I just put Morella down for bed. For awhile there when we would put her down at 11:30 she wouldn't sleep. She would stay in there and talk, and sing and read books and play with her stuffies until she did go to sleep and then the nap was only 30-45 minutes, sometimes an hour. It was really kind of sucky because she would be so tired by the end of the day. After hearing that Noah, one of the kids in the play group was going to bed later and sleeping longer naps, I decided to give it a try. In reality it was like going back to the basics and paying attention to when they are tired and going by that cue.

So now she goes down for her nap sometime between 1 and 2. Sometimes it's closer to 12, but really I have been going by her cues and being well rewarded for it by getting my 2-3 hour naps again. Today she went down from 2-5. We had spend 11-1 shopping with our friend Lowen. It was so nice to have an extra pair of hands help with Morella so that I could actually look at things and try them on. We also had coffee at the Starbucks in Target. It was great to sit and chat and Morella just loves sitting at the table with us eating and drinking. It's like playing tea time, except with coffee and real food. I ended up buying myself a pair of little skull and pink heart pajama bottoms from Old Navy. I love these type of pajamas and the last pair I had from them I wore down to threads over several years. I also bought a thin, long sleeved shirt that had little buttons that go down the chest...

Hold on. I want to make a cake. I can get that started and then come back to this post while it's baking.

[Hours later]

Sigh. I decided to try and start Athena on sleeping in her cosleeper tonight. She is currently in there wide awake, but not crying ... yet. Apparently she hasn't read the same books on sleep training that I have, in which putting them down when they are almost asleep is supposed to help them learn to sleep than putting them when they are asleep. Make sense? I guess, it's only day one and she is only 8 weeks old and it's just the cosleeper.

The cake I am making is a spiced apple walnut cake. It's so good and I love it when I can use apples from the neighborhood to make it. I have been making it for three or four years now and there is never any leftovers beyond two days. Instead of using cinnamon and nutmeg I used the Cake Spice seasoning from Sarah that she had given to me over the summer. I'm looking forward to seeing how it will work out. It smells great!

I was also going to make some play dough tonight using this recipe. I have some flour I had gotten from my Dad's that expired in July of 2007. It's my experience that using that old of flour tends to not yield great results. Well, okay results. I have enough sliced apples leftover to make a pie, so I might use some for pie crusts. I also have 10 pounds of whole wheat flour that is equally as old. I wonder how that would work as the base for playdough...hm I sense an experiment. I hope I have enough tartar!

...she is still quiet!....

Tim mentioned to me yesterday that I am not the same person I was before. I know, that can mean a lot of things, but essentially I am doing the things I used to do. We all know that is because of the kids. They are sort of my hobby, main interest and craft right now. I realize I do talk about kids ... a lot now in my journal. I started to wonder how many readers I have lost since having the kids. I would ask, but you know if I lost them then they are far gone by now. I also wonder if I have gained any readers *because* I have kids. I know that there are quite a few journals on my Google Reader list that I searched for because they have small children. I want to read about shared experiences.

Oh she's crying now. I'd ask you if you mind the new ... content of this blog, but I know that many of you won't answer. I mean, you don't have too. It's a blog and part of the joy in that is reading it without having to do any work. You know?