Ho-Hum...

Today was a bit of a ho-hum day. But then again, a lot of my days recently have been ho-hum days. We have nothing planned, we see no body, we go no where. Occasionally we feel the need to get from within our 4 walls, but for the most part we hang out at home, doing nothing in particular.

The last couple nights have been rough sailing as Camia has decided that sleeping through the night is not her forte. On night 1 she woke up and stayed awake for 3 hours. On night 2 I wound up in her bed as she woke up and we layed together while she rambled on about this and that thing until she fell off into a slumber. On night 3 she carried on sporadically between 10 pm and 4 am. Finally at 4, I walked into her room and told her enough was enough. I didn't hear from her for the rest of the night. I am not sure what is causing these abrupt changes in sleep patterns, but I am for certain that they are not MY forte, that is for sure. The one thing that amazed me is the amount of energy she still has during the day. While I feel like a zombie, she is bouncing off the walls and flapping her lips all day. A couple advantages to her night life habits is that she sleeps until almost 10. I think I may have read somewhere that even though she wakes up at night I should still be waking her up at her normal time. But, after roaming for 3 hours when I could be getting some valuable shut eye, getting up at 7:15 is definitely not on my short list of things to do. So I let her sleep.

These days she is the best at sitting on the slow chair at mealtimes. I remember while growing up that my older brother was king of the slow chair. We have decided that he has been demoted, and Camia has highly exceeded anything he had accomplished. Instead of sitting waiting for her to empty her plate, I leave after a while and make her sit until she is done. After all, one can only really hang around waiting for so long, yes? Yes. I don't like to just sit, though sometimes it is nice. Yesterday after 1.5 hours she was done, and all she had was maybe 15 pieces of popcorn chicken. The day before it was 1 hour and 1 grilled cheese sandwich. Today I gave her 8 tater tots and it took her almost 1 hour to eat them, and that was with me feeding her. The upside to this little glitch is that I get some quiet time upstairs while she sits downstairs. Yes, she sits on her chair the whole stinking time (now that I think of it, it makes me want to snicker) until her plate is empty. And she's usually quiet. And then after she finishes her lunch she gets 1 hour of quiet time where I set the timer. So, in reality, I am getting about 2 hours of quiet time in a day. This is bliss. Especially when I feel motivated to sew or quilt or read or something of the sorts. Yesterday I finished reading 'The House at Riverton' by Kate Morton and was absolutely enthralled, just as I was when I read her second book (though the 2 are not in any way related) 'The Forgotten Garden'. Delicious novels that take place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today I was feeling ambitious, so I organized my boxes for the VV boutique that I filled during my 21 day challenge episode (no, I didn't recover anything) so that I can drop them off this weekend. And then I went scrounging for scrap remnants that were leftover from Camia's quilt. I bought a sheet from VV Boutique for $4.99 that was not quite wide enough, so I added a strip of the top fabrics to the backing and today I basted it. I am going to wait to quilt it until after I take my quilting class in 2 weeks as I will learn some new methods of quilting. I can't wait to show you! While looking for the scraps, I found a bunch of started projects and made a list. There is lots for me to do. I think I am down to 3 unfinished quilts from 9 since last summer, so that in itself is a huge accomplishment.

If you recall, We had banned Camia from TV for 2 weeks and I had stated that after 1 week was through I was seeing positive results. We are now almost through 3 weeks, and I am loving it. She plays much more now, and she is learning how to play independently. When her friend was visiting last week, she showed Camia how to play with her kitchen and every day since I have had some sort of pretend liquid or another. She also makes me cookies, which are my favourite because they are the calorie-free sort. And she decorates them so nicely! I think that TV will be a thing of the past, and if she gets to watch it will be a treat.

She has taken to reading, something I love to see her do and encourage often. I love to read, and so does Ryan, so we like it when our child likes to read too. I often find Camia lounging (sprawled would be a more appropriate verb) on her bean bag chair reading - or looking at - books. For a while she associated books with bed time and refused to sit and listen to a story during the day. Now she brings me books and we read them together.

She loves to help me in the kitchen, and I have to teach myself great patience for this as it really is faster to just do things myself. But, since I want to have an interactive relationship with Camia, and I want to be involved, I need to slow down and let her help me. She loves it and I enjoy it too. It's a learning curve for me, and takes a lot sometimes to exercise the patience required for it.

I also have been delaying in taking photo's of Camia's new bed. I am waiting for her quilt to be done. But, she was playing, and I found it cute when I went into her room this afternoon to find all 4 posts to be decorated.

So there is her bed. And she loves it. She is really good at staying in it at night, I don't think she's come out once unless we have called her out. I can't wait to get her quilt done :) Before the summer it will for sure be on her bed.