another car ride, another afternoon of crying

Since we took Miss Carolina in a car twice this week, we have more experience with what makes her cry (and consequently delay the trip) and what we can do to calm her down. You've read similar tales before (bus ride to Central Park and car ride to Babies R Us), so I'll just cut to the chase.

We went to Brooklyn to visit Kari and Jenn's new apartment. Really we went to have lunch and ice cream and walk around the neighborhood a little. But the lady didn't like getting in the car in the first place. She was great at the Post Office when we were on line for her US Passport application, but that was the hour before we picked up the ZipCar. Ah... good. Needless to say, there was no lunch out and no walking around. There was a nice time at the apartment and a quick, but painfully full of crying, visit to the ice cream place.

The following day we took Miss thing in the car to visit her grandparents so that mommy and daddy could visit their accountant. The ride was longer, the visit was longer, and there was more napping. We even tried a few different things in the car from the day before. It was less crying-ful and yet we still will avoid car journeys as much as possible.

Here's what we learned:

1. Feed her before you get in the car. Even if she's not interested. She'll be very interested as SOON as you start to drive forward. So, you'll spend the next 10-20 minutes with the feeding and then change the poopy diaper. Because, of course, she WILL POOP when you're in the car. She might not have for HOURS beforehand. But there will be poop while in the car.
2. If you can, get her to relax and fall asleep IN the car seat before you get the car seat in the car. This is a tough one. It's the best and will not require you to do most of the following things, but it's hardly ever something you can time with her. It's really just a matter of luck.
   
3. Bring 2 blankets. One to either wrap her or roll up to keep her sleepy head up and one, this is the more important one, to cover the car seat so she can't see all the wonderful life outside the window and less light. Keeping her focused on a smaller area, keeps her from freaking out about either not being able to see enough or, truthfully, from seeing too much and being overstimulated. She's a curious kid, so let's not overburden her by giving her too much to see when she's already unhappy about being in the car seat. I've since seen on Babies R Us website that there is some product you can zip up AROUND the entire car seat to keep it dark and, well, better than a blanket. I seriously don't need to keep track of more crap to bring in the car when we go out. The list is long enough right now thank you very much, and she's only 3 months old.
   
4. Bring 2 chupons (pacifiers). If she spits one out and it makes its way to the car floor, there is little chance of getting it clean in time to pop back in her mouth to keep her quiet.
5. Bring a little more milk than you think you need. I thought I did this, but you don't want to be, say, 1/4 ounce short and bear the wrath of still-a-little-bit-hungry baby. It kills me when it's been more than 4 hours and we have to throw away what she didn't drink, but it's better than screaming baby.
   
6. Sit on the side of her car seat that makes it easier for you to rock it left-to-right for at least 20 minutes.
   
7. "Car asleep" is not sleeping. Accept the fact that even when "asleep in the car" she will not really be asleep. So every pothole, bump, and construction hole that her father drives over will either surprise her (little hands go up in a kind of "I'm on a roller coaster and I don't like it" way), or wake her up completely.
8. Keep moving. Know that if you have the option to keep driving or stop, keep driving. If it means going further out of your way, do it. Especially if she's just ABOUT to relax for a long while. Keep the car moving. The worst is when she's JUST ABOUT done and you stop at a light. Yup, the whole thing starts all over again.
9. Nap interruptions have consequences. If you interrupt more than 2 nap periods, she will go to bed for the night much earlier than usual but it will be preceded with hours of on and off crying and not much smiling. So her usual happy self will be replaced with fussy baby. She did, however, fall asleep for the night at about 5pm and didn't wake up until about 10pm. She was about 10 minutes shy of a full 5 hour stretch of sleep. Of course that was followed by being awake every hour and a half afterwards, but I'll take the breaks when I can get 'em.
   
10. Bring a Ryan. If you have the chance to have a Ryan around, do so. A Ryan is a good distract-the-baby-from-crying friend who luckily was around while we were in Brooklyn to entertain Miss Carolina for at least 20 minutes with just moving his hands around. God bless the Ryan :)

All in all, I'm not sure if it's better to drive her to bring her on the subway. I think it depends on the day and how "up" I am for having strangers stare at me while she sounds like I'm torturing her.

She was exceptionally unhappy in the subway on the way to the Mexican Consulate on Monday, and midtown Manhattan was completely overwhelming with all the sounds. I'm glad the Baby Ergo has a snap cover, so that we could cover her head and she couldn't look around as much. If you think she has big eyes normally, you should have seen how big they got when she was trying to take in all of 42nd St at 5th Avenue. Thankfully they were disorganized enough that we had to go home right away, and she slept on the subway ride home. But it was interesting.

Stay tuned for more Travel Tales with Miss Carolina....

She's going for her 3 month checkup today and there will be immunization shots involved. Hooray!

Grandparents are wonderful

I don't mean mine. Mine were totally awesome, of course, but have since been long gone.

I mean Carolina's.

Her abuelos arrived on the second week and taught us how to bathe her, use a pacifier well, change her diaper, swaddle her well... All the little things we do everyday. Thank god for that visit!!

And today, grandma and grandpa arrived with blackout shades and a crib. Put up the shades and assembled the crib. And then! Took care of her for two extra hours so I could go to my back doctor since I threw out my lower back on Wednesday afternoon.

When I got home, miss thing had only napped 40 minutes and drank 1oz of breastmilk. But she had two awesome poopy diapers. Phew!

Shortly after they left, I swaddled her and she eventually fell asleep in my arms in the living room. She was briefly awoken by fright at the sound of thunder. But then fell back to sleep a few minutes later. She is VERY cute while sleeping.

My arm might be nearly asleep but my back doesn't hurt and she is sleeping. Finally.

We will do "baby carwash" when she wakes up and then either fall asleep right away or wait for daddy to come home.

Either way. The day was MUCH easier because of grandparents.

A visit from south of the border and north of Columbus circle

Yesterday afternoon I threw out my lower back. Again. I keep trying to be the human rocking chair. And it's too much strain on my lower back. I've finally conceded that Ismael's way of rocking with the arms, not the whole body is good enough.

And we were happily visited by Nathalie and Bill. The dynamic duo who are always welcomed guests. Nath was in for a quick NYC visit and luckily had a few hours to stop by. Neither had met Carolina before and Ismael was able to come home early from work. They remind me, just by being themselves, why grad school was so intense and challenging and why I loved it. And why I was not satisfied at my last three jobs. Being competent, nay good, at project management does not equal passion or satisfactory challenge for the work.

Anyway. Blah blah blah.

So Nath and Bill visited. Nath carried her around until she cried. And Bill showed off his uncle-skills by singing to her gently when she was overtired. I knew she needed to be asleep even if she didn't and whisked her away to the bedroom. Again. Where, for the third time I'm two hours, she finally passed out. Followed by nearly three hours of asleep time.

I've begun to take for granted that I'll see her all day. Ismael only sees her in the morning since she is usually asleep when he gets home. He keeps resisting the urge (thank you) to wake her up and see her at night. Even though he's completely knackered most mornings, at least then she is more likely to be smiley and laugh. At night. She's often pleasant or cranky. Either way her best is in the morning.

So Nath is off; back to Mexico. (why are there no direct flights from NYC to Monterrey? Seems completely absurd given the size of both cities and geographic closeness. Bloody airports.) and Bill is still in the UWS with the woman who makes the bestest lychee martinis ever. Ever. Ever.

Thank you for the visit. The baby was impressed :)

after the no sleep, there is sleep

Yesterday, we were blessed with almost 16 hours of sleep from Miss Carolina. I've continued the no-change-diaper-unless-absolutely-necessary (making up what 'necessary' means on the fly). She's had her diaper changed 2 fewer times than usual and got an extra hour of sleep in the day. She also SLEPT THROUGH THE USUAL 4AM FEED. That's right people, you hear me. She "missed" a feed. Her 3am was only a few minutes and not much of an effort at that. Maybe there is something to this magical "3 month mark" since she's going to be 12 weeks on Saturday. Hooray!

She went to sleep at about 6am, and her feeds from then until 1am were for 6-10 minutes a piece. All by herself she made the valiant effort to eat more and sleep more. And I made the effort not to disturb the peace by not changing her. There were still 4 wake up times, but I was glad to see even a shimmer of hope for sleeping more hours at night. She did, of course, wake up with an awesomely poop-filled diaper. But it was more pride than disgust. (Is she going to cower in horror and embarrassment that I speak of her this way, when she is older? Probably. Sorry, kid!)

In fact, I was waking myself up to see if she was making any noise, when she wasn't. And then I found myself being glad to see her little sleepy face when she was hungry. What the hell is wrong with me? I must have napped too much yesterday! I wanted to see her during the night? Delusional!

It must be Spike Lee talkin'

Right now, she's well into nap #2 of the morning and it's already been about 2 hours. It's still too hot and the air quality is too poor to go for a walk today. So maybe she'll sleep through it. Maybe she'll smile through it. She was being very smiley this morning again.

Funnily enough, yesterday and today, when I try to talk to my dad on the phone while she's in my arms she starts to make noise and disrupts the call. I'm wondering if this is a new trend. Complaining while I'm on the phone with her grandpa. Hmm...

This may be a good time to start asking myself this question: What will I do once she has a regular sleep schedule and I have a few hours to myself every day?

Will I work?
Will I write?
Will I become a Facebook junkie?
Will I cook burgers daily?
Will I become a professional napper?

I still think I should copy edit take out menus from the local area restaurants who have owners that write English as their second language. Some menus are awesome in their bad grammar and some are just bad. Only for the ones who are interested, I'd like to help them out by correcting them. In exchange, of course, for a quantity of food over a period of time. Say, free dinner for two adults, once-a-week for the next month? I wonder how you break into that business...

A call out to parents: nighttime poopy diaper, to change or not to change?

The most funny, but least oppotune time of smiling is at 4am after that feed and she's done a big poop... so I'm changing her diaper. Not always a poop time. Sometimes earlier at 1am or 3am but it has the same affect...

There is only a small nightlight but she can still see me. I know you're not supposed to look at them or talk to them during sleep times. So it's all I can do not to laugh.

I've just started to see if I can tolerate not changing her during the night and just feeding her. She's still at about 4-6 feeds a night and changing her after a poop seems to help wake her up. Not something I want to do. But then I feel guilty she's in her poop.

Ismael keeps reminding me that if she DID sleep through the night already I wouldn't be getting up to change her and she'd have to wait until morning anyway. And it seems that by using some Triple Paste the red from her butt goes away very quickly.

I've only done this one night. Should this be the new "way"? Or should I change her when she poops no matter what?

PS I must have slept almost enough since I had a dream! Spike Lee was directing a movie on the street I was walking across and he tells me to change her only when necessary since I'm blocking his shot. I'll do what Spike Lee says, just need to know what "necessary" means! :)

How babies r us is like ikea. Painful.

I am not a fan of shopping at Ikea. I have plenty of furniture from there and enjoy all of it. I'm a big fan of the brand and it's values. However I hate going there. It always is more crowded and hectic than I like, and we always get in a fight or at least snap at each other. Plus the car we bring (or our muscles) isn't big enough, or it starts to rain, or we can't lift the damn thing off the shelf to even checkout.

Anyway, so we went to Babies R Us yesterday. In manhattan. To get a crib mattress and maybe a glider chair.

What should have happened was we didn't go and let the baby sleep. We didn't and were punished with hours of crying/screaming and not much sleeping all day.

What should have happened was not a hasty reservation of a ZipCar and vision of a quick on and out to BRU in Union Square. It was quick. She fell asleep MOMENTS before arriving. And then going in to the store woke her. The chair was NOT on sale like I thought. I should have called before we left to be certain. But we did get the mattress. Hoo. Ray.

Also in unusual fashion I had forgotten the diaper bag. Gratefully the big poop I thought she did in the store was just an exhuberant fart. Next time we will ask ourselves: Will going to the store now make your life exceptionally better because the baby is with you? If the answer is anything other than an overwhelming YES, then don't go.

Everytime I take her out for more than an hour (yes that includes travel time), I regret it royally. She's just not ready for it and I don't have the nerves to deal with it.

She basically screamed in the store. Then in the car home. And wouldn't nap much when she did sleep. It took both of us about two hours after her bath to get her to sleep. She was exhausted. Yes. She was yawning. Yes. She would nod off. Yes. She would not stay asleep. No.

So at 7pm I also went to sleep. Blessing Ismael with a few silent hours. No crying baby. No nagging wife. Lovely.

Of course we still have a Zipcar reserved for the 25th to drive around Brooklyn neighborhoods we are possibly thinking of living in. And also to have birthday lunch with Kari who will be 29. But we no longer plan on walking around. A moving car means a happier baby. And if she's really bad. We will order lunch from kari's apartment and let Miss Sookums sleep on her bed. If we are lucky then we get to eat lunch outside like we did with Jee a few weeks ago in Sunnyside.

The following day we drive to NJ to leave her with grandma and grandpa while we have an appointment. Hopefully she sleeps there.

Sleep is so very important. Especially for someone this little.

Either that or I need better nerves or a different kid. I'm keeping her, I'm too old to change this part of me. So hello naptime and goodbye visiting stores and people as often as mommy would like. At least for another month or so. She's nearly 3 months and I hear 4 months is when magic starts to happen. Ha!

If the kid seems crazy she's probably tired

Before we figured out her signs of tired, we spent almost two months thinking Carolina was becoming colic or some other stomach problem.

Almost every afternoon she would have a few hours, on and off, of crying loudly and what I referred to as "crazy time". She just seemed like she was a little crazy. Inconsolable. She'd move her legs up and down wildly sometimes which made us think it was gas. I totally changed my diet to help her. Almost no change. Bought a few different liquid remedies for colic. No help except we know she is no fan of the taste of anise, just like mom. And she doesn't care too much for chamomile tea, even with sugar.

She didn't nap much. Didn't eat a lot but did often, almost every hour on the dot. Didn't sleep much at night so we were convinced it was stomach problems. And we were giving her Mylicon like it was going out of fashion. It had a strangely quieting effect but didn't solve the "gas problem." Poor thing.

Wrong!

What made me realize it was one line in the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby". It basically said that all babies need to sleep after two hours of wakefulness. A gigantic lightbulb went off for me. Holy shit! Every two hours? She doesn't do that. She MUST be exhausted. Wait! She should be sleeping 15-18 hours every 24hour period?! Oh my god. She HAS to be exhausted. She doesn't sleep nearly that much.

Then the book goes on to explain that if a baby doesn't nap enough during the day, she will be overstimulated and won't sleep well at night. So keeping her up so she sleeps more at night is the exact opposite of what a baby needs. And she was awake until about 9-10pm many nights. I didn't realize how wrong that was, nor did I realize how not enough sleep could also affect her brain development. So i was on a mission now... I knew how to keep her up but no idea how to get her to relax to sleep. We thought she would just fall asleep when tired, like we do.

Wrong!

Her job was to give us the signals she was tired and we then had to provide the environment to help her sleep. We found "The Happiest Baby on the Block" techniques (thank you, Julia) to be the most helpful. So we now bring her to the room, make it as dark as possible, put on the AC and/or white noise machine, swaddle her firmly, put the chupon in her mouth and rock her if necessary. Sometimes she would still cry and fight sleeping so we put the "womb sounds" on loudly too. After about a week of being consistent in how we prepared her for bed and how nap time went, she fought less and slept more.

She might fight us the entire time but when the combination is right she will settle down right away and sometime within the next 30 minutes is usually asleep. Sometimes for just 20 minutes and sometimes for 3 hours, depending on time of day and other factors. But she sleeps.

She is far less "crazy" since we address her tiredness instead of stomach. She also looks happier when she wakes up.

I wish we had known these things earlier. Or rather how to institute them earlier for our daughter specifically. But we got it now.

And naturally she is developing a sort of schedule. Two naps in the morning after get up at 6am and a bath. And then at least two Naps in the afternoon. Some days the naps are long and sometimes short or some combo. But at least I know that by about 6pm, she will be sleeping soon and only get up to eat about 4-5 times until it's time to wake up at about 6am.

Don't get me wrong. I still long for the night when she will sleep 4+ hours. Some days I'm desperate for it. But at least she's less crazy and more smiley.

In order of checking when crying starts:
1. Outside pain? Easy since you can know immediately if you did something that was too tight or banged her.
2. Hungry? Again easy since if you shove the bottle or boob in she will usually take it. And always always get her to burp after a feed. Even if it's a tough one and takes a few minutes. The sitting up position with firm pats to her back are most efficient way to do it.
3. Tired? Go through every step to calm get down for sleep especially if there was even the smallest yawn recently.
4. Inside pain? Stomach problems. Other than burp. Maybe there's a poop a-brewing.

And that's my kid.

I hear one day she will even have a schedule of sleep I can follow so I can make plans. But I bet that's just crazy talk from parents of older babies trying to make me feel better ;)

nearly slept through a visit from our cousins

Yesterday we were given a much-needed massage as a gift from Jee. While my parents watched Carolina, Ismael and I were relaxing. It was the day after we went to Central Park for Ismael's surprise birthday afternoon.

She didn't sleep much on Saturday and apparently not much more on Sunday. Both nights were pretty typical. Getting up every 2 hours or so. But she'd wake up early, like 4 or 5am. And didn't particularly nap much. Not even when grandma and grandpa babysat on Sunday.

BUT THIS MORNING!!! After daddy left at about 8.45am, she was yawning a lot so I put her on the bed next to me after swaddling her and she wouldn't stop squirming but she was clearly tired. So I unswaddled her arms and put her on her belly, about 10 seconds later, BOOM asleep. I watched her to make sure her head was to the side enough and she was breathing and at some point I also fell asleep.

She started to squirm about 3 HOURS LATER!!! And then 5 minutes later the door bell rang.

We slept through my cousin calling a bunch of times that morning. He and his wife and two children were planning to stop by on their way back to Maryland, and they did. We had confirmed their visit on Friday and I nearly slept through it!

So quickly woke up, fed my kid and changed her diaper and we had a really nice visit.

Carolina met her cousins Rose and Sam, and after they left we went out for a walk in the Baby Ergo around the neighborhood. It's 95 degrees today and still Carolina loved being outside. She basically slept the hour we were walking around. I even had to go into a local supermarket to look around just to enjoy some air conditioning break from the heat and humidity.

The nice, Chinese lady from the laundromat on the corner came out and 'yelled' at me that it was too hot and sunny for the baby. I told her she was right. I should have brought an umbrella to keep the sun off her and really shouldn't have brought her outside. She was right.

As soon as we got back to the building, and I used my key to get into the front door her eyes shot open but she remained quiet. We walk down the hall and up the stairs, the two apartment door locks are opened and she starts to squirm and make noises. I put her down out of the carrier and she wasn't happy.

So I washed off her face to cool her down a little and then started to feed her in front of the A/C in the living room before she could get too fussy. She stayed pretty calm the rest of the afternoon. And I gave her an early bath at just before 5pm to help keep her relaxed.

Didn't nap after the walk outside, but was mostly pleasant. Just got fussy a handful of times and just went to sleep (I'm hoping for the night) about 5 minutes ago.

As soon as I can get a crib and mattress that is more firm than the pack n' play, she's totally going to be sleeping on her belly.

Three hours this morning! Hallelujah!

Testing public transportation and baby carrier

The past few weeks I've been going outside with her at least once a day in her Baby Ergo. I'm much happier as a "kangaroo mom" than stroller. And now that I know how to load her in it, she likes it too. The trees and a light breeze are her favorite. Sometimes if she hasn't gotten enough, she will hear me use my keys to get into the building and starts to make unhappy piggy noises or cry out. When she hears the keys to the apartment locks then we have full on screaming of unhappiness. I usually return too soon when it's super hot and humid and I can't handle it. Tough noogies, kid.

The past few days I've been "training" her on the bus and subway. So she takes it's smells and noises and movements as normal. The train is sometimes still too loud and the bus sometimes too cold but overall it's been successful. As long as she has her chupon, just in case, then almost all is right with the world. :)

I waited to say it as good news until she had a few more trips under her belt since I didn't want to jinx it nor have the first success be a fluke. Also I'm only taking her from home to Queensboro Plaza and then back. Round trip about 20-30 minutes. Still not in to Manhattan. I don't want to over do it.

Tomorrow we are meting up with the Allen family in Central Park. We will be taking the bus and Carolina will get to meet Lilly. Should be good. I'm getting mentally ready to do that trip again. Might bring an emergency bottle but plan to BF in public. I just need to do it and get used to it.

Wish us luck!!

Burgers by the beach in vallarta

I'm thinking of starting a burger, fries and milkshake joint by the beach in Vallarta. Maybe a full year business and maybe just part year. I'm already starting to plan the menu and business plans. I start trial and error (aka R&D) my own recipes tonight.

And yes I was greatly inspired by this month's issue of Saveur. That and my undying love of In N Out Burgers (animal style!!) and Shake Shack.

As she sleeps in my arms. Just moments ago passed out. Still with the pacifier in her mouth. I wonder if not returning to work is doing her any favors. Only or mostly being with me. Not much social interaction when she is older. Hmmm... A friend from work told me how they put their two year old girl into daycare since that's where all the kids in the neighborhood were during the day. So even though they could work from home and not need to send her, no one else's kids were in that boat. So they sent her just for the social interactions. Important. Surely.

Sigh... New York City is expensive on one salary. Nay, virtually impossible to live well if you're not single on one salary. (and no, mom, I'm not moving back to jersey.)

We have a roll over

We really need to buy that crib now. The mattress pad thing in the pack n play has been distorted by putting on a too tight and bulky padded sheet. My mother insisted the baby would be uncomfortable with just a thin cotton sheet. Now after two months of regular, daily use the four sections of the mattress/pad are different thicknesses and don't lie flat.

Not my mother's fault but I'm tired and want someone else to bear this responsibility. Ah never mind.

So the middle two slat pad things are flatter than the ones on the sides. It's very obvious which ones we favored when we put her down.

So I put her on one of the edge ones this morning and she's rolled over on to her belly. Mostly because it's not flat/even, not that she has mastered rolling. Nope. Not yet.

But her lying with her nose so close to the sheet means that: A. I can't nap while I spend every other minute checking she is still breathing, because B. She is finally sleeping soundly. After a night of "up every hour and a half". Which was after a day of "I'm not going to tell you why I'm screaming. I'm just going to scream in what will appear to be random intervals and sound much like I'm in excruciating pain. And then I'll stop for a few moments or minutes. Then do it again. You won't have any idea why. You, too, will be overtired and cry. But there will be only two intervals of 30 minutes each when I'll sleep. I won't tell you when. It'll just happen. Then it will take you almost three hours for me to fall asleep for the night, since I'm WAY over tired by now. And when I do. I will only sleep for about two hours. But you won't know that. So you'll vainly hope it's for three or four hours. But nope! And i don't like that new formula or the other one. I don't care I've sucked you dry (well nearly dry) today. I want boob juice. (2hours later...) ok I'll take the formula from dad since he is letting mommy sleep for an hour in the other room. Good night! See you in an hour!"

yes. That was our day.

A friend of mine said that "colicky" is a bullshit term. It should be "terrorist." I don't know if this is colic or what. But I like the idea she could be another baby terrorist. Ha!

things carolina likes and doesn't

Things she likes:

1. Feet rest: while feeding, having something to touch her feet/toes to
2. Trees: walking outside in the baby ergo to look up at the trees (This is only after she's fed, burped, changed diaper and calm, of course)... Even if she fights you while you're putting her in the Ergo and cries all the way to the front door of the building. She'll stop the moment you open the outside door and she knows it's not inside anymore. (this happens in reverse when you return to the building.)
3. Bath: a bath (of the right temperature, of course)
4. Smiling: a good laugh and smiling (after a soundly and enough-time nap/sleep)
5. Burping: a good, loud burp after a valiant struggle against the burps
6. Sleep: being swaddled and given a chupon (pacifier) by her dad en route to sleep for the night
7. Driving: Being driven in a car
8. Diapers: Pampers Swaddlers line of diapers
9. Colic Calm (she likes the taste more than Baby's Bliss but it stains everything black since it's base is a vegetable charcoal)
10. The Chair: vibrating chair with aquarium thing to watch
11. B&W video: "Wee See collection one" [http://vimeo.com/4837896] from WeeSeeWorld.com
12. The throne: Sitting up on the couch with grandma and grandpa (Actually being proped up on a blanket but she thinks she's sitting up and can see more stuff, which is always good for her.)
13. Being a big kid: Sitting up, standing up, and being able to see lots of stuff. (Curious much?)


Things she doesn't like:

1. gas, of the burp kind
2. gas, of the butt kind
3. a mostly empty boob
4. Non-Boob liquid: formula (even heavily mixed with boob milk)
5. Non-Boob liquid: water
6. Non-Boob liquid: vitamins
7. Non-Boob liquid: mylicon
8. Non-Boob liquid: infant tylenol (least offensive of the eye drop liquids)
9. Non-Boob liquid: Baby's Bliss (HATES anise flavoring I guess)
10. Cold Bath: a bath with tepid water (too cold)
11. Disturbed: being too-early awoken from her sleep (you will only do this once to her and then learn your lesson)
12. Light: bright, direct sun
13. Gas: when mommy eats ice cream (see #1 and #2 on this list)
14. Constrained: being swaddled against her will (free my hands!). Even if it does end up calming her down.
15. Heat: outside when it's too humid/hot and she gets all sweaty
16. the car seat
17. Diapers: gDiapers (although we try weekly to get her to change her mind)
18. The Chair: vibrating chair with the aquarium moving things and music.
19. Not being able to see a lot of stuff when we go outside in the stroller


I didn't put naps in the like or dislike list since I can't tell. It's mostly a necessity and so liking or not liking them really depends mostly on her level of tiredness vs. level of gassy-ness. Which ever level wins will determine if its a like or a dislike.


PS And apparently you people aren't very hopeful she'll be sleeping for 5 hours straight anytime soon. The winner was a tie between 12 weeks and 6 months. *sigh* Well, last night it was 3 hours, 3 hours, 2 hours, 2 hours, 1 hour. Then time to get up. Sweet! Not awesome but I'll take it. If only she'd stay awake enough to burp after she feeds during the night, the morning wouldn't be so scream-y sometimes. That damn gas!