Year Three, Day 198: These Precious Baby Moments

My daughter and I tried a new bedtime routine with Baby Gracie last night. For her last feeding at 10 p.m., I gave her a bottle so my daughter could go to bed. The plan was for me to do her final feeding before bedtime and then rock or dance her to sleep. Then my daughter would wake up and nurse her at her next awakening, which we predicted would be some time in the 2:00 a.m. hour.

It started out well. She consumed an entire bottle and passed out. I rocked her for a bit and then tiptoed slowly to the crib and gently placed her in. I covered her with her blanket and kept my hand on her belly for a few moments. I put in her favorite CD (Walela) and began to tiptoe out of the room. And I almost made it! But then came her bellow of protest.

I scooped her up. We danced. I rocked her. Burped her. Changed her diaper. And repeated. She finally gave in and fell asleep at 11:00.

I lay down. Most exhausted. It really does take a village to raise a child!

But amazingly, she did not wake up at 2 a.m. She did not wake up at 3:00 a.m. Or even 4 a.m. Baby Gracie woke up at 5 a.m.! Her happy mama got a blissful 7 hours of sleep!

She nursed and went back to sleep about 6 a.m. We all woke up at about 8 a.m. With plenty of time to hit Starbucks before church.

Service was moving as always. And I was pleased to hear the pastor mention he is following the Daniel Plan. It is essentially a whole, clean food eating plan based on the Bible. My daughter and I are loosely eating this way. I am frankly weary of this extra weight. Need to get serious about weight loss before it gets more difficult. Will talk about this more tomorrow...

We had a good, productive day. A nice hoop session, coffee, church, cleaning, laundry, conversation (Gracie says "hi"!), a bit of shopping and a lovely Indian buffet luncheon.

Her dad came home in the early evening with fascinating tales from his hunting trip. Baby Gracie must have been excited to see her daddy. She gave her bedtime another big fight tonight.

I am laying down. Exhausted, but happy. So many people tell us to "enjoy these precious baby moments because they fly by".

It is hard work. But these moments are precious. I wouldn't trade them for all the gold in China or anywhere else for that matter!

But I must get some sleep. My daughter works early in the morning. I have Gracie duty while she works. And then I teach in the afternoon.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Love,

Zita

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