Amazing physical development! There's usually a balance between physical and mental development: baby is either talking or walking early. I'm not too worried about her being early in physical development and late with her mental development because at 7 months old, she started saying "mommy" (emme). She hasn't quite decided what it means: mother or milk or "something good", but she definitely says it deliberately and sometimes repeats it after me. 
Siiri's sleeping has gotten a lot better. She usually sleeps at our bed now. Here I must admit that my views on co-sleeping have changed. It's a perfectly good way to get as much sleep as possible. I feed Liisa in bed and usually fall asleep while I feed her at night, so she sleeps in our bed very often. Now how can we tell Siiri that Liisa can sleep in our bed, but she has to sleep all the way in another room at the other end of the apartment, all alone. We can't tell her that without excluding her and being totally unfair. I still think it was a good idea to put Siiri in her own room when she was 6 months old. Otherwise she always woke up when we went to sleep and then it was not at all easy to cradle her back to sleep. When she slept in her own room, me and Erkki could at least talk before falling asleep. But now Siiri often sleeps in our room and seems a lot less stressed. Perhaps it gives her a sense of belonging to the family. It is way too crowded in our bed - it's just not meant for 4 people!
- but Siiri falls asleep quite easily and lately hasn't had many night terrors.Liisa falls asleep super easily. I never cradle her to sleep. I refuse to do it after Siiri had gotten so dependent on it that we had to do it several times per night. Well, except if you count the times when I use Ergo Baby carrier to carry Liisa around until she falls asleep. That's the Plan B when we have visitors and Liisa is over-tired. I don't want to spend much time in the other room just reading the news on my phone next to Liisa even though I know she would finally fall asleep. But that's how I usually do it: I only have to lay by her side and she falls asleep. It never works for Erkki. He does have to cradle her if he wants her to fall asleep. You might think - sure, it makes sense because he doesn't have milk. Actually it's not about the milk. When she has already eaten, she lays next to me, peeks to make sure it's really me, and then closes her eyes and soon falls asleep without any fuss. With Erkki, she opens her eyes, looks at Erkki and gets annoyed that I'm nowhere in sight.
She's a really low-maintenance baby when she's with me, but she sometimes gives other people a hard time. She's very attached to me and it will be difficult for me to go back to school in September.Learning to drive is going well. We still haven't given up and haven't crashed any cars. The entire first driving lesson I drove around in an empty parking lot. And I've actually finishes most of the obligatory amount of lessons three years ago. It wasn't about not being able to drive. I was simply not willing drive on the road after my previous experience with it. The second lesson started off in another empty parking lot where I was making circle after circle, testing breaks, getting used to using the correct lights and trying to get used to sitting "in the wrong seat". The ever patient driving instructor commented that we should to circles to the other side as well. I did that. Circle. Circle. Bigger circle... He looked like he was suppressing a yawn and finally asked me, "Shall we go on the road now?". "Okay, lets go." Oh my god, I was so nervous when I drove where he told me to drive and I was trying not to panic. Surprisingly, he commented very little. He observed, advised and answered questions but there was no constant nagging, differently from my first driving instructor. It occasionally even feels good to drive. Now I've had a few lessons and last time I was already driving completely different kinds of circles - traffic circles! I even drove on one of the scariest circles in Tartu. I drove out of my lane once but didn't kill anyone.
That has to count for something.Driving school has one big flaw. It takes up a lot of time. It's basically 6 hours per week of extra time. Erkki's parents help during the theory classes and we take turns with the driving lessons. Erkki has his lesson first, then finishes in front of our home, he comes up to our apartment, I go down and get in the car for my lesson. This way we don't need to find a babysitter for each driving lesson and kids are never left unsupervised.
Other than learning to drive, occasionally going to the doctor or dentist and rare social events, my life is totally on hold. I have so little time to think about it that I'm not too sad. It's just a grim reality, why feel sadness. I just try to take the most of my current situation. I've pretty much mastered sweet yeast dough and even my 50% graham flour dough rises almost as well. Soon it will be rhubarb pie season again. All my creative energy goes into purees! "How about oat-apple-plum for breakfast? And cabbage-beef.... and carrots!.... and... potatoes? Cabbage-beef-carrot-potato! She'll love it."
Liisa eats quite well and she drinks water very well, which is very useful. Making purees takes a lot of time but it's good not to depend on jars of puree that I can't even pick out myself (because usually Erkki goes to the grocery store).Siiri got accepted into a kindergarten which is quite close to our home. She'll start in august. She's very excited about it even though she's still very suspicious of boys. She's convinced that "boy" doesn't want to do anything that she considers fun and she even says that she wants to make "boy" cry. She wants to pick up "boy" and throw him and make him sad. Me and Erkki have no idea which boy she really means but she always makes an exception to boys who are friendly and she sometimes mistakes inconsiderate little girls for boys. I wonder when I should show her drawing of body parts to explain that "boy" isn't synonymous with "inconsiderate or annoying child". Siiri's tendency to sometimes mistake boys and girls makes me think that perhaps we did something right. When Siiri sees a little person with a blue shirt playing football, she doesn't assume that it must be a boy because of stereotype. (
= two boys sparring?)I keep talking about one kid or the other one, but what do I do in my free time... In my VERY little free time... As meaningless things as possible. Anything that still leaves me free to just get up and react to the situation at home. On special occasions I play Mass Effect 3 but last time I fell asleep with the Xbox remote in my hands after 15 minutes of game time. Yes, preserving my life has currently completely failed. I have no life at the moment. I just hover from month to month, enjoying the chaotic yet strict schedule of nap-times and puree meals and baths and dishes. It will be a wasted year, but not at all a bad one.
No comments:
Post a Comment