its not so bad to get up. In about ten minutes, I can get a lot done. I said a few days ago how I like to set things up a head of time. Well, in those few minutes I can: get the water set up for my tea, put out a bowl and spoon for my cereal on the coffee table, get the items ready for Natalie cereal, and clean up the sink including cleaning the pump and the sippy cup. These are small things, but it makes things go so much more smoothly later to have them done.

This morning, Mike did Natalie's diaper, which was really nice. He had a few extra minutes, too, and he missed her from barely seeing her the day before. I got set up to nurse, and he helped her walk across the bed to me, which is so cute. We nursed as usual once he left. Natalie didn't fall back to sleep, so we were out in the living room extra early, like 715 or something.

The morning progressed as usual. The only difference was that today the husband of one of Mike's former co-workers came to do some work in our yard. They recently had a baby, too, so he and I talked a bit while Natalie walked around the yard. He was there until about 2, but even though he was hammering and using power tools, it didn't affect us any. Natalie took her nap at 9. She slept peacefully on her side. I kept checking on her because she slept for a while. I actually seems like we are slowly making progress on naps. In the last week, she has slept on me after nursing less and slept for longer periods in the crib. Hopefully this isn't my imagination. I've noticed because I find myself feeling like too much time has gone by and that I need to look in on her. Today, I checked on her at least twice. I'd say she slept for 40 minutes, whereas back a couple months ago, she would wake up like clockwork after 20. What made today special though was when I heard her talking when she woke up and went in to get her, she was on her tummy and turned around. She had tried to move and backed up, so on leg was sticking out the slats of her crib up to her knee. It was very cute and funny, especially in the little pink skirt she was wearing, but I do worry about her now getting a leg caught and twisted.

After cereal, we watched most of Sesame St, then nursed. Usually, Natalie falls asleep on me for a little while, but she didn't today. This might have been because we were in the living room which is lighter, but I really don't know. So, we headed out to take our walk since she really wasn't that into playing. She stayed awake for most of our walk, but did drift off near the end. It also started to sprinkle so I booked it home and it started to rain right as we turned in front of our house. Usually, I sit on the step and read until Natalie wakes up, but with the rain, and the friend working, that wasn't an option. So, I put Natalie on the kitchen floor still in her car seat. We got in at about noon. She slept for at least another hour! This was unusual. I kept checking on her because it worried me. When she did wake up, she didn't want to play, so we nursed right away, even though it was a little early (just over three hours). And, she fell asleep again! She struggled with it. She did a lot of restless latching on and letting go, moving her arms, moving her head side to side, and her eyes rolling back as they do when she is moving from awake to sleep. When she did get up, she was in a great mood!

Natalie played for a while, then we went to run errands. We didn't go at the ideal time because her long nap through us off. First we went to get a refund on some haddock we bought at Shaws because I found a pretty thick, inch long bone in it. It looked like one of my cross stitch needles! They gladly gave me the refund (and the ladies at the customer service counter were taken by Natalie). Then we went over to Walmart. By that time, it was getting close to two hours since Natalie had slept, so I left her in her car seat in the store hoping she'd drift off, but she didn't until we were in the car on the way home. The point of the trip to Walmart was a few things. First of all, we got real steak to have for dinner. I also needed breast pads, but couldn't remember, although it was nagging me that I was forgetting something, until I literary was holding my items to place them on the checkout counter. The reason I couldn't remember what I needed was because one of the things we needed was the magnetic pad of paper for the fridge were we write the shopping list! I also had to get new mascara and eye liner because I used mine on a whim the other day, and I started to get what seemed to be a sty on my left eye. So, since I learned from the internet that infected make up is one of the top causes of stys, I tossed my old stuff.

Mike was supposed to be home at 515 and Natalie was asleep in her car seat, so I let her stay there and kept going back and forth from the house to the car. When Mike pulled in, he looked over the work that had been done, and then his mom called needing some more help with her computer because he wasn't able to fix the problem last night. I got Natalie out of the car, and she woke up, which was good or else she never would have gone to bed. I started prodding Mike to get the steaks going and fed Natalie. Then while she had her cup, I made Mike's lunch, which came as a surprise to him later. We had Natalie play on the kitchen floor while we ate. At first she was really fuss, but then I gave her an empty plastic milk jug and she was quite entertained. Mike played with her as I cleaned up. After some running to Mommy and a near miss falling off the chair while playing peekaboo, it was bath time and bed time. She went down awake tonight without peep. She was on her back last I checked, so hopefully if she rolls, everything will still be okay.

So, that seemed to make a rather uneventful day into a long ordeal. Its now time for me to go watch Lost with Mike downstairs. We can start at 15 minutes after and finish on time because we can't skip the commercials with the DVR. I'm sooo glad that I pushed for us to get it for when the baby came. It makes life so much more flexible. We never would have seen anything in the beginning and now it is so convenient to be able to skip the commercials, start shows late, and rewind when we need (or want) to hear something again).