Sleep Deprivation--and other topics of interest

I've started a post on our level of sleep deprivation four times now, but I am never able to finish them. Probably because I keep falling asleep on the keyboard... haha! Just kidding.

Today marks a very important milestone for me as a parent: I left the house with both babies ALL ON MY OWN!!!!!! Not only that, but our trip to the doctor was successful. Greta slept the entire time, which was AWESOME, considering it was an appointment for Anja, meaning she screamed the entire time from the moment we left the waiting room until the doctor left us after her checkup. She HATES going to the doctor. But she checked out fine; she is still short and fat with a big head--just the way we like her!

Mother's Day was nice. We missed the 7:30 mass because we can't wake up for alarms. We woke up at 6:30, but an hour is just not enough time to get four people ready and out of the house, no matter how close you live to the church. We all looked nice, but we walked into church in the middle of the homily. So we left and said we'd shoot for the 10:00 after breakfast with Martin's family. We missed that one too though, and so we went on to my family's get-together (a lunch picnic at Prophetstown) and later in the afternoon we went to St. Lawrence for 5:00 Mass. And we were there early!!! However, while I was minding Anja during the sermon, I looked over and saw that Greta and Martin were fast asleep. I kept nudging him every few minutes, but he never quite woke up all the way, I don't think.

Being sleep deprived is a lot like being sort of drunk. You have conversations that seem very fuzzy to you the next day (or that are gone from your memory entirely.) Your days go by in such a blur that you don't know what day of the week it is... or what the date is... I'm lucky if I get the month right!

Greta's colicky newborn disposition is quickly turning sunnier. She is more scheduled, and although a bedtime of midnight or later is not ideal, I can still predict her sleep and wakeful times throughout the day. She usually only screams in the late afternoon and in the evenings now instead of all day long. I've been trying for weeks to catch a good smile on camera, but this blurry one is the closest I've come.

Tonight when Martin got home we immediately packed up the girls and went for a long walk. We walked up to campus to the Engineering Fountain. They never turn the fountains on anymore. Booo. Anja loved seeing so many birds and squirrels and chipmunks! We sat for awhile on some benches so I could nurse Greta and Anja picked flowers and found some neat rocks and brought me bits of mulch as gifts. She's so sweet! We stopped by that funny tree by the Stewart and took some pictures. Anja loved being in the tree! Both girls were awesome all the way there and back, and by the time we got home it was Anja's bedtime!

It was the perfect way to spend an evening. And now: some pictures.

Here is Anja in her sunhat and garden shoes, ready to work with us. Eating a chili and cornbread for the first time... a very special meal in our house! Chili and cornbread is what we ate the night Martin showed up for dinner at my parents house when I was in junior high! Greta in her swing. Isn't she so dark compared to Anja?!? It's funny, Martin and I both see in Anja traits of the two of us, but she is still not anything close to what we had expected a baby of ours to look like. In Greta, we see only Greta, no family traits of anyone's, yet she is EXACTLY what we would've expected our babies to look like. Very weird!

Our little flower child, all ready for a Saturday morning at the Farmers Market. (Anything you see in the pictures that looks kind of weird, maybe stuck all over her chest? Those are stickers. She is obsessed with stickers. I think in this picture she's sporting the one from the Chiquita bananas.

Petting the trolley horses at Prophetstown. She LOVED the animals, especially the horses. The ones who were in the field came right up to the fence and threw their noses over at us, but she wasn't scared at all! She just pet them and giggled! They have four little lambs out there right now! Very, very cute and woolly.

Anja in the tree again. She thought that was something. We don't have any climbable trees near our house--they are all oak trees whose branches are too high to reach!