This ‘n That

— 1 —

Emma’s daycare follows the public school calendar, so in a couple weeks when schools starts for the bigger kiddos, everyone at the daycare moves up to their new classroom for the next year. Emma’s class will actually split — 5 of them will jump to Room 3 and the other 5 will go to Room 2. Emma’s in the younger half of the class so she’ll go to Room 2 with all the other becoming-toddlers who are 8-14 months old as of September 1. There will be new kids coming in a well, so I’m looking forward to new little friends and new parent friends.

The problem? Room 2’s schedule only includes 1 nap per day. In preparation, they’ve started trying to transition the babies towards that new schedule this week — and let’s just say I am not a fan. While I understand their rationale, I personally believe that a lot of 8-14-month-olds ( including MY 12-month-old!) aren’t really ready to go to only 1 nap. The maximum time Emma can be awake right now before starting to get visibly tired (and therefore cranky) is about 4 hours, and while her weekend naps at home have improved somewhat recently, she never sleeps longer than 45 minutes at daycare. One 45 minute nap for the whole day? TOTALLY not enough. And so both days this week thus far, she has instantly conked out in the car on the way home, and then been cranky for the rest of the evening, as evidenced in this epic pouting witnessed on Monday:

I feel like my hands are tied, though. I’m hopeful that somehow she’ll figure out how to sleep for more than 45 minutes at daycare, which would make a single nap more doable. And in the meantime, we’ll move her bedtime up by 30 minutes.

— 2 —

In other news, as mentioned at the very bottom of my home improvement list, I am currently coveting a Nest thermostat. Well, “coveting” may be too strong of a word, but I do want one. The problem is that we have 3 thermostats in our house — master bedroom (one a/c unit) plus kitchen and upstairs bonus room (one a/c unit with a damper to divide the zones) — and they aren’t exactly cheap. I can’t bring myself to spend $750 on THERMOSTATS, so I guess that one won’t be happening anytime soon. Making that list did inspire me to cross off a few more items though. I may tackle making a “countertop” for our laundry room next, since it seems like a pretty easy project. (Not to mention that I like tackling small rooms because it’s easier to feel like I made a difference!)

— 3 —

And finally, on the way home after taking my mom to the airport on Sunday, Jose randomly suggested that we take Emma to the pet store — just for fun. So we did. And now I’m pretty sure she will be begging for a dog as soon as she learns how to talk.