Knock on wood . . .

. . . but, I feel like I'm getting the hang of this. :) Maia is asleep right now at about the same time that she napped for about an hour yesterday morning. She was very reluctant to wake up this morning and seemed to luxuriate in her "morning cuddle time" with Mom and Dad. That's becoming one of our favorite times of day. At about the time that the alarm goes off for B. to get up, one of us goes to get Maia from her crib and she comes to cuddle with us in bed for a while. Sometimes she wakes up, sometimes she doesn't really, but in either case we usually get some adorable baby yawns and stretches (and now smiles!). I think it's just wonderful for B. to have this time with her in the AM before he goes to work.

And then Maia does wake up and insists on breakfast. Then, we go downstairs and she either goes into her swing or the baby sling while I have my own breakfast.

This morning, after breakfast, I opened up the blinds on the front windows and we looked outside for a while. Then, we read Olivia, a cool picture book with high-contrast black-and-white pictures that she seems to like to look at. Then, we kept reading the first Harry Potter book, which we started a couple of days ago. I have these vibrant memories of being read to as a child, and many of them involve being read novels; this meant, of course, that I had to do the imaginative work of constructing the images of the story for myself. I really treasure these memories, and I hope that Maia grows up with similar ones. So we're starting the novel reading early! :)

After that, I sang her favorite song, "The Welsh Lullaby." Nonna Dawn noticed how obvious it is that Maia recognizes this song, and I must thank Aunties Katie and Joanna and Nonna Dawn for this! I think Aunt Katie sang it to her on the day she was born, and I've been humming it to her daily ever since. Maia seems really attentive and in a Zen-like calm when she hears it, and now that Nonna Dawn wrote down the words for me, I can sing it too! (Not as well as Katie or Joanna, of course.)

At about 9:45 I put Maia into her crib upstairs; she fussed for a few seconds about being put down, but once I turned on her "ocean surf" sound machine and turned down the lights, her eyes were almost completely closed.

I write down these mundane details not to purposefully bore you guys, but rather to give you a feeling of what daily life is like for us here at 3108 Turnberry. I also want to communicate how we're flowing in somewhat of a routine these days, especially in the mornings. (Her PM naps aren't quite so predictable.) Maia certainly still has days that don't align with this general description, but they are departures from what has become the norm. We didn't have any kind of "norm" for the first few weeks, so this feels good. :) I get the sense that it feels good for Maia, too, because I think it's significant that she's only fussed twice today for about 5-10 seconds each time.

As Nonna Dawn says, Maia is remarkably "easy to read," in that it's pretty easy to tell what her needs are when she decides to communicate that need.

I think it's also important to mention that my good mood this morning might be due to the fact that between 7 PM and 7 AM, Maia slept quietly in her room for about 10 1/2 hours. That's wicked awesome. :)