Success!

Yesterday was highly successful! We nursed in bed at 730am and not again until 330pm! I nursed her to sleep at 330 and then left to go meet up with friends to scrap book, I didn't make it home until well after 1am. She was asleep on the floor with Shana. They went to the park, shopping and Olivia picked out a new movie! Annie! She loves to watch this movie at Maggie's house and is thrilled to have her very own copy now! This fall Rae and I are taking the metro-link into LA to take the girls to see Annie, my mom is going to sew them matching 'Annie dresses' I can't wait! Anyway back to last night....Shana said she did cry off and on, but happily went to sleep while watching Annie, when she woke up around midnight she just asked Shana to turn Annie back on and was back to sleep within 5minutes! woooot! So far today we have been up for about 2hrs and hasn't yet asked to nurse, I did overhear her telling her baby that we will bed gee at nap time (grin) I think this is exactly what I need: A) to limit nursing to bed/nap/waking time only and B) to get out by myself at least twice per month! Rae and Rhonda are also excited about getting together 2X per month to scrap, so I'm very excited and feeling completely rejuvenated! Olivia has become a budding photographer, she loves to take pictures! Ive got a great collection now and aside from some neat scrap book page layouts Id like to figure out how to create a folder here where I can add her latest photos. So if I have any volunteers out there who'd like to point me in the right direction for setting this up please LMK! Imagination is something that Olivia has never lacked, TV has been something Ive struggled over. We didn't introduce TV to Olivia until shortly before her 2nd birthday. Ive worried many times that TV will stifle her active imagination. On one hand I do have to admit that I do see how it has. For example, rather than creating scenes on her own she is now recreating scenes from videos and movies she has watched. I'm still not sure Ive formed a solid opinion on whether or not I feel that this is something that I want to promote, for now I'm not at a point where I want to prevent her from watching movies, however I would like to make more of an effort to offer creative alternatives for her rather than encouraging her to turn on the TV as a first choice(and celebrate the opportunity that she will have her attention focused away from me entertaining her ) I think that in many ways I have become a lazy mother, I do not feel that it is necessarily *my* responsibility to entertain her myself all the time, however I do feel that it is my responsibility to provide a rich environment and props that will encourage her to use her own imagination and play independently. Honestly I have not dedicated much time to doing this lately and I do feel that much of her behavior is directly related to this. Some examples of how she is recreating scenes from her movies would be this: She asked my mother to tie this play cloth the the back of her chair, she then proceeded to fill it up with many of her most cherished treasures. Once she had completed this she began singing to herself and dramatically reached her hand into the very bottom of the 'bag' and slowly pulled out a toy, at which point she looked up and said: I'm Mary Poppins! (the carpet bag) adorable, and of course the first thing I did was grab my camera, at the same time I did feel a slight pang of guilt that all the work I did to prevent this type of 'imaginary play' had gone to the wayside in my own selfish attempt to detach from my child. Still she had fun, and its an adorable picture! Mary Poppins Carpet bag: Secondly she has mostly abandoned her sling in favor of using a play car seat(we bought this because she was very concerned that her baby was not in a car seat when we went places.) Now rather than wanting to leave the car seat in the car and carry her baby around in her sling she is asking to balance the car seat atop the shopping cart and carry it into restaurants etc. Again another great photo opportunity came when she placed her baby in her car seat and rear faced it on her chair, she then found her magnadoodle and placed it in front of her baby and drew on it. She then said that her baby was watching a movie in the car. I'm having to acknowledge that our society as a whole(including books, TV etc) has an enormous impact of her. After all its not like she ever sees slings or other breastfed children(other than herself) and in many ways I think that she thinks that she's likely the only 'baby' who does nurse. In her mind bottles are for babies and 'gee's are for Olivia. Slings are for Olivia and car seats are for babies. Baby watching DVD: