Talking, talking... clever!

Thanksgiving was a very relaxed affair. Carolina helped us call a few family members who don't live by and say "Happy Tanks-giveeng!"

We had to practice that one a few times during the days before Thanksgiving as "Happy Halloween" was her preferred greeting.

During Thanksgiving dinner, Carolina discovered two things:
She prefers ham to turkey, and she LOVES gravy.

So, when she'd run out of ham, she'd say "Mas ham pleeeze!" and when we gave her back her plate with new ham, she'd look at it first and then say, "Mas greevy?"

I had brought her new Christmas outfit (there are two) with the blue dress and white, faux fur coat. When she woke up from her nap, before we ate, we got her dressed in the fancy outfit. Decked out in fancy tights and new, fancy shoes. She was delighted.

Earlier that day, she came into my parents' new bathroom after I took a shower and asked me "What dat name?" (which is her way of saying "What's that called?"; an improvement from "Wha dat?") while pointing to the squeegee in their tub area. I explained it was a squeegee and that you use it to take water off the walls and windows. (The new bathroom has a glass door and wall instead of a shower curtain like we have at home.) The next morning after we got home, Carolina found a plastic piece from a clothing tag (the kind that is straight and then has a perpendicular piece at the end). She came up to me with the piece and says, "move the water away." I had to look at this thing in her hand closely before I realized that she thought it looked like a mini squeegee, and that we had talked about that the day before. Very clever.

One more story: This morning I went into Carolina's room to get her up and she was not only awake (as she normally is), she was quietly standing behind the door. Scared the bejesus out of me. So I quickly composed myself, kneeled down and said, "How did you get out of bed?" She explained in her own way that she got out of the crib, on to the big bed next to it, and climbed down the other side, walked around her crib and then came to look at the elephants on her wall. I then asked, "So you went to look at the elephants and the lion?" She then explained yes, and it was so she could do a "biiiiig poop" while standing up. (Standing up pooping is her preferred method these days. Just ask Aunt Jee.)

We then talked about how going poop in the potty or the big potty is more comfortable and easy since the big potty has water and you hear the poop go "PLOP" and in the little potty you hear a little "plop". So that she should call for mommy or papa when she needs to poop in the morning if we didn't come in yet. She thought that was all hilarious. We'll try using underwear and actually using the potty more than once a day after we get back from Mexico. I think it'll be easier since she'll be another month or two older and we will have time at home (with it snowing or raining or being too cold to go out) to really take the time to get comfortable with the potty. And if she's not ready then, we'll try again before she goes to nursery school in March.

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.