We spent the first week out of the house in a whirlwind of cleaning, fixing and trying to get settled in. Erin got sick our first weekend with Jan and Dean, so Nora and I spent a few days hanging out in the basement trying to keep ourselves healthy. It worked and we're very happy about that.
Nora continues to be a pretty easy baby, although this week she's started with the evening fussies. She's content to nurse, but otherwise is awake and restless. It's nice to have a few extra sets of arms around to carry her and try to convince her that she's happy. She is still not to interested in taking the nuk, but occassionally we she'll humor us and give it a try. I didn't realize how nice it was that Erin liked it and would help soothe herself with it.
Nora's sleep schedule is still pretty up in the air. She has a few times during the day that she will typically sleep for a few hours, but night is a toss up. While Gramma Beth was here and we were still in the duplex, she had some great nights, only getting up once or twice to eat and sleeping from 10:30 until 8:30am. Since moving to Jan and Deans, things have been a bit more irregular. She did sleep for 7 hours a few nights ago. It was the first time in months that I'd slept that long without interuption. I foolishly thought that I'd won the baby jackpot, but alas, the next night she was up every 60-90minutes and she's having more trouble settling down after eating at night these days. Ugh. She's also not convinced that the crib is a place for sleep and she prefers the bouncy seat. I'm sure that time will fix all of these, but for now, we're all a little short on sleep.
Erin is doing great, despite all of the changes in her life. She has had a few rough nights with tantrums and asking "when can we go home?" and telling me "I want to sleep in my bed," but overall I'm very impressed. She still loves Nora and when Nora is crying she asks "what is my baby sister saying?" and asks if hugs will make her feel better. She also still loves giving hugs and kisses and asks when she can carry Nora all by herself.
Erin impressed us all last weekend when she showed us that she could write almost all of her letters. She's been able to write her name for a few months now, but I didn't know that she'd mastered so many more letters. She's also figuring out numbers and is working on her lower case letters. I'm really impressed with how much that her school has done with them and Erin is certainly soaking it all up.
We did get a few months of no child in diapers this spring before Nora arrived. Erin decided during the last day of a trip to Portland in January that she was done with diapers. I assumed that it would only last a few days like her previous attempts, but she's stuck with it. She does a great job, but wants ultimate control of when she wants to go and refuses to try upon request. I've let it go because she's only had a few accidents and seems to take care of it pretty well on her own. We did struggle, however, with pooping and we've had a months long struggle with her pooping in her pull-up as soon as she goes to bed at night. We'd tried multiple stratagies, but last weekend we started a new sticker chart/prize box and I'm optimistic that it may do the trick. We'll see.
We're so lucky to be able to stay with Jan and Dean. Erin has loved taking garden walks, having picnics in the yard, riding in the paddle boat and playing in the wading pool. We used the wading pool to try to cool off yesterday when it was 103 here and the air conditioning failed. Erin loved it, although Nora seems to dislike the hot quite a bit.
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