Friday Fun

Noelle and I were in to a bit of a routine on Fridays before the holidays. We often spent the post-nap morning time with my two friends, Caitlin and Caitlyn, and their sons, Will and Colin, both very close in age to Noelle at our house for playtime and lunch. After Noelle's afternoon nap (during which I did my weekly cleaning chores), we'd generally play with Maddie, go on a walk, and I started getting dinner ready while Noelle alternated between running underfoot and playing nicely on our own. Our routine has been sort of messed up due to the holidays, the Saxton sickness, and one of the Caitlin's having twins at the end of December (she is a rockstar for surviving with 3 under 18 months!)

Yesterday, it was nice to get back in to the swing of things and Noelle and I had a really enjoyable day together. I'll admit it, sometimes being home with Noelle all day is way harder than work, and Bryan's arrival home leaves me ready to drop her off with him and run upstairs for a few minutes of alone time. Maybe it is the fact that we all have been sleeping through the night. Or that Noelle is getting better at entertaining herself. Or that she is nicely transitioning to 1 long nap in the afternoon. Whatever it is, yesterday she was on her best behavior, probably only said her favorite word, no, 200 times instead of the usual 1000, and had only a very few meltdowns when she didn't get her way.

We started the morning with an errand and a trip to library story time. I love that Baltimore County has Storyville at one of the libraries, but also really love that the Howard County libraries have structured programs for babies each day of the week. They combine singing, reading aloud, and playing, and are great and, like Storyville, free. We had a great time. Then we headed to Caitlyn and Colin's house for some more playtime and lunch. Noelle loved sitting in the cozy coupe, playing with Colin's kitchen, and trying to scheme whatever toy he had out of his hands. While the morning wasn't what non-parents would call relaxing, it went really well. Noelle took a 3 hour nap that started on the way home, allowing me to catch up on some work, and then we had a fun afternoon and evening together playing and eating dinner since daddy had to work late.

Noelle is definitely a daddy's girl. She gets really sad if she doesn't see daddy before bed, so I kept her up a little late when Bryan said he'd be home around 8. Around 6, she started using the word daddy every 5 seconds and looking at the garage door. At 7, she started calling me daddy, and when she saw her daddy enter her room as we were getting ready for bed, she was psyched. She was fighting bed a bit before that, but as soon as she hugged him and prayed, she climbed into bed without being told and slept (for the 6th night in a row!) through the night.

So that's our typical Friday. I need to start getting better at taking pictures again!