"high needs" in vs out

tonight, i was talking to a friend about how brady is about 8.5 months old and he's at the point where he's been out about as long as he was in.  i said something like "the strange thing though is that pregnancy was such a breeze and it just flew by and these last eight and a half months have felt like ffffffffoooorrrreeeevvvvvveeeeeerrrrrr."  don't get me wrong, i love my kid, but holy cow, it's been a really, really long 8.5 months."  my friend has a difficult baby like brady so we can relate.  but tonight i just keep thinking about that.  so i finally did the math.  turns out, today exactly, brady is as old as the number of days i was pregnant (well, kinda... the first two weeks of pregnancy are a freebie because the moment you conceive, you're already considered two weeks along... but whatever).  let's be honest here that being pregnant was way easier than actually taking care of a baby.  and i really loved being pregnant so we can also be honest that being pregnant was also frequently more enjoyable than taking care of a baby.  but, still in complete honesty, i anticipate the next 8.5 months to be way more awesome than the previous 17 months... so there.

brady has not been an easy baby at all.  in fact, according to this article about the 12 features of a high needs baby*, brady is as "high needs" as they come.  apparently "high needs" is the politically correct term for that kind of baby.  i read this article and it was as if someone wrote that article specifically about brady.

like this...

Along with their unpredictability, these children show extremes of mood swings. When happy, they are a joy to be around; they are master charmers and people pleasers. When angry, they let everyone around them feel the heat.  

"When he is happy, he is the happiest baby around, but when he is angry he is the worst baby around. He is still that way, sunshine and smiles, anger and daggers. He has no middle emotion." 

The child's unpredictability makes your day unpredictable. Do you take him shopping and risk a mega tantrum when his first grocery grabs are thwarted, or will this be a day when he is the model shopping cart baby, charming everyone at the checkout counter?

i mean seriously!  how many times have i called him bipolar?!  that's why!  he only knows the two extremes of emotion.  i've always said "he's never just quiet, he's only laughing or crying.  thankfully, this is not the case anymore.  well... not as much.  he's still very much bipolar (although thankfully the percentages have shifted and he's now happy and laughing far more than he's fussy and crying) but he's really evened out into a pretty well adjusted kid!

but that article describes his newborn days so perfectly.
1. "intense" - like how he screamed for the first three hours after he was born and every nurse that came in commented on how loud and angry he was.  and they sent us home with five or six of those green pacifiers.  with abigail, we were sent home with zero pacifiers.  brady, they just kept throwing those our way.
2. "hyperactive" - basically, his body didn't have the ability to relax.  his whole body was always flexed and tense, back arched, squirming and wiggling.  i know now that it was from the pain of reflux but holy cow was it exhausting to try to hold him.  and my whole body would ache after trying to feed him because i was trying to contort myself to keep him latched.  i remember sprawling out after nursing him, my whole body completely spent.
3. "draining" - i think of this more like everyday he would completely suck the life out of me.  he took everything i had to offer, and still wanted more.  sucked me dry until i literally had nothing left to give.
4. "feeds frequently" - with abigail, she refused to nurse more frequently than every four hours and it was hard for me to imagine when other people told me their newborn liked to eat every two hours.  with brady, it was like he hated nursing but wanted to do it all the time.  at the height of his difficulty (thankfully for me, while my mom was in town) brady was two weeks old and would nurse so frequently than in a single hour, i couldn't tell you how many times he'd eaten.  even now, i nurse him about every 2.5 hours (when he wakes and before he goes to sleep), plus give him solids.  and he puts down a TON of food.  lunch today was almost an entire avocado, almost an entire pear (abigail got a few bites of each), and oatmeal cereal with a hard boiled egg yolk mixed in.  for a kid barely on the charts.  i'm realizing now that he just requires more food, and more frequently.  thankfully, feeding him tons during the day has directly correlated to longer stretches of sleep at night.  i think the kid was just hungry.  really really hungry.
5. "demanding" - like the article says, it was never a request to be held or be fed, it was positively demanded.  if i had a dollar for every time i said "i feel like a slave to my child."  he was truly a slave driver.  constantly cracking a bull whip.  and he sometimes (wait for the "unpredictable" bullet point) still is.  when he wakes during the night with a dirty diaper and i try to change his diaper before i nurse him, you better believe he is going to scream bloody murder during that entire diaper change... right into that baby monitor.... which i'm sure christopher appreciates.  so now i nurse him on one side, change his diaper, and then nurse on the other side before putting him back in his crib.
6. "awakens frequently" - i actually don't have that many memories of this because i could never get him to sleep in the first place.  but i do know that even the very slightest thing would wake him up and that he wouldn't transfer from my arms to a crib or anywhere else and that his naps were super short and his night time sleep stretches were frequently only an hour.  so umm, i guess i do remember this part after all.  but really, before i started him on zantac... he never slept.  awake for hours and hours and hours on end during the day.  and i remember so many sleep deprived nights where brady "slept" in the moses basket next to our bed and i could go three hours straight just putting a binky back in his mouth after he'd spit it out and cry.  i was doing that about every 15-30 seconds... FOR HOURS.  all. night. long.  then maybe we would sleep for 30 minutes.  but then it was the binky game for a few more hours.  and then back to day time when i was just up and bouncing his crying self all day.  i remember finally looking at the clock one afternoon and thinking, "how could it be?!  it can't be this late in the day!  he most recently woke up before noon!  that was four or five hours ago!"  if he does poorly in school, i am going to attribute it to his severe lack of sleep during those formative newborn days.  i couldn't figure out how to follow an eat play sleep routine when he would constantly eat, never play, and absolutely downright refuse to sleep.
7. "unsatisfied" - how many times did i cry (with brady) in frustration that nothing i did was working?!  i could try every trick in the book and it was just not enough.  no matter how swaddled, bounced, binkied, nursed, etc. that baby was... it just wasn't enough.
8. "unpredictable" - go back and read blog posts from the early days if you want examples but basically, the only thing constant... was change.  the same thing never worked twice and my mom frequently referred to this challenge as brady's "secret combinations."  trying to figure out which combination of things and in which order... next to impossible.  next to "bipolar," "unpredictable" is actually the word i used most to describe him.  brady's like a box of chocolates; you just never know what you're gonna get.
9. "super sensitive" - brady always noticed even the slightest change in lighting or temperature or sound or the way i was holding him.  he was definitely easily bothered and being around him was like walking on eggshells.  i remember my mother in law coming over and, seeing me holding him, saying "well, he doesn't look too fussy right now!" as she smiled at him.  just that she made eye contact with him and smiled at him sent him in full hysterics.  unpredictable and very sensitive.  the times that i took brady to therapy for his arm, the therapist always noticed how perceptive he was to sounds.  she would comment on it that he obviously noticed a sound from the hallway... normally something i didn't ever hear or notice but the therapist caught a ton of those at every appointment.  also, if i was holding him, i couldn't speak in anything above a whisper or he would start screaming.  you wouldn't really think so, but this was hiiiiiiiighly inconvenient.
10. "can't put baby down" - it wasn't just that he needed to be held.  but he needed to be held by a human, that was standing up, and in motion, that would offer a variety of bouncing, rocking, etc changing on a dime, depending on what brady was in the mood for.  a swing wasn't enough, and neither was a bouncer.  and a sling wasn't either.  none of those things can change every ten seconds.  so even though i had one of the most gorgeous newborns to ever grace this planet, i have so few pictures of it because i could never put the kid down.  although the few times it happened, i took a million pictures.  my mom really got in on it too.  "quick!  he's not crying!  take a picture!"  if he could be put down for 15 to 30 SECONDS without crying, my mom and i celebrated.  that meant that he wasn't crying in my arms, and that the crying didn't start even when he was out of my arms.  though neither of those things really happened more than three times a week.  but ohhh, he was so gorgeous.  he still is, but it's pretty rare for a new baby to be as beautiful as he was.
11. "not a self-soother" - i remember the doctor asking me how brady was sleeping and i said something like "i can sometimes get him to sleep if i double swaddle him (in this very particular way with certain blankets and certain pj's) and have it be really dark and hold a binky in his mouth while cradling him in my arms and bouncing in this very particular way while it's absolutely silent except for me making really loud shhhh-ing noises but then i can't put him down or stop doing any of those things or he'll instantly be awake and screaming again.  and i remember being so proud of that until my doctor made a comment about him being picky about his sleep environment.  ha.  this goes back to him not wanting a swing or a bouncer or anything else (although he did do very well with a carseat when it was in motion)... he needed a human... and about fifty other things, all part of the secret combination, to be happy not miserable.
12. "separation sensitive" - if by some miracle, i could get brady to be content in my arms, he would immediately go into full blown panic mode with even the slightest change (walking on eggshells much?) occurring that might indicate that i was about to leave him in any way.  if my body tensed in a different way, he would sense that i was about to place him in his crib/carseat/swing/bouncer/someone else's arms and he also learned to recognize his bedroom and dark rooms in general to the point that if i had him quiet and content in my arms and i walked upstairs, he would start crying as i stepped over the threshold into his dark bedroom because he sensed that i was about to place him in his crib.  even now, he's really great playing independently, but does best when i'm either always in sight or never in sight.  if i have him playing in the great room and i'm putting laundry away or cleaning around the house or doing anything that requires me to go from room to room, frequently coming and going from his sight, he's going to freak out and fuss the whole time.  it's like every time i leave he thinks i'm never coming back.  DUDE!  I ALWAYS COME BACK!

so as difficult as a brady was as a baby, i am grateful it has made me so appreciative for the kid he is today.  he's got his fair share of fussiness but he smiles so so much and it is so easy to get tons of those real deep belly laughs out of him.  people always comment on what a happy baby he is and i typically just smile and say "he's come a long way."  i know people don't think twice about it when i say that, but for me, it's special.  he really has come such a long way.  as a mother of just abigail, i would have looked at my current self with pity like "your child nurses how often?!  and still doesn't sleep 12 hours at night?!  and needs a binky 24/7?!"  but my experience with brady makes me grateful that even though he still nurses frequently, it is enjoyable for both of us.  and even though he doesn't sleep 12 hours straight at night, he's only waking up once and often has an 8 or 9 hour stretch in there... getting over 12 hours total.  and even though he has a binky in his mouth more often than not... he is happy!  forget the secret combinations... binky = independent, happy baby.  it's straight forward and we love it.

i really love this kid.  he has taught me so much and really, he is the most gorgeous, laughy kid everrrrrr.  raising him is like continually unwrapping a present and he's only getting better with age.  i'm so excited for all the days we have ahead of us.

*i found this article through this blog post... which really could have been written by me, it soooo perfectly described my own experience.  like word for word. almost... there are some minor exceptions.

8 months for brady!

happy 8 months, brady boy!

 

here's what brady has been up to this past month...

brady has mastered sitting!  he went from not sitting at all, to sitting for long periods of time within the space of about a week.  right now, he's working on gracefully getting out of the sitting position and within the last day or two has shown significant improvement.  i'm normally not looking exactly when it's happening, but from what i can tell, he does a sort of tuck and roll to get from sitting to laying on his back.

which only lasts for two seconds because this kid rolls like nobody's business.  the first several times he rolled, it was in his crib when he was fully swaddled.  within a day or two he was occasionally rolling back to belly but i never seemed to catch it.  and since then, it's been constant rolling all over the place.  i think it's just been within the few days that he's been rolling as a means of getting from one place to another.  i can put him sitting somewhere, leave the room for two minutes, and come back to see that he's five feet from where he started.  abigail thinks it's especially cool when he does several rolls in a row without stopping.  i'm loving the rolling because it makes him so happy and really keeps him entertained.  the only downside is that he'll get stuck under the coffee table or roll into the brick fireplace.  like yesterday when he was in his room and rolled all the way over to where i have his fan and he was tugging on the cord.  glad i found that situation before he pulled a fan on his head.  so many hazards with a mobile child.

brady got his first haircut.  which was really just a trim of the hair around his ears.  but still... i'm counting it.  speaking of hair.  it's lightening up.  in pictures it frequently looks dark, but if you look at the actual hairs on his head, they're all just as blonde as abigail's.  we'll see how that turns out.  

brady loves his binky.  he always has a binky when he sleeps in his crib and most often has a binky when he falls asleep in his carseat too.  and very frequently when he's just hanging out.  he is super stealth about getting it in his mouth too.  sometimes i'll be holding him and holding a binky and somehow he gets it off my finger and into his mouth without me even realizing it.  or now that he can roll, he just rolls on over to his binky and pops it in his mouth.

which brings me to one of my favorite things that he does... spits his binky out.  if there's something he wants in his mouth, he spits his binky out with such force!  i first noticed it when he was hanging out on the floor of his bedroom after a diaper change.  when i leaned over to pick him up, out popped the binky, propelled a foot away.  it kept making me laugh out loud so one night i showed chris.  "watch this.  he's hungry and ready to eat.  when i pick him up, he's going to spit his binky out as fast as he can... maybe before i even get my hands on him, but definitely before his body leaves the floor."  and then it happened... just like i said it would.  the only part of that that makes me sad it that i know he just sees me as a food source.  it's not like he stopped crying because he wanted me to hold him... it's just because he wants to nurse.  and he does it every time he wakes up during the night too.  and even though it's not as funny, he'll do it when i put him in his bumbo that has some food on the tray already.  or if he's sitting in his bumbo with his bib on and he sees me bring a jar of food over to him, out pops the binky... right into the catcher part of the bib.  seriously cracks me up.  although how so am i?!  when it first started happening, i kept thinking to myself, "i never remember abigail doing this!"  and then i realized... oh, it's because she never had a binky in her mouth.  this kid... he's mastered the binky.

as far as size... his onesies are size 6 months (they're carters though... and carters clothes magically fit for-ev-er).  he almost never wears sleepers because it's so hot but the ones he has... i thiiiink they're 9 months.  some clothes are 6-9 months and HUGE.  but he's got a handful of things that say 18 months that fit him great.  and the outfit he wore today?  size 3 months.  so basically, sizing in baby boy clothes means next to nothing.  he's wearing a size 2 diaper during the day and a 3 at night.

speaking of night time, that size 3 diaper still frequently leaks during the night because he still wakes up a million and one times and needs to nurse before he falls back asleep (except for an hour ago where i heard him wake up and cry for two minutes and he actually fell back asleep before i went up to check on him).  there's really no "normal" because every night is different.  this kid is the epitome of unpredicatable.  but, if i had to find a method to the madness, he frequently goes to bed between 8 and 9, sometimes wakes up during the 11 o clock hour, very often wakes up around 2:30 (give or take), and a lot of times again betwen 4:30 and 6:30, and then gets up for the day sometime around 10.  so a good night means he only wakes up that one time at 2:30, and a rough night means he wakes up at midnight, three, and five.  every time he wakes during the night, i nurse him.  at least half of the times he wakes up, he needs something else (normally a diaper change (when do they learn to stop pooping during the night?!) and/or a reswaddle).  it's always quick.  naps are good.  he goes down without a problem and sleeps for 1.5 to 2.5 hours.  it used to always be 2h20 (like to the minute sometimes) but ever since i started weaning him from the swaddle, it's varied.  normally he just takes two naps during the day, but if we started the day early or are out late and not home for a normal bedtime, there's a short (like an hour... give or take) evening nap in there.  i know i shouldn't, but lately, i've just been keeping him awake way longer than i should because he's actually happy.  so even though i know he'd go down great for a nap after a 2 hour wake time, i'll keep him up playing with abigail and myself because he's happy and it just seems more fun to not have to worry about napping yet.  i'm so much more lax about napping and schedules this time around.

nursing is so fast.  like five minutes.  and he never needs to be burped.  he rarely burps, and if he does, it's completely on his own.  spitting up is virtually nonexistent.  he doesn't do the windshield wiper thing while he nurses, but sometimes he yanks at my tank top strap while he nurses and pops it.  i'm not a fan and he knows it.  if abigail is around when i try to feed him, he will not eat.  will. not.  she is the ultimate distraction.  so when they wake up at the same time, i normally go to her room and tell her i'm going to get brady and that i'll be back in a few minutes.  that way i can make sure he gets a good first feeding.  it's tricky timing wise and whatnot, but it's worth it to go the extra mile eliminating distractions.  he's got good ears.

solid foods are going really well.  i never need to straight-jacket him anymore.  after the first several times i did that, he got the hang of things and realized that he preferred not to have his arms tied down.  since then, he his table manners have improved dramatically.  brady always eats in his bumbo.  one of these days we'll transition to the high chair but right now the bumbo is easiest (complete opposite of how things were with abigail).  he eats everything i give him but there are some clear winners and losers.  he really loves peas and green beans.  LOOOOVES.  like if i get distracted while i'm feeding him, he starts grunting at me with an open mouth.  from what i can tell, he's not a huge fan of the jarred dinner type meal foods.  stuff like "turkey vegetable medley" or "sweet corn and rice."  so i'm not sure if it's the combination of flavors, the texture, the meat, the rice, the corn...  and he didn't seem that keen on avocado.  but he really likes everything else.  squash, carrots, mango, sweet potato, peaches, applesauce.  applesauce it actually how i get him to eat other stuff he's not crazy about.  although tonight i gave him tiny chunks of peaches on his tray and when he slowed down in his enthusiasm for getting them in his mouth, i started putting a chunk of peach on a spoon with a little bit of green beans, and he was all over that.  as far as rice cereal, i've only done oatmeal.  i almost always mix it in with jar foods (or whatever food i've mashed up... like pears) to make them thicker and easier/less messy.  food is always room temp or slightly warm.  he's not a fan of cold anything.  also, he loves puffs.  i just use them to keep him occupied and give him practice with his coordination, but he's getting good enough that i'm already paring back because i know they're just flour and sugar.  giving him chunks of peaches tonight almost felt mean though, they're so slippery and tricky to pick up.  way more difficult than the puffs that stick to even the driest of tiny fingers.  oh... and the kid loves hummus.  like the rest of us.

as far as temperament.  when he's happy, he is the happiest kid i've ever seen in my whole life.  the smiles and laughs are out of control.  just making eye contact with a mischievous face will send him into a fit of giggles.  he loves the suspense of watching my hand as it comes to tickle him.  and he's ticklish on pretty much every inch of his body.  my current favorite is pinching his thighs, but he laughs just as hard when i go for his belly and his neck.  under his arms, his feet, his back, his cheeks, and every other random place (i'm pretty sure abigail has tried them all at least once) yields laughter of some sort.  it is absolutely incredible.  i love tickling him before naps/bedtime.  it's like he's slap happy or something because he can't stop laughing but he can't stop rubbing his eyes either.  so he's just laughing so hard while he's taking out his whole face with his sleepy fists and i just delight in every bit of it.  within the last few weeks, i've noticed that he wakes up super happy in his crib (there's a good chance he's done this for a long time and i've just never noticed) and just hangs out and babbles and coos until i come get him.  he's tolerant of abigail's vigorous affection, loves being in his carseat (probably more so than being held) and is just overall a really really happy baby.  he still has his moments when he's just plain angry at life but it's getting more and more infrequent and when it happens, it's almost always accompanied by a very good reason (normally a short nap or just lack of sleep in general).  when he's crying, it's often within four minutes of his laughing and me telling him that he's the happiest baby ever.  he only knows how to go zero to sixty.  there's a reason i call him my bipolar child.  he only knows the two extremes.  thankfully, he's on the super insanely happy extreme way more often than not. 

i know there's tons of stuff i'm leaving out and hopefully i'll come back and add more to the post later (and pictures and links to the stuff i've already written), but as of right now, this is my snapshot of brady at 8 months.  he's so great.  it is positively remarkable the transformation that has happened since he was born.  i am in awe of this sweet little spirit.  and so insanely impatient for him to grow up just a little more.  he is going to be a crack up... i'm sure of it.

no swaddle!

just in case you're completely enthralled with this fascinating swaddle business, i didn't want to leave you hanging a second longer than necessary.  

here is the update:

 

 

monday nap yesterday was his first time swaddled with just one arm and he fell asleep just as he would completely swaddled.  monday night, same deal... didn't seem to even notice he wasn't in a full swaddle.  and so today, same deal for nap times... went to sleep without a peep and slept a full length nap.  didn't have trouble transitioning at the 45 minute mark or anything!  

so tonight i was putting him to bed and thought to myself, "maybe i should just see what happens if i put him down for bed with no swaddle at all."  so i did.  i propped him in the upper left corner of his crib so that he head was in the corner and his back was to the bumper (from what i can tell, he prefers to sleep on his side) and walked out of the room.  and he didn't fuss.  and then after ten minutes i was dying to see if he had truly fallen asleep.  after i finished brushing my teeth, i went up to check and OH MY HEAVENS IT WAS REALLY TRUE!  he'd fallen asleep just perfectly without a swaddle!

 

i'm still in shock.  let's hope the good luck continues!

Kicking the swaddle addiction

i've gotten my kid addicted to so many things that lately, i've been stressing and strategizing about how to work all these things out.  ideally, before he goes to college, i would like him to be able to sleep through the night, without a binky, and without a swaddle.  those are the three nighttime addictions.  he's almost 8 months old.  i am not proud of this aspect of my parenting him.

when abigail was about this age, i knew it was time to wean her from the swaddle.  it wasn't a problem though because she was already a great sleeper and didn't need a binky so really, it was just the swaddle.  with brady, there are just so many factors in there!  if i'm going to wean him from the binky, is it better to do that when he still has the comfort of the swaddle?  or if i'm going to let him cry it out at night, do i need to ditch the swaddle first because the crying would lead to him busting out of the swaddle and then not being able to fall back asleep?  or if i wean him from the swaddle and he has free arms, maybe the binky won't really be an issue because he can put it back in if it falls out or just gum his fingers for comfort?  there are more scenarios than i would have anticipated.

well, the swaddle will be the first to go.  because i really don't have too much against the binky.  it's working for now.  it's not broken so i won't fix it.  and sleeping through the night?  unless it's a crazy night like last night where i was so tired i wanted to die, i'm pretty happy to run upstairs for a few minutes to nurse brady.  i use the baby app on my phone so i can sleep exactly how long it takes me and it's literally 5-8 minutes from the time he wakes up until i'm back in bed.  but the swaddle?  the swaddle is a pain.  it takes time to do, and only i can do it (meaning, my honey can't put brady to bed) tight enough and even then, if he wiggles enough, he can get out, and all the layers (since he's double swaddled with a swaddleme and a miracle blanket that wraps around a million times) get really hot.  AND the ultimate swaddle deal breaker?  he keeps rolling over.  abigail always rolled over in her swaddle but it wasn't a concern because she was perfectly happy being the little beached whale baby that slept swaddled on her belly.  brady rolls over and he's ticked.  and it sounds like he's going to suffocate in his crib bumper.

i've tried the one armed swaddle before and it didn't go well... so i didn't have high hopes for it this time around.  but i guess brady has matured in the last two months because it's going much smoother than anticipated (knock on wood).  the first time was for his afternoon nap and he fell asleep just great with zero fussing!  he only slept 1h15 but that could have been a coincidence since his sleep was sooooo off from yesterday (sunday and family get together stuff for my niece's baby blessing) which definitely affected his night time sleep and morning nap as well.  his evening nap was in the carseat while we were out.  so the second time with the one arm swaddle was tonight for bed.  went to sleep with zero fussing!  we will have to see how tonight goes and tomorrow's naps!  i'm strangely excited about this.

first nap with one arm out.  practically sleeping on his twisted side belly.

don't look at this picture too long or you'll get a headache.  so blurry because it was taken in a pitch black room.  this was going to sleep for the night... second time with one arm out..

i reread the "swaddle saga" post i wrote when abigail was about this age and dropping the swaddle with her.  i remember it being difficult and dramatic but rereading it, it seems super quick and easy like the transition only lasted a day or two.  i can't imagine that i left out major details because i'm always so longwinded.  i honestly think she was just so easy that this was probably just a huge hurdle to jump [because nothing else was] and so it was difficult at the time and i remember it as being super challenging.  also, i'm semi laughing that i wrote in there...

"anyways, she went down at 9 and the night was not anywhere as bad as i was anticipating although i know it wasn't christopher's idea of fun.  up at 11:45.  up at 2:15.  up at 6:30.  up at 10:45.  i let her sleep in since we were up for about an hour each time.  but really, i was very pleased with it all." 

it's only funny because that insanely rough no swaddle night for abigail is still better than what a lot of brady's nights now are.  i think he woke up at least four times last night.  maybe five.  seriously, how can his daytime sleep be so awesome and his nighttime sleep hasn't improved at all?!  such different kids.  like how abigail had such a terrible awkward bald spot on the back of her head (the pictures in that post show that it's even more obvious than how i had remembered it!) from thrashing her head back and forth in her carseat and while she slept and brady has nice even hair all over.  

also, it's a good thing i don't often go back to reread old abigail blog posts to compare her to brady because it is depressing with how crazy easy she was.  except that it's awesome i even had a baby like that at all (she was one in a billion).  i just had to look back about swaddling to see if my 2011 self had any insightful advice for my 2013 self.  it's fun to see how accurate or skewed my memory is. like in this link... i remembered that she was still happy when she rolled onto her belly but didn't remember that she would sleep like that for her whole nap... and i remember that she was an insanely good sleeper but i had forgotten about the time i put her down for an evening nap and she never woke up.  that post says that i put her down at 5:30 and that she never woke up so i had to wake her at midnight to feed her and change her diaper and then she slept another 8 hours until morning.  ask me the last time brady slept 8 hours.  

i have no clue.

two very different babies.  so wish me luck helping brady drop the swaddle.  and if you want to pray that dropping the swaddle will actually make him so much happier more comfortable that he will miraculously sleep 12 hours straight and be so happy and self soothing that he doesn't need a binky... well, i won't stop you.

also: in somewhat related news.  today was the first time brady rolled from back to belly... well, without his swaddle.  obviously, he's done that before.

brady's first food

we actually had to stop after a few minutes because he was gagging so hard it looked like he was having trouble breathing and i thought he was going to throw up.

torturing my kid.  one spoonful at a time.

New sleeping arrangements

It's Abigail's first night sleeping in her new crib in her new "big sister" bedroom. Cross your fingers all goes well because there's no turning back.

I'm hoping for three things in particular.
1. That she falls asleep without crying.
2. That she stays asleep through the night.
3. That she doesn't wake up earlier than I do.

I set up the inside of her crib exactly how it always is except that tonight I forgot to put in a few books for her. I hope that doesn't turn out to be a problem. Also, her previous room was super dark and was practically pitch black any time she was sleeping. This new room is really bright. Brighter paint color, bigger windows, and no curtains yet. If she wakes up with the sun I'm going to take advantage of our early start and find some blackout curtains ASAP.

playing with thomas and toby

driving them down her legs

throwing her blanket over and on top of her head

the status update:

1. she fell asleep an hour after i put her down.  no crying, just a lot of playing with thomas and toby and getting situated.

2. she slept straight through the night just like she always does.

3. she woke up at least an hour after i did.  i can't remember exactly but sometime in the 9 o'clock hour.

ps- we just ordered this video monitor this past week... for this very reason.  and for when we transition her to a twin bed in a few months... or whenever she tells us she's ready.

more about baby girl

baby girl is having a rough couple of days.  i say couple of days because that's how many it's been so far.  hold me if it turns into couple of weeks, months, or years.

so in honor of my angel baby turned horrific terror, let's highlight some more wonderful things she does...

she calls butterflies, "diaperflies" and last night when i tried to emphasize to her again that it's BUTTER-flies, i realized that i would much rather live my life without butterflies than without actual butter.  i also think i would choose butter over diapers but that's kinda a hard call because i don't know how the logistics of that would all go down.

she pronounces most things correctly although another thing she says frequently, but pronounces totally wrong is "stroller" which is pronouned more like "stee-you."

we read together at least one or two hours a day.  i knew we read a lot but yesterday evening when i got her up from nap i looked at my watch to time how long we were reading.  it was a full 50 minutes and we wouldn't have even stopped except that i told her we should go downstairs so we could welcome daddy when he walked in the door.

she still refers to milk in a little cup as "baby milk."

she loves pointing out things that have dots.  the blanket she sleeps with is solid pink on one side and brown with pink dots on the other side.  and when you put her to bed, she'll let you know if she wants the pink side up or if she wants dots.

i'm pretty sure her hair hasn't grown in over six months.  i looked at a picture from earlier this spring and she still looks the exact same.  same face, same hair, same clothes, same number of teeth.  it's like she's frozen in time.

she has new dance moves these days.  not just the scarecrow rock (body in mid jumping jack and just sawing side to side) but a whole slew of random, body spaz moves.  last night i was sitting in the glider and she was sitting on the ottoman facing me.  she kept asking me to sing so i kept singing "i love to see the temple" over and over and honestly i was singing through my laughing because she had some sort of strange head roll, shoulder, arm thing going on and it was the strangest "i love to see the temple" dance i've ever witnessed.  even baby girl was laughing because i was laughing.  sooo wish i'd had my camera nearby for that one.

each thomas video has several short episodes unrelated to one another.  after she'd watched all of them several times i got to thinking that maybe i should skip over the halloween episode (flour power) because it could seem scary to her.  well, i never got around to it and honestly, it was all worry over nothing because she requests that episode all the time now.  it's actually the only episode she ever requests but it's still fun to hear her tell me she wants to watch "thomas yucky."

baby girl also likes to request bananas.  which sounds more like "baaaannnnnnas."  although actually i'm really not sure how you would phoneticize the way she says it.  it makes me think of a rubberband being snapped because it's so subtle and it just kinda fades.  it makes me smile every time.

what doesn't make me smile though?  the face that i put her down for nap over an hour ago and she's STILL AWAKE.  settle down little child and go to sleep.  although it is so very tempting to go get her up and then just have us both go to bed insanely early tonight...  tempting even though i'm sure it would backfire on me...

sleep regression?

i feel like i've heard it's normal for two year olds' sleep habits to regress.  is that true or is that google just backing up whatever i type into it?  and they say it happens when a kid is 27 months old.  which baby girl will be in ten days.

anyways, her actual sleep is just the same, it's just that she's not as enthusiastic about it as she was before.  like after lunch she'll ask to play or watch thomas or somehing and i'll tell her she can do all those things after nap.  this used to work just fine but now she'll say "all done nap" which has to make me laugh because then i always tell her that she hasn't started napping yet and she's most definitely not all done.  but then she goes down alright... even if she's not lunging for the crib.

night time is worse though.  at night she wants nothing to do with chris... everything is "i want mommy hold you", "i want mommy read it", and "i want mommy do it" and on and on.  and tonight she even ran away from chris and hid behind my legs after i told her that daddy would read stories with her in her chair.  tonight was the worst yet. so i put her to bed again.  and we were doing great reading stories and even when we went over to her crib to pray.  but after we said amen, instead of lunging into her crib like she used to, she started whimpering and whining and trying to squirm to stay in my arms and not be put in the crib.  i put her in anyways and told her to lay down so i could give her her sippy and put her blanket on her.  this is the first night that SHE WOULDN"T LAY DOWN!  what?!  i didn't want to completely abandon her though so i worked with her for a minute or two to try to find a book she'd like that she could keep in the crib with her.  she wasn't liking any of my options and eventually i just put in a spot book (spot the dog, not actual spots) because all her pooh bear, thomas, and peter rabbit books were downstairs.  she wasn't happy about it but i knew she had her blanket, she was fed, she had a book, she had a sippy, and really she was set with everything... just stalling.  so i went over our "everybody naps" routine that we use for situations like this "elmo sleeps, mommy sleeps, daddy sleeps, thomas sleeps, lucy sleeps, everybody sleeps, everybody naps, and now abigail is going to nap too."  didn't really work.  as soon as i walked out she started crying.  loud.  and kept it up for 4 or 5 minutes.  and then it stopped.  and then all i could hear for the next twenty minutes was her sweet singing so she obviously wasn't very distraught.

but what is that?!  why does she suddenly prefer me SO STRONGLY (she's always preferred me for bedtime... i think it's a mom thing... and preferred chris for playtime) and panic when we put her in her crib.  she even told me repeatedly before she brushed her teeth that she wanted to nap on her closet floor.  it's all super weird and bizarre and i just wish i knew what the problem was.  kinda because i feel bad for baby girl but kinda because i fear for myself that this problem will get worse instead of better.

so the things i've come up with as possible reasons are:
1. honey has been traveling and busy with work lately... especially this week (this will continue for the next six weeks at least)
2. two year molars (i haven't felt anything yet but if it follows the pattern of her other teeth, the worst pain happens before they actually break through)
3. colder weather and nightfall happening earlier (we stay inside now between nap and bedtime because it's dark outside whereas before we used to take a walk to the park or play on the driveway for a while)
4. developmental changes that come with getting older and becoming more aware (maybe she's learning to be afraid of the dark or experiencing separation anxiety or just preferences in general... or even learning manipulation)
5. my life was too easy before so this just happened to be a fun thing to throw at me (just kidding... this is not a big deal for me, but it does give me angst to think that baby girl could be fearful and dreading naps/bedtime... because that would just suck for her.

sooo, i need help.  is this here to stay?  is this just a passing phase that will be long forgotten in two weeks time?  i want things to be as pleasant as possible for her since we're leading up to a lot of change with having a new baby.  her world is going to be rocked in three months so i want her to feel more confident and comfortable these days, not like she's losing her footing.  does that even make sense?

i know i'm only two years into it but motherhood has been super easy for me so far.  partly because my kid is one of the easiest kids ever, but partly because i had so many years of practice with other people's kids.  nighttime sleep though is something that i have less experience with than most other things so i'm not quite so confident in this area.

advice and words of comfort would be especially appreciated right about now...  poor baby girl.

*nothing else about her sleep has changed though.  she still sleeps through the night/takes a full length nap, wakes up happy, and plays for a while before she calls me to come get her.  the only thing that's different is the actual putting her in her crib part.

belated pictures from atl to dia and "fearless"

and here are pictures from this past friday's wonderful whirlwind that go along with that novel of a post i wrote. 

when baby girl decided she was done with us, she left our booth and spent at least five minutes with this nice man and his three kids.  two year olds are oblivious and except from social norms.  my dad took this picture with his blackberry and emailed it to me with the title "no fear."

this has got to be at the top of my list from favorite pictures from this trip.  ps- typical varsity that you get a full mix of customers.  us in the middle, the semi-ghetto lady to the left, and the ultra prep southern frat boy to the right.

how perfect that my shirt was the very color of a frosted orange!

precious.  she kept calling it ice cream.  and as i've mentioned, grandpa never says no.

they're an adorable pair.

i wonder what the poundage was that i was lugging through the airport.  baby girl weighs 23 lbs, that carseat  weighs 25 lbs, my suitcase weighed at least 40 and the duffle bag almost broke my back.  and because i can, i'm going to add my unborn child in utero to that list.  because, despite it being constant, i was carrying him too.

sleep deprived baby catching a power nap on the way from the airport to the game.  she seriously NEVER falls asleep in her carseat.  unless she's been awake for 11 hours i guess.

well hello there.

family photo!

not napping... just super tired and snuggly.

like snuggly enough to curl up with this stranger down the row.

and i mean, all the way down the row.

we convinced her to come back and snuggle with us though.  

honey caught one of the rockies t shirts they sling shotted out while we were waiting for fireworks. 

it's good to be back as our little family of three.

also, about the lack of stranger danger, here's an email about it that i wrote to my parents yesterday (titled "fearless part two")...

remember this picture from friday at the varsity when abigail left usto sit with the family nearby?  well, we went to a rockies game thatnight after our plane landed and part way through chris turned to meand said "ummm, the people down the row are holding our baby."  sureenough.  and she sat with them for a long time before chris finallywent down there to retrieve her. 

today we were at a playdate at the park.  abigail was crying while iwas away putting something in my car.  when i came back she wassitting on my friend's lap (we never hang out with these friends soabigail really didn't know who she was).  so i said "thanks forholding my crying child" to which my friend replied "oh no problem...i was just surprised that she actually came to me and let me holdher." 

ha.  you're surprised?  i'm not.

at what age are you supposed to teach your child about this sort of stuff?  currently, she calls everyone "friends" in any context that any adult would just use the word "people."  like yesterday when we were playing out on the driveway and she saw a woman walking her dog up the street (in the direction of our neighborhood playground) and she kept telling me that our friend was going to the playground.  if we're in the car and she sees two men jogging on the sidewalk, she'll tell me that she sees her friends running or that her friends are running fast.

oh baby girl, with that mentality, the world really is your oyster.

singing the A B C DEF G's

aka, the song that never ends.  well, this version at least.

ps- watching this video makes me realize that for as mild mannered as my child is, she is still very active (although not rambunctious in the least)... just like when she was a newborn.

my child is so smart

but of course i'm partial.

first of all, i was listening to her sing to herself yesterday and today and i'm pretty sure she knows the entire abc song... even if parts of it are kind of unintelligible.

also, if you ask her how old she is, she will hold up two fingers!  she just learned this at her little baby school yesterday despite our best efforts to teach her this for the past two months).  sometimes it's a pointer finger from each hand and sometimes it's an attempt of two from the same hand.  the downside?  she always loudly and proudly exclaims that she's six.

what's your name?
abigail
how old are you?
[holding up two fingers]... SIX!!!!

fabulous.  i have no idea where she got this from.

and as far as colors go, i think she knows some but it's hard to tell because if you ever ask her what color something is, she will always tell you it's blue.  if you tell her it's wrong, then she'll tell you it's green.  i know she knows more colors because sometimes i'll try to put a white bow in her hair and she'll tell me that she wants a pink bow instead.  or some days she insists on a blue bow.  when i ask about shoes she'll tell me she wants her "white shoes" or her "pink lops" but when i say "what color are your white shoes?" the answer is always blue.  lately when i ask her the color of something she responds by saying "blue _____" with the name of the object.  what color is the dog?  blue dog.

with numbers, the answer is always two.  i think it's her favorite number because there's a 0-9 number puzzle at the library and she always runs to it, grabs the 2 and holds it up for me excitedly yelling "TWO!  IT'S A TWO!!!"  when i point to the number one and ask her what it is she says "I" so while we have a ways to go on numbers we are definitely improving on letters.  her favorite is A.  not sure if that's because it's the first letter of the alphabet or the first letter of her name or that it's just visually pleasing to her.  she also recognizes b pretty frequently when pointing to words but beyond that it's hard to know because she doesn't actually try on command.

other things i've noticed are that she sings along with a number of songs i would have never guessed she knew.  we had family home evening on monday night and while i couldn't hear her, i noticed she was mouthing a lot of the words.  in the bath tub the other night she was singing the tune of twinkle twinkle little star for at least five or seven minutes straight but with the words "pinkeye pinkeye little sun."  i tried to get a video of her singing along to this counting song that one of her toys plays but she stopped as soon as she saw me point the camera at her.

this is probably my very favorite age with kids.  i loooooove the 24-36 age because they're learning to talk and trying out social norms and stuff.  i've been so anxious for baby girl to get to this stage where she's starting to say funny things (like the other day when she asked christopher something and followed it up with a "kkkkaaaaaayyyyyyy?????") and stuff.  she puts lotion on her hands the way i do (rubbing my knuckles together so none gets on my palms) and on her legs the way i do too (putting her leg up on the ledge of the bathtub in our master bathroom) which is hilarious because it's such an awkward position for such a small body.

this past week i've just been so obsessed with everything she does, it's overwhelming.  if you hadn't noticed from the incessant blogging, i'm starting to get back that anxiety about life passing by too fast and not wanting to forget one little bit of it.

baby doll stroller and loving my kid

aka all of my pictures from today

one of baby's birthday toys from our friend and realtor, sally.  it's a super cool pool noodle.

it's a happy day when your mail is this colorful.  looove birthday cards!

we haven't taken it to the pool yet so baby girl thinks it's just to hang out with and carry around the house.

and amazon delivered baby girl's birthday doll stroller this afternoon.  and although i'm still bitter that it cost more than baby's actual stroller ($16... seriously?!), i have to admit that it's perfect for her.  conveniently sized and easy to maneuver, i'm loving it as much as she is.

 

 

blurry paparazzi shot.  appropriate because, as we've discussed, celebrity moms wear leggings.

and because i want to remember it, baby was incredible today.  she had me a little worried thursday, friday, and halfway saturday that she'd made it a personal goal to live up to the "terrible two's" stereotype but saturday night and sunday she was totally fine and today she just kept blowing me out of the water with how funny and happy and sweet she was.  i don't know if a happier kid has ever existed.  today she ate awesome, was so perfectly behaved (and precious! "more please mama!" to every sample i gave her), had the most out of control, slap happy laughing non stop visit with our neighbor before lunch, ate great again, took an awesome nap (she's been staying in her crib for close to four hours lately for naps!), was so cute playing with her toys, helpful when i was doing laundry (since i get lightheaded so easily bending over, i love that she picks up all the socks and things that i drop and puts them in the basket/washer/dryer for me), and ate wonderfully (half a tomato, half an avocado, half a banana, almost a whole mango, and a little bit of bacon), and was soooo cute playing with her daddy before she went to bed tonight.

days like today, i literally am giddy with love and excitement that this is really my child.  the best way i can describe it physically is that i have ongoing butterflies in my stomach (no, this is not the baby kicking) and my heart is so full it's like i can never fully catch my breath (again, not due to pregnancy).  baby girl laughs at everything!  she purposely puts her shoes on the wrong feet and laughs like crazy when i acknowledge it.  she says "bless you mama/daddy" when someone sneezes (like saturday night when we had friends over and the wife sneezed and baby girl said "bless you daddy") and is on day FIVE or something of actually verbally saying thank you.  at the end of her lunch today i bribed her to eat half a banana.  she got a bit of cookie every time she ate a bite of banana (although her banana bites were the size of golf balls and the cookie bites she got were the size of peanut M&Ms) and every time i gave her that bit of cookie she would say "thank you mama" and it's so precious.  same with tonight when we did the same thing with banana and bacon (i love that she loves bacon just as much as she loves cookies... but then again, don't we all...?! except for sara snow).  she's recently started protesting when i tell her we're going to pray.  she sometimes doesn't fold her arms, but it's so cute that at the end of the prayer she says "amen!" right after i do.  and at night when i hold her in my arms by her crib to pray and she folds her arms, she actually bows her head or puts her head on my shoulder and it's like straight out of a greg olsen painting.  baby girl is a helper and a pleaser and loves when i give her little jobs like throwing something away for me.  she'll drop what she's doing with a happy "yeah!" and run along to do whatever i asked.  occasionally she'll say no like this afternoon when i asked her if she'd put my shoes away for me but i don't mind because i like that she doesn't say it to be defiant.  just says it because we can't all drop what we're doing 100% of the time.  she has such a funny sense of humor and makes jokes all the time.  she's so understanding when i help talk her through something she's hesitant to do at first like a night when she just wants to keep reading books, i tell her it's time to go to bed now and that we can read more books when we wake up in the morning.  her body relaxes and then she's fine to go to bed.  and when she gets up, she reminds me that it's time to read books.  so as of late, it's the norm to read books first thing in the morning and first thing after nap.  and even then she has a hard time being done (hey... i'm normally too hungry to keep reading) and insists on bringing a book downstairs with her.  

my favorite thing has of late though has got to be that she is so good with her words.  i don't ever feel like we're having a hard time communicating.  she can tell me what's on her mind and she's smart enough to understand my reasoning (like bribing with bacon and promising to read more books after nap).  she gets a binky for nap time but not for bed time.  but frequently at night she'll ask for one anyways... i just tell her it's not for nighttime and that she can have it tomorrow when she naps.  and sometimes she fusses for a bit but mostly she's just fine with that explanation.  

there's a million more things i could write but i'll have to save those for another day.  suffice it to say, this kid was an angel newborn and an angel baby and she's an angel toddler as well.  i am so grateful and overjoyed that i get to spend every day with her and that i have the honor of being her mother.  life is too good to me.

baby girl is TWO!

baby girl turned two today!  it was an awesome birthday.  we had a great time at church and, as always, baby girl loved nursery... especially because they sang happy birthday to her today!  reports were the same as the other week... she tried on shoes the whole time.  apparently today though she stole shoes from a parents or leader and was prancing around in super high heels the whole time.  after we got home, she played on the back patio a bit, ate, lunch, and hung out while we got home taught.  headed down for a nap at two and slept til five or so when we woke her up to head to the hilliers for her party.  she was super happy and in a good mood the whole time.  after dinner, baby girl opened her presents and loved them all... some more than others.  books- eh, books with dogs or clifford- big hit.  clothes- eh.  easter eggs with marshmallows- huge hit.  she looooves "lellows" and i think she probably gets her fair share during nursery each week.  other huge hits included the inflatable baby pool aka "baby beach pool" and the cozy coupe car honey's parents gave her.  and she still has toys and birthday money on the way.  maybe we should reserve that and break it out in a few months when the weather cools down and we need a pick me up?!  this week, amazon will so kindly deliver the baby doll set and stroller i ordered for her (indecisive mom = late birthday present) and i'm soooo excited for her to get that.  she got two little baby doll bottles and diapers and was loving feeding her baby and couldn't stop talking about "baby milk all gone" and "it's baby's nap diaper."  i took soooo much video this afternoon so maybe tomorrow i'll go through that and do another quick post with a few more pictures and some video.  giving things to your kid is soooo much better than receiving things for yourself.  i had the time of my life this afternoon.  like seriously giddy with excitement.  

 

trying to hold up her two fingers.  physically this seems to be unusually difficult for her.  ;-)  but we're working on it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

how many hilliers does it take to put together a cozy coupe?  the answer is five and the time frame is about 40 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

baby girl, if you hadn't guessed it already, i'm pretty obsessed with you and i think you're perfect in every way.  these past two years have been incredible and i can already tell, this coming year is going to be even better.  i can't wait!

ps- in case you were wondering after looking at that next to last picture, yes, i know i'm big.  i had two people at church today straight up ask me if i was pregnant (it's still not really common knowledge), explaining that any sort of an extra belly on me was really obvious.  one lady even told me she started noticing something "a few months ago."  at first i was a little offended because you're not supposed to show that early but then i thought back in my head and realized... yup, i was already having to "cover it up" before 9 weeks.  it feels good to be out... now i just gotta find some clothes that fit.