A few updates, including baby sleep, Conference, and Easter

My apologies for dropping the ball last week. I started working on (and got halfway through) three different blog posts, but I just haven't found/made the time to finish any of them. Part of the problem is that Baby Girl isn't sleeping very well on her own. She goes down fairly easily, but then 30-60 minutes later she wakes up wailing. Sometimes she just needs a hug and she'll go right back to sleep, other times she won't sleep unless she's being held. Every night is a little bit different -- sometimes she gets up only briefly but does it two or three times (this is before we go to bed), other times she only wakes up once but she insists on being held. Any way it goes, it takes up a lot of time. And then she doesn't sleep very well at night, getting up at least two times (after we go to bed), sometimes as many as five times before morning. She doesn't seem to like her crib at all. She'll abide her pack-n-play (it's temporarily set up in our room), but mostly she prefers our bed.

I'm not upset about this. It's a phase and we're working through it. I've been trying to go to bed even earlier (like, in bed by 9pm) so that I can maybe get enough sleep. Some nights are better than others. We'll get through. The biggest downside is just that I can't really do anything in the evening. Darling goes to bed at 7pm, but it's usually about 7:30 before she's really asleep and I can transfer her to her crib, then I still have to get myself ready for bed. Since I'm aiming for a 9-9:30 bedtime, and the baby wakes up a time or two, we'll... you see how it doesn't really allow for much activity? I can get myself ready for bed, clean the dishes, maybe read for a few minutes or take a quick look at Facebook or write two paragraphs of a blog post, and that's all the time available.

Again, I'm not upset. And none of this is expressed as a complaint, just explanation. This is just life right now, at least until Baby Girl learns (or maybe miraculously falls into?) better sleeping habits.

With that in mind, I'm going to give myself the liberty to reduce my at-least-once-a-week post to a bulleted list, if necessary. That's not my favorite idea but hey, we don't always need my big, fleshy paragraphs anyway.   :o)

• • • 

I wrote those paragraphs yesterday (Wednesday) morning, with a plan to add a few bullet points and then post. Of course, as I was pondering what items from the last week and a half to mention, and how to list them briefly, Baby Girl woke up from her nap and my time was up. Now that I read through it again, I realize that I could have put it up without any additional bullets and it would have been a decent little post. Oh well. Now it's Thursday evening, Darling is asleep in the pack-n-play next to me (I'm sitting on the bed, and for the record, I tried to put her in her crib, but obviously she refused to sleep; I'm too tired and I have too much working-mommy guilt to battle with her). I have about ten minutes to add some bullets to this post before I need to go to bed...

... oh gosh, she's awake... stinker!

(4 minutes later)
I guess she just needed a little cuddle. But now I only have 6 minutes. Not enough time. Never enough time!

• Now that my folks are back from vacation, we've seen my mom every two or three days. She has offered and is planning to watch Darling twice a week while I have to work, so we will continue to see her a little bit extra. It's a huge blessing and we really enjoy having her around.

• General Conference was last weekend and it was wonderful. During the last couple of years I have worked to make Conference a bigger part of my life by listening to, reading, and pondering the talks. It has made Conference weekend a much more enjoyable experience. A couple of talks stuck out in my mind, including Elder Holland's remarks about removing envy from our lives ("envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving...(it) requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know!"). I also enjoyed Elder Uchtdorf's "two word sermon" about gossiping and being judgmental ("stop it!"), and not just because "Uchtdee" is  German and a pilot (although those two characteristics certainly do elevate him pretty high in my esteem, teehee ;o). Was anyone else surprised that we didn't hear more from Elder Bednar? He's one of my favorite speakers and I missed him dearly. I hope he's doing all right.

• Easter is this coming weekend!
- I have a very pink, flowery dress that I got the baby as a Christmas present which I might put her in for church. Then again, my mom got her a very lovely spring-flowers dress that would also be sweet and Easter-appropriate. 
- The neighbors invited us over for the little kid's neighborhood Easter egg hunt on Saturday. I'd really like to go and be social; hopefully Baby won't be napping (it's at 10:30, I think?) and hopefully Nate will want to walk over. Sometimes our shyness (we're both pretty shy) gets the better of us and we act like hermits, much to our detriment. Poor baby -- what awful parents!
- I am going to make Kougin Amann (koo-wen ah-men) which is a traditional Easter "bread" (I will have to go find the article that explains the history of the bread; it's somewhere in my recipe book). It's really more like a cake, since it's packed with butter and sugar and has a carmelized topping. Nate loves it and begs me to make it year-round but I only do it for Easter.

Darn.... I write too much! I have several other things to say but I am already 10 minutes overtime. So maybe next time. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe.