1m2aSandbox

Last week we sleep-trained Cora. Again.
What with our family bout of food poisoning and colds, Cora had
been getting up every two hours to nurse again, and after everyone
was hale and hearty we spent a couple nights tough-loving it out
with her, finally convincing Cora to sleep without intervention
until around 5 a.m. With me falling into bed around midnight each
night, that gave me almost five hours straight of sleep for maybe
three nights in a row, and I guess I got a little spoiled.


Because, yes, once again, Cora’s up at night.

I’m a pretty big extrovert and can
make steady conversation with a tree stump, but I confess
I’ve been nervous for a while about finding some good
girlfriends here. While I know there will be people in the area
with children similar in ages to my kids, a good friendship goes
way beyond “How old are your kids?” And while
it’s helpful to find someone with similar opinions on issues
such as breastfeeding and discipline, add things like common
interests and a similar sense of humor and suddenly you’ve
got a list that no one person can hope to fill.

My poor Cora has been through a lot in the
past few weeks: she’s spent a lot of time being loosely
babysat by a variety of stuffed animals while Mommy packs or
unpacks, she’s dealt with a two-day loss of her milk supply
while I was sick, moved to strange surroundings, been taken out of
her daily routine, and tried to live with a very bad cold.
It’s enough to make any baby grumpy, and Cora’s not
been her happiest (I try not to take it personally). I knew her
renewed clinginess would pass, and that her droopiness and
moodiness would eventually lift and she’d become the
confident, happy baby I once knew.

We’ve been working on finding a
permanent bed for Maddie for about a year now, if you can believe
it. Maddie was nearly two when Cora was born last May, and we knew
we needed to think ahead to make the transition out of the crib
smooth for her. I didn’t think Maddie was quite ready for a
big bed, and also didn’t want to remove her from the crib
only to put Cora in it; I was afraid Maddie would feel replaced by
the “new” baby. So timing-wise, we decided to buy
Maddie a toddler-sized air mattress to sleep on in her room while
Cora occupied the bassinet in our room, reasoning that it’d
be perfect for traveling to visit family or to use for sleepovers
in the future. We made a big deal about Maddie’s new
“big-girl bed” and how exciting it was for her to
“finally” be old enough to use it.

Proving once again that no two siblings
are alike, Cora is going through a phase Maddie simply never
experienced – the Human Carpet Cleaner.


I don’t know what it is with this child, but I am convinced
that at least part of the reason Cora is crawling so early is that
she sees an attractive paint chip across the floor and simply must
have it in her mouth. ANYTHING on the floor is fair game, provided
it is 1) dangerous, and 2) not generally considered food to humans.
Meaning, that triple-A battery is fair game, but she’ll pass
right over a green bean.

One of Maddie’s biggest current
concerns is her inability to recognize our house from the outside;
every day when we walk to the (empty) park she’ll turn around
at the corner and say anxiously, “Which one is ours
again?” We count down from the end of the street, talk about
the “Welcome Home” banner strung up over the door, the
colors of the bushes, and so on. Once she’s got it in her
mind we head on off to the park for our play time. But then the
whole way back she’s scanning the street – “Is
this our street? Is that our house?” until she sees it.


A few days ago, we rounded the corner and our house came into view.
Once she identified it I could tell she was really looking it over
and she said, wide-eyed, “Our house is really big!” I
laughed, but know exactly what she means: we’ve been folding
ourselves into what in New York was considered a very luxurious 900
square feet for several years now, and living life, well, larger,
takes some getting used to.

We’ve officially been Texans for a week now and are slowly settling into the area. Not that we’re unpacked at all; I’ve estimated that if we unpack ten boxes a day we’ll be done in a month. (How’s that for depressing?) But we’re starting to find our way around our neighborhood and are working on getting into a groove here.