No particular day...

Last night Carolina did something fantastic (according to me): she went to bed at 6pm, woke up at 1.30am hungry, I fed her, she fell asleep until 5.55am

She's like an alarm clock. Gets up at about 6am every morning. No. Matter. What.

But it's the second time in the last week she didn't cry out or wake up hungry more than once. I guess her gums weren't hurting her, her belly was full and she didn't need to poop or fart. She just slept.

I'm finding that the more she sleeps, the more I get to sleep. And the more tired I find myself. Strange as it may seem.

I also, if I dream at all, have a constant barrage of nightmares.

I'm sure in some way this is completely normal. I probably haven't dreamt this much since before she was born, which was almost 9 months ago. So I'm sure there's a lot my unconscious has to work out :)

In any event. I'm really tired today while Carolina seems raring to go.

I was going to take her swimming at the Y, but I'm too beat.

Last week, we went to the Y twice and to my parents place twice. The landlord was painting our bathroom (such a strong odor that I got a headache so I took her out of there immediately) and then we had the bathtub refinished. Everything in the bathroom looks really great but we needed to be out of the apartment for those days.

In less than a month we'll be heading to Mexico for a cousin's wedding and then drive 8 hours to spend a few days in Vallarta. The wedding is at 7pm outside of Celaya. That means that I nor Ismael will be able to put Carolina to bed for the night. That means she'll be sleeping at Bisabuela's house in a crib there. I have no idea how that'll go. Of course I want to control the variables as much as possible to make it resemble her room and her 'going to bed' experience every night so that she sleeps well and doesn't cry. But I can't do anything about it. I just have to trust that Great Grandma, who has taken care of countless babies, can get my munchkin to bed, not have her climb out of the crib, and we get back to pick her up during the wee hours and bring her back to Abuela's house with us. Hopefully not waking her up too much. (It's a 1/2 block walk between Bisabuela and Abuela's houses.)

She's still NOT taken a bottle during the night. Once she's asleep, it's only boob. So I really wonder, if we don't get back from the wedding before she wakes, if she'll take the bottle (because she will be hungry) or if she'll just cry and protest and fall asleep. And then keep doing that until I get back.

I'm certain, whatever happens, I'll be surprised and it won't happen like I thought it would. For better or worse. It's always different than I expect.

I also have to make sure to eat before the wedding since I think dinner is going to be at like 10pm. Those Mexicans are as bad as the Italians. Dinner in the middle of the night ;) HA ha!

Also, recently, Carolina has been eating paper. Everything goes in her mouth if we let it (or aren't paying attention). Just last week she was gnawing on a black piece of thick paper. I noticed but didn't think much of it while getting her bath ready. When I finally went to pick her up about a minute later she was missing some of the black paper. I stick my finger in her mouth to find a small wad of it in the back of her gums on one side, like she was chewing tobacco. It was funny and not funny.

She got upset that I took it away, it must have felt nice since she's still teething. (I can't tell you how much Orajel we give her some days. I'm always glad there are days we don't have to give her any. Sometimes it just seems endless.) I couldn't leave it, even if she wasn't going to swallow it. It was making her mouth black. Lord knows what kind of ink she was swallowing.

And just try to stop her from crawling everywhere and climbing up everything she can.

As soon as she starts to walk, I'm going to be even more exhausted than before I'm sure!

a little bit of thanks

In my pursuit to keep a level-headed view of this with-baby life, I thought I'd put down a few things that I've become grateful for:

1. Strangers on the bus (and subway), who take an immediate liking to Carolina and spend a few minutes making funny faces and sounds. So she smiles. Gives me a few minutes to tune out.
2. Swim class with other babies. She loves other babies, and loves water. Now if I could only get her to stop trying to drink up the pool, she'd be a bit happier by the end of each class.
3. Dinner and a movie with my husband. After Carolina goes to sleep. In our living room. We get at least 3-4 hours after she's asleep. And is usually the first meal of the day I can actually finish.
4. Naps. They are now longer than before. I can actually get some sleep, too.
5. Sleep. Still a bit hit or miss, but she's moving towards (with a lot of constant enforcement by mom and dad) longer sleep periods at night. Longer being 4 hours. I'll take it!!!
6. Something of a schedule. For the first time in her little life, she's got something of a schedule. She made it all by herself. So now we can go out and plan to meet up with people. Sometimes. Sometimes the schedule thing doesn't work.
7. Adventure-adventure. It's what I call anything that involves Carolina and I going outside to: visit someone, buy something, or see something where we'll be out of the house for at least 2 hours. 2 hours is her max before needing another nap. sometimes that can be stretched to 3 hours. So adventure-adventure is fun to see how long we can stay out, and just to get out of the apartment.
8. Stoller naps. I haven't been as diligent as I wanted to encourage these on a weekly basis, she's only had a smattering of them since early January. Sometimes she sleeps for 45 minutes, sometimes 10. 10 minutes is bad. Mostly for her. But I'm grateful she can do it.
9. Grandparents. Holy moly, I don't think I've ever appreciated my parents so much. And Abuelos in Mexico are just as awesome.
10. Smiles. It's true that when your baby smiles at you, it makes everything better. And trying to get her to smile, means I have to smile at her a lot. So that keeps us both on the happy side.
11. Spongebob Squarepants (and Dora the Explorer). Two things on TV that will get Carolina smiling in a second. And sometimes buys me 10-60 seconds to leave the room while she's engrossed and doesn't notice I'm gone.
12. Crawling. I'm getting some really great reaction-time/sprint training. Especially when she's about to go off the bed. So I leave her on the floor. And then I have to keep her away from trying to climb up on the TV table and up our dresser drawers. Faster, mommy, faster! Keep up!
13. More bottles, less breastfeeding (and sleep). Now that she's back to taking bottles like a champ, and onward to formula and solid food. She needs me less. I'm completely split on how I feel about this. I'm very proud of her for moving into new food territory and accepting change. Even not needing me to feed her before she goes to bed at night and willing to take a bottle -- WITH FORMULA. But I also miss that time of day's blissful moment when she's had enough to eat, keeps her eyes closed, and moves her head to rest it on my chest while pursing her lips together for a second. She is so calm, I can put her down into the crib and she doesn't wake herself up. It's a necessary trade off to lose that moment to the bottle. It's similar with a bottle but less, well, satisfying for me.

In the upcoming months, we'll be saving our pennies to get some friends to babysit on rare ocassions. Going out takes on a whole new level of expense and planning. BUT! She's sleeping enough during the first part of the night where I can leave her for 4-5 hours, and not feel like I'm burdening someone.

We are looking forward to taking her to the beach next month. Let's see if she likes it more than when she was 4 months old and I thought it was okay to put her feet into cold ocean water. Yeah, memories...

WE HAVE A TOOTH!

I can't see it since she refuses to get her tongue out of the way when we stick our fingers in to move her lips away, but I can feel it's sharp edge there. I think only one of the two on the bottom have FINALLY made their way through the gums. Hooray!!!!

And I am surprised at how she's still really going for things to gnaw on. I thought that might stop when the teeth came in. Maybe after they're fully in and before the next ones are ready??

And she was a super good girl today. I took her to SoHo after a marathon 2 hour nap this morning and she was great. We visited the Scholastic office for about an hour and then walked around the East Village (yes, in the cold) while she napped. She could only sleep for about 30 minutes between the rocky sidewalk motion and probably the cold. So only about a 30-40 minute nap, but one nonetheless. And no screaming when she was tired. Phew!

She really does like visiting people. I'm trying to get her in front of people as much as possible without exposing her to too many sick people at the same time.

But I totally miss living downtown. *Sigh* And I can't WAIT for the Spring so we can spend more time in Central Park, at the museums, and any place she can run around and then nap outdoors, sometimes. I'm still going to be a stickler about naps at home since she clearly rests better at home.

First swim lesson... Success!

Today was Carolina's first swim lesson at the local Y. I hurt my neck last night so I couldn't do the lesson with her and ismael went in the pool instead. I stood by and watched. We nearly didn't go since she had been up
since 7.30am and the class was at 10.30am. Prime first nap time. But at Ismael's decision, we went. She was so content to be in the pool. Same as when we took her into the family pool in Celaya. Our little water baby enjoyed her half hour class and didn't cry or fuss on the way home even though she was clearly tired. And then slept Like a champ afterward for her first nap of the day. Awesome.

We weren't allowed to take any photos but I snapped a blurry one before I found out I wasn't allowed.

She had to wear a swim cap. It's huge on her. Basically covers her eyes if you put it on to cover all her hair (see photo). But it's required of ALL people (bald, baby, or long hair) if you swim at the YMCA. Ridiculous but true.

And as usual, she was the smallest one in the group even though she wasn't the youngest. She's a whip smart shortie. For realz ;)

we will be going to a museum soon to see how she does there.

Just 2 days ago her newest friend, Chloe Chae, was born. A very beautiful little baby with a sweet personality. We are looking forward to them meeting. Ismael, Jee and I went to see her and her parents at the hospital. It's nice to welcome another foodie to the group of friends.

Pa Buehh and more crawling

She's starting to form "Pa Pa" sounds and has done more crawling. She's no speed carwler but she's gone from "getting the hang of it" to actually doing it a little.

Ismael is proud she's getting closer to saying "Papa". I still think it's closer to "Buah..buehhh" but I find it more interesting she started to move around in the crib and tries to get up to see where I've walked away to. It's the end of an era. Can't leave her unattended on a bed :) My big girl is about to keep me wicked busy.

Ma Ma

Since arriving in Mexico last week, Carolina hasn't slept well two nights in a row. Last night while basically awake from 2-4am she said "Ma...Ma". A few times. And has since sped it up to "Mama". She's said it a few times. I'd be more excited if I wasn't so exhausted at the time. :) and she likes to use it during the wee hours when she's too worked up to go straight back to sleep after eating since we are all in the same room. I'm very much looking forward to going home if only because we get separate rooms again. Phew.

she's also working on a new word, not sure what, but it sounds like "Buhhhh..buhhhh...buhhh".

We are also working on getting her to say "Papa".

More when we get home...

PS today is her 7th month "birthday" :)
PPS she crawled 2 "steps" today when she was with Abuelo.

It was all going surprisingly well when it changed

So we went to a friend's house last weekend and it went surprisingly well with Carolina. She napped, TWICE!, for an hour each time in a room she'd never been in before. Man that was great. She was pleasant and enjoyed being around people. I left, surprised and hopeful, that meant our flight on Friday morning would go swimmingly well. Or at least better than I had previously expected.

Then last night happened. Poor thing is really in pain from teething. Those blasted teeth just won't pop through the skin. They keep threatening. She's been basically moaning in pain (and yes, I've given her everything I can aside from a baby-sized shot of whiskey) since last night. She slept for 3 hours, then 2 then up every 90 minutes. Then about 4am and before 5am, got up twice.

Ismael tried to calm her down, I tried to boob-calm her. Yeah, not much. More pain medicine. Yeah...

So about 5.30am I stayed in her room with her on the spare bed in there. I got her to relax and fall asleep and kept popping the chupon in her mouth when it would fall out and she'd try to crawl away. Until it fell out for good and she was asleep. She woke up about 7.30am and looked worse for wear -- but as always, did her best to smile.

She was up for almost 2 hours, as usual, then an almost 2 hour nap. Had trouble with falling asleep for nap #2 and is still sleeping but for only about 20 minutes so far. She already yelled out in a bit of pain since falling asleep.

So we're nearly done packing. Weighed the suitcases and aren't in danger of exceeding the 1 checked bag of 50lbs or less. And I'll be armed with everything I can think of to help her get through the flight.

I've already had one nightmare about the TSA person telling me I can't keep the bottle of Tylenol I have. And I have some good telling off lines in my dream, of course I can't remember the snappy comebacks while awake. But I'll throw out everything we have that remotely resembles liquid as long as I keep the infant Tylenol. Because, seriously, the homeopathic stuff is helpful to a point but I'm not sure it isn't the cause of some recent bouts of "constipation" she's had. And when she's really going for it, the stuff she likes least (Tylenol and baby Orajel) are the things that make her stop hurting fastest. Or at least stop crying, screaming or moaning.

I keep thinking she's experienced the worst of it, and it'll pass soon. And then another day comes and she gets pain she hasn't had before.

At least I'm over my cold. If I was sick AND she was teething AND we were on a flight when she was at her worst, I don't think I could handle it as well as not being sick.

All that aside, I think as usual she will surprise me on how she does on the flights. It might be better or worse, but it'll certainly be different than I can imagine. It always is...

Now I just have to remember to pack the passports and we'll be all set.

But on a happier note, my little Carolina was having a wonderful time yesterday afternoon with some other babies in the neighborhood at a mom's house near us. There were about 6 of them at a playdate. She was the smallest and youngest, but she sat up for about 15 minutes (first time ever!) because the other ones were sitting and crawling and I could tell she was very calmly showing them she could do it too.

As you can see in the photo, she was really sitting in a 'good girl' pose. Super cute! Sometimes she REALLY reminds me of my sister. This photo is one of those times.

After this picture, she let me know she wanted to stand up. So I helped her. She then "walked" towards one of the other little boys who was standing on his own. He leaned towards her, she put out her hand, he put out his hand and then they held hands in mid air for a second. He started 'talking' to her and she made just one little noise. But otherwise, she was totally silent. She's really more of an observer, so I was impressed that she was making 'contact'.