The Third Prayer

When we tell Mary Rene to smile, she will either give us a cheesy smile and pose

or look something like this

oh!  She cracks me up!  What a little ham.

A new tooth popped through last week and two more are halfway through.  Interestingly, she hasn’t been entirely too crabby and no snotty nose.  This time we just know she is teething because she keeps chewing on her fingers.  And well, I stuck my finger in her mouth and saw them.

On Saturday we went to the pet store to get Sophie’s nails trimmed.  Let me first say that I really need to start scheduling these appointments so I stop falling behind.  Those nails grow so fast since I’m not running with her anymore and they are so freakin’ annoying on our hardwood floors.  I digress.  The point of this, Mary Rene had so much fun at the pet store.  First there were the birds, then the dogs, next cats and finally her favorite, fish.  She was in fish heaven with the hundreds of fish swimming around.  She kept pointing and “oohing” and “ooooo” as she went from tank to tank.  She melts our hearts with her simple, pure, innocent episodes of happiness over the smallest and most mundane things.  Wouldn’t life be great if we got that excited over trivial, daily items in our life?

We hit a huge, huge milestone yesterday: Mary Rene napped at my parent’s house.  When she was an infant, she would fall asleep anywhere.  But as baby girl grew, she got set in her ways and she would only nap at home, my mother-in-law’s house (that is who watches her the two days I work) and Piedmont (my parent’s property.)  The last time I was able to get her to take a nap at my parent’s house was the day of my sister’s bridal shower which was back in August.  Frank was in charge of Mary Rene and she wouldn’t take a nap for him.  So he drove her to my parent’s house in hopes that she would fall asleep in the car.  She didn’t.  I tried to get her to nap there and she wouldn’t.  So we continued to get ready for the shower.  People arrived, the shower started and Mary Rene was busy crawling from one person to another.  By the time the shower was ending, Mary Rene was well past her morning nap and it was time for her afternoon nap.  She was so exhausted that I was able to get her to take a nap.  Glorious.  But as you can see from the details, she was super exhausted and that might be the real reason she napped.  So honestly, the last time she took a nap at my parent’s house was probably…Christmas 2008.  Seriously.  So yesterday was a huge milestone.  When I went to pick her up, my parents mentioned that she was tired but they couldn’t get her to nap.  So I asked her if she wanted to take a nap and she walked right into “the nap” room and climbed on the bed.  I hanged her her blanket and she quickly tugged on my top.  At first it didn’t appear like she was going to fall asleep but after 10 minutes of nursing she closed her eyes.  But she has done that before.  So I waited another five minutes before I tried unlatching, and well, she wouldn’t let me.  I let another two minutes go by and she still won’t let me.  So while still latched on, I laid down on the bed, continued to nurse for a few more minutes and finally was able to unlatch.  Baby girl doesn’t want to let go sometime.  And…I was able to walk out of the room.  I went in the room where my parents were sitting, Mary Rene-less, and pounded my fist in the air and did a little dance.  I was one proud momma.  About 45-50 minutes into her naps, my dad went to check on her and she woke up.  He is a worry wart!  But the good news is that she napped, regardless of the amount of time.

Okay, that sounded like a huge ordeal, but, I have hope.  If I continue to do this every week then eventually she will associate “the nap” room with naps and maybe nap for my parents too!

My dad had so much fun playing with Mary Rene all day yesterday.  He enjoyed feeding her breakfast and lunch.  She liked it too because he plays the “airplane” feeding game and it was cracking her up.

You may wonder, what else does she do over there?  She currently is teaching the cats to sit.

Okay, maybe teach is the wrong word.  She forces the cats to sit.

She explores every room in the house, and there are a lot of rooms, and she seems to find something new to play with each time.  Yesterday she found my grandma’s scary life size dolls which have always been in the computer room.

Isn’t Mark scary?  Well, Mary Rene didn’t seem to mind.

Mark wears size 2T clothes, bigger then Mary Rene, but Mary Rene sure was showing him who was boss.

Mary Rene has added two new words to her list.  She likes to stand on the window ledge and jump in my arms and before she jumps she says, “WEEEEE!”  So cute.  Frank’s mom has been trying to teach her to say “Happy Birthday” because it is on one of her Barney videos.  Right now Mary Rene says, “hap” for Happy.  So close!  Baby girl is one smart little cookie.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 9:40 am and is filed under Mary Rene, Nursing, Piedmont, Sophie B. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.