sitting around

I was looking over my other blog the other day and I noticed about where I had mentioned the upcoming baby. At that point, I knew what was coming, but I didn't really know what changes that might lead to. I imagine that one really doesn't know what is really coming when a baby is expected. You don't know how labor and the birth are going to go, you don't know how those early days in the hospital will be, you don't know what things will be like when you get home: how will your time be spent, more movies/fewer movies, how will it make you evaluate your lifestyle and your environment, will the baby sleep a lot/not a lot, cry/not cry, will she have health issues, will you be watchful/overly paranoid/relaxed/absent-minded, sleep no sleep? How will all of that affect your work, your social life? How will the people around react to the baby and how will that make you feel (could I have realized that my mother would refer to Elinor as "it" and never ask for a picture of her)?

I think that when you head into the hospital you need to realize that a lot of things will be much different and you need to not be too concerned about which aspects of life may change and just be prepared to accept and prosper under whatever changes may happen.

Speaking of that, there is the sleeping question. Three hours after that last post she woke up and was done with her sleeping spell. We have tried a number of solutions, these last six weeks, for getting the baby to sleep, especially at night. It has seemed that the best solution was to put the baby to sleep in bed with us. Of course that led to both Caitlin and Elinor sleeping sporadically though the night (though I would generally sleep straight through). I have tried giving Caitlin a break by keeping the baby with me the whole night through... Elinor doesn't really like that.

Well, I think we are learning that the former is better. There may be some days ahead where Midge makes such a fuss during the day that Caitlin needs a night off, but as a general rule, I think that we will save those for the rare occasions. The baby is just so much more at ease sleeping in the bed. It seems worth it, I think, for everyone to just keep her there.

But anyway, I know that you want pictures! I'm going to try and leave the ones that Caitlin takes for her to post (I've been stealing them), so all that I have for today is this one of Midge and I sitting around...