Rice Cereal - The Miracle Food - Maybe.

Ever since Lucas starting eating a couple of tablespoons of rice cereal a day he has been sleeping eight to nine hours a night. (In fact a couple of nights ago he slept almost ten!) The only problem with this scenario is that he is sleeping through the night, but he absolutely refuses to sleep during the day. Argh! I used to be able to count on him sleeping about an hour and a half to two hours in the mid morning time, so I was able to get things done. Getting a full night's sleep again is so nice and wonderful. But that sleep is bought at the price of not being able to accomplish much during the day. I have finally come to the conclusion that I am going to have to set him in his swing (where he used to do most of his sleeping during the day) and just let him fuss for the time it takes me to do a task, i.e. clean the kitchen; write this blog; write on a writing project. Then, if he hasn't fussed himself to sleep, I'll hold him for a while, put him back in the swing and so on and so forth. For a couple of months I had a pretty good little routine going when he slept during the day, but now we have to start that process all over again - which is really what this whole parenting thing is all about: adaptability and adjustment - though I may be driven nuts occasionally by all the adapting.

I love watching my children go through all of their different stages. Sometimes, though, I catch myself being worried that they are "behind." That they are not doing the things that some other kid is doing, so I must be falling down on the job and not fulfilling my parental duties. I have to remind myself of all of the things that they are doing daily and remember to be careful not to drown their love of learning, being and doing.

Cool Chinaberry blog post

In a follow-up to the blog that I posted the other day, here is something I recently read that brought home to me some of the points that I wrote about last. http://blog.chinaberry.com/2009/02/fully-engaging-with-our-children/#comment-526

Several moments come to mind today that strike me as good "engaged" moments with Nicole. I left Nicole with her Nana at nap time so that I could head into town and run an errand. She not only went straight into bed without arguing (yay!) but as I walked out the door, she and Nana were reading a story. (Nana told me later that Nicole went right to sleep without fussing.) Before this, Nana, Nicole and I had lunch together and then we stood outside on this gloriously beautiful spring day and threw a frisbee around for about 20 minutes. Later, when I picked her up from Nana's, she, Daddy and I got to play more frisbee at home and also catch with her baseball. Then, she helped Daddy clean out the dog's pen and to put a new air filter in the heating system. We all sat down for dinner together (a nightly tradition that is cherished at our house) and talked about our days. What a fabulous day!