It’s time for the 90 day review, isn’t it.
We are three months in. Baby is thriving and kicking – and boy, is she kicking! The changing table is her favorite place to create a ruckus, both with her legs… and in her diaper.
The days have gotten easier, and the nights even better. I apparently didn’t jinx myself with the last blog post, and despite napping horribly during the day, baby E is now down to one nighttime wake-up.
As I am a highly scheduled person, this consistency jives well with my desire for routine and regularity. So when you nap in your swing for 2 hours straight on Monday, you should do the same on Tuesday.
That’s not how baby E works.
She will sleep for 2 hours in the swing Monday, then cry indignantly in it on Tuesday, while laughing gleefully at the mirror above her head on Wednesday. Thursday she’ll sleep in it for 30 minutes, and Friday… who sleeps on Friday?
It. Drives. Me. Nuts. And we’re still years away from the drama-filled saga of teenagehood and adolescence.
A key example of this was Halloween.
- Mama was super excited to go to a friend’s house to socialize with other adults over pizza and beer, oohing and aahing over #babiesincostume (one of my current Pinterest boards, for the record). Mama had purchased Baby’s costume weeks prior, and even scrapped together basic DIY parent outfits to match.
- Baby decided to continue her trend of not napping well during the day, finally falling asleep at 4:30 p.m. The day before, she slept 20 minutes at the same time.
- Dada was on his way home.
- Soon, the whole family would go to enjoy the spooky festivities together.
Four hours later, us parents sat in front of an empty frozen pizza box in our living room.
The disappointment was surprisingly overwhelming. I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to a simple event, and soon a pile of crumpled tissues fell into the pizza box. Ashamed as I am to admit it, I cried because I didn’t get my way.
For so long, I was able to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted however I wanted. I even fought the idea of this surrender in marriage, still craving that independent life. Now with a baby that was wholly dependent on me and her dad, I knew I had to let it go.
There will be more pizza get-togethers and Halloweens. And there will also be naps that happen and naps that don’t. Through it all, I need to meet her where she is. Such an obvious lesson, and yet it took the disappointment of a missed costume party to finally accept that my way would no longer be the high way. Instead, it would be important to find the way that would work for all three of us.
Which meant: wearing her costume in November. Because why not?
#narwhalsofNovember
Innae Park 