Wouldn’t know it from here. We had some sort of a precipitation storm here on Saturday night (wasn’t snow, wasn’t ice) that left several inches of fine, wet heavy, frozen something all over the ground and last night it started snowing again leaving another inch or two. It’s a friggin’ winter wonderland out there right now.

But, this girl’s fancies are turning to spring and therefore summer and in a fit of optimism, I sewed Emily and Cadence matching sun dresses yesterday. They both look adorable in them and I’ll get them dressed and take a picture soon.

Actually, we bought enough fabric for two sets of matching sun dresses. The first one I sewed was Emily’s pick and the second was mine. I’ll post pictures of both and see if you can guess who picked what. ;o)

In addition, since sewing is so much fun, I picked up some material for more pajamas for both girls as well. I’ll be posting pictures of those, too, when I’m done and you can guess who picked what. Emily has a style ALL her own and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I was hoping I would get some help cutting and pinning the patterns so I took it over to Eric’s mom’s with us yesterday, but I ended up only working on the sun dress, so I cut and pinned last night while Emily read before bed. S he’s reading one of the Mary Kate and Ashley mysteries and really doing a helluva job with it. She read two chapters last night while I was pinning and while she needed help with some words, really worked hard to puzzle out the words on her own.

Of course, I won’t get into the Mary kate and Ashley thing. I’ll just say that the books, of all kinds, are wildly popular with young girls and when I worked children’s services we could hardly keep them on the shelves. The movies either. This book is a mystery, so we’ll see what Emily thinks about that.

I am not.

I should be. Cadence is sleeping in her own bed, snuggled up. Emily is sleeping peacefully and Eric has been sawing logs for the last half hour. But I’m restless and so I’m up. It COULD be the pepsi I drank too late in the evening, but I’m doubtful about that because caffeine doesn’t normally keep me awake.

From time to time I get edgy and restless. I flit from thing to thing, never able to actually settle my mind or my body on what it is I’ve chosen. I’ve tired, since about 10:15 to lay in bed and watch a movie, play a game online, read a blog or four, considered sewing (and then rejected it out of fear of waking Cadence), considered cleaning my bedroom, but rejected that for the same reason as why I opted not to sew.

I journeyed downstairs thinking I could scrapbook, vaugley thought about cleaning the living room (and rejected it when I saw the biggest mess was the pile of laundry Eric dumped on the couch earlier today, and I didn’t feel like dealing with the laundry OR putting the laundry away).

So, I’m back at the computer. Hoping to find enough to do quiet my mind. It won’t be long, I’m sure, before Cadence will be fussing and I’ll be leaned into the crib, shushing and patting her back to sleep and morning comes dreadfully early when the aforementioned little Miss wants to eat and be awake from 6:30 on.

Before Emily was born, I swore she wouldn’t sleep in our bed. Our bed would remain ours and Emily, save for brief, rare appearances would stay out of it. But, once we brought Emily home and had some struggles getting her to sleep, coupled with our exhaustion, it just seemed easier to nestle her in bed with us and that’s where she slept, until it got to the point that no one was getting any sleep anymore we moved her on her way.

And so, when I became pregnant with Cadence, I said she wouldn’t sleep in our bed. We’d learned our lesson! I was going to be a hard ass and that baby would sleep in her own bed, but someone giving up sleeping on my left side seemed much less of a thing once Cadence got here and once again, we nestled her into our bed with us.

The last week or two has seen Cadence being more fitful during sleep and last night I drew the conclusion that it was time for Cadence to have a space of her own to sleep in. I told ERic that this weekend, she’d have to learn to sleep in her crib, even if that meant a little crying (which I just cannot bear).

Late morning, Cadence and I came upstairs to nap and compensate for last night’s sleeplessness and this afternoon, I brought her upstairs, very drowsy, but awake and put her into bed. She fussed a little, and cried for less time than it took me to count to 100 and she slept, in her own little crib, for more than an hour.

This evening, she fell asleep when Eric was holding her and he brought her up and transferred her into bed. She slept for a half an hour. I finished feeding her about a half an hour ago and snuggled her into her crib again, and she’s sleeping.

Part of me is a little sad, but I’m sure the cuddle times won’t be over. If we have another baby, I won’t be so short sighted as to suggest that baby won’t be sleeping with us. Nope. I’ll admit to it now. I like my babies there. I feel safer with them there (Cadence in particular who would spend whole nights asleep on my chest) and it feels, more than that, like it’s the right thing to do.

I’ve never been a fan of the attached parenting movement, mostly because this “natural” school of parenting comes with a course of books and a website and, IMO, something that’s natural and instinctual shouldn’t NEED that much instruction, but as I’ve gotten older, the tenant of AP(attached parenting) that I do believe in, is allowing yourself to make choices for your baby based on what feels right to you and that it’s okay to hold your baby a lot and to co-sleep if that feels right and makes sense to you.

And, more and more, I’ve found myself turning to Dr. Sears’ website for information on breastfeeding and colic, not because I feel myself turning AP (or labeling myself as such) but because his medical advice seems to jive with what feels right to me.

And so, Cadence sleeps peacefully away from me. And that’s okay. Her time has come to make that step and I’m glad we didn’t force her sooner.

A monthly scrapbook club I belong to is doing a special album project for 2007. The premise is to keep a weekly diary and then scrap a page to accompany it. I love the premise, with some revisions, and this is my first offering.

I have done a week by week album in the past and it was stressful, to say the least, trying to find things to say on those weeks when you really didn’t do anything that felt…I don’t know..preservation worthy. I do believe, quite strongly, in preserving the “mundane”, for various reason but most of them related to my love for history, but we might have done something “scrapworthy” about 1/3 of the year, leaving 2/3 of the year in which to celebrate the “mundane”. It was hard. Add to that the times a year where we did a LOT in a week (and attempting to pin it down into one, one page layout for size and volume’s sake) and it was just a difficult undertaking.

So, I’m going to try this. I’m journaling six days a week with one day reserved for a quote I find meaningful or interesting and only scrapping an accompanying layout of the weeks where I feel like I have something to scrap about.

on nights when Eric is home, as evening wears on, Cadence has a few fussy periods that are easily calmed with rocking or nursing, BUT when Eric leaves for the evening (for instance, to play racquetball) Cadence spends a good portion of the evening in “screaming demon” mode? I mean, really? Is it for my benefit?

Of course, my issue tonight was that I was a wee bit stressed. I’ve been working on a gift for a birthday coming soon. I’m a few hours work away from finishing it, but the issue is finding time to do those hours of work. I completed one step tonight have two more steps to go, at least one of which I think could be time consuming and difficult. I harbored no illusions that I would get that far with Eric gone, but I had hoped to be able to get through the step before the last time tonight because I didn’t think it would take long at all.

And it didn’t, but Cadence spent that time squalling in her swing, upset about the injustice of the whole thing.

And I found myself getting upset and frustrated that I couldn’t get this part of the project done OR able to load the dishwasher OR being able to load in our expenses into our budget program, things that don’t take long, but are easier to accomplish as two. I played. I jiggled. I sang. I patted. I rocked. I nursed. I suspected that Cadence was tired having taken only, maybe, an hours worth of naps since 7 a.m.

Cadence fell blissfully asleep around 9p.m. I was able to put her into her crib where she’s been for the last forty five minutes or so, allowing me time to cool off, load the stuff into my budget program and decide to ignore the dishes until tomorrow. I don’t like to do that (leaving them just makes extra work) but they’ll wait.

And I might even be able to get part of the next step done on that giftie I’m working on (though not stressing about. It may be late and I’m sorry for that, but I’m sure the recipient will understand the amount of work it took vs my available time).

and we don’t have a fire, but it’s snowing anyhow. Winter was slow coming to our part of of the world but is it EVER here now. The past couple of days have seen highs ranging around zero, with early monring lows being way below zero and we won’t get into the windchill.

Emily bundles up for the bus like she’s heading out into the artic with boots and snow pants and mittens and her coat zipped all the way to her nose.

I’m hoping it does warm up like predicted because starting at noon tomorrow, Emily is on a long weekend and I’d dearly love to be able to get out of the house with the girls a bit. It will make for 2.5 VERY long days if we’re stuck inside the entire time.