An Impromptu Lunch

Saturday afternoon, Mungee and I headed to our synagogue for a Kiddush in honor of the Rabbi's new baby girl.  While there, we ran into my best friend who invited us over for lunch.  I was a little hesitant to accept her invitation because it was getting close to Mungee's afternoon nap, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and see what happened.  

I arrived at my friend's house and she offered to let me nurse Mungee and put her down for a nap in the porta-crib in her room.  I nursed, burped and put her in the crib with a random toy and said, "Okay, it's naptime, go to sleep".  I left the room and went back a few times to listen to her through the door.  I didn't hear anything and was excited to sit down for a relaxing meal with friends, but Mungee had other plans.  She couldn't figure out where she was, didn't know what was expected of her and just couldn't get settled.  (I really don't blame her, she was totally out of her element).  

I wound up bringing her to the dining table, where I shoveled food into my mouth with one hand and used the other to prevent Mungee from grabbing aforementioned food off the plate (which I had to push about a foot away from me).  She was pretty wiggly and squirmy, but calmed down a bit once I started giving her sips of my water (forgot her sippy cup), challah and real baked chicken (she probably will never eat the jarred stuff again).

By the time we left, it was past 4 p.m., which is normally when she's getting up from her afternoon nap.  The ride home is only about 10-15 minutes tops, and she was zonked out when I pulled into our driveway.  She must have fallen asleep the moment her head hit the carseat.  I heaved her inside (carseat + Mungee = approximately eventybillion pounds) and took her to her room, shut the door and prayed that she would nap long enough to not be in a completely foul mood when she woke up.  My prayers were answered - she wound up sleeping for about an hour.

She got her dinner, played for a bit, took a bath and went to bed without ANY resistance.  I'm always worried that if the afternoon nap goes awry we are screwed for the rest of the day, but Saturday didn't turn out so bad.

What happens when you deviate from your routine?  

Does all chaos break loose, or have you been pleasantly surprised?

Routine - Part One, The Morning

Okay, where was I?

After banging my head against the wall (or sometimes the floor, while curled in the fetal position) for seven months, I think we've got some semblance of a routine that keeps me from cutting myself going insane calling an adoption agency crying a lot.

Mungee wakes up between 7 and 8 a.m.  Toward the earlier end of that range if she didn't wake up somewhere between 3 and 5 a.m. and toward the latter end of that range if she did.  I should be getting up prior to her waking so I can shower, but I take advantage of every moment of shut eye I can get, even if it means I stink for a good portion of the day.

Once Mungee is starting to get frustrated that we haven't come to rescue her yet, I go in, greet her, change her diaper and then we go in the den and I nurse her, while watching a snippet of the news or one of the elevently-billion shows I DVR because I rarely watch anything at the time it actually airs.  Then Mungee gets to play while I have coffee and snarf* down breakfast (*do my best vacuum cleaner impression).

After I selfishly feed myself, I plop* Mungee into the highchair and prepare her delicious multigrain cereal spiked with bananas (*buckle her in while being ever so careful as not to pinch her fingers as she is grabbing for the straps to gnaw).  Mungee eats breakfast and then I read her a book (usually Mr. Brown Can Moo) and sing a few songs.  At this point it's about 9 a.m. and a couple different things could happen:

*I could plop* (*see above) her into the bouncy seat in the bathroom while I take a "quick" shower and then the morning nap commences (more on this in a moment).

*I can tell that she is already too tired to patiently wait out me taking a shower without quickly going into meltdown mode and so I skip the shower and therefore the morning nap commences.

Morning Nap Ritual:

1. Go to my bedroom
2. Change back into sleep-type clothes (if I was actually already dressed for human-other-than-Mungee's Pa interactions)
   
3. Hide Google phone from Mungee under covers so I can chat on The Nest, read Facebook status updates and play Solitaire once Mungee has fallen asleep
   
4. Nurse Mungee
5. Burp Mungee
6. Settle Mungee onto me laying down chest to chest
7. Endure Mungee finding and eating my bra strap
8. Endure Mungee trying to give me a hickey on my chin
9. Endure Mungee pulling on her ears and ripping at her dry skin in some weird and twisted self-soothing mechanism
10. Feel Mungee's stomach contracting just as she is about to fall asleep
    
11. Hear farts
12. Hear poo
13. Hope the poo was just a little squirt that can be changed later
14. Hear more poo
15. Proceed to get up and change diaper (and outfit if poo has leaked)
    
16. Come back to bedroom to get settled again
17. Repeat 10-16
18. Endure Mungee twisting her body around so her face lands in the crook of my elbow
19. Reposition Mungee so we are both more comfortable
    
20. Hear Mungee's breathing change from that of awake baby to that of asleep baby
21. Suppress urgent need to go to the bathroom
22. Pull out phone and commence time-wasting living vicariously through others aforementioned activities
    

Obviously this is not ideal.  Ideally, Mungee would nap in her crib, allowing me to incessantly read other mommy blogs that are way cooler than mine clean the house and prepare dinner.  But it's what works for now.

Sound crazy?  Have a baby around Mungee's age?  What's your morning routine?

Please stay tuned for Routine, Part Two - The Late Morning/Early Afternoon Depending on When the Morning Nap Started/How Late it Went

A routine - could it be?

I think that after 7 months, we have finally established a routine with Mungee! I have to go eat some boiled peanuts now, so I'll have more on this later :)