Sleep, Telling Stories and Moving

Last night the baby slept for 7 hours straight. I'd like to say that I got 7 hours of sleep but it was good enough. He went down at 8pm and didn't wake up to feed until nearly 3am. It's nice since the night before he was up every, almost, 2 hours. Ah, newborns...

Carolina told her brother a story, her first real story, yesterday. It went something like this:
Once upon a time there was a baby, it was YOU! And his name was Ismael ("Izmail") and he was moving and crying and looking around. Bah, bah, bah, weeeeeeeeeee (insert more noises that aren't words), and then he went to take a nap.

Pretty good! It has a start, middle and exciting ending! :)

We're still packing up for our move to Jersey. Carolina is talking about it now like she understands but I know there's a lot of anxiety behind it since all day long we get a nearly constant stream of "What you doin?" from her. As more boxes go up, the more that question comes up. However, she's been very helpful with packing and we're keeping her involved as much as possible to help her be part of the process.

Today on the phone with her aunt, who asked during a Skype call if there were a lot of boxes at home, she said, "No. We packin' an we gonna move to a new house near granma an granpa and I'm gonna fly over to deh house like "woosh"." (Another time she explained that she will be able to fly to my parents place (in the next building) like Superman and Krypto and Fussy, from Superman Family Adventures comics.) I thought that was pretty clever. I hope she doesn't try to fly there but at least she gets what's happening in some way that makes sense to her and others.

Ok, gotta go...

Music & Art camp

Carolina LOVED this. I wish it had lasted all July. She learned how to play the violin and piano. The art the kids did was really fun and she adored her art teacher. It was a wonderful experience all around for her, and really great after having such a not good time at preschool in the neighborhood earlier in the spring.

Doctor visits, all together now...

This week I took the kids to two of the baby's doctor visits. The ENT specialist says his reflux is getting better but still not completely healed, and his pediatrician agreed he's starting to teethe. She also noted how big and strong he is. Nearly 12lbs and almost 24" long. He's in the 49% for weight and 75% for height. I think Carolina was this big about 3-4 months from now. She was mostly good in the taxi rides and at the offices but not really. The baby's crying during his vaccinations, which I warned her about, really upset her. And she scraped her knee leaving an office en route to getting a cab. You'd have thought she broke her leg with all the crying. I was prepared with bandaids and antibiotic cream. But she wanted me to carry her. She's 3, so she wanted extra comfort. It was 90 degrees outside and I was carrying the baby in his car seat and diaper bag, so I couldn't. The next visit ended with a huge summer storm, complete with some hail and downpour. We waited about 30 minutes to be able to go outside to get a cab. And since it was around 5pm, when cabs go off duty, it was almost impossible. Thank god another woman helped me since Carolina was hungry and bored and decided to have a meltdown under her umbrella while I'm holding the baby in his car seat, diaper bag and umbrella. Whoever said a 3 year old is unhelpful must have met my tired, hungry, bored daughter. They were two VERY long days. These experience made me yearn for a car and look forward with renewed vigor to our move to NJ in a few weeks. I'm certain suburbia will lend us differently challenging experiences. All hail the kids for keeping me on top of my game. Ha.

Red letter (potty) day!

Today was the first day that Carolina went to school with undies! She hasn't had anything in her diaper (minus one naptime) in over two weeks! Wakes up dry and goes in the toilet all day. She will NOT go in her diaper even if we're out and about. So, I'm going to have to know where bathrooms are along our route when we go out now. (A very good problem to have.)

The baby is growing well and smiling a lot. He's now 11lbs. We have to go out for a nightly walk sometime between 7pm and 9pm, to end 'crazy time' since that's the only way we've found to quickly end the crying/whining and get him to fall asleep for the night. The first part of the night he'll sleep 3-4 hours and then about 2 hours at a time after that. The past few nights he's started to get up at 4am, 5am and 6am. I remember this with Carolina and can't wait for it to end, but we have more months of it I'm sure.

His acid reflux is REALLY improving with the Prevacid. I'm very impressed at how well the medication works. We have the 6 week follow-up next week to see how he's healing.

Carolina is really enjoying her art and music camp program. I'm sorry for her that it ends this Friday as she is REALLY enjoying herself. Plus she comes home at about 1pm completely ready for a nap, which makes the afternoon go better, too.

In August, I think she is going to like her new school and going everyday. I wasn't sure about camp being every weekday, that maybe it was too long a day from 9.30-12.30, but it's worked out well.