It has been said that there are many milestones in raising a child. I believe we've hit a milestone ladies and gentlemen. Now, some of our friends have claimed (and I think they're lying) that their child slept through the night at a mere 8 weeks old. Well, our darling Linnea waited until she was good and ready, and as of last night has slept a record breaking 8.5 hours (7.5 months). She made a few peeps and cries in between, but didn't officially need parental involvement between 10:30 pm and 7 am. Miguel and I were such nonbelievers that we had to go in and check for breathing at 3:30am just to ease our minds. Actually, it was more Miguel than me - as I was in a sort of blissfull "I'm still sleeping and it's awesome" frame of mind.
In other news, Linnea has been pinching "puffs" between her fingers and putting food in her own mouth for about a week now. We're also quite smitten with the fact that she's saying "ma-ma" - although we're not convinced she knows what it means yet. I particularly like it when she accents the first syllable to sound more Italian "ma MA", so I'm trying to encourage that one as much as possible. She's sitting up with confidence and lunging forward at will. Her newest trick is all of a sudden arching backwards when you're holding her so she can look at the world upside down for a few seconds. This comes as a surprise to us much of the time, so we've got be on top of our game when holding the little wiggle worm.
It was Miguel's birthday last night and so we had a babysitter come to the house while we went out to dinner. We tried a popular Italian place here in Bellingham and had a great time enjoying ourselves. I notice that when I see other kids out and about now, I have a different perspective on them. I think about what Linnea will be like when she's their age, I think about the parents and try to guage their faces to see if they're tired, content, or disheveled. One thing Miguel and I both noticed while out on our date was that we missed Linnea. Funny how that works. She's become a major part of our daily routine - but even moreso, we now feel like something is missing when she's not around. Speaking of that, you know how we're so busy all the time - doing laundry, washing diapers, dishes, sweeping, picking up toys, changing diapers, feeding...etc. We wonder what in the world were we doing BEFORE when we thought we were so busy? Good question.
Our chickens are starting to eat each other. They've been cooped up together for about 3 years now and its starting to get to them. A couple weeks ago, Gertie decided to defeather Big Red's entire head, and she decided not to stop there. Big Red has a gaping wound now on her head that looks like a bit of a problem. We're letting her out of the coop during the day as to not expose her to the continual wrath of Gertie - but it doesn't look good. It's about time for new chickens anyway - but we're doing a heck of a job procrastinating on actually doing anything about that, so Gertie has taken it into her own hands I suppose.
So, Mother's Day is coming up this weekend. My first real Mother's Day as a mother. I think I've earned it and I'm going to love every minute. I'm going to celebrate 8 hours of sleep - even though that has not been 8 hour for me - hooray! As a matter of fact, I'm going to go to sleep right now and cross my fingers that she can pull this off again. Snoooze button here I come. It's been a long time coming and I am so ready. As a matter of fact, I'm so excited I probably won't be able to sleep. I'll try anyway. Goodnight!
