Moving In and Gettin' Comfy...

Things have been going pretty well since Little Miss came to live with me.  The first 4-5 days were hard for her...  Lots of changes, and she absolutely REFUSED to lose bodily contact with me in the house during her waking hours.  That is, unless she was pitching a fit because she wanted to take a walk in the stroller.  Little Miss is an "all or nothing" girl, and the first 4-5 days could have been pretty bad if she wasn't such a good sleeper at night.

Things that made Little Miss happy:

1. Walks in the stroller (I have lost 7 pounds from taking multiple walks every day)
2. Being outside
3. Shopping (I am now broke from daily shopping excursions)
4. Eating (glad she was eating, because I haven't had the time!)
5. Sleeping (I love to sleep too, we will get along well in that area :)

Things that made Little Miss unhappy:

1. Everything else

Somehow though, on the 5th evening, everything seemed to click!  She somehow decided that Mimi (that's me) is actually a pretty cool person, and fun to be around.  We had gone shopping that afternoon with my sister so Little Miss was already in a good mood from an afternoon of enjoying one of her favorite pasttimes.  She took a nap (another favorite), woke up and got dinner (another favorite)!  Then I informed her that she needed a bath, and I was preparing for a battle.  Bathtime has not been very successful since she arrived.

I decided to use the infant/toddler tub because it was smaller and would hopefully not overwhelm her like the regular tub seemed to.  She initially started to cry, and I could see a fit approaching, so I (the Queen of Redirection) quickly got her attention by pouring water over her hands.  She started getting interested in that, and then I gave her one little bath toy which she immediately took and started playing with.  After she seemed calm and almost happy, I gave her one other small toy and started to wash her off while she was playing.  No tears at all!  And I even let her play a few minutes longer so she could start associating bathtime with something fun.  Success!!!

After bathtime we headed out to the living room for a little playtime.  In five days, this child had absolutely refused to leave my lap while we were in the house.  This day, however, she decided to sit next to me on the couch.  She still didn't want to get on the floor, but we sang songs, played pattycake, This Little Piggy, read books, and everything else I could think of for a good half an hour before we headed to her room for bedtime. 

It was still a few minutes early, so I thought I'd attempt to put her down on the floor and see how she did.  No crying!  :-)  She just started exploring her bedroom for the first time since she moved in!  I decided to let her explore and started working on sorting a tub of baby clothes.  I sat on the floor and started pulling items out, looking at the tags, and sorting.  Little Miss watched me intently for a minute, then came over, and started "helping" me.  She did exactly what I was doing.  Pull one article of clothing out of the bin, open it up, look at the tag, and then handed it to me.  She stood there and "helped" me until every last piece of clothing had been sorted.

Then she pointed to her crib and was ready for bed.  :)

In the two days since, Little Miss has not cried with me at all!  She's genuinely excited to see me when she wakes up in the mornings and when I get her from daycare.  We have fun together!  And I have a little giggle monster on my hands at times.  :)  I am so, sooo grateful to have these few weeks alone with her before her baby sister comes to live with us.  My Little Miss deserves some one-on-one Mimi time and to know that she's a special girl.  I'm definitely excited every time I see her have a "breakthrough" moment, and I love, love, love seeing her smile!  I'm eager to see what this next year brings...