Back to winter

The kids are in the midst of a somewhat momentous cold. Kate has been so stuffed up that she stopped nursing. She's been pretty much weaned for months now, just nursing at nap and bedtime. It's funny that a day or two went by before I even realized that she hadn't nursed. It's also funny that she weaned within a week or two of the same age Molly weaned.

The unintended consequence however is that Kate also seems to have forgotten how to nap. And she doesn't seem to care! It's really my only sadness about weaning -- that nursing was like a magic trick that would take her from wide awake to snoring in about two minutes at nap time. (No such magic at bedtime, she was almost always still awake when I put her in the crib at night, thank goodness).

I've tried for a few days to close the curtains, turn on the white noise and rock her at nap time -- the whole routine minus milk. She never asks to nurse, seems to enjoy the rocking, then pops up to play. She flips out if I put her in the crib.

On the first child, no doubt I would have fought her on keeping the nap. Poor Molly. I read too many parenting books back then.

This time? Meh. I hate everything about trying to get a person to sleep when they don't want to sleep. Hands down that's been my most frustrating parenting experience.

So good-bye nap. Maybe it'll come back. Maybe not. Whatever. Kate's not melting down in the late afternoon or anything. In fact, she goes to bed easier at night and wakes up fewer times before morning. She's getting 11 or 12 hours of sleep. I'm just not going to sweat it.

Here we are making brownies with mint chips. I don't know what's gotten into me but we've been baking a ton of junk lately. Meh. Molly's also into eating whole raw radishes lately, so whatever.

It's been very cold but we've been self-quarantined long enough from these colds that we need to get outside at least a little bit whenever we can stand it. This past snow was a really good toddler depth yet still enough for Molly to make angels.