honesty & solo time with Avery

I'm not sure if it's because Riley is getting over a 3 week illness and she's feeling better, or the fact that she IS under the weather and on meds, but the girl is actually napping some lately. As in it's not uncommon for her to nap an hour at a time! (knock on wood) She still does her 30 min naps, too. In fact, she just did this morning. I'm thrilled for her that she's getting rest. Back when I just had Avery during the days, I often looked at her naptime as free time for myself to do things for me, or things around the house. Now that I've got 2 kids, when one naps, 98.5% of the time the other one is awake, so that me time is gone. It was definitely an adjustment at first. Riley came out of the womb doing 30 minute naps, so I didn't really get that "newborn stage" where they napped hours at a time, thus giving the mom time to nap and recuperate. I didn't get to ease into life with 2 since Riley was most likely always awake, even when Avery was napping (last summer she'd do 3 hour naps! That was amazing!) And when Riley was awake, I couldn't just lay her down to play (she still to this day loathes being on her back) or sit her in the bouncy seat to play. No, it had to be 100% hands on! As my mom and sister said.. the harder you worked the happier they were. Haha. So I went from a HUGE window of free time during the day to essentially none. All this to say that I had to adjust my expectations for my days.. and fast. I began to realize that the brief moments when Riley WAS napping was time I got solo with Avery. A girl who is growing up so fast before my eyes. A girl who is a total sponge and loves to converse with you and make jokes with you and laugh at your silly jokes. I realized I needed to embrace Riley's napping and learn to enjoy every minute of the 30 minutes a few times a day I got with Avery. And trust me, I had to remind myself of that over and over, many many times. I all too quickly would say, why won't Riley just nap like a normal baby? The baby books say anything under 45 minutes isn't even considered a REAL NAP. What's going on?! I prayed and prayed about it, but realized when Riley continuted to "cat nap" that perhaps it was my heart that needed change. The Lord showed me that I needed to stop focusing on how long Riley napped, and instead focus on how I could make that short time enjoyable with my other daughter! So yes, the past few weeks Riley's been doing longer naps and I've SO ENJOYED the time with Avery. We talk, read books, act goofy, and play all sorts of games Avery comes up with. It's great. And hey... the dishes can wait =)

Just sitting and talking by the window today =) Love it.