9 Months!

Man, what a week it's been. James is preaching tomorrow, so he had to prepare for that, he taught a 'training day' on Spiritual gifts on Tues., plus he had a conference all week. He got up between 5-7am and didn't get home until after 10pm. He didn't even get a day off! We really only saw him on Monday night and for a couple of hours on Wed. Of course that means I was all alone all week with Neriah. I am exhausted!

Our routine is:

Get up between 8 and 9am and Neriah 'plays' on the bed while I doze until she gets bored. Then we come out to the living room and she plays with all her toys while I check my email and facebook. We play until her nap, between 11 and 12 (around 3 hours after she wakes up). I shower during her nap and she usually only sleep for 20min to an hour (if I'm super lucky). I make her something for lunch and we watch our soap opera (what?) and just hang out, clean, and play. Sometimes we'll go down to the park or just to get a coffee and check the mail.

She naps again about 3 hours after she wakes up from her first nap. Sometimes she goes down earlier if her nap was really short. I use this time to relax, nap, read, watch TV, whatever. I can't really clean while she naps because our apartment is super small and I'm always afraid I'm going to wake her up. This nap is usually around an hour, sometimes less. Often she wakes up after a short time and I have to go re-rock her to sleep. She eats supper around 5pm and usually needs a bath after. Bedtime is 8pm.

So all week I've done all of the above all by myself. When James is home, he puts her down at night, which is always the hardest. Last night it took me AN HOUR to get her down. I was almost crying. Putting her down for naps and for bedtime consists of nursing and LOTS of swaying. I wish she would let us rock her to sleep while sitting in the glider, but we have to stand and sway her until she falls asleep, and then continue to sway for at least 5 min before we can put her down in her bed. Now that she's getting older, she's so much heavier and it sucks! My back and arms get so sore. We're praying that she'll learn to put herself to sleep soon. She's getting better at doing it during the night, which I'm hoping is a good sign, though she still wakes every two hours or so to nurse. I haven't had a full night's sleep in over a year! It's crazy what your body can get used to. A lot of times I don't even feel tired.

Doing it all myself though, on top of waking so much at night? Ya. I'm tired. I'm so glad James is home now, and I can't imagine being a single parent. I could never do it.

Though her sleep sucks, the joy she brings makes up for it. She turned nine months today, and I can't believe she's been out of me for as long as she was in me! I cried about it, because with every new month, that one year mark looms closer.

She learned a lot this past month. She's 'real' crawling (though not all the time since her army crawl is still way faster), she started pulling up on everything, and she started cruising along furniture! Talk about time to baby proof! She cut the other two top teeth and has started teething again. I think I can see her second bottom right one coming in, but she won't let me get a good look, so who knows.

Her favourite toys are still all her wooden blocks and puzzle pieces, as well as books. She loves to pull down every book and DVD from our entertainment center, and has almost pulled the DVR on herself a couple times. I'm now teaching her to not pull up on it... haha.

I know these monthly updates are boring, but I really want to be able to look back at this blog and remember all her milestones. I like using it as a baby book. I totally wouldn't be offended if no one read these. It's really more for me, and Neriah when she's older.