First conversation and first night without waking up

To be completely frank, yesterday was a big day in Ismael's life thus far.

First, he took his nap and went to bed without me having to hold him or wait until he fell asleep. In fact, he clearly was not interested in me holding him after his bottle. He just laid there and fell asleep. He even slept through the night. He was very tired and I tried to get him down by about 5.30pm but couldn't and so he was asleep around 6pm. He didn't wake up until 5.45am this morning and he clearly only woke up because he pooped. He wasn't all that interested in being awake. He didn't cry out, he didn't need a bottle. He just slept. I think he just graduated from baby to toddler.

Second, last night at dinner he was very chatty and so was Carolina. She wasn't happy I gave her homemade chicken nuggets for dinner, she had expected the store bought popcorn chicken when I said "chicken nuggets". Since she wasn't going to eat much of it, I cut them up into smaller pieces and put them on the baby's tray. He ate them up happily. I gave Carolina a lot of strawberries for dinner and she was happier. (She had just eaten nearly a whole apple on the way home from the park so I wasn't surprised she wasn't very hungry. I did get her to eat a few small pieces of chicken, too.) I then cut up some elbow pasta for the baby and some broccoli, too. He ate all of it. Then while I was talking to Carolina I noticed that the baby was playing more with this food rather than eating it and had slowed down putting food into his mouth.

I asked him, "Do you want more?"
He just smiled
I asked him and with sign language, "More? Do you want More? or All Done? All Done?"
He says, "Duh."
I smiled and asked again (also with sign language), "All done or More?"
He says, "Ah duh. Duh."

I cleaned off his face and hands and picked him up and he seemed very pleased with himself. I was so excited he just spoke with recognizable words that I had to call his papa immediately.

After yesterday, which was his 11 month "birthday", I have to say, it was a good day.

Today is Carolina's school picture day, and she was excited about. We'll have a nice photo of her (I hope) to share soon.

No bottle and a great day

So it's been two nights without a bottle and it's going well. Some protesting but as I left the bottle at my parents place by accident, I feel more confident saying Sorry it's not here. She's not a fan of milk but she's coming around to drinking it.

We had a great day. Over an hour at the park this morning, not too hot outside. A lovely nap and then a good lunch of polenta, beef and cheese. Then the afternoon at Bryant Park's carousel (4 rides @$2 a pop!) and then reading outside in the park on mini chairs and mini tables as part of NYPL's kid's Reading Room. Sponsored by Scholastic (eyes rolling), but still a very cool idea and was appreciated!!

Now I have a worn out toddler and we are both very happy. Hooray!

15 months and going...

It's been quite a while since I posted something. The summer was brutally hot and humid and we spent a lot of our days in the park or avoiding outside, depending on how the weather was.

We just returned from a week in Mexico visiting Abuelos y familia. It took her about 4 days to really get comfortable with the family since she hadn't seen them since March and, surprisingly, warmed up to Tio David pretty quickly. I guess since he was willing to hold her hands up and down the stairs (her favorite activity after watching Dora), he won that spot in her heart :) All considered, she was pretty good on the planes there with me and then on the way back with both of us.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine who has an 8 month old about what foods I was giving at that time. It made me realize I forgot and how quickly these little ones change. So I'm going to write down what we do now, for future reference:

She's on one nap a day and is usually from 11/12pm for 1-2 hours. She went to sleep at 10.30am on Tuesday (after the extra-long day on Monday getting home with a serious delay at Houston) and didn't get up until 2.30pm. Very unusual but expected. She's usually desperate for sleep by about 6.30/7pm, mostly since she's walking EVERYWHERE and loves going up and down stairs. While in Mexico I didn't force her to go to sleep at her usual time, in case she wanted to stay up to play with her cousins. Nope, she's like a clock... Was ready for bed at about 7pm CST.

She has gotten much pickier about her food and likes more variety in her diet, and more sweets. She's crazy about pizzelle that my mom makes. Since the past few weeks she's been super-hungry, I was feeding her more since she's just finished a growth spurt. But it's mostly like this:

Get up for breakfast. Cereal with milk, toast, eggs (with cheese usually)
Go to the park, snack (like "healthy" cookies or crackers like Hot Kid Organic Baby Mum-Mum Original Rice Rusks) on the way back or substantial snack (more like lunch #1) like grapes, peaches, grape tomatoes, blueberries once we're home.
Nap
Lunch #2. Usually largest meal of the day includes some kind of meat, veg or fruit and pasta or rice. Cheese, sometimes. Sometimes it's just cheese, and sometimes it's just an endless array of fruit. Other days it's more balanced. I've learned to go with it and fight her less. Much easier on us both.
Park.
Snack on way home
Dinner. Like lunch but smaller, unless she's really hungry that day.
Bath, Dora, book, bottle, bed.

My mother-in-law insisted that I give her 3 bottles a day, maybe 4. She said the baby needs it. I said I don't think so and that eating real food is more filling. I gave it a try mid-week while in Mexico, to be polite while we were there, but she was waking up early in the morning and crying out more at night. I'm really really not sure why the change but we fed her a bottle when she did get up at 4am. That didn't help her go back to sleep right away, but she would finish it. I'm doubtful it was waking up because she was hungry but I went back to our normal routine when we came home just the same. I think it was more anxiety that she was waking up with. Her cries were more like scared/stressed than hungry.

While teething, as I've mentioned before, she's been a blueberry-a-holic. This week, since her 4th molar finally broke through. She's less obsessed with frozen blueberries. She wouldn't eat a frozen one since Monday when it broke through. Yesterday I got her to have some but only after I defrosted them a little.

This is good news as although it means frozen blueberries might be off the go-to list for a while, at least she's been less cranky from the teething. Phew!

So now she has 12 teeth: four top/front, four bottom/front, four molars. I don't know when the others are supposed to come in but I don't care. She's happy, I'm happy.

She's also started to be more shy around strangers. And is less willing to go in the park without me if other kids are around. Just the past 2 weeks, around when she turned 15 months. Something clicked in her head and something changed. I'm assuming this is a new change that is part of the growing cycle. It's curious. she's also having temper tantrums. They're not terrible and not very often, but they're there and they are definite. I ignore her for the most part -- just make sure she doesn't smack her head on the floor or ground as she's doing it. And then when it's done, I go "all done?" And she gets up and we move on.

I've wanted to get her into more classes, the Gymboree ones are great and the equipment is really super. But they're very, very expensive. So, we go to the public park. Not the nice, private one with the grass -- the city ones with the rubber "floors" and sprinklers and slides and stairs and swings. They do the trick. It gets a bit boring but at least we have 2 to choose from that are within 10-15 blocks of the apartment.

A working mom, injured

Earlier this week I threw out my neck. It's a super old injury that just never goes away and occasionally pops up to haunt me when I've either been stressed, curling my hair too much, or holding my shoulders/neck wrong. Usually because of too much work, late into the night. That was this week and last week. Part time freelance, you'd think I could handle that without throwing myself into a tizzy.

Thought I was doing so well, and the last two days my mom had to come over to help me with Carolina since it was impossible for me to lift her up, carry her or even stand up on the first day.

Today I'm much better. Carolina, on the other hand, has refused to take her afternoon naps for the 'full amount'. I think the last two days she was worried why I wasn't carrying her around.

But very interestingly, last night at about 5pm we started to give her dinner. A little bit of chicken and filling from a spinach pie. She scarfed it down! Was crying for more! Unheard of. So I hurried up to make her more. Same thing. Cried for more! So we went on to: apples, blueberries semi frozen, yogurt snacks, rice cracker snack, and something else I can't remember.

She ate for about 50 minutes. Not every second of it, of course, but a damn lot of the time.

I think she finally realized that it was the last stop on the train before bedtime and a bottle. Last night was the first night she didn't make a peep between 7pm and 7am.

She's now getting used to not having a bottle before her afternoon nap. I think that's a lot to do with why she's not doing the afternoon nap so well. She's tired, trust me. But not so much on being able to relax. I'm still working out what her 'routine' should be. Right now I'm trying to hold her sideways, sing her the bedtime song we have, with the chupon in her mouth. It sort of works, until she feels the crib mattress under her and then it's all crying.

Day 3, so far still working it out.

Any suggestions?

In the meantime, I'm still assessing my ability to keep better boundaries between work and home and considering if I should have any work at all. The income will be nice. I'll be calling a babysitter based on a mom-friend recommendation. I'm going to try having someone come over once or twice a week for like 2-3 hours to take Carolina out for a walk, park, whatever.

She can handle being away from me if I'm not there. If I'm in the apartment, I must be playing with her at some point. I can't work while she entertains herself with someone else. Sang proved that to be true!

Solid foods and formula

At first I was sad that I was so easily replaced by a bottle of formula during the night. Now, a few days later I'm glad. I wish she'd not wake up three times a night but she takes 5-6oz each so I know she's hungry. I still am doing my best to stuff her with calories during the day and dream of the might she sleeps through for 11 or 12 hours.

In the meantime, I'm grateful that she loves spending time with Ismael. I did some manhattan errands today while he took her home from swim class where she promptly fell asleep for a 2.5 hr nap. She didn't nap much at my parents place yesterday nor this morning so I'm glad she was able to finally rest. She still needs to go to sleep at about 6pm but with this new bottle feeding going so well, I get to hang out with some friends tomorrow night and not be tethered at home waiting for her to wake up and need me.

She started to grind her little teeth yesterday. I think she's doing it because her teeth and gums hurt. She has three more top, front teeth just about to come down. When I take her to the 9mo checkup on Monday I'll ask about that and her eczema on her arms that still hasn't quite gone away.

Is taking a nap at 6pm a good idea or not? Carolina's mom and dad are about to find out! Yes, seriously

snow, in all day, boogers and poop

I'd like to give another shout out to the strangers in new york who continually entertain and engage with Carolina on the bus and subway. Really. I find out some of the most interesting things from total strangers because I'm traveling with Carolina. She's quite the social butterfly.

We've been inside all day. She's just about to get up from her 3rd nap. I can hear her moving around and rattling her 'baby' doll.

With this stuffy/runny nose this week (glad the fever is gone) and uber-teething with 4 upper teeth threatening to come down, she's been up 3x a night and takes 3 naps a day. So after a month of solid effort to get her to wake up less frequently during the night, we're right back where we started.

We had a glimmer of hope this morning when she missed her 4am wakeup, but then she started crying at 5.30am When I went in at a little after 6am, and YES it was still dark out, she hadn't even pooped. Lord knows why she thought she needed to be up that early. The full-on poop came hours later. Which required a complete change of clothes, bed and baby's hair needing to be washed. Oh yeah...

Anyway, after these teeth come in, like last time, I'm hoping for a reprieve. And back to waking up just once a night.

You know what's going to happen. She'll be back to it for like 2 days and then we leave for a week in Mexico with a lot of travel while we're there and she'll be up every 2 hours since we'll be sleeping in the same room. Actually, it'll probably be a surprise whatever happens.

I'm looking forward to going to a friend's house after Carolina is asleep one night soon. See how she responds to daddy bringing her a bottle when she wakes up, and she's expecting the boob. She normally isn't receptive to it AT ALL. So should be interesting for daddy. Good man!

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...

Thanksgiving in NJ and the holiday weekend

We went to my parents place for Thanksgiving. It was just the 5 of us since Diana is in LA, and only dinner (well, lunch) for 4 since Carolina doesn't eat Thanksgiving food yet.

Miss Carolina wasn't really into sleeping in a bed that wasn't hers. She did nap, sort of. Then went to sleep around normal time, but after waking up twice inside of 5 hours, she decided she wanted to stay awake. So we took turns going to put the chupon back in her mouth and try to get her to fall asleep over the next hour to hour and a half. Sometime around 2am she fell asleep, for 5 hours. Phew... At least there was some decent sleep even if the three of us were totally tired the next day. But it was different, and a little better in some way, than the month before when we stayed over without Ismael over Halloween.

As Julia says, in a few months it'll be different. Not necessarily better, might be, but definitely different.

I'm completely expecting that when we get to Mexico for two weeks, it'll be different in ways I can't imagine now and then when we return it'll be different again.

At least, every month, it is different. Mostly for the better as far as I am concerned.

Today is her 6 month 'birthday'. Hooray!

Carolina has taken to sucking in her bottom lip. I think she feels the little teeth coming up. It's a little strange to see her like that since it really does change her face and she's not smiling or talking when she does it. She was pretty silent that way yesterday on the way back from Target. The entire bus ride.

Speaking of Target. We bought some diapers there. Not Target brand, I'm not ready to try store brands yet. But we bought a HUGE case of Pampers from Toys R Us, which I love (Pampers not TRU), and they smelled kind of funny. And when she peed in them they smelled almost like paint thinner or paint. It was the kind of smell that goes to the back of your throat and gives you a headache behind your eyes. Or at least did me. So I wrote to Pampers, they're looking into it. We may get our money back. I hope so, those huge boxes of diapers are kind of expensive even though they are cheaper per diaper.

In the meantime we've tried Luvs (not too much of a fan but willing to finish using the pack) and just bought Huggies without fragrance and organic cotton. I honestly was more interested in the lack of scent than anything else. Why baby diapers MUST come with some fragrance, I'm not sure. I know it's to mask the pee or poop smell, but the mix of "baby powder fresh" and pee or poop is actually headache-inducing. At least for me.

So we'll keep trying out different brands in case the Pampers saga doesn't end the way I hope.

And we're about to start introducing formula. SLOWLY...

A nighttime bottle has gone disastrously so far, but we'll keep at it. Sometimes. It's hard to hear her cry so heartily and earnestly and know that I could just feed her myself and she'd be fed and asleep inside of 6 minutes. So I need to get determined about it and just do it.

Ok, she's up again.

Held the bottle on her own, chats with herself after naps

Today, Carolina held her morning bottle all by herself and fed herself the entire 2 oz. Now for a nearly-6-mo-old that's not a lot of milk but she's not that keen on the bottle and it's also when she gets a little bowl of rice cereal.

Next step is to get her to take a bottle during the night (like when she was younger) and then move on to re-introduce formula, plus other cereals and some strained apples or carrots or something. This way she will no longer be breastfeeding sometime in the next 5-6 months. I'm a little sad at that thought now that we finally have a system between us that works so well. And I do enjoy, as much as I am exhausted, the late-night feedings. Some days much less enjoyment than others, of course ;) But that's for me to figure out with Carolina over the next months...

We are really proud of her, of course, with this bottle feeding this morning. The way you can only be as a parent, and in the same way we're proud of her when she does a good poop or burp or laughs or talks or smiles. It's the little things, which are quite big things. It's the signs of progress towards her moving through baby towards being a little girl.

I'm also glad she hasn't gotten sick yet. I still take her into the city a few times a week, and she may or may not nap if we're out for longer than 2 hours. (Just ask Jee about the adventure, or lack thereof, we had in Central Park in the rain last week.) With all that subway and bus exposure, I keep telling myself it's just a matter of time before she gets something from someone who doesn't know how to sneeze or cough in public and just lets it out everywhere. I swear some people...

Also, the past few weeks, I've noticed she talks to herself when she's just woken up from a nap. Or at night, if she's too awake to fall asleep right away (I leave her in the room), she will be in there having some grand conversation. And then at some point she usually just falls asleep. Sometimes she isn't quite ready and starts to cry, at which point I go in to put the chupon in her mouth and then she's almost immediately asleep. I'm careful about when I go back in, if I go back in at all. I don't want to start any bad habits that I'm not prepared to maintain :)

I think it's great that she can entertain herself so nicely.

She's also on the verge of figuring out how to sit up on her own and crawl. She has all the mechanics down for crawling, she just has to get the strength and coordination. But she's well on her way.

Even though she's mastered a very irritating whine, she's also started to laugh more. So as teething gets bad, she also gets more interesting. I guess it's a good balance so I don't lose my mind and she gets the attention she needs from me.

I should go start dinner, Ismael will be home soon...