More words, less sleep

So it's official. We've got ourselves a chatty baby. She's been making word sounds since about 2 weeks old but the past two weeks she's really "talking" a lot. It's cute as hell. It also seems to come with the trade off of not being interested in sleeping. In the morning and early hours of the morning are her chattiest.

It also seems to follow that there is an almost constant stream of word sounds just before, and during, a poop as well as when she has some reflux that is about to start. It's almost as if her most talkative corresponds with discomfort.

I hope I'm wrong.

This morning at about 4.30am, just after eating, she decided that unlike her usual routine of going back to sleep, she would talk to us. From the crib. In our room. For about 15 minutes. I just ignored her. And by ignore I mean listened to everything, trying nit to laugh and resisting the urge to pick her up. She eventually fell asleep. Then at a little after 6am, she decided to regale us with some tale of swashbuckling pirates and fair maidens. This is what I made up in head since I was hoping she would just go back to sleep.

Nope!

Her dad picked her up and brought her to the living room. I fell asleep for another 2 hours. I didn't even realize it until I woke up! I was enormously grateful. I was also worried she had been up for nearly 3 hours without eating or sleeping. But she hadn't cried so I knew that couldn't be true. she had napped in the living room and he made her a bottle. Hooray!

Needless to say, we are full speed ahead starting to transition her to her own room. We really think that being in our room is keeping her from sleeping more and more often. I realize that now she's gaining awareness of who I am and she likes to be social. So that discourages her from wanting to sleep, too. But her first sleep of he night is usually 3-4 hours. Then once we go to sleep, she's up every 1.5-2 hours.

She's also decided that the brief foray of sleeping longer while on her stomach is over. She only did it three times. It was great. But if I put her on her belly now, to sleep or to see if she pushes up or does any early-stage crawling, she gets really frustrated and cries.

So I very much feel like we are losing some of the progress she had made.

We are also looking for a new pediatrician. One that is in network and one that has a doctor on call on the weekends who isn't a massive butthead. Our pedi I like. But the main, female doctor in the practice gives me answers that make me feel violent towards her. So I'm calling her a butthead in lieu of the nastier name I usually use for her.

And we are still debating a move, and to where.

We had a nice walk this morning and she got hungry while several blocks from home. So I did my first bare breastfeed in public. The street wasn't that busy and she was in the baby Ergo, so no one walking by or in the houses really saw anything. But we made it work. Go team!

Ok time for a nap...

jersey?

So on friday there wasn't any immunization shot. Just an immunization oral thingy she had to swallow. Poor kid. It's to fend off the flu. Roto virus!

I love, love her pediatrician but I think we'll be looking for a new one that is in network. Every month it's like $300-450 a visit. Shots are bloody expensive.

Speaking of money, I'm beginning to consider moving back to Hoboken. I cringe at the thought of my thinking of it, but it's true. I think it's the only way to avoid the NYC "convenience charge" (aka 4% city tax) and get a lower rent for a two-bedroom apartment. Plus then the little lady's grandparents will visit her more often. I'm still debating if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

The debate is how many people she's exposed to. I'm already realizing that just hanging out with me most of the time means she's only comfortable with me and her dad, and my parents. She's just started, the past two weeks, to really be aware of other people and if she knows them. It's funny how this is developing and I can see it happening.

I mean I know I'm terribly interesting, but she'll be the shyest kid in pre-K if I'm all she knows. So, like, I gotta get some 'mommy friends.' Again, I'm cringing.

I have friends. I like them. That's why they are my friends. They just don't all have kids. Hmmm...

You people reading this blog. Yeah you! You're my friends! Go procreate! Don't make me move back to Jersey and see you once every other month for brunch in Manhattan. With my failed attempts to get you to visit in Jersey. *sigh*

Tell your friends and family. Buy stuff from VivaDM. Maybe we'll get rich. Maybe not. Either way, it'll make my accountant happy. Seriously. He says we need to have income this year or taxes will be a difficult thing. Three years without income. *sigh*

Anyway, enough about my moaning.

She's been talking up a storm. If I could figure out a way to post the audio files, you'd get to hear her. Of course, after I figure out a way to edit them down. Damn they are big from the iPhone m4p file. And she smiles, super smiles, and laughs. She's been smiling since she was about 2 weeks old. But now it's like full on super happy big smiles. often. It's great.

I forget now why I didn't want to have more kids.

Don't tell my husband. He'll have me knocked up again in minutes if he hears this ;)

My sister is coming to visit this weekend. Hooray! Aunt Diana will get to meet Miss Carolina for the second time. Excellent...

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! :)