Summer’s nearly over. But I love fall, a REAL fall, with colored leaves and crisp air and a few sunny days. Sweaters, boots, coats, scarves, and no more sunscreen (except on the face). Plus it means that Freya’s second birthday will soon be here.

I look forward to her third year, when she will begin to master the language, and master the coordination she needs to properly explore the world. Recently we’ve started removing the baby gates that confined her, and letting her run around downstairs, supervised of course. The supervision does get a little exhausting, but it’s so good for her to expand her territory.

She has expanded her vocabulary a lot, started experimenting with “it” and “a” and “the” a little bit. I love being her English teacher. My student is fortunate to be learning in total immersion, of course.

Yesterday we started attending a music class together. It’s a ten-week course, full of singing and free play and little musical instruments. Freya is not yet at and age where she will reliably sit still for extended periods, so she did wander around a bit, but everyone understood, and she had a great time, loved every minute of it. She is already very musical, and likes to sing songs and hear music in the car or at home with me in the morning.

Also she has started sleeping more soundly at night, sometimes without waking at all. I am glad that we reached this point together peacefully and naturally, and that there was no sleep training or forced crying or other methods that I am just not comfortable with, and that’s putting it mildly. Let’s put it this way: it is *not normal* for small infants to sleep through the night. They have a biological imperative to wake to feed, and to wake for safety. It’s part of their brain development. It can be “trained” out of them, yes. But we listened to our instincts, and learned about the negative impact of altering a baby’s natural sleep patterns, and chose to do it this way. Yes, I woke frequently with my baby. And that sucked sometimes. But I put her first. And now she’s a sleepy little sleeper, and I hope that she remains that way throughout life, and isn’t burdened by the insomnia I have had for as long as I remember.