Day 1

We got back from our week's vacation yesterday afternoon. Emmett had no more sleep problems the rest of the trip (back to the usual 1-2 times waking up at night), but last night he reverted to the waking up every 1.5-2 hours he was doing at the beginning of vacation. It must be that he is getting to the point that changes in sleep location are harder for him. Hopefully the transition back to normal sleep patterns only takes one night in the return direction as it was zero fun going through two nights of this while at Clear Lake. I don't believe that I mentioned it before, but the weather was hot,hot,hot at Clear Lake (90's which for us 50's-ish S.F. types is burning hot), and the hot weather meant that Emmett spent the whole week sans clothes (well, except he had a diaper on most of the time). It was nice to let him air out some and for him to learn that there are climates out there where one isn't required to be wrapped in multiple layers of clothing all of the time.

As I write this, it is the end of my first day of stay-at-home-ness. The day was far from normal (Emmett's lack of sleep last night had him sleeping in until 9:00, and Andrea didn't have to be in to work until 9:30), but was a good training round for what is to come. We bought a used BOB Ironman jogging stroller some time ago, so Emmett and I took that out for a run through the panhandle. I had given it one shot while at Clear Lake and Emmett seemed good with it, and he continued to ride happily on today's voyage which was a bit faster than last week's test run. We walked around a bit, read some books at the library, and did a little vegetable shopping...and Emmett was a great sport for all of it without so much as a peep of unhappiness. Hopefully all days will go this easily.

There is a bit of work to do on a number of fronts in the upcoming weeks, though. We have fallen a bit behind in the Elimination Communication and I am only catching a couple of pees a day. I really want to improve on that and get to the point that we are catching #2's, too, which everyone on the EC mailing list that I follow says are much easier to catch than the pees (unfortunately Emmett is very sly with his so far and gives very little warning before the damage has been done). We will also be introducing food in the next couple of weeks. We gave Emmett some mashed up banana while we were at Clear Lake and he seemed to really like it. I picked up an avocado during our store trip today which will be food #2 when it softens (for those who don't know, the game with giving food to a kid is that you give that food for 4 days to make sure that they don't break out in hives or the like, and then add another food following the same 4 day test, etc.---a slow laborious process. I figure Emmett will get to try pizza by the time he turns 15).

Emmett is really getting to noticing a lot of what is around him. He and I a bit of time in the backyard today (a sure-fire way to stop a cry if one is beginning) and it was the first time that he noticed that we have chickens back there. Also he heard the fountain that is always running and turned his head to find it and look at it. Also, when we got back from vacation he really seemed to realize that he shares a house with a cat, whereas before it seemed that Malcolm would walk by and Emmett wouldn't even notice. It has been nice that he will just sit with me in the backyard, as he did at Clear Lake and just look at things without needing to be entertained and without complaining.

That is pretty much it for day one. As I said, pretty easy first day with Andrea working shortened hours and providing early afternoon relief. It is good that she is easing back into the school year, too, as I think that the long days without seeing much of Emmett will be hard after getting over 5 months to spend with him.