The Bassinet

For the last 92 nights (doing math during maternity leave could be questionable, so we'll say that's an estimate), Claire has snuggled up for the night in the white bassinet at the foot of our bed. Hers isn't one of the fancy, new-fangled bassinets with all sorts of room to stretch, a shelf underneath for supplies and a mobile hanging overhead. It doesn't sport a ruffled skirt or elaborate trimmings. It looks more like a large white picnic basket( with small gaps between the woven wooden strips) on a simple wheeled stand.

To be honest, she's getting a bit too big her little nest (as my mom calls it), but I'm dragging my feet on moving her to the crib for night sleeping. She already takes her daytime naps there, but we had the bassinet for night sleeping since our bedroom is in the basement. That made sense for the first few weeks because who wants to walk up a flight of stairs half asleep to attend to a hungry, crying newborn, but since she's been consistently sleeping through the night since mid-April (yes, you read correctly...I have an amazing kid :), she really could sleep upstairs.

My excuse has been that I need to get a new baby monitor. My sister generously gave me hers but the reception is a bit more "static" than I want. Great for daytime use, but not so great, I think, for sleeping with it two feet from my ears. I could have easily purchased a new monitor at Target or Walmart weeks ago, so what's stopping me? Perhaps cost (I am cheap, as you all know:). Perhaps the fact that I don't just run out for errands as easily as I use to. Subconsciously, though, I think I will miss her sleeping at the foot of the bed.

Now that she's sleeping through the night and I'm not falling into bed in an extremely sleep deprived state, I like to listen to her night noises. The little sighs. The grunts as she works to free her arms from the swaddle blanket (sometimes successful, sometimes not). The plunk of her pacifier hitting the side when she lets it drop out in her sleep. The thump of her arms hitting the sides when she does manage to free them. Her morning wake-up noises. They're just all so cute that I hate to think of them ending. Sure, I may still hear some of them over the monitor, but it just won't be the same.

Claire's about the 20th kid to sleep in the white basket bassinet....my mom and I counted one day. All six kids in my family. Several of my cousins. Almost all of my nieces and nephews, and some other random babies I'm sure I'm forgetting. When I come down to go to bed at night and pause to watch her sleeping (which I do almost every night, sometimes having to bend in really close to see her in the dark), I like the thought that my mom watched me sleep in that same bassinet. I watched my nieces and nephews sleep in that same bassinet. Who knows, maybe Claire will watch her son or daughter sleep there someday.

12 weeks!

Somehow my little Clarabelle (one of our nicknames for Claire...Claire Bear is also often used) is 12 weeks old already. I have been warned that if I blink too many times I will find her all grown up already, so I'm trying to keep my eyes open :) So many thoughts and so few creative ideas for organizing them, so bullet points will have to do for today:

• We've really enjoyed strollin' around the neighborhood during the afternoon and evenings. I've lived on this street for eight years now (yikes! Time flies!) and have met more neighbors in the last two months than the previous seven years. Something about a baby invities conversation and community. I love it!



• I love a bit less, though, pushing the stroller up the last hill to our house. I swear the incline/grade of that hill has increased in the last three months :)



• Scott put it well yesterday when he said that Claire is really becoming a little person. Her personality and mannerisms are really starting to come out. She ticklish on the bottom of her feet. She really wants to be sitting up and looking around. She focuses on people across the room. She flirts with cooing and the cutest little eyebrown raises (I wish I could capture that on video, but as soon as I get the video camera out, she just stares at it with a very serious, sober look).



• She's sleeping light a champion! She hasn't woken up in the middle of the night since Easter weekend. I usually put her to bed between 8:30 and 9:30 pm, and she'll sleep until 6:30 am. It's bliss for me! She's starting to break out of her swaddle blanket (or the baby staight jacket, as we fondly call it), so I'm a bit nervous about how well she'll sleep when I can't cozy her up in that at bedtime...wish me luck :)



• Of course, since she sleeps so much at night, her daytime naps are a bit shorter, but I'll take the uninterrupted night sleep :)


• Claire has found her voice in the last week or so. Fun, fun, fun to hear more "talking" these days. She's very expressive and strains to be heard. Hard to believe that we'd have a talker, right? :)

Speaking of voice, there's suddenly crying in the background, so best wrap it up for now...I'm coming Claire!