December 6

Lily + bedtime = bane of my existence.

Tonight, I nursed her for 45 minutes. Like, she spent 45 minutes actively receiving and swallowing milk from my breasts. And then, when I tried to gently remove her and allow her to go to sleep, she wailed like she was starving, both physically and emotionally. Like I was the worst mother in the world. Like all she wanted was just a little more milk, please! 

It's a cruel joke that bedtime comes at the end of the day, when my nerves and emotions are already worn and frayed from the events of the day. If she went down easily, bedtime would be beautiful. Instead, bedtime is a suckerpunch. An experiment in dashed hopes. "Maybe this time she'll fall asleep!"

 Nope.

Never.

The baby never falls asleep. (OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration. I first started nursing her at 7:40, and it's now 9:08 and she's asleep because Chris has been walking with her for the past twenty minutes. So she does fall asleep. It just takes EIGHTY MILLION YEARS.)

But enough complaining. It snowed today! While Lily napped, I took the big kids out to play.

Caleb was SO excited. His first words: "Mommy, will you help me make a snowball??" Sadly, it was the light, powdery kind of snow - terrible for snowballs. He wasn't upset, though. He just ran to his snow-covered slide and plowed through all the light, powdery snow. Fun!

Meanwhile, Daisy just stood there eating snow.

You know, because we don't feed her at home. She's so desperately hungry that she just wants to eat snow.

Oop. Missed a spot. Better lick that snow off the corner of her mouth.

(Side note: another mysterious bruise, this time on the other side of her face. I asked her about it, and she said she fell. I asked where she fell, and she said, "On my bed. I fell on my bed." So maybe it's happening when she falls out of her bed - something she did twice last night?)

Instead of throwing snowballs, Caleb got creative and threw snow showers. It was really fun.

Also, are you noticing their pathetic snow gear? Usually I shop ahead for snow stuff and buy the next size up on clearance at the end of the season. But somehow I forgot to do that this year, so Caleb is wearing his puffer coat (which does fit) with Daisy's size 2T pink snow pants (they fit in the spring, but are now at least 4 inches too short) with his rain boots (because his snow boots are too small). The combination of too-short snow pants with rain boots meant that he was constantly getting snow in his boots and his ankles were cold. Poor kid!

Daisy, meanwhile, was wearing Lily's hat (she had misplaced hers), Caleb's old puffer coat, garage sale snow pants that Caleb wore as a baby, and pink snow boots. Miraculously, the snow pants are size 18m and fit perfectly, and the boots are the right size. She just has to be content in boys' clothes.

Luckily, she was so busy gorging herself on snow that she didn't seem to even notice what she was wearing.

"Mmm. More snow!"

More snow showers.

Repeat. Over and over and over.

But they sure were happy! (And warm, once I adjusted Caleb's hat to cover that poor ear.)

Doesn't her hair look long, peeking out from under her hat?

Then Caleb got too much snow in his boots and we had to come inside.

While the kids took their afternoon nap, I hopped on Target.com and found some snow pants and snow boots in stock at the store near Chris' work. I got the pants in a 5T, and the boots to fit through this season. And best of all, Target now does in-store pickup so I was able to purchase everything online and then a worker scurried around the store, gathering my purchases so that they were waiting for Chris at customer service when he got off work. Tomorrow, Caleb will be playing in the snow in style!

Lily woke up from her afternoon nap before Caleb and Daisy, so I took her out to experience her first snow. 

At first, she was unimpressed and a little bit suspicious.

But two seconds later, she was all smiles! 

After a couple minutes of picture-taking, though, she was done.

And just because I can't resist, would you like a reminder of what Caleb and Daisy looked like when they first experienced snow?

Caleb's first snow:

(Click the picture to see the blog post from that day.)

Daisy's first snow:

(Click the picture to see the blog post from that day.)

And Lily's first snow:

Oh, wow. I just realized that Lily and Daisy are almost identical! Crazy! Except that Daisy was almost 8 months old in her picture, and Lily is only 4.5 months. For comparison, at 7.5 months, Daisy weighed 14.9 pounds. Yesterday, Lily weighed 14.2. So even though Daisy was 3 months older (and sitting independently) in the picture, she was roughly the same size that Lily is now. I'll say it again - CRAZY!

And now I think I've blogged away all of my bedtime frustration. It's hard to be annoyed with Lily while looking at that darling picture of her!