Holidays, weddings, and chicken

I bought a little two-quart Crock Pot. Tonight when I came home, I had chicken in a red sauce with onions, potatoes and mushrooms waiting for me. Total prep time, including peeling/slicing the taters and onions: less than ten minutes.

As Elle starts eating more and more people food, this is going to be very handy. You can throw almost anything in there with enough liquid, and you have dinner. The only stuff you have to watch out for is veggies. Most meat, though, is fine. And the two quart size is perfect-- two big entrees, or one big, one small, and one lunch.

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It was a lovely first Mother's Day here at casa Plus One. Well, once you got past the 6 a.m. screaming bloody murder wakeup, that is. (She never wakes up crying. Seriously, never, and Mother's Day it was zero to OMG SOMEONE IS KILLING MEEEEEE.)

One heck of a way to wake up the morning after I actually went out and didn't get to bed until v. late.

The rest of the day-- weather was nice, so we took a walk. Later, dinner with a friend. I do like that she takes two naps, but at the same time you're really bound by that schedule. And I'm not one of those "oh, it doesn't matter if s/he takes a nap!" kinds of people-- I do not mess with her naps any more. I do not mess with bedtime, either, although I have about a 20 minute window I'll play with if needed.

Cardinal rule: You Do Not Mess With Baby's Sleep Patterns, For If You Do, You Will Regret It.

Funny moment of the day: at dinner, in the middle of it, Elle decided it was important to share with me her babbly happy opinion on... something. Not sure what. But I have nothing to worry about in terms of her lungs and her ability to project, because the entire restaurant, I think, clearly heard her pronouncement, and she looked quite pleased with her bellowing self-- so pleased that she followed it up with another announcement. Possibly two.

The fact that the adults at the table were laughing hysterically probably didn't motivate her to turn down the volume...

This past weekend, then, Elle went to her first wedding. Just to the ceremony, and this was of course with full permission from the happy couple-- I never assume my little bundle of joy is anyone else's! She was very good and the photographer got a ton of pictures of her-- can't wait to see them. Elle was flirting shamelessly with the photographer, which helped. That's my girl.

The morning after the wedding, unlike Mother's Day, Miss Elle slept until 6:45. Heaven, heaven, heaven.

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We are teething, big time, and in the middle of trying to get more of her bedtime bottle into her tonight I realized she was just plumb exhausted, and it was time to get her to bed. She may wake up in the middle of the night starving, but sleep at that point was more important than anything else.

It's a lot of work, getting big.