Working hard... at normal stuff.

Oh man, I am SORE!

I'm not really sure what wore me out today, though it was likely a combination of things. The baby spent a lot of time on my hip today because I was deliberately trying to hold and carry her around as much as possible. Our child-care situation is really wacky right now -- the baby spends a couple of days a week at a friend's house when I have to work. She is consequently getting less time with me, and she's been acting like she needs more mommy time. So I tried to give her extra time and attention today.

It helps that she let me sleep a (glorious) seven hour stretch last night. On Friday night she was up and down all night, and finally woke up for the day around 5:30am. Oh boy, I was not in good spirits yesterday. I was cranky, impatient, and unkind. (And I am totally ashamed of my grumpy, childish behavior.) Determined to get more sleep and be a better person today, I went to sleep last night at 9pm. The baby woke me up at 10pm, but went back down easily and slept until about 5:30am. Like yesterday she was up early, but unlike yesterday I was ready for her! It made a huge difference.

Nate got up with us at 6am. After getting dressed we put together a menu for the week and made a grocery list. We were out the door by 6:30am! Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not an early bird and that I don't like to do anything before the sun comes up. But nevertheless, there we were, making our two-stop grocery run. We arrived home just after 8am, unpacked the groceries, and then put the baby down for her morning nap. It was a strange but lovely start to the day.

We did our best to stay busy and productive all day. My awesome husband chopped a big limb off the (hideous) fir tree in our backyard. He used a chainsaw my dad loaned us last year, and it worked like a dream! He had the limb cut down and chopped into carry-able pieces in short order. I thought to take a picture but my camera wasn't handy, so I will have to capture our tree-limb-covered backyard and share it later. Suffice it to say, the backyard is a big mess.
Update (3/3/12): I took a picture today! Here's the backyard:

The tree-chopping occurred after the baby's afternoon nap. When daddy rocked her down and then took a nap himself, I went out in the yard to do some cleanup. We have a lot of ferns and bushes that did not get trimmed back last autumn (we were a little busy :o), so I spend an hour cutting off lots of limbs and branches and cleaning up weeds all over the yard. That is probably the other thing which made my back and shoulders so sore -- it's a lot of work to chop, chop, chop and then haul all that stuff onto the slash pile. At least, it's a lot of work after having been baby-focused for the nine months. It felt really good to be outside the house, by myself, and productively engaged in something physical.

I really wanted to do some pressure-washing (our driveway needs lots of love), but the weather didn't get warm enough until right about the end of naptime, and then Nate wanted to go work on the tree. So baby and I grabbed a front-row seat (from a safe distance) and watched dad with the chainsaw. Baby girl was enraptured by dad's labors. Rightly so.

Nate also mowed the front lawn. He carried the baby in the Bjorn while he mowed so I could make dinner. I have a couple of cute pictures and a video clip of them. (I had to take a break from cooking -- it was too cute.)

I mentioned that yesterday was a cranky day. The one good (no, make that great!) thing about my day was my niece. She took an hour-long train ride on Thursday evening so that she could babysit my daughter yesterday when I was working. How awesome is that? She's such a sweet, generous young lady. I am very grateful for her. We had a very nice time chatting on Thursday night, and then again after I finished work yesterday. Christine will come down again at least two more times (the next two Fridays) to help out. Our childcare craziness should be stabilize again in April, but who knows? Maybe my niece will want to come down once in awhile anyway?

Well, it's almost the magic hour (9pm), so I better wrap up. I have a few more thoughts on food that I would like to share sometime soon, plus a humorous post and an insightful post. With any luck I will have time this week for at least one of those three topics!

So until text time...