cindy's world

I thought I oughta capture Allie’s voice so she’d know what she used to sound like when she was a couple months old. So here’s her first video, taken upon Allie’s first awakening on January 26.

Now that Allie’s almost 10 weeks old, her development advances day-to-day. It’s really remarkable. One day I look down at her and I’m like, “When’d your hands get so big? When’d YOU get so big?”

A couple of weeks ago, she found her fists. Since then, she’d been slurping on the backs and knuckles of her little balled up fists, drooling down her fingers. A couple of days later, she learned to grasp. Sitting at her high chair, she’d reach for the burp cloth and pull it toward her and hold it at her chest, then bring it up to her mouth. She hasn’t learned to grip larger or heavier objects, yet. I’m glad for now. She still dislikes tummy time and will cry so I don’t do much of it, but having done it just a few times, she has quickly learned to keep her head and chin off the ground surface for up to 5 minutes now.

When I’m burping her sitting up, I hold the burp cloth vertically under her chin in case there’s a lot of spitup. Now she holds it herself to her chest, and if she does spit up, she instantly shoves the stained part right in her mouth and starts sucking at it. “Nooo, you just spit that out! Don’t put it back in!” I’d say as I try to pull it away from her. When I do, she’d get upset and whine, “Lehhhhh!” like I’m stealing her milk from her.

She’s also learned to coo in the past couple of weeks, pretty much right when she turned 2 months. The vowels are what’s coming through, “ay,” “al,” “owl,” “eye,” “ooh.” Now both she and Dodo say “owl.” She also occasionally razzes as bubbles come out between her lips and tongue like she’s a little crab. The cooing is often directed at someone, and I think she’s trying to communicate. When I talk to her facing her, she concentrates really hard on my mouth and I can see her own lips quivering as she unconsciously tries to imitate me. She ALMOST seems to say her own name. “Who’s mommy’s pretty little girl?” “Aaaallie.” It’s just a variation of “al,” really.

Now that she’s easier to put down for naps as I’m reading her drowsy signs better and being more aware of her 1-2 hour maximum awake times, I simply put her over my shoulder, hum softly as I walk her around, and she’ll doze over my shoulder. I feel her get limp and I walk to a mirror and see her eyes closed. Then I’ll set her down on her tummy on the couch or today, for the first time, on her tummy in her crib. She’s always supervised if she sleeps on her tummy. The transfer has gotten much easier, too. The sleep book was right; when a baby naps regularly, she sleeps more easily, period. The first week of it nearly killed me, though, trying to set her up for motionless sleep instead of being held and rocked. She’s happiest after a long nap and in the morning when she wakes up. I sit her up in the Boppy on the couch like a big girl after her diaper change and first feeding, and I kneel on the ground in front of her and we sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” while I touch each of the body parts on her that I’m singing about. She coos along, smiling and laughing (not “hahaha” yet, but more like a breathy “hehhhh!” or a sharp inhale one-syllable giggle sound). She especially likes when I get to “toes” and will coo along in rhythm with the “toes.”
Me: Head, shoulders knees and toes, knees and toes!
Allie: Oooh,…ooh, ooh!
Mr. W wants to video it one of these days.

I’ve advanced her last feeding to between 7:30p and 8p, but depending on the day, she may go to sleep anywhere between 8p and 10p. Last nite, for example, she was overtired from having crappy naps since the afternoon. My mom came over around noon as she usually does on Fridays, and Allie was already napping on the couch. My mom hovered over her and tried to move Allie’s hand away from her face, manipulate her pacifier, saying that Allie can’t breathe. Allie was breathing fine, I could see her nostrils perfectly and they weren’t not obstructed. I’m all about the priority being that Allie gets the maximum hours of undisturbed sleep. My mom is about something else. She sat right at Allie’s head, talked to me, and it roused Allie. Then I had to keep waving my mom’s hand away and saying, “She’s fine! Let her sleep!” Eventually Mom told me to go eat in the kitchen and that she’d take over watching Allie. Of course I heard Allie rousing within a couple of minutes and I saw my mom patting her back and messing with her hands and pacifier. The rest of the time was trying to get Allie to settle back down, and it didn’t really work. I’d given up trying to get my mom to leave Allie alone because her hands were quicker than mine and was constantly rearranging Allie’s hands and pacifier. At least I didn’t let her move Allie’s head cuz she said facing the same direction would make Allie’s neck sore. So Allie didn’t nap well. My mom eagerly offered to pick Allie up and hold her to sleep, and I told her no, once picked up, she’s not going to sleep anymore. Eventually, I had to admit defeat and just pick Allie up from where she was crying and struggling on the couch, her naptime over. She was in my mom’s happy arms after that.

For her next naptime yesterday, my mom wanted to soothe her to sleep so I let her, but mom has trouble following my directions. She had Allie up on her shoulder so I said we’ll then just put her down on her stomach on the couch again, since that was the way she was laying against my mom. She said okay, but then soon rearranged a drowsy Allie so that she was laying on her back in my mom’s arms. I said since she was laying back, we’ll put her in her crib on her back. That means I’d have to swaddle her. We walked up to Allie’s room, I set up the swaddle and asked my mom to set her down on it with her head above the fabric. Mom placed her too high, so I had to move her again, then in swaddling her, my mom asked me, “Why are you wrapping her up all tight?” I had to explain about Allie’s nocturnal jerks waking her up as she naps on her back, and my mom kept talking, so Allie was now totally awake. I gave up and said she’s not tired enough to put down yet. My mom eagerly plucked her up to resoothe her. I left them upstairs for a few minutes then returned to put Allie down. My mom refused and said Allie wasn’t asleep long enough yet. I eventually made my mom give her up, then I swaddled and Allie was put down on her back sleeping soundly within seconds. I asked if mom was going to stay there for awhile and she said yes, and I went downstairs. My mom followed soon after to tell me how well Allie was sleeping. I turned on the baby cam, checked email, then realized my mom had disappeared. I checked the cam and saw mom upstairs in Allie’s room again, hovering over her crib. I didn’t think anything of it until 10 minutes later, I heard Allie make a sound, clicked on the cam and saw my mom unswaddling Allie and picking her up. I went upstairs. “What are you doing?” I asked her.
“She woke up. She was trying to get out.”
“Babies always move in their sleep. You just leave her alone or give her the pacifier and she’ll go back to sleep,” I told my mom over Allie’s now loud crying. Poor Allie was so tired, she didn’t get a good enough nap and I know that now she wasn’t going to sleep because she was picked up and disturbed. My mom ignored me and kept singing to Allie, bouncing and walking her over her shoulder. I gave up and went downstairs. For the next 20-30 minutes I listened to Allie wail, and saw my mom walking around with her in the nursery. I was not going to be able to help Allie nap until after her grandma leaves, I knew. Hoping mom learned something, I left them alone until it was 4pm, the time my mom said she was going to leave. Then I went upstairs and tried to take Allie, telling my mom it was after 4. She ignored me and kept holding Allie, singing. I said, “Didn’t you want to leave at 4? You’re gonna hit traffic.”
“I always hit traffic when I leave anyway.”
I stood there awhile with them, then finally, my mom said, “It’s 4:15? So fast!” I took Allie and walked her to the front door. Allie stopped crying, finally, and was looking warily alert. “She’s happy now! Aww, now I don’t want to leave,” my mom said, opening the door. We waved goodbye to grandma, thanked her for visiting, and I went to feed Allie.

That evening, for the first time since I’ve had her napping down (which is about 3 days), Allie had one of her old bouts of evening fussiness. Mr. W wasn’t happy when I told him what had happened with all Allie’s messed up naps. He tried to soothe Allie into an early evening nap and even snapped at the stepdaughter twice when she went up to Allie, put her face level, and teased Allie. “Stop stimulating her! You guys don’t respect the baby’s naptimes cuz you don’t have to be around when she’s overtired and cranky!” The old “witching hour” luckily didn’t last an hour, and I fed her early and tried to put her down to bed early. Although she fell asleep easily while feeding, it took her about an hour to settle into a deep sleep for the night. I did have to do the pacifier thing. I had to do it again after her 2am feeding, too.

Today, we’re taking Allie to Diamond Bar for her 2nd weekend visit of grandma and grandpa’s house. Since we’re doing the traveling, I get to control when we go. I’m giving her two solid naps under my control before we go. She went down easily for her morning nap and slept 1.5 hours in her crib. Just as easily, she went down for her early afternoon nap and it’s been 1.5 hours already and she’s still solid, as just confirmed on the baby cam. This way, even if she misses her early evening nap, she won’t be that badly off.

Allie must’ve heard me cry uncle. And she must’ve felt bad, too, because she was a perfect angel yesterday. In the morning, she laughed and cooed along with me as we sang some songs while she sat like a big girl upright in her Boppy. Then she went down for a nap on her back in the crib for half an hour. Then she got up, ate, and sat like a big girl in the Boppy on our bed as I washed my face and got ready. She smiled at me, didn’t fuss at all. She recently found her hands, so she was busily sucking on her fists as she looked around. And THEN, she went down in her crib for half an hour on her back. Her nocturnal jerks kept waking her up, so I swaddled her after half an hour of constantly trying to pacifier her. After that, she slept for AN HOUR AND A HALF. For her afternoon nap, I managed to get her transferred from my shoulder to a sofa cushion and with the aid of patting her back and a pacifier, she fell back to sleep and napped there for another half hour. She only got 10 minutes of her next nap because Mr. W’s friends came to visit her. Despite that, she was lovely, smiling and cooing at them. I’d expected her to sleep on our way to dinner after Mr. W got home, but she stayed in her carseat wide awake, didn’t fuss at all as she usually does against the seat restraints. She also stayed wide awake and smiley in her carseat at dinner with us. She was SO good that Mr. W’s two friends offered to come babysit for us in the next few weeks or subsequent weekends so we could have some grownup time out. Way to go, Allie! Way to trick Auntie Yvonne and Auntie Yvette! She fell asleep at 6:30p in the carrier finally, and slept on the way home. I thought because she missed 2 afternoon naps, she’d want to go down for the night earlier, and fed her at 7:30p instead of after 8p. Nope, she stayed up and kicked around, and I had to do the pacifier thing with her whimpering every time it fell out until she finally fell asleep a little after 9pm. Weirdly, she had a nighttime feeding this time at 2:30am when she normally stays down till 4-6a, but I figure she had dinner early, too. She next woke up around 6:30a and we started our day with a 7am feeding so we’re on track.

Right now I got her to nap on her tummy on the couch, transferred tearlessly from my shoulder, sans pacifier. With all the getting ready noises and loud Christian music coming from the stepdaughter right now, I’ve had to keep running there to pat her back to sleep when she rouses, but she’s still down. I’ll have to load photos later when I get a chance, maybe this evening. I just need her to stay on this nap till 10a and she’ll be rested and in a good position for a 10a feeding, then 3 hours later a 1p feeding before we have to leave for Gymboree.

She may be on to a new phase, one with longer alertness, more playfulness, less crying. But I’ve jinxed us before by counting my chickens before they’re hatched.

BTW, was hoping to make new parent friends at Gymboree. Haven’t done that yet with the 2 times I’d gone, but the 2nd time I did see who I want to avoid. 2 women were talking about some other woman in the class. “The one who wears waaaaay too much makeup? On Saturdays.”
“Yeah.” Some more catty stuff I tuned out as I tended to putting Allie in her carrier.
*sarcastically* “I hope you’re not offended if I don’t invite them to [my baby’s] birthday party.”
“Ha. I’d be offended if you DO invite them, knowing how I feel about them.”
WTF. And these are 2 large frumpy women, too. Mr. W said it’s sour grapes for them.

*** added 2-2-12: the 2 ways that Allie naps, photos taken the day of the above post:

The Tearless Couch Set-Down

The In-Crib Back Swaddle

~ Watching My Baby Daughter on the Babycam ~
Unexpectedly
You smile sweetly in your sleep
And I smile right back
10:18p 1-26-12

Allie seems to have some trouble settling into sleep. She kicks around and sucks on her fists for awhile first. It used to be a minute or two; now it seems like half an hour. Even after her middle-of-the-night feedings which thankfully is only one during early morning (between 4 and 6am), she doesn’t go right back to sleep anymore. It takes her 10 minutes or more during which I watch her anxiously as I pump behind the feeding. This morning, I had to go back in mid-pumping and feed her on the other side because she started fretting after being put down despite not being awake enough to take the other side the first go-round. But she did have her last feeding last night at 8:20p-ish, fell asleep finally around 9:30p, then didn’t wake for her next feeding until 5:45a-ish. Sounds like a good night of sleep, but I had insomnia. Mr. W was snoring next to me, the cat was asleep, the baby was asleep, and I laid there counting down the hours I had left to sleep before her next waking. I wondered about herbal teas and whether they stained teeth like regular tea. I wrote haikus in my head looking at her tummy going up and down on the baby monitor. Then at 10:45p, the stepdaughter came home. She has a habit now of coming in by opening the garage door which is right under the baby’s room even tho she doesn’t park in the garage, so it makes me jump and anxious to see if the garage opening and closing woke the baby up (it usually doesn’t unless the door between the garage and house slams). The garage door didn’t seem to wake Allie up, but the conversation the stepkidlet held on her cell phone in a normal [daytime] volume of voice as she walked in the house, followed by the bathroom and bedroom doors closing downstairs, did. The baby fell right back to sleep but I was laying there stuck listening to the conversation in the dark downstairs about some discussion held about drugs as the stepkidlet walked around the kitchen talking. As soon as she went back into her room and closed the door, her voice was muffled enough for me to finally fall asleep. I wish we had more carpeting downstairs for noise control. *sigh*

Mr. W suggested that maybe now that Allie’s sleeping better and longer through the night, I’m more rested so I’m less tired. Maybe. But I still took a long time to fall back asleep after Mr. W got up at 4am, since I still expected the baby to be up at that time. She wasn’t. So I laid there listening to his kitchen noises, occasionally checking the baby monitor. She slept through it all, it seemed. She usually sleeps through Dodo’s yowling now. (Not meowing, the loud echoing deep “owwwl” he does repeatedly right outside her door after he eats. I still don’t know why he does that.) I’ve been able to cut the yowling down by turning on my cell phone in the dark and flashing it in his direction. It distracts him and makes him aware there’s someone there so he stops the howls. I finally fell asleep after Mr. W left the house, but had nightmares of showering at my old bathroom at my parents’ house, knowing I was alone, and noticing suddenly that a darkness was creeping over the bathroom. The door to the bathroom was opening, and I thought quickly for a rational reason like the cat, but I knew Dodo wasn’t at that house. I freaked out and tried to scream. Then I woke up, saw it was past 5:15am, checked the baby on the monitor, saw she was well asleep still. And then I worried that she was sleeping TOO long and would throw off her schedule. I’m a headcase.

I’ve been reading Dr. Marc Weissblug’s book “Health Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” Understanding Allie’s sleep and nap needs better, I’m now following his advice, which is basically to respect the baby’s own natural sleep rhythms and to go with it. The result is a more even-tempered child as she isn’t cranky from fatigue. (She’s definitely in better spirits, as long as she doesn’t have gas issues. This morning, she didn’t even cry when she woke up at around 8:15a; I happened to look at the monitor and saw her cheerily playing by herself, looking around, smiling, kicking, so I went and picked her up for breakfast.) She’s now taking her 3rd nap today in her crib, which is what allows me to post this, and also what allowed me to write and send the below email (on my cellphone) with photo to my mom and Mr. W during her 2nd nap earlier today:

“Allie is practicing disco-dancing positions in her sleep. My research has found that babies 3-4 months begin to need earlier bedtimes (which we’ve seen because her fussy times get earlier at night) & begin to develop a naptime between 9-10am. 4-6 month old babies begin showing a regular naptime in the afternoon also, between 12-2p. The last couple days, I’ve noticed Allie yawning around 10a & I’ve put her to nap in her crib. She wakes from that nap in less than an hour, but with the pacifier, she can be convinced to sleep until about noon, which of when I feed her again. She starts getting fussy & yawning again around 2p, so I put her down for her nap again, also in her crib. Right now is the 2pm nap. She goes down pretty easily, but is still noise-sensitive. Pacifier helps. There may be another short nap later in the evening, according to the book about child sleep I’m reading, but it’s more unpredictable. I’m going to try putting allie to sleep earlier at night to see if her night fussing is due to being over-tired, even though the book says to expect up to 2 night feedings with the earlier bedtime, the first 4-6 hrs after feeding (betw midnight & 2a, which had happened brogue when I put her down early) & the 2nd about 4a-6a (her usual middle-of-the-night feeding time). I’m hoping she will still continue to skip the first of these 2 feedings. The payoff is that at around 6 months, she should be sleeping 12 hrs thru the night, from 6p-6a.”

Thank you to our neighbor who recommended the book, saying our entire block used it on their kids and it was life-changing for all of them.

Allie had another ghastly night, but not as ghastly as the night before. I fed her early, 8:30p-ish, and it took her from 9pm-11:30p to stop fussing/crying and fall asleep. Because Mr. W took today off to go with us to the pediatrician for Allie’s 2-month check-up, he took bedtime duty from me. I think he said she finally fell asleep as he was holding her at 11:15pm and he put her down in her crib at 11:45p where she finally slept. Rebecca said something about the new moon. Mr. W and my mom think she was overstimulated from the activities of the weekend.

At her pediatrician’s office, she got her vaccinations (finally). She cried a little, but nothing nearly as horrid as her screams of mommy-eardrum-and-heart-slaughter yesterday morning that reduced me to sobbing as I tried to exercise her legs while changing her. Her doctor thinks the sleeplessness may be a result of her messed-up routines in the day of those fussy times given her young age. If she were older he might think she’s teething. She checked out healthy and fine physically. Here are her stats:
weight: 12.5 lbs (85th %)
height: 24 inches (93th %)
head size: 15.35 inches (56th %)
The doctor noted she “runs a little cool.”

I asked him about sleep training and he said it wasn’t necessary this young, but at 4-6 months when their memories are more acute, parents have to be more careful the routines made and habits formed. He said at this point, the “cry it out” methods at naptimes and bedtimes are not recommended because babies’ needs are biological and not due to “spoiling” or “habit,” and if ignored this early when they’re trying to learn who’s there for them, they may develop a hard time bonding thinking no one responds to their needs. This is different from letting them fuss just a little as they’re put down. Leaving them for a couple of minutes to see if they’re just fussing in-between sleep cycles, or as they fall to sleep, is one thing; leaving them in there until they cry themselves to sleep for 45 minutes is unproductive. He said to be careful of books and methods written by people who don’t have scientific research to back up their advice. He thinks up until 4 months or so, I can pretty much follow the baby’s own schedule for naptimes; if she seems sleepy around the same time each day, to keep her on her own schedule and enforce those naptimes. I’m reading a book recommended by a neighbor about sleeptraining by Dr. Weissbluth, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child,” which says to apply a 6pm-6am sleeping schedule at 4-6 months. My doctor thinks that if we find that too early of a bedtime, to not worry about it. It’s not as detrimental as Dr. Weissbluth makes it sound if we don’t follow baby’s brain development sleeping patterns like a sleep Nazi.

He likes Aquaphor for keeping baby’s skin moisturized. Said Johnson & Johnsons’ stuff is too watered down and altho easy to apply because it’s easily absorbed, it doesn’t really do much for baby’s skin. As for the red rash-like lines between Allie’s neck folds, he said it’s skin irritation from the skin folding in on itself, sometimes trapping moisture so it rubs itself raw, and to apply a modest amount of Aquaphor to the areas twice a day to help insulate and prevent the chafing.

Oh yeah, and burping after the middle-of-the-night feeding: Dr. says to give it a try but if she doesn’t burp in 3-4 minutes and she’s asleep (my usual problem), go ahead and put her down to sleep. It is unnecessary to keep her upright for 10 minutes after these feedings to reduce spit-up; lack of burping doesn’t cause spit-up and if there’s such a big bubble on top that it would cause spit-up, she would’ve burped it out pretty quickly within the 3-4 minutes of trying. This cuts down on the length of my 4am feedings.

Daddy & Allie engaged in deep conversation about the efficacy of sleep training at this young age of 2 months:

I’d thought her “witching hour” was getting shorter and more occasional, but I was wrong. She’s witching away right now. She’s tired, but instead of sleeping, she’s fighting it and screeching in between sobs. I don’t know how to get her over it. Some experts say that babies need to burn off energy before sleeping, and that the way to do it before naptime is to cry because that’s the only way they have to expend energy. Since her fussy time is about 2 hours before her 9pm feeding, I’m going to try to advance her bedtime feeding to 8:30p to see if that would help. Maybe she’s hungrier earlier because supposedly milk supply wanes in the evening; maybe she’s sleepy earlier than we’ve been putting her down. Either way, an earlier bedtime feeding should do the trick. I hear some people put their babies down at 6pm and the baby sleeps through till 6am.

I learned from talking to Payroll downtown that I can use any benefit time (vacation, sick personal, special paid leave) for my CFRA baby bonding time EXCEPT sick time…unless I am personally sick. I don’t have enough benefit time to cover the time I have off for CFRA, so since I have the days off already approved (they HAVE to give me up to 12 weeks by law), whatever I can’t cover will be taken without pay. My OB and my family doctor, whom I saw on last-minute apptmt last Friday, both referred me to the psychiatry dept, so I made an appointment for their earliest available day in early February. I hadn’t wanted to take the time for counseling when my OB recommended it because I didn’t have anyone to watch Allie and I knew I didn’t want to get on psych meds anyway due to my breastfeeding, but now I’m thinking they can give me the medical note for work to say that I DO have postpartum issues and that I need the time off, which would then qualify me to use sick time. BTW, my family doc diagnosed me with “adjustment disorder with acute anxiety.” He said my auditory hallucinations (hearing a baby cry as I drift off to sleep, which wakes me up with an adrenaline jolt so strong I’m laying there gasping for air with my extremities tingling) are symptoms of the anxiety. He didn’t want to put the label of “depression,” postpartum or otherwise, on me without my seeing the psych department for it. I did tell me about work stressing me out on this issue and he said the counselor should take care of that and get me off for longer if I need to.

My moods are getting better, though. Her inconsolable crying isn’t getting to me as much anymore, probably because I now know and finally believe that it’s temporary; she’s sleeping pretty solidly at night in a predictable pattern (she goes down after her 9p feeding and wakes up sometime between 4a and 6:30a for her next feeding) so I’m getting a nice block of sleep at night as well. After I put her down in her crib and turn out the lights, I’ve gotten into a habit of hanging out in the dark in the recliner next to her, texting my cousin Jennifer or Diana asking about how each others’ evenings went, how the babies behaved. I’m there just in case I need to pacifier-plug her to help her sleep, but I don’t usually need to. She frets a little (not cry, just sorta whines), but within minutes to maybe half an hour, will fall asleep. I usually fall asleep in the recliner when she does, checking on her here and there through the camera app on my phone since it has infrared, and waking up at 11p-ish and going to bed myself. If Mr. W is going to work in the morning, he gets up between 4-5a which is when Allie gets up, so I’d do a feeding, then I’d pump and/or hang out with him downstairs a little and have a little breakfast, then I may go back and nap until her next feeding between 7a-8a. Mornings when I’m alone with the baby is hard cuz I have to fit in my breakfast, pumping, storage, cleaning out pump parts, all before she wakes up for the day.

Going out with her is becoming less anxiety-ridden for me, though. She’s usually good unless she has an extremely dirty diaper or she’s hungry. If I have to, I’d feed her in the car or the drive home is pretty hellacious. She cries in the carseat and even tho she falls asleep with the car moving, she’ll wake up and continue crying where she left off when the car has to stop due to a red light/traffic. Saturday, we met up with my cousin Jennifer, her husband Brad, and baby Alexandra at Downtown Disney. It was a long day for us; we went out at noon to buy a new baby carrier wrap (Baby K’tan) that we liked so much we bought one for each of us, and that was when my cousin contacted me. We then had lunch out, I fed Allie in the car, then we went to Downtown Disney. Mr. W wore Allie around in the Baby K’tan and thought it was the best thing invented:

Funny; when Allie was up and gazing around, Alex was dead asleep in her stroller. When Allie fell asleep and Mr. W wore her facing in, Alex woke up so Jen wore her around on their Ergo carrier. The two are rarely both awake at the same time. We didn’t get home until close to 6p and it was a good day out, altho she came home and still had her fussy time before her last meal.

Today is Asian New Year’s Eve. We met Rebecca at Seal Beach for lunch and she got to meet Allie for the first time. Allie loved her right away, must be the calming presence. Allie nearly fell asleep just with Rebecca holding her, and before we left, she and Rebecca had this whole conversation. It was adorable, with Allie cooing and smiling at Rebecca in response to Rebecca’s questions and comments to Allie. I told Rebecca that when I’d first met my cousin Diana’s daughter Elle at 2 months or so (Elle is now 2.5 yrs old), I felt like I knew her when I held her. After that, my arms felt empty, which had never happened before, not that I’d ever held many babies. And then when I spent a little time at Elle’s house for the first time a couple of weeks ago at the Cousins’ Day Out at the Park, Elle came up to me despite having nearly no contact with me, and wanted to hug me. I lifted her up on my lap and she chatted with me, then kept handing me all her favorite toys. Her grandma and my cousin Jennifer were surprised, commenting on how much Elle apparently likes me. Rebecca said that Elle and I have had past lives together; we were sisters in one and in another, we were mother-daughter, altho she wasn’t sure which one was which. I got excited and wanted to tell my cousin Diana, but was afraid it’d freak her out. Rebecca said that yes, it would, and Diana and I have had a past life where we were sisters, too, and there were some jealousy issues that she’s not sure if Diana ever resolved so it may still be something remaining in this life, so to not tell her at this point. I could understand how, even without her having past life jealousy toward me, it could be awkward, too. I mean, this is HER baby, and her baby and I shared a past (or two)? Okay, so I’ll keep it to myself. But it’s kinda cool to think about how some souls know each other and just keep incarnating together to meet up over and over again.

Then in the evening, my parents and maternal grandma came over. It was a very lucrative New Year’s for my baby’s first time. We are now leaving the Year of the Rabbit (Allie’s year) and entering the Year of the Dragon (my year).
“MY red envelope!”

Right now, Allie’s NAPPING in her OWN CRIB! I was trying to read “Goodnight, Moon” to her in the recliner in her room and she started getting fussy so I cradle-held her and walked around a little. She yawned, eyes got droopy, so I thought, “Maybe I can put you down for a nap before your 11am feeding.” And she settled pretty easily into her crib for the nap! First time I ever had her day-napping just being set down, also the first time I tried to do it in her crib upstairs (instead of the swing downstairs) so maybe she just loves her crib and her room. *doing silent touchdown dance*

…and I probably just jinxed everything.

The stepkidlet walked out her room while I was on blogging and I waved her over, showed her the surveillance camera shot, pointing at the upper right corner. She first looked confused, like, “Where’s the baby?” Then she looked at the monitor and put her hand on my shoulder, saying, “NO WAY!” You can see her celebrating for me on the upper left monitor. 🙂

I nominate Mr. W for Daddy of the Year. Because the slings didn’t work for us, he got up this morning with the ambition to take the smaller Seven Sling apart and reconstruct it with some modifications to make one that does work. He also took the Kaiser diaper bag apart for parts (the adjustable strap part cuz it’s brown and matches the sling fabric) and pulled out his sewing machine and worked while Allie was asleep in the sling (and I was unproductively blogging the previous post). Allie started stirring about 10 minutes ago, so he went and had her test out the sling. Poor girl, she barely woke up and suddenly was stuffed into a sling with her body and limbs maneuvered all over the place. She made some struggling sounds and grunts, which I took to mean, “What did I wake up to?” She was a trooper, tho, and smiled at us. I think she was secretly laughing.
Front:

Back:

Here are some other recent Daddy of the Year photos:
Friday, after we gave her a bath in the walk-in shower. Well, Mr. W did the work getting in the shower with her so he could use the pull-out shower nozzle-handle-thingie on her while she was in her baby tub on the floor of the shower. I just handed over towels and stuff. Then he bundled her up like an eskimo baby so she would stop shivering.

Yesterday, going shopping for 3 & 6 month baby clothes since my little weed had outgrown her newborn-to-3-month clothes.

Last Wednesday, Mr. W pulled out the convertable high chair booster, hoping Allie was ready to sit still with us at the table while we ate. She WAS! We all had dinner at the table! Ever since then, each night’s dinner was a success as she sat patiently, watching us, looking around.

Now they’re watching football together. 🙂

There’s a school of thought that says Allie’s too young to be “sleep-trained” just yet, but there’s been signs that she’s ready for SOME parental influence in the sleep-training direction. The fact that she sleeps more easily in her crib in her room at night instead of in our room with us, for example. How amenable she is to going right back to sleep after a feeding at nighttime. How easily she went into the eat-play-sleep pattern in the daytime, which is a pattern recommended by the book “Babywise” to get baby to sleep through the night (7 weeks on, it says, and she’s at 7 weeks already). Maybe the constant holding earlier helped, because she’s secure enough to be on her own already at night and during the short naps she takes in the day alone. So far, half an hour to an hour is it, and in her swing, but that’s more than I had before. She’s asleep in her swing right now. I’m hopeful that times like this will increase in duration.

One of the biggest fallacies I’ve found about infant care is “when the baby sleeps, you should sleep.” I’m sure all babies are different and some people can actually do this, but I can’t. I’ve spoken to many new moms and their experiences are the same as mine — when baby naps, baby demands to be held, so you hold baby and can’t sleep yourself, unless you’ve somehow mastered sleeping while sitting up with a baby over a shoulder. I can’t; I can’t settle my mind down and plus the position hurts my tailbone. When she sleeps, sometimes I can do things one-handed, and throughout the day there seems to be an ever-gathering list of things I must do, increasing in urgency in my head like unrelieved urine (which is sometimes really on the to-do list), so when I get a moment of peace, I’m more about “What can I do off this list? What’s the most urgent or important?” than about napping. I’ve made many phone calls while she was asleep cradled in one arm, and ate many breakfasts and taken many vitamins with her propped up on one shoulder, bouncing her and walking around the room so she doesn’t get tired of one view and start fussing. I haven’t figured out how to pee holding her, yet. Or pump and clean pump parts. *sigh*

Another challenge I’ve had is that due to my baby inexperience, I didn’t know what to do with her as her waking and alert hours increased. I know I’m supposed to interact, but how? So I’ve been attempting some minimal tummy time (it lasts probably 10 seconds before she tells me in no uncertain terms she’s getting pissed at me), I’ve shown her colors around the house, I’ve propped her up in a Boppy when she’s tolerant enough to and read a couple of children’s books to her while she looked at the colorful pages and tuned me out. I’ve danced with her to my Labor Music playlist as I sang the lyrics I remembered to her (“Oh girl I think I love you, I’m always thinking of you, I want you to know I do it all for love; I love it when we’re together baby, I need you forever, and I want you to know I do it all for love…” That’s often made me cry, I’ll blame hormones cuz the Color Me Badd song’s SO upbeat), narrated what I’m doing as I did small amounts of housework I could do one-handed, massaged her and sang children’s songs with her propped up in front of me so I could “help” her do the hand motions and as she smiled her big open-mouthed smiles I’d laugh with her. She doesn’t track rattles and things all that well, but based on her solid tracking of people she’s interested in, I think it’s just a lack of desire in tracking toys. What she seems to enjoy quite a bit is when I sit her up over my shoulder and take her for a little walk around the back yard so we can say hello to the squash vines, Mr. Avocado Tree, all the pretty white roses contrasted against their deep green leaves, and then we walk through the gate to the front yard, and we greet The Magnolia Tree and ask for it to produce some big white flowers so that Allie could sniff them. We wave to The Bonzai Tree at our front yard, walk a few houses down (being careful her face isn’t in the sunlight much, or she flinches in the sudden brightness), meeting palm trees and other front yard gardens. Then we come back through the gate, avoid the mean hummingbirds guarding their precious feeders, she looks around and looks up at the blue sky, and we come inside.

Stroller walks with her are touch-and-go, as with car rides. She doesn’t like the confinement, especially when the straps are fastened, and she pushes against them and cries. A car moving does usually lull her to sleep, but the moment we hit traffic or red lights, she starts crying. SoCal traffic really ticks me off these days. Last week I ambitiously took her way out on a stroller walk around the neighborhood, planning to get to a local park with a playground, but halfway there in the neighborhood, she’d had enough and started wailing. I realized then that I’d forgotten to bring her pacifier, so I had to turn around and hustle back through residential streets of people coming home from work looking at the lady pushing the screaming baby through their neighborhood. I could see them wondering why I wasn’t able to do anything about the crying, or, at least, that’s what I saw in my head.

Last Friday I had a cousin outing and cousin Jennifer, her 3.5-month-old girl Alexandra, her mom, my mom, my cousin Olivia, her two elementary-school-age daughters, myself, and Allie gathered at my cousin Diana’s house with her 2.5 yr old daughter Elle (where sisters Diana/Jennifer’s mom was babysitting), with plans to have sandwich lunch at the house and a walk to a nearby park. Allie was fine until Olivia and her 2 daughters got there; then the noise level of shrieking excited girls/women got to her as she was passed to Olivia and she started crying in the unfamiliar environment with the unfamiliar people and unfamiliar sounds and smells. I took her upstairs into a quiet room and Jennifer came up to keep me company, force me to eat (I was stress-nauseated and had no appetite at this point), comfort me. She brought me Allie’s pacifier and soon Allie fell asleep in my arms. I stayed up there until it was time to walk to the park. Half the people went on ahead and some of us stayed behind while I breastfed Allie, then we went. The rest of the day was decent, and I was happy to let my mom hold Allie and comfort her, doing her grandmother thing as Jennifer and I played like children on the playground at the advice of my mom. Even with random bouts (brain fart: that word looks weird) of crying, my mom and aunt thought Allie wasn’t acting abnormal or badly. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m still traumatized with her first weeks of colicky behavior.

She took awhile to be put down last nite, cried, but I was feeling better and happy that it didn’t emotionally tear me up. Ultimately, after her 9pm feeding, she was asleep solidly by about 10:30pm.

These are some photos from the Cousins’ Park Day on Friday. My mom told me in the car on the way back that I should wear some makeup so I don’t look like a “yellow-faced mama,” whatever that means in Chinese. I told her I don’t have time to spend on luxuries like that, and she said letting Allie cry for 2 mins while I made myself look decent wouldn’t kill her. Looking at the photos, I guess she’s right. Jennifer had time to look cute.

Olivia & Allie

The scene:

Being kids:

Alex: “hello, a camera!” Allie: “zzzzz”

(rest mouse pointers over photos for captions)

One of the most memorable things from this park day: Cousin Olivia came up to check on me and Jennifer after the Allie Overstimulation Meltdown, and stayed and counseled me about my postpartum crap. She said, “Of course when they’re older, you have to take some of their preferences and personalities into consideration, but right now, you’re boss. Don’t revolve your life and day and [tiptoe on eggshells] around her. Still do what you need to do; if she cries, that’s okay. Babies have starved to death, frozen to death, been overheated to death; no baby has yet cried to death.”