I am a night owl. Always have been. As a result, I don't wake up early. So having a toddler is an interesting monkey wrench in my preferred sleep pattern. And, Shaelyn does not require the "normal" amount of sleep for a toddler. Most kids her age still need 12 hours at night an hour or two for a nap. But Shaelyn only needs about 9 or 10 hours at night. In order to avoid having her creep into my room at 6:00 (I don't have your stamina, Bex), her bed time is usually around 9:30, so she'll wake up around 7:30 (sometimes even 8:00 or 8:30 if she's tired enough!!). But when your daughter isn't asleep until 9:30 or 10:00, it makes you start your "after the kids are in bed" projects late. So if you want two hours to watch t.v., have some hubby time, clean, sew, or anything else, you're not going to bed until midnight. Which would still be enough sleep if you had a toddler that slept through the night....
Thus, most mornings I wake up with Shaelyn, come downstairs, fix her some breakfast, turn on Curious George, and lay down on the couch to rest/fall back asleep. I'm usually not "up and at 'em" until around 9:00 or 9:30. Shaelyn is great about playing by herself and letting me get the extra rest. Which will come in handy when Rachelle is born.
But Thursday night, I was tired enough to go to bed at 9:45. I left the curtains unsewn, the dishes undone, the laundry unfolded, and went to sleep. Shaelyn slept great that night, and we all woke up at 7:15. I was a new woman! It was crazy to not want to go lay down on the couch, to just be awake. And we had time to play with Michael before he had to head out the door. Until we looked out the window...
And there was SNOW! Now, I know all of Shaelyn's Utah cousins are laughing at us North Carolinians calling a 1/2 inch of powder on the ground "snow", but it was enough to play in. Normally, I would have opened the windows, told Shaelyn to look outside at the snow (I know, great mom, huh?), and laid down to rest. But this morning I got us all dressed and headed out in the snow before it could melt. And we had a blast! So now I have to figure out how to go to bed at 9:45 every night (ha!).
Enjoy our videos and pictures of the snow. The videos are a little long (mainly for my parents), but still fun to watch. And don't worry mom. I dressed Shaelyn in tights, jeans, sneakers, a turtleneck, a sweater, her coat, hat, and mittens. That girl was nice and toasty. And actually wore her hat and gloves. A miracle!
My favorite part of Shaelyn's snow adventure: the 4 inches that would accumulate on the bottom of her shoe since she didn't know how to "stomp" it off.
Escaping the backyard to run down to her friend "Nana's" house
The little snowman Michael helped Shaelyn build.
Loving the snow!
Mommy trudging along behind
More 4 inches on her shoes
Climbing the slide was very precarious business with such treacherous shoes.
Gotta get that snow off my slide!
Starting to make the snowman
Grammy, look how good my hat and jacket match!
Rosy cheeks from the cold. Love it!
Shaelyn's little foot print in the snowHere we are checking out the snow for the first time from inside. Shaelyn LOVES snowmen and knows that they say "BRRRR!". She also usually says "carrot nose!" for snowmen as well. Between that and knowing that Santa says "ho, ho, ho!", she's ready for Christmas:
The making of the snowman (kind of long). Shaelyn's favorite snow activity:
After playing in the backyard, Shaelyn asked to go on a walk, then proceeded to run all the way to Nana's house. She had a very fun morning.
