Naps ⇒ Happiness

This morning Madeline's smiles were not deceptive. Even though Summer spent her longest time yet at lab and Madeline still won't take a bottle despite our early successes, the day was largely happy. Based on a very limited set of anecdotal evidence, I think Summer's right -- naps are the key to happy afternoons and evenings.

The first newsworthy item of the day is that Madeline attentively sat through my rendition of The Lorax -- all 72 pages of it!

Then around 9:30, Madeline fell asleep. I thought this would be her first nap of the day, so when I was sure she was out soundly I set her in the crib. This was the result:

Not exactly the picture of peaceful slumber. Luckily today's weather was again beautiful, so I tucked Madeline into the wrap for a nice, long walk around the neighborhood. In the wrap she got her nap.

The rest of the day proceeded as follows: happy wakefulness, hunger cues, attempted bottle-feed, cries, pouty calm, nap, repeat. Happy wakefulness was good for playing! Hunger cues and attempted bottle-feeds were frustrating. Unhappy calms were sufficient for some more reading aloud. Today's naps seemed high-quality -- not the sort of angry suspended animation she sometimes enters after refusing a bottle. During one I watered our sugar snap peas and mixed greens. And the cries and pouts never seemed to last too long. Here's a cry that I was able to remedy somewhat by playing with toys (wooden fish and Sophie the Giraffe were key, while pink bird served as her punching bag).

When Summer came home, full happiness was restored! Madeline was excited to see her mama (and very ready for some proper food).

After eating, Madeline was content to gaze happily for a while.

When she got sleepy, she rested in the car seat while we did some picking up and Summer prepared a spread for her friends.

I cleared out and balanced the all-women's evening occurring at home by engaging in the manly act of seeing Jane Eyre at Avon Cinema by myself. From what I hear, though, Madeline was very good and enjoyed all the extra attention. And when I came home, she was still happy to see me even after we'd spent several hours spent in each other's exclusive company earlier.

In fact, the happiness quotient was high enough that bedtime was full of smiles tonight: smiles for me, smiles for Summer, and smiles for wind-up dog.

A good night indeed!