Quick catch-up

Parenthood does not create much time to blog, it seems. Lately, Robert sleeps very lightly, and not for very long at a time. He might nap for twenty minutes or half an hour, then be up again. Regular noises like the kitchen faucet running, my cell phone ringing, the vacuum cleaner, or even typing are enough to startle him awake again. Don and his mother have suggested that I keep it too quiet in general, that we need more background noise*. I think it's probably too late to really change that, though. I'm a quiet person by nature, and he's been experiencing that since he was in utero. Even if I have the radio on, it's generally NPR or classical. If I lay down and take a nap with him, he'll sleep for much longer. Since he's still up every few hours at night to nurse, I need the rest too. When he's awake, he doesn't like to be alone anymore, or to sit by himself. I used to sit him in his car seat, on a kitchen chair while I would make dinner or clean up the kitchen; he doesn't like that now. Now he craves movement, motion. Wants to be tossed around, bounced, jostled. He's on the verge of being able to crawl, and his inability to move on his own seem to frustrate him.

I feel more than a little frustrated, myself, by my inability to get anything done. Don says not to worry about it-- who cares? I'm home to be with the baby, not to keep house. But I do. We have a friend coming to stay in a few days, and my 'to-do before she gets here' list is shrinking dramatically: not because I'm finishing tasks but because I'm having to pare it down to what I can actually get done. I'm at the point right now where I'm pretty sure I can vacuum the guest room and change the sheets before Thursday... On the bright side, once she's here we'll be able to do all kinds of things just by virtue of having another pair of arms to hold him.

That said, we've had a few really great days lately. Don took a Monday off, and for some reason Robert decided to take a two-hour nap that afternoon. I was able to help with the yard work and rescue all the grass clipping and leaves in the front yard.** And on Halloween, Robert and I went apple-picking with some friends, and he was absolutely perfect; just fell sound asleep in the carrier for pretty much the whole time. Gee, baby, is that all it takes-- me carrying you up, around, and down a mountain-side for a few hours, in the fresh, cool apple-orchard air? I'll try to fit that into our daily routine somehow.

All in all, it's hard to do more than throw a photo up here. This short post has taken me all morning!

It's okay to eat the apples.

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*Mother-in-law: when Don was a baby, I'd always have the radio or TV on, just for the noise!

Me (under breath): and it just did wonders for his attention span, huh?

Don: Hey, what are implying, that...wait, what are we talking about, again?

** We bag the back yard for the compost heap. The front yard, though, is up a hill and far away from said heaps, so it takes too long to bag and haul. Its clippings just gets mulched. But we have built raised beds that I'm filling lasagna-style for next spring, and I wanted that good stuff to fill the beds. Don would empty the bag into the wheelbarrow, I'd run it down to the backyard. I've also been stealing bags of leaves from all over our neighborhood. It's not really stealing, since they're on the curb for pickup already...

When it rains