Settling in

Kid A is turning 11 weeks old tomorrow. It's hard to believe how quickly it's going. I realized today that she's going to grow up so quickly. Everyone who's ever had kids says how fast it goes, and I felt the first twinges of that a few hours ago. Nothing specific, no major milestones reached today, just the sense that she won't need us anymore, all too soon. I suppose that realization might come in handy when I feel frustrated about not having "me" time.

She's getting a lot easier to please these days. I'm not sure whether that's due to her getting older, or spending time in day care, or a little of both. She's also going down for the night much MUCH more easily, which is a big relief. We've developed a little routine: sometime between 6 and 7 pm, I give her a bath, which she LOVES. TM took some pictures of her in the bath last night; I'll try to post them here soon. Her biggest smiles of the day are when she's in the tub. I used to bathe her in the kitchen -- her little plastic bathtub fits into our kitchen sink -- but for the past couple of weeks, I've taken the tub upstairs and bathed her on the bathroom counter. Even though having to haul it from the tub to the counter and back again to fill and drain it is a little less convenient, this was a tremendously great idea, because she loves watching the bath proceedings in the mirror. In fact, every time I put her in the tub, she looks into the mirror, at me, and gives the biggest, happiest smiles I've ever seen. Tonight, she gave me at least half a dozen of these huge, heart-melting grins. It was awesome. The photos don't do it justice, but as I say, I'll try to get some up soon.

Oh yeah, the routine. So after the bath, I get her dressed, and I've even started brushing her hair (she has so much of it!). If she's upset from getting dressed, I'll nurse her, and then we play on her blanket on the floor of her room until she's fussy. Then I nurse her (again), and rock her until she goes to sleep. She often wakes up for another quick feeding in an hour, and then she's down until her first middle-of-the-night feeding. I'm really pleased that the routine is being established so quickly.

I'm also more and more pleased with our day care providers. (No harm in referring to them by [real] name, so that's what I will do.) On Wednesday evening, Carmen sent home a couple of small containers of Peruvian food for TM and me -- so sweet! There was a chicken and rice dish, and a very interesting potato dish that had a custard-y, egg-y sauce that had a slight kick to it. And when I dropped Kid A off on Friday morning, Eugene commented that she had had a wonderful morning on Thursday, and had napped for a good long stretch. He also said, "She doesn't like noise," as in when she's napping. I know it's a super small thing, but it felt great, actually, knowing that they are learning her specific likes and dislikes, and working with them.

I'm becoming more suburban by the week: I took Kid A shopping again today. I wanted to get a bag for work, one that I can fit a full-sized notepad into, along with the various forms and such that I will need to carry with me when I'm actually doing the work. I typed "TJ Maxx" into my Garmin (a.k.a Rhonda, as in "Help Me, Rhonda"), and several locations popped up. I selected one that seemed like it would be sort of on the way to my next stops, and off we went. I'm not saying where it was, because it was AMAZING. It was the nicest, cleanest, best-stocked, most organized discount store I've ever been to. Let me know if you want to go, and I'll take you. But otherwise, I'm keeping it my little secret. Man, did they have some good stuff. But Kid A was fussy by the time I'd picked out my bag. I wanted to look at some winter clothes for her, but she pretty well lost it. I did find a cute little cool-weather hooded jacket, though. Sadly, it's pink, but it'll be warm, and it will fit her ... at least for another month or two!

This week, I have to make a 126-mile round trip, two days in a row, for training. That made me tired, just typing it. I'll have to make sure I load up the car with some good CDs (thank goodness TM bought a bunch of new albums the last couple of months). And I'll probably be making some phone calls ... look out, you just might get one!