Sixteen months!

Valerie is sixteen months today! Since I recently did a "milestones" post, maybe I can just do a "day in the life" post.

This is our new routine.

Valerie wakes up sometime around 6 a.m. Since Daddy is on night duty, he brings her up to me and I either nurse her in our bed or take her back downstairs to nurse. Daddy goes back to bed for 1-2 more hours of shut-eye.

After nursing, Valerie goes straight for her books - she pulls them off the shelf and I groggily read a few of them to her. I change her diaper while singing a song (usually "The Wheels on the Bus," with our own added verses, e.g. "the tractors on the bus go brrrm brrrm brrrm!") and then go play in the living room while I make breakfast.

For breakfast she eats two egg yolks, some of my oatmeal, and a piece of fruit - as much as she wants. Often we watch youtube videos of farm animals, or read books while eating breakfast. Then we play in the living room while I get dressed, put pants and shoes on her (she sleeps in a clean onesie, which is then what she wears for the next day), and get her bag ready for the babysitter. If we have time and if she cooperates I might wash the dishes, do a load of laundry, or knit a little bit.

She likes to play with her electronic keyboard that plays "Old MacDonald" when you stick a certain block on it. Another current favorite is the Princess puzzle from Aunt Anita, or the Lego dinosaur with Lego cavemen that ride on its back, from Grandma Irma. She's getting quite good at the puzzle! Some days we go outside and watch the neighbor boys ride off to school on their bikes, or sit in the neighbor's gazebo and play in their sandbox. We have great neighbors. :-) She also likes to feed their dog a snack, and even if we have no treat for him, will extend her hand towards him and make smacking noises with her lips. She does the same thing with her toy animals - tries to feed them books, even!

A little before 9 we head out to B's house, where I drop her off for the morning. During the drive she likes to look at her Baby Einstein lift-a-flap book that has musical buttons as well. Actually pretty much any lift-a-flap book will do - she LOVES them right now.

After I drop her off I drive away crying and try not to think about how much I miss her.

At noonish I go pick her up and hear a report of how the morning went. She's been doing great over there! She's playing well with baby E. and yesterday got all rambunctious with the two dogs! They are very gentle dogs although full of energy. Evidently she would deliberately run into them, fall down, and laugh her head off!

We go home, have lunch (often not much because by this time she's very tired), and then nap for a couple hours.

Yes, she is down to one nap a day!

Sometimes I nap too, sometimes I do other stuff. Like blog. Like right now. :-)

After nap we go do something fun, sometimes with Daddy, sometimes just us, depending on if he has class or meetings. On Mondays, she goes to Grandma Dot's for a few hours and I get even MORE stuff done!

Then supper around 6, then bed.

Since she went to one nap, she's been falling asleep a little earlier, within a half hour of 8:00, and I think sleeping in a little later - say 6:30ish. Although, she's also been waking for about an hour every night as well. So I'm not sure what her total hours of sleep are in any given 24 hour period, but I'm SURE it is less than average. Oh well.

Speaking of sleep... I think I'm going to go try and grab some right now myself, while I have the chance!!!