Accomplishment!

Here it is: I actually made dinner at a decent hour last night.

Throughout Ella's life I've not figured out how to make dinner while she is still awake. In the early days dinner time was her meltdown time and now a days, she is on the move, so I can't exactly plunk her somewhere and go off and do something else.

Yesterday, it dawned on me to try putting the pack and play in the kitchen, load it up with toys and see if she'd hang out in there while I cooked. It worked!!! We had some music on, she bopped around, sometimes standing up to peer over at what I was doing and then plopping back down and playing with her favorite toy - measuring spoons.

The bottom line is I had dinner all assembled before feeding her dinner and was able to put it in the oven at 6:30 and we ate at 7, right after she went to bed. My whole being is happier with that plan - I'm not so hungry I'm crabby and I've had enough time to digest that I don't get reflux which messes with my chances of singing decently. She even stayed in long enough for me to wash up prep dishes so the kitchen wasn't an utter disaster to clean up.

And, the most fun of all, was I held out some of the pasta, put some sauce and parm. cheese on it, tore up some chicken we'd had the other night and it was her dinner. There is something of a huge relief to me to have her move into eating table food. She loves it and the mess it makes and I love seeing her grow and move towards a bigger kid.

Now if we can just get her to sleep until at least 6am again.....