Last week Brian went down to Arizona for work. Bria and I had been having a rough few weeks, we just weren't seeing eye to eye on things. I wanted to change her diaper. She didn't. She'd kick and scream and throw a fit. I did not want her to throw a fit. She didn't care. And so on.
So, when Brian left last Sunday I was really nervous.
I made sure I had something planned everyday. Both Heather and Lanie were amazing. Lanie came over one day, then had me over the next for dinner. Heather and Amy had us for dinner one night then we went out to eat another. Marna came up and watched Bria all morning long while I ran errands and sipped a hot pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks. Another morning I took Bria to an indoor play park.
Staying busy totally helped and last week was a huge success. Bria through lots less tantrums and I was a lot more patient. We missed Brian like crazy, but survived through pictures and videos. Brian sent a video on his phone and Bria requested to see it no less than 958 times.
We are all so happy to be back together and I'm just darn proud to have survived. Which is funny considering I survived 2 weeks alone when he had to go to Arizona for training, but this stage of toddler-hood is just...well...different and more trying.
We are loving having Brian back and more than once Bria has told me "No," and wanted to me to leave so she could have one-on-one Daddy time. Brian pretends he feels bad but I know he is beaming with pride that his daughter is becoming a daddies girl. I have to say it's pretty cute.
Bria got over the cold she had over a week ago and has been sleeping great ever since. Until last night when she woke up at 2:15 am. I rocked her to sleep and put her back down. Half hour later she was up again. I went in and changed her diaper because it was very full, gave her Tylenol and went to sit in her rocker again. As I did she said, "Mommies bed, sleep in mommies bed." I don't know if she had a bad dream but she's never said that. So I caved and brought her in bed. We have not done this very often and when we have she usually doesn't sleep because our bed is a play place to her. But last night she fell asleep on my chest. After a few minutes of her snoring I rolled her next to me and we all slept in the bed together. This is huge, it has not happened since she was like 4 months old and we all took a nap together.
After about an hour (I think, I didn't look at the time) she stirred and then said, "Mommy cuddle." This means she wants to lay on my chest. She was pulling out all the stops! So she laid on me and then started squirming and sure enough she sat up. This is when I cuddled her and took her back to bed, where she remained until morning.
It was a random night, but kind of fun. I still prefer sleeping through the night, but every once and a while (a long while) those nights are sweet.
I was going through pictures to include in this long post and the ones I found reminded me of some I took a year ago when Brian was studying (SO HAPPY HE IS DONE WITH HIS MBA!):
Wow, what a difference a year makes!
I think I'm going to do a whole post about what a difference a year makes because it's crazy to look through pictures and see how much Bria has changed.
Daddies girl
2 comments:
Having family close by must be so helpful during this stage. Tim works a lot and our nearest family is an hour away. It's hard! You were smart to keep a busy schedule the week he was gone. :-)
The title of this post reminds me of Friends. :) I'm glad we could hang out with you guys while Brian was gone. Next order of business - all 6 of us need to hang out!
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