Flying Solo

Well, my dad left yesterday morning. So yesterday was my first day home alone with both girls. I was so nervous about how I would handle everything by myself. My dad’s been sleeping in Bella’s room and getting her up in the mornings and feeding her breakfast so I could sleep an extra hour or two. He’s also been taking her for walks, reading her stories, getting her snacks and helping with nap time. Not to mention helping with dishes, laundry, and house cleaning.

Yesterday went surprisingly well. Though Bella woke up early, dad and Dom managed to get her back to bed and she let me sleep until a quarter past seven. Phia slept until I got her up at 8, so I had both hands free for an entire hour to get breakfast for Bella and myself, tidy the kitchen, get Bella and myself dressed, and make my bed. Then I nursed the baby while saying morning prayers as Bella played with holy cards and said Amen and Alleluia at the appropriate times.

Bella kept showing me the cards as she played with them. When she does that I usually say the name of the saint. Today she did the same thing and I started adding “pray for us”, which made it less of an interruption to my prayers and more of an odd punctuation, mixing a sort of litany of saints in with the usual psalms and canticles. It was rather nice and I tried to make it intentional, mentally asking the saints to help us in our day.

After our prayers I inaugurated the double stroller and took the girls for a walk to the cemetery. it was a beautiful, warm spring day and Bella hopped out of the stroller and ran and explored while
I walked more slowly. We made a couple of stops to rest on various benches and I even nursed Phia while in a secluded spot on top of the hill next to a large statue of Christ the King. When we got home it was still early so I let Bella play in the yard for a while before we went in for lunch.

After lunch I put Bella and Sophia down for naps and even slept myself for a little while. Then I baked some of the Amish friendship bread from the starter we’ve been nursing. Then Dom came home and we went into our usual routine.

But I think I’ve been overdoing it the past few days. My abdomen feels quite sore now, I’d stopped taking the pain pills more than two weeks ago and I’m back on them. So today I omitted the walk and baking, simplified dinner and took a much longer nap (two whole hours!). And I’ve been making a concerted effort not to pick up Bella.

Bella really helped me out with that at nap time today. I’ve been pulling the step stool in from the kitchen and helping her climb out of her crib so I don’t have to lift her. And today at nap time she wanted to climb into the crib—yesterday, as usual she fell asleep in my arms while I read to her and then I had to carry her to the crib. Well, I was all for her climbing in herself. She protested at having to lay down, though. She wanted to sit while I read to her (for “sit” read: “play”). But she did lay down when I told her to, even though there were many tears and much wailing. And I started to “read” the rosary meditation book to her, saying hail marys and reading bits of the meditations and singing hail marys and saying our fathers and glory bes. And slowly she stopped crying and started listening. And then, wonder of wonders, she actually fell asleep!

And so it seems I may survive this after all. No walks for a little longer, though, which kills me now that spring is here and flowers are blooming. But my body tells me: not yet. Yeah, I guess this is part of learning patience too.