Cosleeping

Cosleeping is the hardest habit to break. Sophie's been doing great since we decided to cut TV out of bedtime. We have a movie/dinner/showertime routine down pretty well and she goes to sleep on her own just fine. The hard part is that she keeps waking up around 1 am and asking to sleep with me. Sleep is literally my biggest weakness. I love to sleep. I could sleep 24 hours a day if I had the opportunity. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, getting her back to sleep usually involves her crying herself to sleep. She's pretty stubborn and hard to calm down when she's tired. So, most of the time, I just say yes. She waddles into my room dragging her blankie and crawls into bed. What makes it so much harder is that she's been much more cuddly as of late and I just can't pass that up.

My favorite part of cosleeping is that it just feels so natural. I woke up the other night and we were both laying on our backs. My left arm was extended towards her and she had her legs across my arm. I was cradling her foot. She had her torso turned towards me and one hand was cupped around my ear. Nothing is better than waking up like that. I know I really need to crack down on our sleeping habits because she's 3 and a half now, but it's just so hard when I don't have her every single day and our nights matter just as much as our days.

So, my question is... Should I feel bad about this? It's not an every night thing, but it does happen a couple nights out of the week. Especially since every other week I only have her for two nights.

Zoo date last weekend

I spent most of my weekend with this lovely lady

Your kid is weird.

It's amazing how often I hear that. People tell me that Sophie is strange all the time. Probably because I share her weirdness on Facebook and Twitter. I can't make up some of the stuff she says. I'm pretty sure it's my fault. I'm almost positive. Just last night we got home for the evening and she asked me to play with her. I collapsed on the couch and told her to let me rest for a minute since I had just gotten of work. She said "Ok mommy, that's fine." and then proceeded to sing a song that involved some jibberish. I did catch the tail end of the lyrics which consisted of saying "I'm not going to let you rest" over and over. So that was nice.

She loves to talk to people, but is learning the hard way that she shouldn't talk about people. Especially out loud. In the grocery store. Asking where their friends are and then saying they probably don't have any. Or that she can't point at a fairly young (albeit bald) gentleman and say "He looks like my grandpa!".

She thinks she can speak Spanish if she talks into a Dora the Explorer microphone. She once compared me to a mermaid in order to explain why she couldn't sit next to me on the couch. She growls at people and tells me when my hair looks bad. She insists that when my boyfriend buys me flowers he should also buy some for her because "he knows her name, so that means he knows who she is" (even though they haven't met yet). She claims that when she is older I have to be brave because the doctor is going to put her back into my belly so that she can be a baby again and never grow up.

Oh, and she told my boss that if a baby gets sick you put a necklace on it and carry it to the hospital by its neck. So. That happened. Please tell me I'm not the only person in the world with an awesome little weirdo? I will say that life with her is almost never boring. Like I said, it's probably my fault. I encourage her to be weird and tell her it's much better to be intelligent and different than it is to be normal.

West Virginia hills

Last Friday Sophia and I took off to West Virginia for a week. My mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer and needed a hysterectomy so of course I wanted to be there for moral support and to help with recovery for a couple of days. The drive down went well, Sophie happily ignored her 9 o clock bedtime and bombarded me with questions for the first couple hours of the trip and then she passed out.

We spent the first few days just enjoying family time with my two sister, niece, and parents. I only go home once or twice a year and usually for only 2 or 3 days so it was nice to get some quality time with them. However, I will admit that my older sister and I quickly remembered why we could never share a room as teenagers. Sophie got along with her 2 year old cousin Ana very well, and was attached to my mother's hip from the second we walked through the door.

 

From left to right: Sophie, Kayla (baby sister), Anna (niece), me (getting lusciously tan), and Kari (bff for 17 years)

My mom's surgery went really well but the recovery was harder than I thought it would be. It was awful seeing her in so much pain. I am an extremely empathetic person to the point that seeing others hurting physically or emotionally brings me physical pain. Every time my mom cried I cried with her. I felt like such a failure as a daughter because instead of supporting her I was blubbering like a baby. Thankfully it didn't take her long to get through the worst of it because the next couple of days had her up and walking around fairly easily.

One of my favorite parts of this trip was that this is the longest time I have spent with Sophie since she was about a year old. Usually I work just about every day and the schedule she has with her dad is that we switch every 2-3 days. This means that I only see her a couple days in a row after work. I got her all to myself for 6 whole days. I really hate to admit that I haven't had my own daughter for 6 days in a row for over a year, but that's how it is.

Mini rant: Rarely can I complain about Sophie's schedule without someone looking at me like I'm an idiot. Especially my family. No one can seem to wrap their head around the fact that Sophie needs her mother AND her father. I can't imagine going more than a week without seeing her, and I know he can't either. Some people seem to think that he's not important in her life at all. Just because I personally can't stand him doesn't mean that she should be kept away because I want more time with her. If a kid's dad is willing to stick around and wants an active role in her life then people should be throwing a parade these days rather than acting like I'm a bad mother because I only have her 50% of the time.

End rant.

Sophie and her cousin Ana

Anyway, the trip went well and my mom is on a full road to recovery. The doctor will be calling her in the next couple weeks to let her know whether or not they need to start chemo. I'm crossing my fingers that the test results come out well and that this surgery will be the end of it. I can't wait to be back home in September, but for now I'm so glad to be in Fort Wayne again.

One last thing. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but my daughter refers to me as "banana". Sometimes, "goo goo banana". I don't know why, you would have to ask her. However, she felt it was appropriate to refer to my best friend (who is of mixed descent) as "Coco banana". Should I correct her? Because frankly we both thought it was hilarious.