Growing Girl!

Nadia has been promoted to a regular car seat! She had outgrown her infant one; actually we should have "promoted" her awhile ago. I bought this car seat 4 years ago, and I have to say I can't stand it! OOPS! It is really hard to fasten. I am sure in time I will get better, but I am adding a car seat to my birthday wish list as #1 it would be nice to have one for both of our cars and #2 if we do receive a 2nd one then this one is going in Paul's car as I have such a hard time putting all the pieces together. Honestly it's like a puzzle! I don't think Nadia is too happy about the new seat as it doesn't shield the sun from her eyes as much as the old one. She's also probably a bit colder as we had a cover over the other one. I should have put her in her snow suit today. I didn't realize it was less than 20 degrees out. OOPS again!

The one plus of her wearing her sweater is that it's much easier for her to sit up straight in the grocery cart. We went to the gas station, and I made funny faces for her through the window while I pumped the gas which amused her and meant she didn't cry (she's usually happy when the car is in motion but isn't happy when I get gas). 

Another evidence that she's a growing girl, is that I think our days of three naps are over. Yesterday she cried and cried, and I eventually gave up on the 3rd nap. So she fell asleep in my arms at 6:10 which was earlier than I wanted, but she had been up for 5 hours straight at that point so I just put her to bed. Thankfully she slept a full 12 hours before she woke up. I let her chatter for 15 minutes and got her at 6:30am. So I think I need to move the starting time to her 2nd nap to a later time if she's not going to have a third nap. I think I'll aim for 9am for the first nap and 1pm for the second one. She has been going down around 12pm for the 2nd nap.

I figured out a way yesterday to get solid foods in her mouth. I offer her a Puff or a Cheerio and then put that in her mouth with my left hand while I put a bite of veggies or yogurt or fruit in her mouth with my right hand. Today she's already eaten as much fruit and veggies as she had the past 4 days put together so that's a BIG improvement. I hope in time she'll get used to eating solids, and I won't need to offer her a Cheerio first, but for now I'm just glad she's eating. I'm going to wait a couple of days before I try green veggies again. I'm just going to work on orange veggies, fruit, cereal, and yogurt for the time being.

I have to say I can't fathom working full-time right now. I feel very busy with caring for her, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and working part-time. Tomorrow I have a committee meeting on campus. I didn't go to a meeting last Friday as I am trying to say "no" more. It was hard not to go in the sense that I usually go to every meeting that I am supposed to attend and I felt strange skipping it, but I know I would have been bored (it was the type of meeting where you just listen to presentations for 90-120 minutes in contrast to tomorrow's meeting which is interactive), and I am working part-time so I need to say "no" more. I think I've been doing well with that. I feel like I am only working part-time this semester which is good since I'm only getting paid 50% of my previous salary.