Happy New Year!

We had a good New Year's Eve this year. It was the first one we've spent at home in a couple of years. Maybe even since Carter was born, now that I think of it.

Doug and my first date was on New Year's Eve 22 years ago, and we went to a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant, so our tradition all these years has been to go to a teppanyaki place on New Year's Eve. We went to a place down the street from our house.

Carter has always been pretty good about being patient in restaurants, but lately we've found that we can take him to places where he has to wait a little longer than before. This has helped us expand our repertoire of eateries quite a bit!

Of course, the phone helps a lot.



Carter enjoyed watching the chef cook, though he didn't like the fire. He put his hands over his eyes at that part.



He likes noodles. Oddly enough, he doesn't like rice. We've never been able to get him to eat it.



Here is one of Carter and me.



We went home and had our own little New Year's Eve party. Doug had bought some champagne, and I had gotten some balloons and noisemakers. We put on some music, blew up the balloons, and danced and had fun. Carter's current favorite song is "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black-Eyed Peas, so we had to play it over and over and over...



Carter fell asleep in my arms at some point, and I put him to bed without even putting his PJs on. That is why he's still wearing the same shirt in the following New Year's day pictures! We got up the next morning and made waffles for breakfast. He really wanted to me me make the batter, and he was actually helpful!







And then we got to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Mmmm!



Here are a couple of cute videos from today of Carter riding his balance bike. He's getting very good!





He hasn't had a nap since before Christmas. He just suddenly dropped naps, and he goes to sleep early instead. It's weird, but we're getting used to it! It's seemed to be coming for a long time, but I'm starting to think this is really it now. He'll sleep 12-13 hours overnight, so he's definitely getting plenty of sleep, and he doesn't even get cranky in the afternoons.

I've been paying more attention to his reading lately, and he can definitely read a handful of words. He'll also sound out all of the letters in a word, but he won't necessarily put them all together. He's getting there, though, and he definitely seems to be a little interested right now, so I'm trying to take advantage of it.

I think that's it for now. Happy New Year, everyone!

NaBloPoMo 2/30: Sleep and counting

Something I've read over and over in the last almost-three years that I've been a parent is that babies' and toddlers' sleep is very indicative of their development. When their sleep becomes disturbed (lots of nightwaking, needing mama, needing help getting settled back down, etc.), it's because they're in some sort of developmental phase. It might be physical (crawling, walking) or cognitive (preceding a language jump, a shift in perception, etc.). Parents tend to freak out and try to get these phases to stop, but if you just go with them and know that they're important and developmentally normal, and respond supportively, they'll resolve themselves.

And the thing is, in my experience this is totally true. They last a few weeks, and just when I've gotten used to waking up several times a night to a kiddo who wants to nurse or convince me to get up and play, it stops. He suddenly sleeps solidly through the night again, and there's always some amazing shift in what he can say and do. We've just come out of one of those phases, and for the last week Carter's been sleeping soundly again. The first two nights, I actually woke up periodically to make sure he was breathing!

What seems to have changed this time is a shift in the ways he understands number. Before he was counting sort of haphazardly, and though he understood the idea of one-to-one correspondence and would point to things when he counted, he didn't keep track of what he counted. He would count the same set of objects and get a different number every time, and would count the same object multiple times. Now he has some strategies for keeping track of what he's counted, and when the number of objects is less than ten, gets it right a lot of the time. He can also look at a set of two or three objects and immediately identify its number without having to count.

Tonight he had two toothbrushes (he likes to brush with several at once), and said, "Carter has two toothbrushes." Then he saw a third one on the counter and pointed to it and said, "I want THREE toothbrushes!" It was interesting to me that he did this without counting, so he seems to understand that 2+1=3.

There are other things in his language that have subtly changed. He's using verb tenses and pronouns correctly more and more often, and his sentences are increasingly longer and more complicated. I recently watched some videos of him from a year ago, and it was interesting to see how different his language use was then. He was still signing a lot when he talked, and his sentences were mostly two-word structures. It's amazing how much they learn in a year!

Big Boy Chair and other gradual changes

I meant to include these pictures in the last post, but they were overlooked somehow. So, bonus quick post!

Carter outgrew his high chair a while back, and we rigged up a booster seat on an old kitchen chair for him. I covered the fabric seat with plastic so it would be cleanable, which helped, but it wasn't really ideal. It gave Carter the freedom to get in and out of the chair as he wanted, though, and that was the idea.



But he finally started to outgrow this set-up. In particular, he wanted to rest his feet on the chair, which meant his knees were up too high to push the chair all the way up to the table. The big chairs at our kitchen table swivel and roll and are a bit top heavy, so we didn't think he was ready for one of those yet. I did some looking around and found a chair I really liked for him. We call it the big boy chair!



The seat and footrest are adjustable, and you can even configure it for an adult, so we should get a lot of use out of it. Carter likes it too!



It's funny how things change so gradually with a child. It wasn't that long ago that I couldn't imagine putting his food on the table itself, because he dumped things out and smeared them everywhere. I'm not exactly sure when that changed, but now he's eating with us at the table. He even uses utensils most of the time these days! Now if only I could get him to eat more than the occasional vegetable...

This is a cute painting Carter and Michelle made the other day. They used fingerpaints.



Carter is only napping a couple of days a week now. He even refuses to nap for Michelle now, and she always had the magic nap touch! But he easily goes to bed a few hours earlier on those no nap days, so it works fine. Of course, this means we get less time to spend together in the evenings, which is sad for me. On Wednesday I worked until 5:30, and Carter fell asleep in my arms at 6:00. I laid him on the bed in the guest bedroom, figuring he was just taking a late nap, but that was it -- he was down for the night. He was still asleep when I left for work this morning. He's done that several times now.

At some point over the summer, my leaving him stopped being traumatic. It basically happened overnight, and it was like he suddenly understood that Mommy was only going to be gone for a little while and would come back. He just had to get to the point that he understood that, and it's been fine since. For two years I would sneak around as quietly as I could while getting ready on my work mornings, hoping against hope that he wouldn't wake up before I left, to avoid the awful scene. Now it's the other way around. I don't intentionally wake him up, but I'm always relieved when he stumbles sleepily into the bathroom while I'm getting ready. I like our leaving routine in the morning, and I now feel bad that I don't get to give him that hug and kiss and say goodbye for the day.

Here's a video from last week. Carter has always liked pinwheels, but struggles to blow them hard enough to make them spin. So you can imagine his delight when he discovered another way to make them spin:



We're off to New York on the morning, where I hear it is actually fall! There will be pictures at some point, so stay tuned!

End of spring break!

I thought I'd blog more this week, but I stayed busy playing with Carter! We had a lot of fun this week, and I dread having to leave him for a few days a week again. I love spending time with him and playing with him, and being away from him is just painful. It makes me appreciate the time I have with him even more.

We did lots of fun things this week. We spent a lot of time away form the house on Wednesday and Thursday because there were workers on the roof all day along, and they made a lot of noise! We went swimming, and found places out and about to play. On Thursday we spent the afternoon at the park in our neighborhood. Carter has a toy Ferrari that Doug got for him, and he wanted to play with that.





I find it hilarious that he had all this playground equipment available to him, and what he he wanted to do most was roll his car around!



He also played with a basketball after watching some older boys playing. He just wasn't quite sure what to do with the ball!



He really enjoyed playing with a little girl's scooter, too. He would climb on it and balance, though I didn't manage to get a picture of that.



It probably looks like fall in these pictures. Live oaks shed their leaves in the spring, so we get lots of leaves in March every year in stead of in the fall.

Carter had a lot of fun picking flowers too. He would pick them and then pick all the petals off, and then ask me to "fix" the flower, heh.





I love that we have such a great park in our neighborhood! We have direct access to it from a gate in our backyard, but the path is all grown over, so we walk all the way around to get there. I've thought about clearing it out, but I'm not sure I actually want it to be that easy for anyone to get into our yard from the park, you know?

Today was Carter's third day this week with no nap. Even Michelle couldn't get him to take one today, after going swimming, no less. It's starting to be a trend, so I'm guessing we're really heading toward dropping a nap. He doesn't even get particularly cranky on those days; he just never gets tired.

He goes to bed two hours earlier on no-nap days, which has its benefits, but I miss playing with him in the evenings. Today we spent the whole day away from Carter, got home around 5:30, and then started getting him ready for bed at 7:30. He was asleep by 8:00 (he normally goes to bed around 10:00), so that's two whole hours we usually get to spend with him that we don't get today. I know that's normal for people who work full time, but for us it's completely not! He'll sleep until at least 8:00 am, which is when he normally gets up. It's funny how he sleeps almost exactly 12 hours out of every 24 -- either 12 hours straight with no nap, 10 hours overnight and a 2-hour nap, or 9 hours overnight and a 3-hour nap.

In other news, no new car yet. Doug and I spent the day test driving, and all I learned was that I have very expensive taste. :-P

Assorted pics from a beautiful Sunday

Three posts in three days! I know, crazy, right? Classes start this week, so I will probably slow down again soon. I took a bunch of pictures today, so here is a post about what we did today to go along with them.

I bought these train tracks at IKEA a while back, and then later thought about doing some sort of train table. Carter loves train tables when he gets a chance to play on them, but they take up so much space and you can't exactly put them away easily. So I never did get one, and I'm actually really glad now. When Carter wants to play with his trains, he gets the tracks out of the bin and starts trying to put them together. It's cute to watch him do this! Eventually I help and we build some sort of loop.



When he's done we can put them away and have plenty of space to play with other things. I also discovered this morning that the Thomas brand trains made for wooden tracks fit on the IKEA tracks, yay! That's awesome because Carter is really getting into Thomas now.

He's totally obsessed with anything related to the alphabet now. He loves the ABC song, and there are tons of videos on YouTube of the ABC song. This one with Elmo is his current favorite. He will literally watch it for 20 minutes, over and over. Every time it ends, he says, "Again! More ABC song!"



He has alphabet books, alphabet puzzles, alphabet blocks, alphabet magnets, and alphabet bath stickers. He is totally obsessed! It's pretty awesome. :-)

Today was a gorgeous day, just perfect. It's sunny and mid-60s, and it was a wonderful day to spend some time outside. We decided to go to Champion Park in Cedar Park (the town just to the north of us) this afternoon. It was a park we haven't been to before, and the pictures I'd seen of it online looked like fun. It's on the Williamson County walking trail, which is a beautiful hiking trail that follows a creek and winds along the side of a lake. The play areas in this park are cool and really unusual. There's a rock climbing area:



And a huge sand pit with dinosaur "fossils" buried in the sand and lots of digging toys:



Oddly enough, Carter was completely uninterested in the sand today. Instead, he wanted to run around in the open space.



We walked around the park's walking trail, and he loved it!



Here he's checking out some deer tracks we found. When I pointed them out and said they were tracks, he immediately dropped to his knees and started crawling along the tracks, saying, "Follow the tracks!" He got that from an episode of Nio Hao, Kai-Lan. Who says TV isn't educational? ;-)



After a loop around the park he slowed down and seemed to be getting tired, so we decided to head for home. On the way we stopped at the McDonald's in Avery Ranch (a subdivision in Cedar Park) for ice cream, and OMG: that is seriously the nicest McDonald's I've ever seen! The inside was gorgeous, with a fireplace and water features and cushy chairs. It's one of the ones that's trying to be a coffee shop, and wow, it was really inviting. The playground on the outside was probably the coolest McDonald's playground I've seen.



It had an African safari theme, which is awesome on its own, but it was also toddler-friendly!





This is now my favorite McDonald's! Here Carter is enjoying some ice cream:



It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon. This is what I love about living in a warm place: We go right from fall to spring! People always say, "Don't you miss having seasons?" We have seasons here. Just not the ones that suck. ;-)

He's taking a really late nap right now. Our sleep schedule is all off after our travels, heh. He's been going to bed around 11:30 and getting up between 9:30 and 10:00, so he naps from 4:00-6:00. Now that I have to start getting up early a couple of days a week it'll get adjusted back to something more normal. It's actually been fun to stay up late and sleep late with him, though. He always sleeps 10 hours, regardless of when he goes to sleep, and then naps about 6 hours after he gets up for 2-3 hours. For a kid with no set schedule, he's very predictable!

Jet lag, new words

We've been home for a few days now, and Carter's still pretty jet-lagged. The first two nights, he woke up at 3:00 and 3:30. He normally sleeps until 8:00 am, so that's actually not too far off from the time zone we were just in. My strategy for getting over jet lag is just to force myself into a regular routine, but that's just not going to work with Carter, obviously! He went to sleep at 6:20 tonight, and I'm pretty sure he's down for the night. Last night he went to bed at 7:30, so I was totally unprepared. He hasn't had a bath and is still in his regular clothes, but oh well.

I've been thinking about how much Carter changed during the trip, and now I finally have a chance to sit down and write about it. He made a huge leap during those three weeks, and I guess we'll never know if it was just a coincidence that it happened during the trip, or if all the new experiences he was having pushed him in that direction earlier than would have happened otherwise. I'm inclined to think the latter, because it was just so dramatic.

Before the trip, I was really concerned about his fine motor skills. He didn't really have a good pincer grasp, he wasn't pointing at objects, and he wasn't really attempting to manipulate small things with his hands much. About a week into the trip, he started doing all of those things, all at once. Now he points constantly, wanting you to tell him the name of the object, or to take him closer to it so he can see it. When he's being carried, he points in the direction he wants to go. He points at things he wants and then signs "want".

His language skills also made a big jump. At some point during the trip, I became aware that he understood a lot of what I was saying, a lot more than he did just a few weeks ago. Maybe he understood before that, but he started responding to what I said in ways that demonstrated he understood, rather than just staring at me blankly. I could suddenly talk to him, rather than just make cutesy cooing sounds at him, and that made him suddenly seem much more like a child than a baby.

He has started soaking up a lot of words lately, which is a lot of fun. He now consistently says "kitty", "doggy", "bird", "wow", "door", and "uh-oh" (he likes that one a lot). He will hold the phone up to his ear and say "hello". He will also repeat words when you say them first, though many of them don't stick so quickly. This morning he said "Good morning" back to me when I said it to him, and he's also said "pool", "window", "outside", and "chair". He babbles a lot, in that toddler way that sounds like they're making up their own language.

In general, he's communicating in a way he didn't a few weeks ago. For example, this afternoon, we were playing on the bed, and he signed "book". I said, "Oh, do you want to read a book now?" and he smiled and giggled, which is the way he says "yes". He always seems so delighted when he is able to tell us what he wants, and it's so sweet! That would have been an unimaginable exchange to me just a few weeks ago, and now it happens all the time. It's really cool!

I think that in addition to him getting better at communicating, I'm getting better at understanding him. Maybe being away from home helped that. In an environment where we didn't have much to do but relax and hang out, we all paid more attention to each other, and that undoubtedly helped us all learn to communicate better. For example, I learned on this trip that Carter can decide when to take a nap and when to go to bed at night on his own. When he's ready, he will let me know by climbing in my lap and snuggling in a very specific way, and he'll then go to sleep very quickly once we snuggle up to nurse. If I try to get him to nap before he's ready, it will be a struggle. He's definitely very independent! It's easier just to wait and let him decide when he's tired enough. That may sound really strange, but it works so well!

Even though he's not walking yet, he's made some progress in his gross motor skills as well. He can get on and off the couch on his own, can climb up and down stairs, and climbs on everything. He's not a risk-taker when he climbs, which is a relief. He's very cautious, and though he will occasionally make a mistake and take a spill, he is generally very much in control. I feel like I can trust him to decide when he's ready to do something like get off of a bed on his own, because he is very careful about it.

He's also started trying to figure out what objects are for. For example, doors are for closing and opening, flatware is for scooping up food, phones are for holding to your ear and talking to, remote controls are for pointing at the TV, and so on. I got him play kitchen recently and put it together today, and I had to go dig up extra screwdrivers because he wanted to help. He would take a screwdriver and stick it in the holes in the toy and twist it around, just like I was doing. It was really sweet!



He likes his kitchen, by the way. It's so cute! I've been meaning to get this one for him ever since he fell in love with it at someone's house a few months ago, and I found it recently at a store. He loves it!



The back is a little living room set-up.



I need to go through his toys and pull out a lot of the baby ones he doesn't play with anymore. We have SO many toys at this point, and it's time to do a little culling...

Anyway, Carter is growing and changing in such amazing ways, and I'm loving every minute of it. I occasionally have moments when I miss my tiny little baby, but when I see the little boy he is becoming, it's so exciting! I can't wait to see what he'll do next. :-)

Late night update

Carter is going through a really nice sleep phase at the moment. After several weeks of fighting going to sleep, he stopped fighting in the last week, and now is really easy to get to sleep. I didn't do anything differently; he just seemed to grow out of the most recent fighting phase. I'm sure it will return, but for now I'm enjoying the ease of bedtime.

He's almost too big for his little IKEA tub now, so I have set up the tub in his bathroom with all sorts of fun stuff. (I'll take a picture tomorrow.) Tonight was the first bath in the big tub, and it went really well. He seemed confused about why we were in there, but excited to have new bath toys. He didn't tear around the tub like I expected to, but sat there fairly quietly while I washed him.

He is signing more and more, but seems more interested in making up his own signs than using mine. That's fine, but it means I have to figure out what the heck he's trying to tell me. It's all about context. He uses the sign for "milk" (opening and closing a fist) as the basis for all his signs. If he holds his fist close to his body and in a vertical position, it means he wants to nurse. If he holds his fist palm-down and points it towards something while making the milk sign, it means "want". Doing that at the dinner table generally means he wants more of something, or wants some of whatever I'm currently eating. If he does it at the cat, it means he wants to pet her. Et cetera. If he holds his fist palm-up, it means "light". (That one is actually somewhat close to the real sign for light, which we started working on last week.) He will also make a very tight fist every now and then, which indicates he has pooped in his diaper. Every now and then when we ask him if he's pooped and make the sign, he will shake his head "no" or will make the sign back. He's not terribly consistent about it yet, but it's interesting that it works sometimes!

You may have noticed that I started a Twitter feed for Carter. It's embedded on the left side of this journal, and you can also follow it if you have a twitter account of your own. It's been fun so far! I'm enjoying trying to write from his perspective. :-)

Busy boy!

I started this post last night, and it was interrupted when I dashed across the room to grab something dangerous away from Carter... and broke my toe. So we spent our Saturday night at Urgent Care, unfortunately. On the bright side, Carter was amazingly patient, considering that we dragged him out at 7:30 pm and didn't get him home to bed until almost 11:00!

One of the great things about him is that he is a very social baby and loves to go out. If he's fussy and whiny, a sure cure for it is to take him outside to look at nature, or to take him to a busy place where he can see lots of people and action. So happily, he was fascinated enough by everything he saw at the Urgent Care center and in the little room we were stuck in for a while to keep him mostly entertained.

I fractured one of the bones in my right pinky toe, and there isn't much you can do about that but keep it taped to the next toe and wait for it to heal. I can't put any weight on it yet -- it's amazing how much you use that little tiny toe to walk. I have crutches, and we've moved down to the guest bedroom on the first floor for a while. The sad thing is that I won't be able to carry Carter around or help him walk much for a couple of weeks. Fortunately he's pretty mobile now and can follow me around.

Carter is really busy these days, and it's so much fun to watch. He's crawling all over the place, and pulling up on everything. If he had his way, he would spend most of his time standing. Even when his legs get tired, he'll keep standing. This is a cute video I took the other day that shows him standing by his toy box, falling down, and pulling up again. I also caught something on this video I'd been hoping to catch for a while: Carter saying "kee" for kitty!



Here are a few pictures from the last few days. On New Year's Eve we went out to a Japanese teppan-yaki restaurant, which was where we went on our first date -- 20 years ago exactly! We dressed Carter up for the occasion, and he really liked watching all the action.





He ate really well too. He especially liked the steak, as always, but he tried some scallop, veggies, and fried rice as well.

I wrote a bit about his mobility above; here are a few pictures of him getting around the house. Here he is in the kitchen, a space he's just discovered. I think he will be underfoot while we're cooking from now on. The space we've baby-proofed is our living area, which is open to the kitchen, and there's really no way of keeping him out of it.



Here he is playing on Doug's briefcase:





He's starting to get used to a little independence, which is cute, but also really brings out his stubborn side. ;-)

He's just hit the stage where he really, really fights going to sleep. Everything I've read says that this is totally normal for babies who are working on standing and walking, and after doing some reading about it, I think it isn't as bad as it could be. He doesn't wake up any more than normal at night, but it's suddenly gotten a lot harder to get him to sleep, especially at night. It's like he's afraid he'll miss something if he goes to sleep, so he fights really hard to keep himself awake. If Doug and I both lie down with him, he'll actually go to sleep pretty quickly. I guess he figures the night is over at that point.

The single biggest lesson I have learned as a parent this year is that any behavior, whether negative or positive, is only going to last a short while. If he's happy and content to play on the floor, I should enjoy it while it lasts. If he's fussy and fighting sleep, it will change soon enough. There's not much I can do but support him and help him ride it out.

The mantra I keep repeating to myself is that when he's fussy, he is communicating to me in the only way he knows how that he is struggling with something and needs help. That helps me push my impatience aside, I've found. Sometimes he just needs to be reassured that I'm there while he struggles with something, and sometimes he needs more attention. Surprisingly, I feel like I am getting really good at figuring out what he needs!

Now if only my toe would heal super-quick...

Quick trip to San Antonio

We went down to San Antonio on Friday afternoon to go see AC/DC. You can read more about that experience on my personal blog here. It was the first time in several months that we've left Carter with a sitter in the evening, and we weren't sure how it would go. We found the sitter through a San Antonio nanny agency, and she was really nice. Carter smiled at her immediately, and apparently they had a lot of fun.

At least, until it got close to bedtime. Our bedtime routine is a bath followed by some cuddle time and nursing, and so obviously that is something my presence is required for. The sitter said it was pretty rough, and that Carter didn't really go to sleep until 10:30. Poor baby! The last time he had a sitter at night was back before we were really worrying about a bedtime routine, and he'd just go to sleep whenever he was ready, usually in my arms. He had several sitters who never had a problem getting him to go to sleep in hotel rooms. And he naps for his nanny during the day with no problem. In fact, I think he naps better for her than he does for me. So maybe the problem was more that he didn't know the sitter than the fact that I wasn't there.

But I don't mind that he needs me to go to sleep at night, not at all. This time of his life is going to pass so quickly, and I want to enjoy every moment of it. :-)

We met up with Rita and her son Sam the next morning at a McDonald's for breakfast. It's funny how my perception of McDonald's has changed. Now that they have cafes with decent coffee drinks and really cool playgrounds, they are looking more and more like a place I want to hang out! Here are a couple of pictures:





Sam just turned 2, which is so hard to believe! He's such a happy and active little guy. I hadn't seen him since he really started talking well, and it was neat to hear him say things other than "no" (LOL).

The rest of the weekend has been spent relaxing around the house. We went out for sushi last night, and Carter had some tempura veggies and a piece of a sushi roll. It's so much fun to take him out these days, and he really loves being out in new places with lots of people. Today we've hung out. Carter and I took a nap together, which was nice. Doug is cooking one of my favorite dishes for dinner, a braised beef dish form one of Mario Batali's cookbooks.

Carter's two top teeth are now visible, which means he's over another teething hump for now. He's slept a lot better in the last couple of days, and seems generally happier. He's starting to pull up now and loves to stand. He will hold onto the ottoman and stand for a long time, and will occasionally take steps to either side, but he's not really cruising yet, as you can see in this video:



He is still getting used to falling on his butt, though, and he will start to cry a little every time it happens. The first few times he wailed like he was really hurt, but I think it just scared him. He's getting used to it slowly. :-)

Dadadadada...

This is what Carter has been saying ALL day. "Dadadadada". He seems to be on a one-syllable kick. He says it instead of "Mamamama" now, and under the very same circumstances. It's making me think that the "Mamamamama" of the last couple of weeks was just a coincidence, and had nothing to do with me. :-/

He's been babbling a lot in the last couple of days, which is really interesting. He was so quiet for a couple of weeks that hearing him chatter so much is sort of strange. He also rolls all over the floor, and is incredibly wiggly. Ever since we got back from NC, his bedtime has been all screwed up. The last couple of nights, we've gotten him ready for bed between 6:30 and 7:00 as usual, but he won't go to sleep. He ends up staying up with us until about 9:00. He's right at that 37 week mark, which is famous for its sleep disruptions.

He LOVES to walk right now and will walk all around the house if you hold his hands. He takes big steps, and it's so cute! I'll try to get that on video soon.

Finally, here are a couple of pictures from tonight's dinner, during which Carter had corn on the cob for the first time. He managed to get some corn off, even though he only has the two teeth.

November 19: Nightmares?

I wasn't sure what I was going to post about today until about a half hour ago, heh.

Carter is usually pretty easy to get to sleep these days. Our bedtime routine starts between 6:30-7:00, whenever he starts to seem a little sleepy. We go upstairs, have a nice long bath, and spend some extra time playing in the water. Then dry off, get in PJs, lie down in bed, and nurse. He usually drops off within five minutes.

He will then wake up once within an hour of going to sleep. I watch for it on the monitor, and when he starts to stir I go back up, lie down with him again, and nurse or cuddle him back to sleep. It's usually pretty quick, and after that he's almost always good for the night.

But sometimes, it's not so easy. Some nights he's overtired and has a really hard time settling down. He will thrash his arms and kick his legs and make lots of noise, almost as if he's trying to keep himself awake. I've learned that I just have to wait him out on those nights. He'll eventually fall asleep; I just have to be quiet and patient.

And then there are nights like tonight. He went to sleep quickly, as usual, and then woke up, as usual. I nursed him back to sleep, and was just about to slip away when he started to cry. He was asleep one moment and then crying the next, a full-out wailing sobbing cry. He was inconsolable too; no amount of hugging or cuddling seemed to help. I'm not sure, but I think he's having a nightmare when that happens. I finally got up and walked around with him, thinking that if he just woke up enough to realize whatever he dreamed about wasn't real, that he was here with Mommy and safe, he'd be fine. And he was. He even smiled at me when we got back in bed, and went to sleep quickly.

It must be weird for a baby to have nightmares, though. Even as an adult, I sometimes have a hard time shaking off a nightmare, particularly when they're vivid. But a baby would have no concept of reality vs. dreams, right? Does he even understand what a dream is, and that it isn't real? It could very well seem real to him. And Carter has stuff to have nightmares about, sadly. I'm sure some part of his brain remembers his time in the NICU, and all the times he got stuck with needles and poked and prodded, IVs put in, and so on.

I can see him on the monitor now, and he's sleeping peacefully. I can't help but wonder what he dreams about.

November 10: Lunch with old friends, sleep

Today Carter and I had lunch with Alexandra Holland, her husband Steve, and their two children Adam and Heather. They used to live here in Austin and now live in Asheville, NC, and were here visiting for a wedding. But Alexandra and I go waaay back: we were in Girl Scouts together in the 4th grade, and went to school together for 8 years before college sent us our separate ways. She is the only person from high school that I've kept in touch with all this time!

It was good to see them, and for them to meet Carter. He was particularly fond of their six-year-old daughter, who made faces at him and made him laugh. He had a tortilla for lunch and was basically a perfect little angel the entire time. I think I really need to enjoy this phase where he is happy to sit quietly in the high chair and play with food for a half hour at a time. I'm sure it won't last too long...

Anyway, we had great fun catching up. Steve took lots of pictures, and I'll post some when they can send them to me. :-)

We've now been putting Carter to bed around 7:00 for about two weeks now, and it's working really well. Bedtime is hardly ever a battle any more, which is such a relief. Naptime, however, is still a mystery. Sunday, Carter took a single 3.5 hour nap. Today, he had two half-hour naps, and then was so exhausted at 3:00 that I was determined to get him to sleep. He fought, and fought, and I walked around, and rocked him and patted him and nursed him, and he finally fell asleep at 4:00. :-P I decided to wake him up at 5:30 so that his bedtime wouldn't be affected too much.

It's funny that if I read his signals and time it just right, he'll fall asleep easily and nap for two hours. But if I miss the window, man... unhappiness!

Changing the subject yet again, here is a picture from dinner tonight. Now, prior to having a child of my own, I could never figure out why people would take pictures of their children after eating, with food smeared all over their faces. I thought they were gross. But now that I have my own child? OMG, so cute! Funny how your perspective changes.



That one is a bit blurry, but it was the best of the bunch. It's hard to capture him in action sometimes! We had Pasta alla Norma (an Italian specialty of mine), salad, and bread, and Carter had a little bit of each. In that picture, he has some pasta sticking out of his mouth and salad in both hands. Watching him feed himself is so much fun, I swear. I think he's actually consuming a little bit too, because (TMI here) the consistency of his poop is distinctly different after certain meals. At this point, I pretty much give him a little bit of something a couple of meals a day. The only things I'm avoiding are dairy, nuts, citrus, sugary things, and shellfish. And honey, obviously. He seems to like just about everything so far. :-)

November 6: Sleeping, teething

This is my 101st post in this blog, which is actually really amazing considering that it was started in early March, eight months ago. That works out to an average of three posts a week. :-)

Carter is on the verge of getting those two bottom teeth. They are just starting to come through the gums, and you can feel the very tops of them if you can manage to get a finger in his mouth. That's a big change from even last night, so I'm guessing we'll see those teeth over the weekend.

Carter's sleep schedule at night is really starting to take shape. About 10 days ago I started putting him to bed a lot earlier than I had been. It got a little weird with the time change, but now we seem to have settled back out into a 7:00-ish bedtime. He will usually start to get tired between 6:45 and 7:15, so when he starts to tell me he's ready, I take him up for his bath.

Baths are interesting these days. He now likes to sit in the water and play with toys. He has a rubber duckie and some little cups, which he mostly chews on. He will watch me scoop up and pour water, but he hasn't started doing it himself yet. He also doesn't seem as interested in laying back in the water lately. He will sit there and play, and he'll let me know when he's ready to get out by turning toward me and holding up his arms. Sometimes he holds onto the sides of his little tub like he's going to try to pull himself up, but he hasn't tried yet.

We then get dry, dressed, and lie down in bed. By this point, he's usually ready to nurse and go to sleep, and will often drop off within minutes. Sometimes he fights sleep and we will have to read a book first, but by 7:30 he's usually asleep. I then turn on the monitor and slip away.

He's getting used to waking up and being alone. The first couple of nights he cried like he was really scared the moment he realized I wasn't there. I would rush right in when he did, and that seemed to reassure him. A week later, he will wake up and look around, and about half the time he'll go back to sleep on his own. Sometimes he'll need me to go up and comfort him or nurse him. He will usually stay asleep until about 9:30 or 10:00, and when he starts to get really restless, we go upstairs and get into bed, and he settles right back down. He will sleep until about 7:00 am, so he's getting 11-12 hours overnight. This seems to have affected his napping during the day; he no longer takes 3 hour naps. But as long as he seems to get enough sleep, I guess it's fine.

It's been weird for me to have a few hours of Carter-free time in the evenings. At first I wasn't sure what to do with myself! It felt strange not to be with him. But I've started to get used to it. I can wash dishes, work on knitting projects, and get online, basically do the sorts of things I haven't had much time for lately.

How can it almost be November?

I mean, really -- where has the time gone? It's crazy!

Carter has been going to bed with us between 8:00 and 9:00 for months now. In the last week or so, he's started getting sleepy between 6:30 and 7:00, and would often end up falling asleep on the couch and taking a nap that would then push his bedtime back to 10:00. I thought he might be telling me he was ready for an earlier bedtime, and so we've tried that the last few nights.

He starts to get tired around 6:45, and I've been taking him up when he seems ready. He's been falling asleep between 7:15-7:30 for the last few nights. Sometimes he'll stay asleep until we come to bed, at which point he just snuggles in with me and stays right on sleeping. Other times he will wake up an hour later, and we'll just go on up to bed. So far, he's gone right back to sleep when he does wake up, so I think the earlier bedtime is what he needed. I think he's sleeping through the night. It's hard to tell, because we cosleep and so I don't necessarily wake up when he nurses. But I don't remember him doing much nursing at night lately. It doesn't bother me either way, heh.

He's now sleeping about 12 hours at night, and we're now in the process of re-figuring out how much napping he needs during the day. Some days he will take two two-hour naps, and other days he'll take three half-hour naps. He has yet to take a nap today, and he really needs one. We may go for a ride in the car after I type this up...

Feeding is still going well. He had some broccolini last night, and he really seemed to enjoy it:



I think he also finally ate some puffs yesterday. He usually just plays with them, but yesterday afternoon some had definitely disappeared. For a long time he didn't seem convinced those were food. He tasted one once, spit it out, and then just played with them. They don't taste like much, to be honest. They're like little tiny rice cakes. :-P

Here are a couple of cute videos. In the first one, Carter is "petting" Lucy, who is still the World's Most Patient Cat.



I don't know why I think this is funny. Squeaky gums!



Still no sign of teeth. Thankfully. I'm not ready for that yet!

Weight check: 19.6 pounds.

Having some nekkid time!

I have read in several places that it's good to give babies some naked time. It's apparently good for their butts to get some air, but it's also helpful for them to master movement with no clothing in the way. I recently bought a "naked mat" from someone online (basically just a fleecy quilt with a layer of PUL in the middle to make it waterproof) and we've been trying it out.



We've been playing a rolling over game that he's especially good at naked. I haven't figured out how to capture that on video, so you'll have to take my word for it! Basically I put him on his tummy and he immediately rolls onto his back and smiles. I clap for him. Rinse and repeat. He seems to enjoy it! He also has really been wanting to stand lately, and that's been fun. He likes it when I help him dance, too. When Doug gets back, we'll definitely capture that on video.

Carter REALLY likes being diaperless. He seems to enjoy being able to play with his feet without anything getting in the way, and he also enjoys tugging on various extruding body parts that are normally covered by clothing. But the funny thing about naked time is that he will pee literally every 3 or 4 minutes. That diaper you see in the picture wasn't just for modesty. I have to keep one on hand to mop the pee from his face at regular intervals.

I don't know if he is just enjoying peeing into the air or if he really pees that often in his diaper. He seems to be doing it somewhat intentionally, though. He'll get a look of concentration on his face and then a stream of pee will come flying over his body, usually hitting him right in the face. o_0 At least urine is sterile, ya know? But it's sort of annoying to have to wash the mat every time we use it.

Here is a video of him petting the most patient cat in the world. Seriously, Lucy gets an award for Best Cat Ever for putting up with this sort of thing. (Sorry this video is so dark -- my living room doesn't have much light. Also, sorry the volume on the stereo was so loud! We were listening to Sara Hickman.)



She actually lies near him intentionally, whenever she can. She's either completely a masochist, or very desperate for attention, poor kitty.

Here is another short video, showing him unfastening his diaper. He usually doesn't get a chance because he has clothes on. I think this is why so many cloth diaperers prefer snaps on their diapers!



In other news, I've been sick for the last couple of days. I even called in sick to work today, something I hardly ever do. I picked up some miserable cold somewhere. I thought Carter was sounding a little congested last night, but he seemed fine today. So maybe he won't get sick after all. Yay for all the antibodies in breastmilk!

Carter is well into his six-month growth spurt, the one that famously disrupts babies' sleep. He seems to wake up every two hours to nurse overnight, and just started doing that in the last week or so. I'm not sure how long this phase will last. Julie said it was about 6 weeks for Matti, and Donna said Emma has just gotten to this point.

Since we co-sleep, it hasn't been that big a deal. We nurse side-lying, so all I really have to do is help him latch on and then go back to sleep. If he were in a crib in another room, I can see how it would be really painful to have to deal with the frequent wakings for several weeks!

And he's just woke up and is smiling at me. Guess it's time to wrap this up and cuddle with him a bit. :-)

Oh, and weight tonight was 18.6 pounds.

The sun just came out.

The hurricane totally missed us. It was overcast and a little windy today, but we didn't get any rain at all. The sun just came out and brightened up the whole living room. So I guess that's that. Houston got hammered, from what I hear.

Anyway, we just had a relaxing day. Carter's been napping well this week, and that makes bedtime SO much easier. He naps best when he's physically on me, and I find that I really don't mind at all. It's actually nice to get a few hours of cuddle time with him every day, and once he's asleep I can surf the web and check email, or just nap right along with him. Having a little time away from him a few days a week has really allowed me to relax and enjoy the days I spend with him even more.

He's been a little more relaxed lately -- he'd been going through a phase where he needed to be held or entertained pretty much constantly (completely developmentally normal, according to my favorite book The Wonder Weeks). It was pretty exhausting, but now he will play quietly by himself some. He also seems content to sit in my lap and play with a toy, or study his hands, or babble about whatever is on his mind.

Here he is hanging out on the couch. I don't know what it is about this picture, but I love it. I think it's something about the way he's got his leg up in the air!



He's starting squealing loudly when he's happy (or tickled), and it completely freaks the cats out. Lucy will rush over to him with a look of concern and sniff his face, even circle him carefully, as if she's looking for whatever is hurting him. It's very sweet! And he just grins and squeals at her, which freaks her out even more. He's awakened me the last few mornings with his babbling. I would really like to sleep a bit longer, but by 7:30 he's making lots of noise and playing with my nose and hair, and I pretty much have to respond to that. :-P

Carter really likes being outside all of the sudden. If he's crying and nothing else works, taking him out on the deck will always do the trick. The nanny has noticed this as well, and Doug has even braved the mosquitoes at dusk to sit on the deck with him. And since the weather is finally approaching tolerable at certain times of day, I decided to go ahead and get a jogging stroller. I want to start walking with him a few days a week. I really need the exercise, and I think he will like it. We went for a test walk to the mailbox, and he seemed to find it interesting, despite being very hot:



It has speakers built into the canopy so you can plug in an mp3 player and play music for your child. Isn't that wild? I'm just excited about having a cupholder for a water bottle and a place to stash my phone and keys while walking.

In general, Carter seems to be much more aware of the world around him these days. He studies things closely, like his toys, his hands and feet, and our faces and hands. He's suddenly much more adept at using his hands than he used to be; he reaches for things instead of just blindly grabbing for them, for example. He doesn't seem to have the pincer grasp down yet, but he's getting there. He has started playing with things using his feet lately, which is really cute. We have a Taggie soccer ball, and he really likes kicking it while you dangle it over him. He also seems to be watching me a lot more lately. When I am across the room, his eyes are locked on me, and when I'm out of his view, he will sometimes get upset.

He's getting better at sitting all the time. He will now sit upright for a few seconds at a time, something you can see in this photo:



That was taken when we went out to lunch today, once it was clear the weather was going to be fine. I've been trying to put him in restaurant high chairs when we go out, but he doesn't seem to like them much. After just a few minutes, he'll cry and I end up holding him anyway. So today I tried something new. We sat in a booth, and I just sat him next to me, with the diaper bag on the other side of him for some extra support. (As you can see above.) And it seemed to work. We had a fairly leisurely lunch, and he was happy the entire time! It was one of those restaurants with lots of interesting objects hanging from the walls and ceiling, and he spent the entire time staring around.

I think he might feel a bit exposed in a high chair. His preference is to be close to me in new situations, and sitting next to me in the booth seems to provide him the security he needs. I'm sure that will only work for a little while -- when he gets mobile, he won't be content to just sit quietly next to me. But maybe by then he won't mind a high chair as much!

More sitting!

Carter is getting really close to sitting unsupported! He can sit tripod style for several minutes at a time now, which is SO amazing to me. I can actually sit him up and not have to hover over him. When he falls over he usually just rolls right onto his back, no problem.

I took this video of him this morning sitting under the baby gym.



Isn't that amazing? He can hold himself up! Ironically, he's still not that crazy about the Bumbo seat. I put him in it again this morning to see what he would do, and he sat there for a few minutes. But then he started to arch his back and squirm and whine, like he didn't like being restricted, so out he came.

He's been pretty whiny lately and seems to be having trouble sleeping. For the last few days, he's gotten restless and noisy every two hours overnight. He doesn't really seem to wake up, and he'll nurse back to sleep. But it wakes ME up, of course. Ironic that he's doing this just as I'm getting ready to go back to work. Of course, I only have to get up super-early two days a week, so it isn't that bad.

He's started to scream loudly when he's frustrated, and that can be a bit disconcerting. He seems to be starting to want to be more in control of his own movements, and it's frustrating to him that he can't do that. So if he wants to be sitting up and we lay him down, he'll scream. Sometimes it sounds like he's in pain, but if I make a face at him, he'll smile right back, so it's apparently just the way he's decided to communicate his wishes! :-P

From what I've read, this crankiness and sleep difficulty is developmental and completely normal. And it's made me work a bit harder on the sign language, I have to say. I would love to be able to figure out what he wants in a way that doesn't involve that little screech of his.

I'm not sure exactly what he weighs, but I estimate it to be about 17 pounds. I weighed myself and then weighed with him and subtracted, and that was the difference. That seems about right. He's getting heavy!

Oh, and one more thing: We have a crib in our room that Carter starts the night in (he sleeps with us after he wakes the first time), and it has a light-up musical aquarium attached to the rails. Last night around midnight, I was awakened by the following sounds: thwack *music plays for about a second* thwack *silence* thwack *music plays for about a second* thwack *silence* ...

I looked over and saw that Carter was turning the aquarium on and off, over and over. I didn't know he knew how to do that!

Nanny update, growth spurt, sitting, and sleeping

Classes start next week, and Carter had a babysitter for part of the day yesterday so I could go to work and start getting ready. He has a sitter again tomorrow. We're also in the process of trying to hire a part-time nanny. I've interviewed one candidate and have one more to go; I hope we can find someone to start next week. The nanny will be here with Carter Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Wednesday afternoons.

I've got mixed feelings about teaching, of course. I love teaching and am excited to have a class again this fall. I love the idea of working part time, just enough to keep myself active in the field and keep my career options open for when I eventually go back full time, but still be able to spend a lot of time with Carter. I'll have two whole days a week with him, plus half days Tuesday-Thursday. With a nanny, I'll feel confident that he's being well taken care of and getting lots of attention, perhaps even more attention than he would get from me. I'm planning to work from home on some of those Wednesdays, and in addition to doing school work get some organizational stuff done around the house. I'm hoping I can find a good balance here, and I'm know I'm very lucky to be in a position where I can swing just working part time.

Carter seems to be growing and changing constantly! He's finally starting to get better on his tummy, as you can see in the picture below. He only recently figured out how to get his arms under himself and push himself up.



I'm not sure how much he weighs now, but I'd guess between 16.5 and 17 pounds. He's definitely gotten longer recently, because he suddenly got too big for most of his 3 month clothes. He now wears some 3-6 month stuff and a lot of 6 month stuff. It's funny how inconsistent the sizes of baby clothes are. Here he is in a 3 month outfit that just barely fits:



And here he is in a 6 month Bailey Boys outfit that only fits him a little bit better.



I had found some cute fall stuff in 6 month sizes on eBay, but now I'm not sure it will get cool enough for him to wear them before he gets too big! I guess I should have gotten 9 and 12 month stuff. :-P

He's getting better at sitting every day. This video is a little dark (it was storming outside), but it shows that he can sit with very minimal support. He's just holding on to one of my fingers here.



He's also getting better with his hands. This video shows him playing with a toy in his high chair. Before I grabbed the camera, he was turning it around and around and studying it carefully, but as soon as I got the camera he went right back to chewing, of course. :-P



Something else he's started doing lately is fighting sleep, big time. We're on a baby-led schedule, so naps happen when he's ready for them rather than at a fixed time. Of course, just because he's physically ready for a nap doesn't mean he wants to take one. I see all the sleepy cues, but any attempt to lay him down or even nurse him is met with resistance. He settles down after a few minutes, but it's funny that he totally understands what's going on and is fighting it.

This has started to happen at night too. I usually try to start getting him ready for bed between 7:30 and 8:30, depending on when he last napped and when he's starting to get sleepy. We go upstairs, have a bath and put on PJs, read a story, and nurse to sleep in the glider. Once he's out, I transfer him into a crib in our room, and he'll usually be fine until around midnight. (He sleeps with me after that first waking.) Just in the last few days he's started to resist going to sleep, big time. As soon as I sit in the glider, he starts to fuss. Trying to read a book only makes it worse, and laying him across the boppy makes him really get unhappy! He'll literally wail pathetically and nurse at the same time for about a minute, and then he'll settle down, as if he's thinking, "Oh, this is actually kind of nice after all." And then he'll fall asleep really fast, after all that drama. :-P

Doug says he gets that from me -- I've always had a hard time going to sleep at night. So when he's fighting it so hard, I feel for him. I know what it's like to need to go to bed but really, really not want to! :-)

He's really fun to nurse these days. He smiles and plays, and looks around and gets distracted. For a long time he would just lay there and nurse and not really show any emotion, but now it's like a time that we really connect with each other. He's gotten very efficient at nursing, and usually only nurses for 5-10 minutes every few hours. It's funny how at first it seemed like he could nurse 24/7, and now it's something that we don't spend that much time doing. I know that's the way it's supposed to be, but it's still interesting!

Sleep plan, day 2

Tonight was better. I took Carter up around 7:30, when he seemed to be getting tired. I gave him a bath and then did a little infant massage with lotion. (I need to look for a book on that, because I'm not sure I'm doing it very well.) By the time I got him into his PJs, he was sucking on his fist. I attempted to read him a short book, but he was too hungry, so we went right to the nursing.

It was 8:00 by then and he nursed until 8:30. Just as he was starting to drift off to sleep, he pooped. Oddly enough, he did the same thing last night, and he's a once a week pooper, so it's strange that he did it again. Anyway, I had to change his diaper, which woke him up completely, and then we settled down in the glider one more time. He nursed a little more and fell asleep. By 9:00 he was completely out, and I was able to lay him down and sneak out.

It's now 10:15 and he hasn't made a peep, so yay! It's a long bedtime routine, but my reward is several hours to myself, to do laundry or dishes or whatever. It's really nice, especially since Doug has been out of town all week and I've been on baby duty 24/7. I'm hoping this will continue to work, and that once he gets used to the routine it won't take 90 minutes!

Sleep plan: Still a work in progress

So I thought I had a good plan, right? Just like last night, I'd bring Carter upstairs around 7:00, give him a bath, put on his PJs, read him a book, nurse him to sleep, and then gently place him in the pre-warmed cosleeper. All by around 8:00, I figured, which would give me a couple of hours in which to have dinner, straighten up, roll the garbage out to the curb, etc.

Okay, so first of all, I should note that he really didn't nap much today. Yesterday he had like 6 hours of naps, and today? Two hours, total, 8:30-9:30 and 2:45-3:45. He just didn't get sleepy, and then didn't stay asleep. I have no idea why. You'd think that would have made him more tired tonight, but just like the sleep books say, it works the opposite direction.

By 7:00 he was incredibly cranky and rubbing at his eyes, so I decided to skip the bath. I took him upstairs, put him in his PJs, and sat down in the glider with him. He wasn't interested in a book though, only in The Boobie, and he proceeded to nurse like he was starved. By 7:45 he'd had so much milk he was starting to spit up, but he kept nursing, almost desperately. It was like he knew it was something that would help him go to sleep, and he was frustrated that it wasn't working. I totally sympathized!

I rocked him for more than an hour, trying several different holding positions, but nothing was working. Around 9:00 he was really unhappy and I was quite hungry, so I decided that was enough for the night. We went downstairs, and I put him on his boppy lounger while I made dinner. He laid there quietly and watched TV (he likes to watch TV, which is terrifying in itself and warrants a whole 'nother post) while I cooked. I sat next to him on the couch with my dinner, and he watched me eat with a look of quiet curiosity. He didn't look remotely sleepy.

Around 9:45 he got a little wriggly and started chewing on his hands, so I picked him up to nurse him. Within a minute he was out, completely sound asleep, finally! I carried him upstairs and he didn't wake up, which is really unusual. I put him in the still pre-warmed cosleeper, turned on the monitor, and tiptoed away. And then I did all the straightening up I had meant to do, heh.

It's now almost 11:30 and he's still sound asleep. I'm in bed now and he's snoozing away next to me. I think this plan will work eventually, but it's clear that the daytime naps are crucial. :-P