I forgot to mention that Atticus is now routinely signing "milk." A lot of the time he does it with both hands at the same time. It's cute. And often if I say "milk," he signs it. The other night I said it every time he signed it, timing it just so, so that it was as if he was my puppeteer. He laughed and laughed. This morning it was the second thing he did upon waking--after giving me a smile.

Atticus has been sleeping later lately. For the last five days, he's awoken at about 7, sometimes later. I think this too may be contributing to his especially high spirits. (On Sunday he napped for 3 hours 45 minutes!) He's no longer exhausted when I drop him off at daycare in the morning. He bounded off again to the one-year-old room this morning. When I said bye, he turned from where he was standing at one of the tables and gave me a huge grin.

I didn't realize it until I made the decision to keep him where he's at that that daycare transition (which was really a dozen transitions in one) was what was stressing me out so much about going back to the office full-time. I'm not saying I won't at all miss having the majority of my afternoons with him, but knowing he's at a place where he's comfortable and happy, where he's known and loved, that is on my way home and just 10 minutes from both work and from our house (so as to maximize our time together) makes such a difference. (Several different people at the daycare have spoken to be about how happy they are that Atticus is staying. They genuinely love him, and it's so heartwarming.) I'm planning to visit him at lunch, possibly nursing him to sleep, since that's what we normally do in the car in the parking lot when I pick him up now.