Daycare Dilemma and other Musings

I have so many things I want to write about in great detail, but luckily for you it is late and I'm short on time this week (okay, and for the next four months), so you get the condensed version.

• Daycare Dilemma: We have decided to put Nicholas in daycare 2 or 3 days a week. I'm not sure if it is harder to find someplace that will do part-time, to stomach the amount of money it costs (literally my entire salary for the semester to do 3 days a week!), or to deal with my internal gymnastics over the issue. Maybe if I can't sleep this will get a whole post to itself.
• On a not unrelated note, we've decided to wean Nicholas off of his mid-day nursing. Basically there is simply no way I can finish my dissertation and teach a class this semester when I can't be away from him for more than 4 hours at a time. We're on day 3 and while he seems fine with it during the day, he has been waking up hungry not long after going to bed. So the question now is whether to give him a bottle of formula mid-day or reinstate nursing before bed. The latter seems a dangerous habit to bring back. But the former seems an odd habit to start at 7 months when he is otherwise fine eating solid foods as lunch. Maybe formula in a sippy cup instead of a bottle, like a cup of milk??? Then in 4 months when he is allowed milk we could just switch it out?
• We had an awesome babysitter today! I'm contemplating trying to convince her not to go back to college next week. No, not really, but she really was amazing. And I got 6 1/2 straight hours of worktime away from the house. That hasn't happened since before Nicholas was born. It felt like an eternity . . . but in the good way.
• Nicholas' second front middle tooth cut through the gum today. The one that cut through while we were in San Diego is now far enough out you can see it when he laughs. I never would have guessed that I'd be nostalgic to see his vampire smile go. Everything is just going so quickly!
• One of these days I'm going to stop being surprised by how much this kid picks up. But for now, he stunned me once again. He gets baths every 2 or 3 days after dinner before bed. Last night was not a bath night, but apparently he wanted it to be. After I took him out of his high chair after dinner, he kept leaning around me and trying to get out of my arms. So I put him down and he walked me right over to the bathroom, in the door, and over to the tub. If it hadn't been so late already I would have given him a bath just as a reward for putting the pieces together so well.
• Tonight Nicholas figured out how to lift the flaps on books. The past couple times we've had flap books out of the library he has watched me lift a flap a few times and then grabbed at it, but without much luck or skill. But tonight as I was reading a story from the Bible my brother and his girlfriend got Nicholas for his baptism, he watched me lift a flap once and reached right over and lifted it. Then I lifted another one that moved in a different direction and he immediately did that one as well. It seems to often be that way with these baby skills--one day they seem years away from figuring it out and the next it is as though they've been doing it their whole lives.
• The kid is eating us out of house and home with these pre-packaged pureed foods. He'll eat 2 packages at a meal and sometimes still be hungry! He is old enough to start on home-mushed foods, but despite his early teething he doesn't understand the concept of gumming food. If you put something in his mouth that isn't completely pureed, he makes faces, gags, and/or spits it out. Seriously, kid, you chew on toys constantly--why not food?

Life is getting stressful and hectic, but as insane as the next 4 months are looking, I'm scared to wish them away. Because by the time the work haze clears it will be Nicholas' birthday and these moments are too precious not to cherish. I really think we are in a golden stage of his life and I want to enjoy every minute. Maybe if I just stop sleeping and eating I can do it all. . . . Or maybe not.