After the last post, I felt better. Freer. My mother called back and gave me excellent motherly support. Then I made peanut butter toast and ate while talking to Bean. Then we played more, then she ate, then she was very sleepy. <\/p>\n
So a few minutes shy of noon, I took her to her room and rocked her. By noon she was asleep. And I? I had made sure to use the bathroom before we sat down, I had eaten, and I brought the Charles Schulz biography<\/a> with me. At the beginning I dozed with her (I recently bought a Bucky pillow<\/a> to prevent cricks in my neck). About an hour later I became alert when the phone rang. I stirred, she opened her eyes, but she went back to sleep, still on me. I began to read. Finally after 2.5 hours it appeared she’d happily remain asleep, but I was thirsty and my butt was numb. So I rose from the chair, and she woke. She was ravenous.<\/p>\n The Las Madres group I’m in had a date to meet at Central Park from 1-3 p.m. I’ve been going there every day now, and although it was 3:10 by the time we arrived, I approached a young woman with an infant in a stroller. It turned out to be the nanny of one of the mothers. So we chatted and strolled awhile, after which she departed with her charge, and I strolled a bit more with Bean. At 4:00 we stopped at the store for fruit, and then we got home. <\/p>\n She’s in the swing right now, because she’s tired, but she’s a bit restless and whiny. We did play and dance first, so it’s her usual sleep resistance.<\/p>\n I also emailed the Las Madres play group members and another Las Madres support group for mothers age 40+ and shared I was having a rough day. The responses have been sweet and supportive — and I’ve never even seen<\/em> most of these women. One thing I discovered from reading their responses is that I am not alone in having a child who dislikes napping in her crib, or who takes short naps, or who is assertive and not “an easy baby.” Someone made a point that when she’s mobile, she’ll want to be held less and less, and I might come to cherish the chance to cuddle and rest with her.<\/p>\n And now the Pixie has given in to the Sandman, and is finally asleep in the swing. She’ll wake ravenous again soon, then Daddy will be home, and it’s his turn!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the last post, I felt better. Freer. My mother called back and gave me excellent motherly support. Then I made peanut butter toast and ate while talking to Bean. Then we played more, then she ate, then she was very sleepy. So a few minutes shy of noon, I took her to her room […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,27,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motherhood","category-recreation","category-regional"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13818,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions\/13818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}