In Her Own Bed

Well, this little girl has gotten a little bit bigger. This morning, she was feeding herself her own bowl of oatmeal!

She's started to freak out and yell if I try to spoon feed her. She wants to do it herself! AND she's even sitting up on a tall stool at the kitchen island! 

Sitting at the island, using a spoon by herself, AND this morning she woke up from night #3 of going to bed without nursing. We've put a pack and play in the closet with her puppy bed in it for cushioning, and Monday night she cried for 20 minutes and then slept almost all night - she woke up crying once at 3 but I didn't get her, and she fell back asleep until 7! Good job Baby!!

That one was a success. She's not sure, but is thinking about it...

Tuesday night, I put her to bed and stroked her hair for a while. But the closet light was on but I couldn't turn it off and keep stroking her, so I stopped to turn off the light, she cried, and then I left. I was proud in the morning that she hadn't thrown her stuffed dog out. I guess she learned from last night that if she throws it out, she's going without it until morning. Wed morning she woke up at 5 am, and I figured that was pretty good and I brought her into our bed to nurse. Wednesday I was cleaning in the basement and found a little mom bunny calico critter and a baby bunny that matched it, and bed and a blanket, and during the day we did a little role play of that - the mom bunny putting the baby to bed, giving it a kiss, and the mom bunny left and the baby bunny stayed in the bed. Before I put her to bed last night, we did it again and then K knew what was coming. She clanged onto me, I gave her 4 stuffed dogs, which she held tightly as I lay her down. I stroked her hair again as she lay there and whimpered a little bit, trying to be brave, and she fell asleep. I rubbed her hair for a long time cause Corey was talking to Hyrum for an hour, so I just kept rubbing her head as I listened to one side of their conversation. She is doing a super good job! Katharine! You are becoming such a big girl!

Natalie is a great helper with Katharine. Natalie is also a master typer. pics from yesterday - Natalie is also an amazing master typer. She was working on it yesterday and you need to get 5 stars to pass it off and she kept only getting 4 stars. So I tried it, thinking I could do it for her to help her out, but nope, I was terrible! Trying to pass of the China level and I got ZERO stars! That is the only one she didn't get 5 stars on. I told her that's good to not have to be perfect, but she might still try to pass it off. She might be a bit of a perfectionist!

Today I cleaned a lot while I listened to General Conference. I liked this quote by Elder L. Tom Perry in his October 2014 talk "Finding Lasting Peace and Building Eternal Families" - 

We must carefully continue to evaluate our performance as parents. The most powerful teaching a child will ever receive will come from concerned and righteous fathers and mothers. Let us first look at the role of the mother. Listen to this quote from President Gordon B. Hinckley:

“Women who make a house a home make a far greater contribution to society than those who command large armies or stand at the head of impressive corporations. Who can put a price tag on the influence a mother has on her children, a grandmother on her posterity, or aunts and sisters on their extended family?

“We cannot begin to measure or calculate the influence of women who, in their own ways, build stable family life and nurture for everlasting good the generations of the future. The decisions made by the women of this generation will be eternal in their consequences. May I suggest that the mothers of today have no greater opportunity and no more serious challenge than to do all they can to strengthen the [home]” (Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes [2000], 152).

Yesterday I talked with Nicole on my way out to Corner Canyon and we both talked about our paper problems. I don't love all the water in our basement stored in plastic juice bottles. Corey does that. I guess I'll be grateful if we're in an emergency someday. As for now, no me gusta. I hate them taking up room, and especially on a good accessible shelf... seems like we should put something there that we want easy access too. But I guess there is plenty of other stuff I could clean up to make room down there, that I don't need to start with the water. This is half of it. 

Yeah, he's not the one to blame for all the stuff around here. For example, I have a storage bin full storage bags. That's probably not very necessary to store stuff so I can store stuff. I also saw a black salamander looking creature in our window well as I was back there. Weird! We've had a bunny, skunk, little quail chicks, and now a salamander.