Getting Ready

Not sure how he feels about rice cereal . . .

Avi loves to put his toys into his mouth.

This morning, around 5:45 AM, after a particulary awful night of little sleep, I was blearily standing at the changing table (though Leeor had just changed him minutes before, of course Avi had a blow out soon after) and then, as if to say This is why I'm waking so much at night, mommy, Avi grabbed his foot with his left hand. I almost cried.

He's going through so much in his development right now that I feel especially sad about what I'll miss when I return to work. I go back 3 weeks from today. I can't believe my maternity leave is almost over.

We are slowly getting ready for this big transition. We hired a babysitter on Friday. She's kind, loving, experienced and seems genuinely interested in taking care of Avi. It made me feel a little less anxious to hire her, and she's starting the week before I go back to work so we can spend time together with Avi.

As for his feeding and napping, I think I've screwed us pretty good. Avi still sleeps best during the day if we're out for a walk or I let him fall asleep on me during a feeding. (I know a lot of my relatives reading this are shaking their heads right now! I know, I know.) I've been trying to put hm down when he falls asleep in my lap, and he'll stay asleep for around 10 minutes before waking. I stressed myself out considerably about this and decided I'm no longer going to force it. What's the point? Everything is changing anyway, we are going out of town this week and next, and then M, the babysitter, comes. I figure we can work on it together. In the meantime, I need Avi to get a couple of good naps in during the day, however we make it happen.

The bottle is practically non-existent in our home. Whoops. He was great at it the first two weeks. Then Leeor went back to work and we fell off the bottle wagon. Everyone said we should keep at it because we'd regret it if we didn't, and here we are. Our babysitter is gonna have her work cut out for her. I have given him cereal a couple of times . . . check out the face in the above photo!

Whatever happens, I have to remember that I'm always anxious about things before they happen, and then the outcome is never as bad as I anticipate. Avi is an amazing kid, and he'll be fine. As always, he's more flexible than I am. In the meantime, I want to enjoy every second we have together!