Naps

Molly is asleep right now on our bed. She has been napping beautifully these past few days, as long as she's put down anywhere except her crib. What's up with that? How does she know when she's sound asleep in my arms that I'm standing in front of her crib? It's so weird that she freaks out if I try to lower her in, but I can just walk across the hall into our bedroom and put her on our bed and she doesn't even open her eyes, let alone protest (knock on wood).

Her naps have gotten nice and long, sometimes 2 hours, which is good or bad depending on where she is when she falls asleep. If it's in our bed, that's fantastic. If it's on my lap in the rocking chair and I don't have a book to read (as it was Sunday), not so great. The most common place she's been napping is in the car in the garage. She typically falls asleep around noon or 1, just as we're coming home from morning errands. If it's a nice day, I can open the car door and the door to the house, then I can go in and sew in the basement while she sleeps. If it's too cold, as it was Saturday, somebody (in this case, her daddy) has to sit in the car for two hours with her. Not so great. Yesterday Jim was home sick from work so I put her in bed with him for her nap -- super cute!

Mostly, we're just glad she's getting a lot of sleep. It makes her really fun when she's awake. She gets into crazy moods in the evening lately where she runs around, hops around, rolls around, dances and makes all sorts of noise. We call it puppy crazies.

Molly has been very affectionate lately -- lots of kisses and snuggles, even for the neighbor moms and other kids at play group, but especially for Mommy and Daddy and her stuffed animals. She feeds little bits of food to her stuffed animals. Yesterday, about the time she was getting sleepy for her nap, she got a newspaper out of the recycle bin and put it on the kitchen floor, put a baby doll on top of it, then put a bib over her like a blanket. She put her baby to bed! The other day, she dragged Jim into her bedroom and proceeded to get out all the big teddy bears, feed them food and then one by one put their noses in her mouth (which he's pretty sure was kisses).

I think she's getting a little closer to talking, too. She's certainly not at the level of the 17-month-old girl we met last week who was saying "flower" and all sorts of other words, but she's starting. Once in a while she'll mimic a word one of us says, and Jim and I stare at each other as if to say, "Did you hear that, too?" The first time that happened she said the word "bread." I've heard her make attempts at "cantaloupe" (mostly the AH-LOH sound, but with all the syllables) and "pasta." The other night at dinner Jim said something to her about how she was using a strap on her booster seat as if it was a ripcord and she was trying to eject. She said the word "eject" clear as day. That time she even repeated it a couple times. She has yet to continue using any of these words, so I think she's mimicking the sounds rather than understanding what they mean. In the meantime, we've been coming up with signs for specific foods. Ever since she learned the sign for apple (holding out her fist), she's become obsessed with apples. Apple slices have replaced Cheerios as the one food that will keep her occupied and quiet in the car or grocery store. She sometimes eats two or three entire apples in a day.

OK, off to check on the sleeper. The disadvantage of napping her in our bed is there's no railing so I feel the need to watch her while she sleeps. Even if I did trust her not to roll out, the monitor isn't set up in there so I can't go far. Still, a sleeping baby is infinitely better than a cranky baby who refuses to sleep.