sleep update

We have made a little progress towards independent sleep. My most recent set up has been to put Julia's toddler bed in between my bed and the wall. This makes it impossible for her to fall out, and makes it pretty easy for me to lean over and nurse her in the night without waking her up every time I roll over, which I did when we were sharing a twin bed! Living in close quarters with family means that I'm not comfortable with nighttime crying, so I've been letting Julia nurse to sleep and nurse on demand through the night. These past weeks, instead of nursing to sleep at the breast, often Julia has nursed until drowsy in my arms and then pushed away. I immediately side her over to her bed and miracle of miracles, she rolls around for a minute, looking for a comfy pose and then falls asleep! On her own! No tears! She still wakes up and wants to nurse in the middle of the night, but several recent times have been less than a minute before she is back asleep. The early morning hours are when she nurses the most. I can soothe her into sleeping for an extra 1-3 hours by offering a nurse when she lifts her head. I suppose one day I should try just getting us up when she first wakes, but I really love my morning sleep. In fact, since mom and dad are up and about, I let Julia get up and go out to them, and I go back to sleep!!! (usually not for long, since she comes in to see what I'm up to, but still, the act of falling back to sleep is wonderful!) I kind of think that if I gave her a few minutes, she would fall back asleep when she wakes in the middle of the night, but since Olaf is sleeping in the room with us, and mom and dad are sleeping across the wall, I feel that any crying at all would wake everyone. It is kind of hard to remember how many times I nurse her in a night. Last night, I don't remember nursing at all until morning. Maybe there was one I forgot about, but maybe not! Some nights she wakes several times though, and I can remember that come morning. I'm not actively trying to wean Julia. Research tells me that a lot of babies who self-wean do so between ages 2 and 3, and we're still 6 months away from age 2. Since I'm not trying for any more right now, I feel fine with continuing nursing for the health benefits for both of us. Since breast cancer and osteoporosis have made an appearance in my extended family, I'm particularly aware that the longer I nurse, the lower my chances of getting either. One statistic I found says that women who lactate for a total of two or more years reduce their chances of developing breast cancer by 24 %. In case Julia is my only child, I'm happy to aim for two years of nursing.

Getting ready for a trip

In two days, Julia and I embark upon another journey. Dave returns from 6 weeks of exploring Greece, and we will drive up to Seattle to be with him for 5 days, before driving back here for my class on tuesday. Dave flies out on tuesday, back to Alaska to a dinosaur dig in Denali National Park, and then to begin teacher inservice. I'm actually a little fearful of the reunion. I don't know how Julia will respond to Dave, after 6 weeks apart. We've had that much time apart before, but Julia was too young to care. Maybe she still is too young to care, but I'm hopeful that she'll be excited to see Dave and a little anxious that she'll be indifferent or be upset in some way. We've been video chatting with Dave, and Julia gets excited when he is on the screen, but it is hard to say if she recognizes him as "Dad" or if she's just excited that the computer is talking to her. Since she's still breastfeeding, her world is really still centered on me, but as she gets older she's more and more aware of who is around her regularly. It feels slightly cruel to give her 5 days with dad and then take him away for another 4 weeks, but it would be equally terrible not to have the 5 days. 

Julia discovered Olaf's old train set and is much enamored with it. 

She also has the charming habit of, when wanting to nurse, she must first search around for things to hold. three trains, or two books, or a screwdriver and a sippy cup or a shoe, a comb, a lego car, a bag of golf balls and some pajamas from the laundry basket. She gets frantic if I refuse to let her cuddle with the chosen assortment, even if there are too many chosen things for her to hold at once. She remains distressed until I make it very clear that I am letting her hold the shoe and lego car and that I am tucking the bag of golf balls between us, placing the comb on top and also tucking in the pajamas. She also is very fond of a mole on my chest and often will pause mid-nurse to rearrange her objects in order to free up a finger which she places on the mole like it is the milk dispenser button. 

I've been sewing more baby pants. These are getting to be too small for Julia, so they await for the future babies of my friends and family.  

same with these booties. 

A few days ago, I bought a cheap toddler bed off of craigslist. Dave's dad made a lovely one for us but it is heavy and too nice to mail to Alaska. I need something cheap and light that we don't mind leaving behind. I'm planning on mailing this one north and bringing the family made one down here for the rest of the summer. It's been kind of interesting having it as a sleeping option. Julia still nurses to sleep, but sometimes, especially if she is hot, she'll roll away and roll around until she gets comfortable. She likes to dangle her feet over the edge while nursing, and after a few nights has figured out how to crawl up to nurse in the middle of the night, and either crawls or rolls back down again after. I couldn't say which since I've fallen back asleep myself. It's nice for both of us to have a little more elbow room at night. I'm hopeful that a little more distance will also make her less inclined to snack all night. 

Despite Julia's attempts to get at them all, Olaf has been busy creating with his legos. Here's a few of the latest:

Yummmmmm

It is DARK at 8 30 am out here. 

8 30 doesn't seem all that early to be up, but it sure feels early when it is dark out. I've been working on getting Julia to bed earlier since 10 pm seems kinda late for a baby's bedtime. She'll fall asleep about 8, but wakes up about every 30 minutes for another snack until I go to bed with her. The downside is that she used to sleep until 9 30 or 10 am but now is up at 8 30, 7 30 or sometimes 6 30, just wanting to crawl around awhile while I lay on the couch and semi-monitor what she's getting in to.
Our internet has been out for 5 days now, so I'm over at the school writing this, but I can't upload photos here, so this will have to wait until our internet returns to be published. Other goings on:


Out neighbors gave us this funny star snowsuit

and Julia had her first chicken bone to gnaw on. She was a fan.

the other day I made Punkerbean Muffins, so named because I call Julia my punkerbean, and because the chocolate chips look like black beans. They were excellent.

1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp each ground nutmeg and  ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons of molasses
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400˚
Grease or line a 12 cup muffin tin.
Mix dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another. Combine. Don't forget the chocolate chips. 
Fill muffin cups. 
Bake about 20 minutes, or until toothpick tests clean. 




We took a little hike this weekend to Blueberry Hill, and this was the view: 

No blueberries though, but Julia got a snack

We also took a little family outing to the dump. The dump has made me ponder some things. At first, learning that I was to chuck my bag of trash into the wilderness filled me with angst and anger, but what else is there to do? Not have trash, for one, but we all know how quickly the trash can fills itself. Recycle? Well, there is a grant that allows the village to collect recyclables, but I'm told they are flown to the nearby village of Aniak, barged around the chain of islands to Anchorage and then trucked to Seattle to be recycled. So does that carbon footprint measure smaller than chucking my bag of newspaper and tin cans into the wilderness? I'm pretty skeptical, really. If you know that answer, please let me know. 
So is there a difference, chucking my trash in the village dump myself or letting some nice garbologist pick it up for me and take it away to a city landfill? Trash is trash in the end, and it is all going to a landfill somewhere. 
We saw a beautiful fox at the dump, but he got away before I could get the camera out.