Monday's Child

40 Weeks

Forty weeks old and finally starting to recover from the last week. Not Violet's best photo, but cut her some slack, the girl has been through a lot. Fortunately, getting her back in the regular routine seems to have helped. She had a better day than anyone expected at daycare, and her eating seems back on track as well. Tonight she didn't push the bottle away once, which was the case all last week. I was going nuts worrying about her. But things are looking up!

I don't know if I've told you, but Violet has finally starting saying mama! And she's getting good at sorting out her sounds. It used to be that if I asked her to say mama, all I got was dada. Dada would be her only sound for a good couple days, and then it would switch to some other consonant. But now, I say mama, she says mama. I say baba, she says baba. It's like her brain is working out how each sound is made, instead of just letting any sound pop out.

Violet also has quite an arm on her. These days, if she can get something in her hand, she'll fling it as far and fast as she can. This goes for paci, toys, food, anything. She has also realized she can display her displeasure in any number of ways, including screaming, whining, arching her back and stiffening her legs to twist out of my arms, throwing her body around, face planting into the floor, pushing away from me when I'm holding her (not cool!), grabbing my face... She's learning her has a will of her own, and it's her God-given American right to exercise it!

I'm just thankful the worst seems to be over. And hey, I survived my first day back at school and managed to cook and serve dinner sans hubby tonight. Now I'm off to place a massive Amazon.com order so I can officially say my holiday shopping is underway.

I had a minor breakdown this weekend, after realizing my entire Thanksgiving holiday was gone and I had practically nothing to show for it. I was super irritated and overwhelmed by stuff that seemed super important at the time, but now with a little perspective, is almost (almost... I'm not quite there yet) laughable. For example, I need stamps to mail out Christmas cards. I don't want the lame flag stamps, I want the colorful holiday Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus stamps. After all, these cards are special, our first as a family. The problem is, I can't make it to the post office after work before it closes. And it wasn't open yesterday. And this Saturday I have my last grad school class so I'll be gone all day. And then it's Sunday again. So now we're looking at an entire two weeks before I can get to the frickin' post office to get my stamps to mail out these cards! (Over-dramatic much? See, I told you I was in a mood!)

I was in the car, having these crazy-woman ideas, when all of a sudden, another thought popped, unbidden, into my head. I just needed to let it go and ask God to change my attitude. That was my exact thought and the minute it ran through my head, I could sense my vision brightening a little. Naturally, being the crazy-woman human that I am, my next thought was, I don't want to change my attitude! I want to be irritated and pissed off and overwhelmed because this week has been a wreck and... and... and... But again came that little whisper. So as grumpily as ever, with a huff and an eye roll, I gave in and asked God to change my spirit. Fine, I wanted to snap. Give me peace, whatever, see if I like it. But my very next lungful of air felt so much lighter, tasted so much cooler, that I have to admit, it was a good decision on my part, listening to that little Voice. I'll be keeping an ear out for it again.