Naptime

You know you've had a good lunch when you fall asleep and don't even bother to stretch your legs out. (Nearly 5 ounces!)

Mommy's night out... and shoes!

Luke and I ventured out for a night out at our church tonight, where the Mothers of Young Children group was meeting. I decided that since Luke will have to get used to wearing shoes when he goes to day care (whichever one he ends up going to), we would give shoes a try. It took me longer to put the little shoes on his feet than it took me to outfit him in a fresh diaper, his shorts, and a tiny pair of socks. I discovered that it's really hard to tell which baby shoe goes on which baby foot... I'm not sure if it even mattered which was left and which was right, actually.

We drove downtown in rush hour traffic, but managed to make it to the church on time and got settled in. I introduced myself to a few of the other moms in the group, and met some of the other kids - Luke was definitely the youngest in the group, though! One of the moms made a delicious couscous dish and brought a chocolate fountain with some fruit and other goodies, and after dinner they played "Sex and the City" on the projector. Kind of an interesting choice for a church moms' group, but it was more of a moms' night out kind of situation, and we all had a good time. I left before the movie was over because I needed to get Luke into his pajamas and settled down for the night, but I think I'll probably go back to check things out when they meet again in two weeks. It's nice to meet some other moms!

Choosing a day care

Next week I'll be back at work, which I'm excited about, but the thing that I'm not too excited about is that we will have to send Luke to be cared for by people we don't really know in the afternoons. I realize that there are people whose job it is to do this, and have much more experience in caring for babies than I do, but it's still terribly unnerving to think about, and I'm glad that Ryan will be the one dropping Luke off every day, and not me.

We have a day care all lined up, deposits paid, start date set, forms filled out, etc. But this morning I got a phone call from another small day care that's run by a church and happens to be loosely affiliated with our church, saying that they have an opening in the infant room on September 1st. Now that we have a choice, it's a tough thing to wrestle with.

The first day care is close to where I work. They don't have a half-day program, which means we're paying for all-day care, even though we only plan on taking Luke there in the afternoons. On the other hand, we would have the flexibility of having a full day available if, for some reason, Ryan gets called in to work dayside. Since we're paying for all-day care, it's a bit more expensive.

The second day care is nearly downtown. We would only be using the afternoon care, which makes it a little less costly, but we wouldn't have the flexibility of having the mornings available just in case. But I went and toured it this afternoon, and I have to say, I just feel better about this place. The first place seems perfectly adequate, but there have been a couple of things about them that have seemed weird to us. A couple of times, when we've called them, they just answer the phone with "Hello?" - if they answer at all - and then seem cagey about identifying themselves. They told Ryan that it was because they thought he was a solicitor. But if you're running a business, shouldn't you answer the phone every single time and answer a little more professionally than that?

I'm also a little more inclined to go to the second day care because it's affiliated with a church, which appeals to me. The teacher-to-child ratio in the baby classes are the same (1:4) at both, but the teachers in the baby class at #2 are a married couple who have been at this place for 17 and 18 years. That slow turnover is pretty amazing, and it's a big plus to me.

The biggest thing, though, is that the place that called today just gives me a better feeling. I can rationalize the pros and cons all day long about each, but a big part of parenting, I'm learning, is that sometimes your gut just tells you what to do (or what not to do). And with a decision like this, I think that going with our guts may be the most important thing we can do. I guess we'll talk it over tonight when Ryan gets home from work, and see where our guts lead us.

Measuring progress... what have I done today?

One thing I'm learning as a new mom is that it's easy to feel like you haven't done anything, or done enough. It's easy to fall into the "to-do list" mindset of wanting to accomplish everything, but it's just impossible. I've read several blog entries lately, including a great one from a blog called New Mom Help, about thinking instead in terms of a "what have I done list."

Thinking like this reminds me that I can't do everything, but I can instead focus on doing what's important. It's nice to have everything clean and picked up and put away, but sometimes it doesn't all get done. But each task has lots of mini-tasks, and I can do the most important mini-tasks and feel like I have accomplished something.

In the past day or so, I've actually gotten a lot done. Sure, there is folded-up laundry on the table, and a baby bottle sitting in the living room, but I did manage to wash the cloth diapers (very important!) and put them away on the changing table, do another load of laundry and fold it up (it's not all put away yet, but I will get there), make the bed, get dressed (a biggie!), and Luke has been well cared for today (the most important of all).

If the only thing I do all day is feed and change Luke, then I've still accomplished a lot. We have a good stockpile of gDiapers, so if I don't manage to get to the laundry task and we run out of cloth diapers before I get them washed and dried, it's no big deal. If for some reason, I blew through two dozen cloth diapers and 120 gDiapers without stopping to do laundry, the grocery store is just next door and I can get some more.

Thinking in terms of what I have accomplished instead of what's left undone at the end of the day really helps to put things in better perspective.

Cooking with Daddy

Tonight Ryan made pork chop suey for dinner, and Luke helped. Well, at least Luke hung out in the sling with Daddy for a little while. He was having kind of a fussy night, and finally settled down in the sling for a bit until stir-frying with a baby on became prohibitive for Ryan. It was a nice change of pace for Luke to be carried around the kitchen by someone else!

Trying out the recliner

Yes, someday he'll ask his wife for one of these for his birthday. And then someday she'll end up sitting in it instead.

Bath night

Ryan and Luke's tradition together is bath night. Luke gets a bath every other night or so when Ryan gets home from work. It's a nice way for Ryan to unwind and spend some good bonding time with Luke, and Luke gets good and clean and gets a slathering of baby lotion so he smells oh so good!

Luke didn't like the bath too much at first, but he's grown to enjoy it more and more, especially when Ryan doesn't use the bath seat and just holds Luke in his lap in the warm water. He's gotten to the point where he only gets upset when he's not in the water or in a hooded towel. As long as he's covered up with water or something fuzzy, he's a pretty happy boy!

After bathtime, Luke gets re-diapered and we put on his pajamas, he gets one more feeding and then he usually sleeps really well. It's nice for all of us!