Countdown to Heat: 8 Days

This is Harper and her dziatku. While I am loyal to the UD Flyers, I am afraid it might be difficult not to "Feel the Power of X" when it comes to Harper. I think the basketball influence of her father and dziatku might win out. I'll do my best. At least she's a Packer fan. (I know she looks like a boy in this picture, but I'm not into taping bows into her barely-there-hair.)

Furnace update: New furnace (heat!!) should arrive no later than Friday, November 4th.

I am so lucky to get along with my in-laws, despite their sketchy loyalties in the wide world of sports. It has been pretty chilly here, down near freezing over night. Since we're still not feeling great about the combination of space heaters and the baby, Harper and I are bunking at Nana and Dziatku's for a bit.

The first night was rough. Harper often wakes up, for no apparent reason, in the middle of the night. I don't know if it's gas or bad dreams or what, but she hasn't needed to eat in the middle of the night for months and months. Usually I just walk in (or stumble, as I'm mostly asleep myself), lay her back down, and go back to bed. Most nights she gets the idea that it isn't time to be awake, and falls back asleep. Unfortunately this doesn't work when I go back to bed in the room she's sleeping in. I would look over from the bed and see her little head popping up from the pack-n-play she was sleeping in. Then she would scream until I rescued her. She was up from 3 to 4 a.m.

Last night we brilliantly moved her into the clean bathroom attached to the room I'm sleeping in. My in-laws, who thought of this plan, are geniuses. She doesn't know she's sleeping in the bathroom, I can still hear her, and she doesn't realize how close I am and therefore gives up on being pulled out of the pack-n-play. Brilliant! She slept until a little after six this morning.

We are hoping that it will be warm enough to stay in our own home by Saturday night.

Matt has been a trooper, sleeping here to keep the dog company. He uses the space heater and sleeps on the living room couch with the gas logs turned on. Last night the temperature in that room reached a balmy 64.

Accomplishments

Harper has achieved new heights of greatness over the weekend. Friday morning Matt was watching her so I could grab a quick shower before he went to work. And the baby, she actually crawled for this first time! She has been on the move for quite a while now, but had never done a real, up on all fours, crawl. Up to this point she's been inching forward on her belly, rolling, rotating, pushing off and pulling to get where she wants to be. While she'd become quite successful in getting from A to B employing these methods, it's still pretty exciting to see her actually crawl. And Matt is thrilled he got to see it first. For a long time we'd pretty much figured she was going to skip the crawling part.

Of course now that she can crawl, she's devised an even faster and more ridiculous way of getting around. I'm not sure I can even explain it. She's basically sitting with one foot underneath her and one one the floor, knee in the air. She leans forward and puts her hands down in front of her and sort of scoots along on her bottom. I sense we're raising a rebel here, as she pretty much finds the way something's not meant to be done, and does that!

In other news, Harper's seventh and eighth teeth finally cut all the way through. She's cut about six teeth in the last month, almost simultaneously. Maybe we'll have a little break from the teething now, and she'll stop waking up in the middle of the night.

The novelty of standing in her crib also seems to be wearing off a little (knock on wood). The past two days it hasn't been quite so hard to get her to nap. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it was just a little phase we went through. So I should still expect her to take two naps a day until she heads to kindergarten? Right? (Ha!)

One other note to wrap up this post. We are so lucky to have Matt's parents nearby. They are wonderful to and with Harper and a great help to us. I am sorry not to live closer to my side of the family (hello up there in Wisconsin), but I'm glad we do have family so close. Last week Harper's dziatku (Polish for grandpa, as far as I know) was here three times, once while I substitute taught, and twice just to help out while I was getting ready for book club. Then, yesterday, Harper's nana was here for several hours in the afternoon. Our husbands were together at the Detroit Lions game in Cleveland. She fed and played with Harper, kept me company, and allowed me to get FOUR full loads of laundry done (including folding). A huge accomplishment for one afternoon. So, even thought the Packers lost, it was a pretty good day.