She's a little bundle of cuteness, though, that's for sure. And for all her antics, she doesn't seem terribly mischievous, just curious and tenacious. Yesterday (or now that it's past 1 AM, I guess it was the day before yesterday), while Felicity was napping, I turned on Curious George for Mary and sat on the couch and just watched to see what she'd do over a period of time, since she's normally pretty rambunctious when Felicity is around her. One time that I took Mary to the store without Felicity, her behavior was so different that I was quite interested to see what she'd be like at home without Felicity interacting with her. And instead of getting into trouble, she just happily watched George, sitting on the couch with me a good bit of the time (up and down, up and down, like any good little one year old). This is more like what I remember of Felicity at this age...
So it is entirely possible that where I consider Mary crazier she's really just a little less supervised than Felicity was. ;-) I do think their personalities are different, however. Mary definitely finds ways to entertain herself that still rarely occur to Felicity till after seeing what Mary does.
Also, let's see...Mary is chattering a whole lot. I understand very little of what she says, but for some reason she uses a lot of esses or ess-like sounds. She's still getting a bunch of molars (I think all of them have cut through and are just still growing in) and may be getting eye teeth as well - I can't tell for sure. She seems like a much happier teether than Felicity was, but I was also over six months pregnant when Felicity was this age. :-P So who knows? I cannot believe I was about to have a second baby when Felicity was Mary's age. It seems so crazy now, though on the other hand it also seems so strange only to have two children who are really no longer babies. I don't know whether we'll ever have more children or not, but I find myself wanting to savor the last of the babyish moments with Mary.
I like babies. :-P My husband mentioned that I might consider finding other ways to get my baby fix than having babies perpetually. ;-) The church nursery used to be my answer, so I'm sure I can figure out a way to work that out again in time. And there's always the offer of free babysitting for moms...or even just coming around occasionally to hold the baby while the mom naps or something. I think that could be cool, though right now I imagine having two little ones tagging along might make that a little impractical. Someday, though, I will get my baby fix in a way that will hopefully alleviate baby-related sleep deprivation for someone. :-) I'm really quite blessed in that my babies have not left me sleep-deprived for any long periods of time ever. In fact, other than staying up virtually all night the first few nights after Felicity was born, I don't think I've ever pulled a real all-nighter with either child. College cost me more sleep than kids...but that was just due to my priorities, I'm sure.
This is not to say that I always get to sleep in (or get to bed early, for that matter) as much as I'd like. ;-) But I have been able to count on at least three or four consecutive hours of sleep in a night for most of my few years as a mother (well, unless you count late pregnancy and the early newborn stage, haha). Really, though, it hasn't been bad. Right now, Josh and I are experimenting to see how best to get the girls to bed for the night. I'm nearly positive Felicity hasn't gotten enough sleep lately, but she's in the horrifically awkward phase of really needing an afternoon nap and an early bedtime...awkward because her naps tend to be too long and thus bedtime is delayed. Tonight, it took three hours for her to fall asleep, due to a two-hour afternoon nap. I think I may need to limit her to 45 minutes of sleep and see if that will help ease bedtime. Plus, with "springing forward," we already had to adjust our sleep schedules an hour just for that.
Mary still sleeps a little more than I do, thankfully. I think in her perfect world a 10:30 bedtime would be perfectly reasonable - if she just gets a nap early enough in the afternoon and it lasts long enough that she doesn't end up taking a later nap and thus hurting bedtime. Sometimes I feel like children and sleep are a magic formula that changes constantly without any memos to the parents. :-P Kids who don't sleep enough are cranky and tend to get wound up, which means they sleep even less. Parents who therefore sleep less also tend to get cranky and don't think very well about how to resolve sleep issues for themselves or their children and the cycle can become quite draining at times. Thankfully I don't think it has ever gotten particularly out of control around here, but sometimes I do get tired enough to worry that the cycle will never end. Josh always reminds me that it's just a phase!
As a semi-pessimist, I always figure the next phase is bound to be worse, so that bit of encouragement tends to fall a little flat for me. But as time goes on, the girls do become remarkably easier in various ways. I love watching them learn new things. I love seeing them develop interests in different things. I love seeing them get excited about Daddy coming home. I am also amused by their interest in Daddy's Jeep...
Haha, the other night, Josh's carburetor flooded and, after two fifteen-minute battles with it that ended up draining the battery, Josh finally called and asked me to come. Since he wasn't sure at the time what the problem was or how to fix it well enough to drive it home, he had it towed to our house. Anyway, initially we tried jumping the Jeep, which worked fine as far as the battery, but since the carburetor was flooding, it didn't actually help. Josh asked me to start the Jeep while he was watching so he could see the problem. Mary was sitting in my lap and got a huge kick out of hearing the Jeep start. She grabbed the steering wheel and said as plainly as I could tell, "I can drive!" Felicity loves Josh's Jeep, too, and I'm sure both girls will enjoy getting to ride with him...someday. ;-) As of last night, Josh was able to drain the gas out of the carburetor and took it to work with him today just fine, so I guess things are okay for now. He said he can do the same again if necessary just using a screwdriver, so that's handy.
In my extremely practical mindset, the money we've spent on the Jeep could have easily purchased a very reliable, newer car. ;-) But happiness counts for something...and Josh has certainly enjoyed the project (minus the stressful aspects of it, I guess). And so long as we have a reliable family vehicle to get us around otherwise, I'm good.
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