Trying to Catch Up or Catch My Breath

Not sure which. ;)

I have about 45 minutes to do whatever I wish outside of the house. So here I am at the library, on the computer instead of reading or something. I thought it would be an opportune moment to just do something I enjoy doing--and blogging is something I do enjoy.

Now to start addressing things I mentioned earlier:

My younger niece, who will be 3 in a few weeks, is, naturally, a little put out by the newest little one in our midst. He has just recently turned 1, so he's the same age she was when she started. But she's 3 and the youngest in her family and has been the youngest at our place for 2 years now, so it's a little disconcerting for her. At first, she thought she would have a playmate, but, of course, a little one not yet walking and talking can't be the same kind of playmate as an older sibling. And then there were the first few days of the little guy being all out of sorts and wanting to only be in my arms all the time. Jealousy naturally built up a bit and she would ask to be in my arms at every chance she got. All very normal behaviours!

I've been inviting her to tag along or help me out and those opportunities always help her. She talks about how she's a big girl when she can help like that. Today, it was so cute, she keeps wanting to feed him directly, even if it's finger food that he can do himself. So I, on purpose, pulled out some baby food for him that had to be given with a spoon and asked her if she wanted to do it. It was so cute and funny! He was actually a little put off by it at first, because it's supposed to be me, not her, in his mind, but he accepted it and kept allowing her to feed him.

I think things are improving for both of them with this. With the 2yo, she's already kind of out of sorts because her sister is at school now and although for a while, she was happy to do all kinds of different activities, she seems to have hit a point of simply wanting to be entertained--of wanting someone else to get a game going that she can join into. I have my hands full right now, but I need to try to hold just a little more and get some more presentations ready for her. Although, now with baby gates up, that is another issue: she can't easily get to where most of the materials are kept. I just have to figure something out.

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The keyboard here is kind of getting on my nerves and the keys feel very hard to press. I'm going to stop for now and maybe find a magazine to read or something until I have to pick up dd. I'll try to continue tomorrow!