the new normal

Catie is almost 100% recovered from the ear infection/pneumonia double whammy of last week. And thank God, because she was totally miserable, the poor kid.

I could tell the minute she started to feel better, too, because suddenly she was driving me crazy. She was running all over the house, “Mommy? Hey Mommy! Watch me do this! Hey, Mommy, can you turn on another ‘Pocoyo’ please? Hey mommy! Can I have some more juice? And some toast? Hey, Mommy, I’m gonna pretend that I’m a baby triceratops so you have to be the mommy triceratops, ok?” And on and on and OH MY SWEET MERCIFUL GOD, CHILD, BE QUIET.

At one point, when I was picking up Lucy from daycare, I ran into Catie’s daycare teacher and mentioned how Catie was driving me batty (but still coughing too much to go back to daycare). Her teacher gave me some worksheets to keep her busy. Catie was all excited to have “homework” from her beloved Miss Germaine. (Seriously, she cried daily about how much she missed her teacher and her friends last week. It was exhausting.)

Working hard on her "homework" from daycare.

Needless to say, she’s back at daycare today.

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Meanwhile, this one is still up to no good whatsoever.

Do not believe this face. She is evil. And she won't let her mama sleep.

She is working so hard on trying to crawl, and she’s almost got it down. She’s doing the same thing Catie did with scooting backwards, as well as rocking back and forth on all fours (occasionally she’ll pull a full-on yoga plank or downward-facing dog position, it’s pretty impressive). So, based on past experience, I’m pretty sure this means she’ll be full-on crawling in two weeks or less.

I guess that means I should probably work on, I don’t know, child-proofing? Maybe? I don’t even own any baby gates. Oh god.

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Last night, my mom officially moved out of my house. My dad’s been living in their new house for a while, but mom stayed to help out while Catie was sick. It felt so weird when she left. She’s been living with me for the past 4 months. And I knew that she was only going to be less than two miles away at her house, and that I was going to see her twelve hours later when I dropped off Lucy at their house, but it felt like the end of a big milestone. (For the record, Lucy is staying with my folks two days a week and going to daycare for the other three days – I’m so grateful that they’re willing to take it on, because it’s saving me a few hundred dollars per month to cut Lucy down to part-time daycare.)

It was weird to be the one who had to turn off all the lights when I went to bed (my mom is a night owl and usually up long after I go to bed). And it was weird to not have a constant MS-NBC soundtrack in the background (my mom loves her some liberal television programming). Everything about it just felt weird and alien and new.

But it’s a good thing. Before I went to bed I kind of looked around and thought to myself that, yeah, this is MY house. And it’s going to be just me and my girls here. And that’s ok. We need to settle into our new routine, but I think this is going to end up being a really good thing for us.

7 thoughts on “the new normal

  1. So glad for your new normal!! Can’t wait to disrupt it for a few days when I visit!! Yay for 3 days! Make Lucy stop growing, she’s doing it too fast!!

  2. you are starting your new year off right…well except the sick cate part!

    this is your life…you are in charge…and it will be good…how can it not be with a studious little girl (that picture of catie doing “homework” slays me) and a baby with a smile that lights up all of north carolina! she is one happy kiddo you have there!

    and it is nice that your parents are close! that is good for you…but more importantly for the girls and the grandparents…that is a special bond that no grandparent should miss out on!

  3. OMG, I love babies with their sticky-uppy hair and gummy smiles! LOVE!!!!

    This was a great update. Your Catie sounds like a really smart little girl; it’s wonderful that she loves schooly stuff.

  4. Oh a new normal is good. I’m sure it was weird though. It’s so great that she was able to be there as long as you needed and even better that she’s still only a few miles away instead of states away.

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