Libby LOVES to color with her color crayons. She also loves to look at her books with colors in them and sort her toys by color. She can identify and say: yellow, purple, blue, green, black, orange and pink. She can also identify red, white and brown but doesn't say those words yet. Here she is enjoying "color, color" time in her room today:
She's also started shape sorting and identifying shapes. She is consistently identifying circles, stars, and hearts. She'll wind her little pointer finger around and around saying "circle, circle" when she sees a ball or the water knobs in the bathtub. She'll trace the opening of her cup repeating "circle, circle." It's really cute! I've got to get it on video...that and her counting. Many of her books are counting/number oriented and I've always pointed to the illustrations and counted out loud. She's started to copy me and will point at each object and say "two, two, two..." The other day I said, "one...two...." and she chimed in with me. My mom read to her and right on cue, after she said "six," Libby said "seven..." Libby also seems to have her books memorized. We have several collections of 3 or 4 books in a series. For example, four books on manners titled: Please, Thank You, Excuse Me, and Sorry.
As you can see, they're all the same size and feature the same illustrated pig family. Each has a different colored cover. And Libby knows which is which. She will say "excuse me" and then go an get that book. And same with the others. J swears she's reading the titles or knows the words. I think it's more that she has memorized the colors of each cover. In any case, we're both amazed that she'll consistently bring us the correct book, even though she has several similar ones. She does this with her other series books as well.
After her nap, we took a nice walk to the local playground:
Libby loves to look at the trees, birds, squirrels and flowers. She wants to touch everything and will walk with us for most of the way. We are constantly amazed by our Little Being and the person she's becoming with each day. We're so lucky to be her parents and able to witness her development.
Hooray, my sweet little girl is back. The past two days have been SO much better. She's gone down at her regular bedtime. Last night, she slept SO well. She was down at 7:30 p.m. and woke up to nurse at 1:30 a.m. and then went back to sleep until 8:30 a.m. It was awesome! I attribute it to this:
We welcomed the first day of Spring with a trip to the park at 41st and Riverside Drive:
We picked up some bagels from Old School Bagels in Brookside and then headed to the park on 41st and Riverside. We had about an hour at the playground. It was so fun to see her playing like a big kid. She climbed on the equipment and went down the slide. She spun in the spinning cup thing (I swear this playground is so modern I have no idea how half of the equipment even works) and ran around. It was a nice 78 degrees and breezy! A perfect day.
We got home and she had a great nap! I needed to vacuum and she's terrified of it so I strapped her into the Scootababy and we got the job done. Then, she decided she wanted to try her own "vak-oom" and figured out how to use her popper. Until now she's just carried it around! So cute to see her figure it out!
All that activity definitely tired her out (and the pugs too)!
Now that Spring has sprung and we have nicer weather, I want to be sure she gets at least a hour a day outside to play. Even if it's divided throughout the day. It's SO important! And it obviously makes her sleep so well! It'll be good for ALL of us to get outside and enjoy all that Mother Nature has to offer!
I know it seems odd to be purchasing a crib set now that she's one year old, but she's only been consistently sleeping in her crib for the past three weeks. Until now, the crib has basically been a safe place for her to play for a few minutes while we used the restroom or got the laundry out of the dryer. She had napped in it maybe a half dozen times or so. We bedshared from the time she was about 10 days old until just shy of one year. It worked beautifully until a few weeks ago when none of us were sleeping well. She'd toss and turn and thrash all night and we each took turns leaving the bed and rocking her for hours on end until she'd fall asleep. Then we'd try to lay her back down into the bed with us and she's awaken immediately. It was quite miserable. Finally, on Monday, January 10 I resolved myself to launch "operation sleep-in-your-crib." We basically resorted to CIO because all of the other more gentler tactics just aggrevated Libby and made her more upset. I've spent months reading all of the sleep books, from Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution to Tracy Hogg's The Baby Whisperer; Dr. Sears and Dr. Jay Gordon and Ferber and Weissbluth.
I am not going to lie, the first night was hard. On me. Libby screamed and cried for about 30 minutes and then wound down to a fussy wimper. I had told J that we'd let it go one hour and reassess this approach. It was a killer. I cried in our room (we share a wall with hers) as I listened to her cry. We've never really let her cry, other than when we've been in the car and had no opportunity to stop. So to hear her wailing for an hour was rough. Around the one hour mark she had settled down considerably but was still wimpering. We decided to give it 10 more minutes. And wonder of wonders, she fell asleep! She slept in her crib two hours before waking, at which point I brought her into bed with us. I was emotionally exhausted. We got a great night's sleep though. The next day I felt awful and totally second-guessed my decision to transition her to her own bed/room and to do it by using CIO. But when I saw her that afternoon when I came home from lunch she was a smiling, happy, well-rested baby.
The next night we did the same thing and she fussed for 30-minutes before falling asleep. She slept for five hours before waking, at which point I brought her to our bed. The third night was similar. The fourth night she was out in 15 minutes and when she woke in the night I went to her room, nursed her and she went back to sleep in her crib. Same thing again on the fifth night. Night six she was out in five minutes and stayed in her bed all night and it's basically been that way ever since.
I never imagined I'd ever use CIO, but Libby needed it. And so did we. And I feel good about waiting until she was nearly a year old and can understand what we say. We talked about her sleeping in her own bed and she now brings us her favorite blanket and says, "nigh-night" and we nurse and rock and then I put her in her crib drowsy, but awake. Sometimes she fusses for a few minutes and sometimes not. Sometimes she babbles to herself for a few minutes and then goes to sleep.
Anyway, in honor of this transition, I decided it was time to officially outfit her crib with proper bedding. She's old enough now to use the quilt and we put a set of plain bumpers I got as a hand-me-down in there this summer when she was flopping over and bumping her head all the time when she was in there. I have a collection of random, gently-used crib sheets. So I am excited to get this set. It will be there when she's ready for us to convert the bed to a toddler and then youth bed. And it matches the quilt I've got on her daybed.
And finally, I scored this awesome wooden toddler-sized table and chairs for $40.00 off Craigslist:
Kid Kraft Table and Chairs in Natural
There were some random crayon and marker sribbles on the table top and one of the chairs, but some elbow grease and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser cleaned it right up! Libby was SO excited to see it! She loves it!
I've been a bad blogger. This summer has been so crazy and so many unexpected things have come to pass that I cannot keep up...
On Sunday we returned from a week long vacation in California. It started with a cousin's wedding in Beverly Hills, two nights at my-best-friend-since-the-third-grade's house in Alta Loma followed by a six hour drive north on Highway 5 to my twin brother's house in Tracy. While we were all at the wedding his plumbing backed up and flooded his house! What a nightmare. His babysitter (who was watching four kids at the time) managed to clean up the worst of it, but he and my sister-in-law returned home on Monday and did the rest of the dirty work. When we arrived on Tuesday evening, there was a wrecking crew there taking out floors and drywall and installing huge, industrial fans and dehumidifiers. We stayed one night and decided to move on to our BFFs place in Modesto. They just welcomed their second son in July and have a two year old. We stayed in their cozy guest room for three nights and then returned to my brother's for one last night before heading to the airport at 4 a.m. We landed in Tulsa at 6 p.m. and by then had sore throats. Not good.
Monday I went into work for 5 hours and then came home early so J could go to class (since my mom is still on vacation, visiting her sisters in Oregon). I got home and spiked a fever and had chills as well as achy joints. Libby had a runny nose and was feverish too. We climbed into bed and napped and nursed off and on from 1 p.m. until 7 p.m. J has a scratchy throat too and was feeling run down as well. We turned in at 9 p.m. but were up all night with Libby. I finally conceded to sleeping with her in the rocker/recliner in her nursery. At 8 a.m. I fell into bed while J got her ready to see the pedi. Turns out she has a virus that needs to run its course. I assume J and I have the same. I stayed home from work today to rest and hopefully kick this bug! It sucks that the price for a week away from home is coming back sick. Libby is 7 months and 6 days old and this is the first time she's every been ill. So sad. Hopefully it'll pass quickly.
Our week in California was a whirlwind. We crammed in as many visits as possible and Libby met a ton of people...she loved every moment! She's SO social. She slept like a rock each night from all of the activity which impressed upon us that we need to do more with her, here at home. Speaking of home, Sunday, when we arrived in Tulsa and made our drive into midtown to our neighborhood I actually felt like we were on our way home. Weird. It's taken two years for me to feel that way. Before, I felt like going to California was going home and although being there feels SO familiar and comfortable, it didn't exactly feel like home anymore. I do not miss the crazy traffic and hectic pace there at all. And the smoggy air either. I do miss the people though. My brothers and best friends. I will I could get them all to move here! Thankfully, my mom is here...if she weren't I know I'd be more homesick. So...for now, Tulsa is home. It's our daughter's birthplace. And where we'll be for some time. That said, I cannot wait until our next trip to California. Maybe for Libby's first birthday? We shall see.
Yesterday was a great day. J was off work and it was nice to be home as a family doing what families do on any given Sunday. It's a rare occasion in our household for mommy and daddy to have the WHOLE day off together. We slept in and finally got up and had a nice breakfast of bagels with lox and coffee. J opened up his cards from me and my mom and Libby and was happy to receive new "daddy gear"...two pairs of cotton, lounge pants (his favorite) and a funny t-shirt that says, "I like a big rack" with a drawing of baby back ribs grilling on a kettle grill . The double entendre is quite fitting given my current status as a nursing mother who before pregnancy was already a 40E. Whoa mama!
Speaking of grilling, yes, J made his own father's day dinner. Let me preface this by saying the man LOVES to cook. I mean adores it and well, me? Not so much. I mean, we won't starve if I am in charge of the meals, but they're usually quite utilitarian and not the creative works that he puts into it. We had steamed broccoli, grilled chicken and garlic sausages with mustard and roasted garlic potatoes. YUM. He also whipped up some thick, gooey brownies. They came out of the oven and smelled divine. In order not to torture ourselves while they cooled we went for a walk at dusk. I wore Libby in the wrap carrier and J and Libby, me and my mom went for a warm summer's stroll around the neighborhood. We had fun spying fireflies and little cotton tail bunnies. Whew, it's been H-O-T and humid this past weekend. Nearly 100 degrees and probably 70-80% humidity, which of course, makes it feel hotter. So it was nice to get outside, even if it was nearly dark. We got home and the brownies were still warm, but cool enough to eat. We topped them with a dollop of vanilla ice cream...delish!
And so it was. A perfectly delightful Sunday with the family. A wonderful first Father's Day...although don't tell Regina, Luigi and Bella...they've been given Daddy cards for years and it might hurt their feelings if they knew that it didn't "count" until Libby arrived. We've always known that J was an awesome Dad and now that Libby's here, it just confirms what we've known all along.
So in the brief four months we’ve been parents, apparently we’ve made a slew of choices that are less-than-conventional. I guess. I mean, in the online parenting forums I frequent, they seem quite “normal” but I guess in every-day-life they may not be. Hmm. I suspect there’s been a lot of eye-rolling from the every-day people in our lives.
First off was the decision to cloth diaper. People came out of the woodwork to tell us we were nuts. That surely, we’d regret it and find ourselves bleary-eyed in a big-box-brand-name-store at 3 a.m. desperately purchasing disposable diapers within a week of bringing our baby home. “You’ll see…” I heard time and again. Well…here were are…four-plus months later and loving the decision we've made to cloth diaper. It’s super convenient and totally budget-friendly. Not to mention that we’re always just one laundry load away from a new supply of diapers for our little one. It is also better for her health and for the health of our planet.
Second was the fact that my exclusively breast-fed baby refuses to take a pacifier or a bottle. I am fine with her not wanting a paci…but others have an issue with it. She’s keen to suck her thumb instead (although has not fully worked that out just yet) and somehow that’s a bad thing. I dunno. If it helps her to self-soothe, I am all for it. It’s right there, whenever she needs or wants it. And for the record, I sucked my thumb and didn’t go off to college still doing it. Sure, I needed orthodontics, but it wasn’t because of the thumb-sucking. It was due to genetics.
And although we introduced the bottle at the “right time” of four weeks and she initially took it, eventually she decided she wanted nothing to do with it. At first I thought it was because I produce excess lipase and discovered that my stored, pumped breast milk had an “off” taste. But even once we worked that out (via scalding all pumped milk as recommended by Kelly Mom and LLLI) she still refused to take the bottle. And we tried them all. Including this fancy-schmancy one that actually looks and supposedly feels a lot like a breast. So, with the impending date of my return to full-time work looming, we got creative and tried feeding her expressed breast milk from a cup. Well, really the top of one of the many bottles she’d refused. And you know what? It worked! So since she was eight weeks old she gets her “cup milk” from daddy or grandma while I am at work. People still don’t believe she can drink from a cup. Others ask why we don’t just make her drink from a bottle. (As if I could make her?! They suggest, “if you don’t offer her anything by the bottle, eventually she’ll HAVE to take it!”). Why on earth would I do that when she’s already drinking from a cup? People need to learn to drink from a cup. They don’t need to know how to use a bottle. So, she’s just ahead of the game.
Here's a video of J cup feeding Libby when she was 10 weeks old:
Speaking of being ahead, that leads me to our latest “unconventional” choice to use infant pottying in our household. Also known as Elimination Communication or Diaper-free Babies, it basically is learning to read your babies cues to know when they need to potty. And once you notice them, you begin to potty them over the toilet or sink or receptacle of your choosing rather than let them go in their diaper. Sounds pretty down-to-earth to me. After all, people need to use the potty anyway, right? So, very casually, we’ve begun to observe when Libby needs to pee or poop. It’s become fairly easy to pinpoint, especially her pooping schedule, which is just once a day now and usually in the early evenings after feeding. Pee has been a little trickier to catch, but again, she usually lets us know immediately when she’s wet and we’ve been able to figure out her signals just before then, namely squirming and vocalization. So we’ve been able to get her to tinkle on the potty (our household toilet is now outfitted with a kiddie potty seat that I picked up for $3) by offering her “pottytunities” before and after her naps, after feeding, before baths, etc. We cue her with “pssss” and sure enough, she pees in the potty. It’s so cute!
She loves it because she’s not in a wet diaper. And we love it because it means less diaper changes (and laundry) for us. Especially the poopie ones. I’ve only changed one poopie diaper in the past 5 days (and that’s because she surprised me with a early-afternoon poop). We have no intention of having her be diaper-free (she’s still in her cloth diapers) save for the 15-20 minutes of “naked time” she has each day. Nor are we pushing her to “potty train” anytime soon. It’s more about teaching her that she has options when it comes to her personal hygiene. Knowing her, once she really figures out that she doesn’t have to be in a wet or dirty diaper I suspect she will be wanting to use the potty more often than not. She smiles every time we sit her there. And she loves that it’s faster and cleaner than getting a diaper change.
That said, we’ve already gotten the side-eye about it. And of course the lecture that it’s “too soon.” Yes, if we were potty training her, it would be WAY too soon. But what we’re doing is potty learning and offering her options, which is perfectly fine. In many cultures they don’t even use diapers on infants because they practice this method of infant pottying. And it’s not like she’s being scolded if she goes in her diaper (which is an old-school tactic used by parents in potty training). Oh well…I guess to many people teaching your baby to use the toilet is weird. To us, it’s pretty much a no-brainer. It’s a skill she’ll use for life so why not start now? I did have to laugh though when we were asked, “well how does she get to the bathroom?” Um, the same way she gets everywhere else right now. We carry her. Duh.
Finally, I am sure that more eyes will roll in a couple of months when we begin introducing solids to our daughter. We’ve already been asked more than once why she’s not already eating rice cereal. We’ve had to let people know that we’re going with the AAP’s recommendation to wait until she’s six months old before introducing solids. (Oh and I’ve also been asked why I plan to breastfeed beyond six months since she’ll be eating solids by then and will most likely have teeth. I cannot believe how clueless people are about breastfeeding. You should have seen the reaction when I said I have no intentions of weaning at twelve months, let alone six. Oy vay.)
We plan to let Libby self-feed solids (also known as BLW or Baby-led Weaning) when she shows signs of readiness. Most likely that’ll be later this summer. I am sure people will ask why on earth she’s not being spoon-fed jarred baby food or even purees we make ourselves. I am sure they’ll question the risk of her choking. I am already scheduled to take an Infant CPR class later this month so at least I can let them know that if on the remote chance she did choke, we’d know what to do. But I am sure they’ll still roll their eyes. Oh well, I guess that’s okay. It certainly won’t be the first time.
Breastfed my little girl for 18 months and 2 weeks. Weaned due to pregnancy - my milk dried up at 16 weeks.
Found an adoptive mama who needed milk for her baby. Donated my milk for 5 months!
