Fall has returned to the Anderson Valley. My favorite time of year. Leaves drop. Temperatures drop. And the sun goes down early. A fire in the wood stove.
Last weekend we returned to the country after a too-long absence to find fall fully arrived and settled in, bags unpacked. We arrived late on Friday night to a dark and very chilly house - and a house without working heat. A house without heat and a six-month old baby are not a great combination. And our little space heater and our wood stove were not going to warm the house up quickly. So, in order to keep Cornelia warm for the night, Ken and I took turns sleeping with her on the couch near the wood stove in the living room. I took the 11 p.m. shift; Ken relieved me at 6:00 a.m. While it might sound appealing and cute - snuggling with your baby in front of a cozy wood stove - it wasn't. Sleeping with a baby is a tricky thing. Bad things can happen with babies in beds (or on couches). This old man and his old-man back didn't get a lot of sleep.
Fortunately, the house warmed up on Saturday so we could return to our bedroom and Coco could return to her cradle. Or so we thought. Coco was having none of it. The cradle is now a bit too small for her, a baby who rolls around in her crib all night long. After multiple attempts trying to get her to go to sleep in her cradle, we gave up and brought her into our bed. But, as I said, bad things can happen with babies in beds. And one of us is uber-paranoid about bad things that can happen to babies. So, for safety, we stripped all the blankets and pillows from the bed - essentially creating a giant crib - and then settled in for another sleepless night. Old man. Old-man back. Coco, however, slept quite well.
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| "I slept great. You?" |
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| Coco's make-shift play area in the country. Almost crawling . . . . |
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| "Crawling is hard. Let's all take a nap." |
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