yin and yang

how could it be that 2 weekend days can be so different from each other?? friday night into saturday morning was routine, with the exception of a feverish harper early on. michael and i watched a movie friday night, without interruption. harper woke up saturday morning, seemingly feeling better after a full nights sleep without much of a peep. we enjoyed breakfast, made another mess in the kitchen baking homemade muffins and i went to visit with my 2 kiddos who i see for private speech therapy on saturday mornings, leaving harper and michael with their weekly daddy-daughter time. i came home to a napping little, and was able to get some things done around the house, including starting our homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner. when harper woke from her nap, she ran to the front door, and attempted to put on her boots and hat, signaling her extreme desire to get outside! it was raining slightly, but she wanted to get out and i wasn't about to stop her. she and i enjoyed some puddle splashing and walking up and down the sidewalk in front of our house, something she enjoys on a regular basis now. michael really wanted to run some errands to price out cabinets and countertops for our kitchen renovation this summer (keep your fingers crossed that it's not going to cost an arm and a leg and be canceled), so i decided that harper and i would have a mommy-daughter date. first, we ventured to the library to return some books. she loves it there. she crawls through the tunnels on the way to the kids section, runs over to the puzzle area and climbs up on the bench to name all the pieces she sees. forget the crazy amount of books that surround her. this girl loves puzzles. i could only tempt her to leave them alone by asking if she wanted to go for ice cream (i.e. frozen yogurt). so, we headed to plum market for a few groceries and swirlberry, my new addiction. yum. we made it home just in time for a quick dinner, pjs, some stories and songs in the rocker and bed. michael and i proceeded to couch it for another video, but harper wasn't letting us off so easy...










saturday night was torture. back to the first-few-days-with-her-at-home-newborn-torture. she rolled and cried and sat up and stood up and yelled for mommy for 2 hours before finally falling asleep. our 2 hour movie took 3 hours to watch, due to all the pausing so we could comfort harper. we went to bed right after the movie only to be awoken another 4 (or 5?) times that night. and lucky for me, she didn't want anything to do with daddy (can you hear the sarcasm?). michael would try his darndest to lull her back to sleep, but she wanted nothing to do with it. sweet dreams were not coming to any of us that night. after a restless night, a 5:40 am wakeup call of "mommy? daddy?" finally had us up and brewing the coffee, with an extra shot of caffeine. but lo and behold, it wasn't really 5:40. daylight savings was upon us and we lost an hour- another hour of precious sleep slipped through our hands.

we tried laying her down for a nap way earlier than usual, but she wouldn't sleep, so we decided to go along with our original plans to meet uncle jeff for breakfast at my favorite breakfast spot, cafe zola, and then head over to the garden shop for some inquiries and purchases for our vegetable garden. and what luck do we have but to "run" into the shamrocks and shenanigans 5k- a barrier to us parking anywhere close to our breakfast spot. we tried to enjoy the short breakfast and the hurried lesson on starting your own vegetable garden before we were back in our car headed for home. 10 minutes from there and harper's eyes were shut tight. i carried her in the house, layed her in her bed and tiptoed out the door. 10 minutes later she was up, and that was it for napping for the day.

still not to be deterred, we again went along with our plans to attend our nephew's hockey game. we took turns (michael did most of the turn-taking) following her up and down the stairs and along the bleachers until the game ended. we packed up and headed back home for a quick dinner, bath, pjs, stories, songs and shut eye. 7:00 pm- lights out- crankiness ended for the day.





how could it be that 2 days so close to each other are so different? it took all i had not to lose every ounce of my patience on sunday that i had saved up on saturday. she's taught me a lot of patience and a lot of acceptance and a lot of calmness. i guess it's all in the life of a toddler. and despite all the yuckies that might come along with the blossoming of an independent little girl, i wouldn't change a single thing about her.