What I learned in June: dark, light, blue, and sleep

Another month has slipped on by, and we're officially well into summer. It's been a time of new knowledge and well-needed reminders. I revel in dry heat, as long as there's a breeze. Humidity is much more tolerable if I dress as if it were a full ten degrees warmer - I'm leaning towards wearing my tan linen skirt every single day. I should really acquire a second one. 

I made my first batch of cold brew coffee and discovered I like it much stronger than the 1:1 water to concentrate ratio the recipes recommend. I drank 3/4 of my theoretical two-day supply over the course of one morning, and then spent the next half hour googling whether the caffeine content was any lower than hot brew. My results were inconclusive, but I did discover that plenty of other cold-brew beginners had made the same mistake. It'll be a great help for mornings when need to be up and quickly out the door, and afternoons when anything but iced seems excruciating, but otherwise I may stick to fresh hot-brew. Much as I liked the look of a vintage mason of mysterious dark brew (a token hipster in my otherwise suburban fridge), I missed the ritual of refilling my small mug - which is probably why I overindulged. Consuming my caffeine faster wasn't really my plan. I just wanted a short cut for making it.  


I've been relearning how ethereal an evening walk can be over the solstice. I took a stroll out to the library on June 18th at eight o'clock at "night". My neighbourhood was a glory of backlit trees, brilliantly illumined greens against a fantasy of sky. I took the photo above around 8:30pm, a full two hours before the sun set: my high evening to November's low noon. It's a yearly wonder that reminds me why I live here. I could say the same of flax:



I love those little blue pixies almost as much as sunflowers. Micro to macro in flora.

My main learning of the month, however, was all about sleep. Somewhere along the line, my youngest turned into an all-night nursling. At eighteen months, she's not much of a baby anymore, but it's taken time for me to realize that she still eats like one, and this momma's sleep schedule resembles that of a newborn, without the benefit of multiple daytime naps. I stumbled upon enough other Moms of nurse-happy toddlers over Facebook to convince me that this was a problem - and a solvable one at that. So we've been learning together that every midnight squirm does not constitute a need for snack and that, given a few minutes, she can and will settle back to sleep on her own. She now goes for several hours without dragging mommy out of her much-needed slumber - sometimes as many as eight at a time. Not last night, naturally, seeing as I was planning to write about how great it feels to sleep for six hours at a time again. But still so so much better than before.

It's been a good reminder that having three kids doesn't make me an expert in baby-minding. My eldest was weaned at 15 months, and I don't remember sleep battles as norm so much as the odd awful night. At this age, my boy would go strong until something tripped him up, and then he'd be begging for bed. We'd just pop in his soother and carrying him up to his crib. Until that point, we just let him do his own thing while we focused on my eldest's more structured routine - after all, she was the one who had to get up and onto the bus in the morning. This little girlie, however, loves having a multi-step bed-time routine and is thrilled to use her ever-growing bed-time vocabulary. Jammies! Brush teeth! Stories! Hugs! So exciting. So tricky to weave into her siblings' already established bedtime habits, but I suspect that's part of what makes it all so great for her. Next up is learning how to nap. It's coming, slowly. We'll see what the next stint of teething brings.

Speaking of nap time, it sounds like today's might be officially a fail. At least I got a little writing in. Linking up with the lovely Emily at Chatting at the Sky along with many other monthly learners.

Happy Summer, all.

Comments

  1. The flax flowers are SO beautiful! I had no idea they were so lovely. Definitely going to plant some this Spring. :-)

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    1. I was surprised to learn that one too! Most cash crop flowers are either non-existent or kind of blah. These lovelies were from our local nature centre, but I have planted them before. They were just lovely hanging from a pot :)

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