Just when you think you’ve got a nice little routine…

Just when you think you’ve got a nice little routine…babies pull a new trick out of their onesie!

At least that has become something of a parenting doctrine in my (very limited and short) experience of motherhood. Maybe that will change in the future, but not for this child!

Every time we get into a nice napping, eating or playing routine for a week or so, something changes. Gabriel gets sick, I get sick, we go out of town, we start daycare, or else Gabriel just pulls some creative and anti-routine stunt that throws us all off!

I know, I know: “Welcome to parenthood.” 🙂

For example: The past several work weeks were starting to fall into such a lovely routine. We would get up in the morning around 6:30 a.m., eat with Daddy, get dressed, play for a little while, and then head to either daily mass or a long walk around the neighborhood before dropping Gabriel off at Mother’s Day Out. I would work until about 1:45 p.m., then pick Gabriel up from MDO, drive home, and immediately put him down for a long nap. During said long nap, I would either finish up work assignments from the morning, start dinner, take a nap myself (rarely though:), or get some chores done around the house. Michael would usually get home just when Gabriel was waking up from his nap, and we would all play and cook dinner together.

Just when I thought I had a nice little routine…Gabriel has been refusing his naps this week!

I think that part of it is that the very sweet ladies at MDO rock him to sleep, and he’s starting to forget the wonderful skill we had developed of being put down in his crib awake, rolling over onto his side, and contentedly falling asleep for naps and bedtime. Having a baby that is that secure and happy when being put down for sleep awake is such a blessing, and I’m missing it!

The good news is that, by the end of the week (today), Michael and I were able to put him down for naps and bedtime peacefully again. Praise the Lord!

As long as we need to have Gabriel in MDO, we will just have to make sure that we are unfailingly consistent in our parenting. Gabriel will at least know what to expect and what his parameters are when he’s at home with us!

Parenting is the ultimate service learning project, the kind in which you get thrown into an unfamiliar environment and have to build a big project that you must teach yourself the components of as you go. It’s exactly like parenting really. You are thrown into a new state in life you know little or nothing about and are tasked with raising a well-formed, happy human being, and you have to teach yourself how to do it as you go.

Well, I think I’ve been philosophical enough for the morning. (Besides, my fingertips are raw from pulling up hundreds of weeds in my front yard flowerbeds this morning.)