I tried something different last nite — I moved Dodo’s food and water upstairs into our room so that there would be no reason for him to walk around the house at all hours caterwauling. It made a significant difference. I was able to close the door of our bedroom and only had to get up twice in the wee hours to bring Dodo, circling the door and meowing, to his food, before he went, “Oh yeah, I don’t need to go out,” and would eat/drink and settle back down to sleep. He still yowled once in awhile, but it wasn’t of a crazy duration since he had less surface area to proclaim as his territory. The baby slept through the night again, as did the hubby.

This Sunday, we went to Eddie and Michelle’s co-ed baby shower. It was a little challenging as the baby napped pretty poorly in the day (noises outside woke her up so that her 2 naps at home, which had been lately 1.5-2 hrs each, were only 30 mins each). She tried to sleep on the hour+ drive to Pasadena, but kept waking up when hubby made the car swerve or jolt. Nevertheless, she was a dream at the party! There were a ton of people there, bunch of kids running around and playing, the noise level was definitely higher than she’s used to. She handled it like a pro and was good natured throughout. Hubby held her the entire party, wouldn’t hand her off because he says I have her all day on the weekdays. So I enjoyed the people and the food as my arms and back got a nice break. Allie finally crashed in hubby’s arms without a fuss when she was 2 hours overdue for her afternoon nap, having been up over 4 hours straight.

I got to test-run Eddie and Michelle’s new nursery and glider for Allie’s evening meal. 🙂 They have very cute stuff. I think they’re ready to be new parents. You can see Eddie practicing right here:

Eddie still has to master the protective daddy face, though. Mr. W is an expert.

If you ask Allie to identify the newest glowing mommy-to-be, Allie would say, “It’s easy! I can do that in my sleep!”

As you can see, I was just happy to be among grownups again. Happy happy!
Don’t Eddie and Michelle look like they’re ready for Scarlett to come into the world? We need a 6th to even out this photo! Come on, Scarlett!

Here are some old friends we haven’t seen since…wow…their engagement dinner! I was just pregnant then. *reminiscing, looking at the photos from the link* Edgar and Ruby are now deeply in wedding planning mode. Big changes coming their way, too!

Michelle told me that a bunch of her friends from the party were exclaiming that Allie is sooo cute, such a pretty baby, and that she looks “just like her mom.” 😀 I’ll take that over, “That kid’s funny-looking. She looks just like her mom.”

The last change… yesterday was the first day of Daylight Savings. It’s the change known as the hated, dreaded, “spring forward” clock adjustment where we all “lose” an hour of sleep. I was trying to figure out how to adjust Allie, since she woke up at “8a” instead of 7a, altho she slept the same number of hours as she usually does. Due to all the good naps missed on Sunday, I simply put her to bed earlier than normal and she konked right out, altho that was 7:45p by clock time (or 6:45p Allie-time). I keep her bedtime flexible up to 45 minutes up and down, depending on her needs, so it’s not like she’s never gone to bed at that hour before. This morning, she roused at 7:50a (6:50a Allie-time), and went down for her first nap at 9:30a, so we’re doing fine. I’ll do the incremental adjustment if that’s even necessary. Ideally, the goal is for Allie to be up around 6:15a so that I can nurse her before leaving for work. Susanne will be here at 6:30a for a hand-off. If Allie’s bedtime remains 7p-ish, then we’ll have about 2 hours to spend with her after work and then I can still nurse her before bedtime. Given the early rise time, I may have to advance Allie’s bedtime, too, if she starts seeming fatigued. “That sucks, our baby won’t know us,” Mr. W griped. Maggie assured me that as long as we can keep our egos out of it when Allie cries for nanny sometimes, we’ll be okay, and that Allie’ll still love us. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is temporary, and in Allie’s best interest. For example, even if Allie doesn’t get up at 6:15a on her own in the mornings when I have to go back to work (thanks to daylight savings, I now need to push her morning rise time almost 2 hours back in the next month to make it “in time”), I can choose to wake her, then hand her off to Susanne, or let Susanne bottle-feed Allie’s morning meal, and I can keep working on getting her up earlier incrementally so that I can nurse her before leaving for work. It doesn’t have to be a hard deadline.

Biggest possible change of all: Mr. W is now advocating moving us all to Hawaii after his retirement, not Oregon. I wonder if people would come visit us if a flight is necessary.