First things first - Any regrets? No. I've been living with an idea that parenting must be minimal effort task. Any parent who says that their child "only sleeps in a moving carriage" or "only falls asleep in the car" has obviously given their children such habits which are time-consuming for the parent and needlessly tiring. Siiri has been a total dream child with no gas pains, good health, decent sleep habits and a happy outlook on life.
It's easy to give baby advice when there are hardly any real problems! Still, there were those few months of teething which were horrible for my sleep and there were several times that she had a cold. She didn't take the bottle so I had to be with her whenever she was hungry during the first months of her life. 
You get the picture. It's all subjective. I say she's a godsend, but someone else might only remember the teething months. By the way, she got her 8th tooth this week.
Teeth are supposed to come in pairs, but she's been crawling around with 7 teeth for three months already and finally her tooth is here. It was getting quite suspicious already. I kept checking on that part of the gum. At first Siiri was resistant but eventually she got used to it and almost showed it to me herself.Lately it feels like everything that's got nothing to do with children is just same old stuff. Like TV-shows. There's always been some TV-shows and people talk about them but it's become somehow distant for me. Movies are also somehow same stuff over and over again. Don't get me wrong, movies are fun to watch, but they're just so casual. It's as if all the entertainment in the world that used to be an important part of life has now been demoted to the status of being just background to real life. Some of this has become just random noise.
Facebook keeps emailing me but I never quite have the time to see what's going on with my account. Yet I always have time for baby-topics forum where people discuss how many layers of clothing do babies need to wear on a drafty day.In a way I have become distant from life but it's not in the way I expected. When I stay indoors it's because I have chosen to not make plans for the evening. I'm rarely sad and lonely home alone and feeling like I'm missing out on life. It really just depends on the week. Sometimes there's just one plan after another but sometimes nothing really happens and I end up being completely exhausted anyway. Lately I've been increasingly overwhelmed with how much work it is to take care of another person. Erkki has been very busy with work, doing longer hours and even bringing work home with him and involuntarily I have been doing extra hours as a housekeeper and a babysitter. Also, my primary babysitter found a stable position in another home and can only help me out after hours. All this is already resolving itself. Erkki has a vacation coming up and I'm already on the lookout for new babysitter alternatives.
Last week I was mostly just trying to conserve energy while living in Siiri's life pace, preparing for her meals, getting her ready for naps, making sure she's feeling good. It was very exhausting. This week I was rushing to do one thing after another - visiting lab, exercising, shopping, taking the baby out - I even made it to a REAL stand-up comedy show in Tartu and it was AWESOME!
Now, after this busy week, I feel alive and full of energy. It seems I'm not really made for quiet family life. Currently laundry is piling up and there's too many toys on the floor but I'm just happy that I got to run around actively. I'd love to take my family to the park or to go traveling with my many children in the distant future, and I even see myself baking a cakes or piles of pancakes, but still I don't see myself using up all my energy to keep my home tidy, kids fed and clean, laundry nicely folded and for the rest of my time, slouching in front of the TV watching soap operas. I tried the low-energy life and it just kept making me have less and less energy. During my more active week Siiri was also well fed but I felt better so I was happier with Siiri which made her happier. Next week I'll aim high: I'll even do the laundry!So perhaps I am a house hen since I keep talking about how cute Siiri is and about fun stuff that happens here but that's mostly because I just really want to share what a fun experience parenting sometimes is. Yet, I am most definitely a different from the stereotypical soap-opera-watching-candy-munching-fat-house-hen whose life only revolves around her children and soap operas and candy. I'm the kind of house hen that I like to be, nothing more nothing less, and I'm happy with that. No regrets.
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