On Saturday, Allie met two of my mom’s closest friends, a couple named Muoi and Bob. Bob used to be a driving instructor and had given me some formal driving lessons when I was preparing to take the exam for my driver’s license at age 15. Muoi works with my mom. The two don’t have children of their own, so they are kind of vicarious grandparents of Allie’s. My mom says Muoi goes around work armed with photos of Allie on her iPad and shows them off like a proud grandma, although she does give actual grandma credit to my mom.
The four “grownups” got to our house after Allie’s afternoon nap. Much exclamations, excitement and cooing ensued. After we hung out at our house for awhile, we headed off to our favorite local sushi joint on the lake for some omakase. Since we arrived a bit before the restaurant opened, we wandered around the area and checked out a portion of the lake. Allie does more pointing and the rest of us unquestioningly follow her lead like her puppets.
“Now look over there!” *point*
Allie enjoys the fountain outside of the restaurant with Daddy.
We were the first into the restaurant, entering right as it opened and snagging seats at the sushi bar.
My mom said that Muoi and Bob had a great time. Although they loved sushi, this was their first time at a sushi bar. Definitely first with omakase. The sushi chef, Johnny, was a newbie at the restaurant and had only been there a month. He did GREAT…probably because he used to own two sushi restaurants, one in Florida and one in NorCal, before he relocated to SoCal. According to my mom, Allie was a big hit, too, and they talked nonstop about her on the whole drive back with my parents. Mom emailed me today and said that Muoi brought her iPad to work with her to show off photos she’d taken of/with Allie over the weekend. Haha.
Allie: Look up there!
Muoi: Okay!
Allie has a new thing to add to her signage repertoire: pointing. It’s used to draw our attention to something she’s taken an interest in (“Look mommy, a bright ceiling light!”), to indicate a desire (“I want that red cup, bring me to it.”), and to coerce some playful contact (“I point at you, you touch your nose or fingertip to mine, and you can either say ‘Boop’ if it’s your nose or ‘E.T. phone home’ if it’s your finger, I’ll smile at both.”).
Mr. W thought it’d be great to hand her a plush UCLA football, then get her to point at something overhead, so that she looks like she’s signing, “UCLA is #1!” So we turned on an overhead ceiling fan and just like a charm, she pointed repeatedly at it, fascinated. Then we handed her the football, a gift from Eddie (die-hard Trojan, of all things) and Michelle. Immediately she was distracted by the tag. Of course it went right in her mouth, and we tried lots of different tactics, changing up the timing of handing her the football, pointing to the fan ourselves, and this was the best we could do:
Her hand had dropped by the time the cameraphone took the photo. Oh, well.
In the car on Sunday, Allie looked up, pointing quizzically at the cabin light. So I thought I’d really impress her and show her something magical. “Light on!” I said, and flipped the switch to turn the cabin light on. She smiled. “Light off,” I announced, turning it off. She looked at me expectantly, then very deliberately pointed at the light again, leaving her hand in the air, waiting. “Light on!” *flick* Allie smiled. “Light off.” *flick* Allie looked up at the light again, then pointed up at it. “Light on!” *flick* “Light off.” *flick* *point* “Light on!” I announced, quickly regretting starting this game. *flick* “Light off.” *flick* *point* This went on for some time until I managed to distract her by pretending to loudly eat her foot.
Yes, we did go to Claudio’s girlfriend Jenny’s bday shindig on Saturday. Allie had a late nap, so we didn’t leave the house until after 4pm, arriving at 4:35p, and then wandering around the condo complex on foot getting lost for 15-20 minutes before finding the right place. The party was Hawaiian-themed and they put out quite a spread.
My parents had observed in photos that when Allie’s among strangers and feeling uncomfortable, she sucks in her lower lip tightly and doesn’t smile. She’s certainly doing that in these photos and clung on to me throughout the hour or so we were there, but we didn’t have time for her to warm up to everyone. We met the more important people, tho, like the birthday girl Jenny:
Uncky Andrae:
Tio Claudio:
Here’s Allie demonstrating the pointing thing, and it has the same effect on Uncky Andrae.
Allie: Look over there!
Andrae: Oh yes, I see…I think…
I got a good laugh out of how Andrae just automatically follows points, even a baby’s.
Unfortunately, the food came out late and we pushed Allie’s bedtime as much as we dared while we waited for Andrae (who said he’d overslept during his nap) to show up, but still missed dinner. We did have some ahi poke one of Jenny’s friends made (delish!) and Claudio’s BBQ’ed chicken looked and smelled teasingly delicious, too. It was 6pm when we got back to the car, and I zoomed back home, wanting to leave before Allie had a bedtime meltdown. She had a little fit in the car starting around 6:15p, upset that she was tired and not going thru her bedtime routine, yet, but went down fine by 7p when we got her in the house at 6:30p. Poor Mr. W. He was all hungry from the almost-dinner he had, but was piteously just going to drink water and play Diablo 3 for the rest of the night, so after I put the baby down, I made some noodle soup for dinner (not instant Ramen). He still got to spend the rest of the night playing Diablo, and I read myself to sleep upstairs.
While I was at Ruby’s bridal shower yesterday, Ruby’s fiance (Edgar)’s mom walked in late. I’ve known Edgar since we were both 14, and I’ve spent a significant part of that time as Edgar’s best friend, so I’m quite familiar with his mother. Since moving out of my parents’ house, however, I’ve rarely had occasion to see Edgar’s parents, who live in my parents’ neighborhood.
So I waved at Edgar’s mom. She looked at me and then said, in a surprised voice, “You are Cindy!” Why, yes, I am. “I almost didn’t recognize you because you look so different!” she said. I did a polite chuckle. She kept going. “You look SO different! Wow!”
“Thank you…?” I said unsurely. Because of the unsure tone, she thought she ought to clarify, apparently.
“You used to be, kind of…” She puffed her cheeks out with air and cupped her hands out on either side of her face, as if indicating that my cheeks used to extend out 4 inches on either side of my face. Everyone at our table was staring at her now, and looking back at me. She kept elaborating. “You used to be chubby, but now you look good!”
I gave another polite laugh. “Thank you,” I said, because I couldn’t really say anything else.
“No, really! Try to maintain like this! You look much better now! I’m not lying to you, I have no reason to pat your horse on its rear.” (Chinese euphemism for BS-ing for the purpose of ass-kissing.) She kept on for a little bit, and all I could do was the polite laugh and the thanks.
I told Mr. W about this when I got home, and he laughed and said, “Asian moms are so tactless.” I didn’t even tell him about the amount of time she’d later spent on advising me to have more children, because having just one child take care of me/us in my old age is too big a burden so for Allie’s sake, I should give her some siblings. And not too far apart in age, either, because I’d want them to close enough to communicate effectively with each other when the time comes to take over our affairs. One-and-a-half years apart is ideal, but definitely not three years. I’d thought about Mr. W’s other 2 kids, 2 decades older than Allie, and how we no longer have embryos in our possession, but decided not to mention any of that. After all, she’s not MY mother-in-law. =P
Oh, and apparently, I’m supposed to have bangs, too. Not straight flat bangs, but sideswept bangs. I explained that I pull all my hair back now because the baby grabs at it, and was given temporary reprieve from obeying her advice on my appearance.
(This was at Tranquil Tea Lounge, btw.)
Mr. W and I took this past Monday off and set off with Allie on Saturday morning for her first trip to Vegas. It’s not the kind of trip you’d expect. We were going to visit his parents, 2 brothers and the brothers’ families, not to play on The Strip. It would be Allie’s first time meeting everyone in his family aside from his parents, who had visited us in California when Allie was about 3 months old.
Allie did really well on the drive there. Given that Mr. W makes a 5 hours drive in more like 3 hours, we didn’t spend that much time in the car. When her regular 9 a.m. naptime rolled around in the car, Allie just simply went to sleep on her own in her carseat. When she awoke, we stopped for a diaper change and feeding in Baker, took her into an old restaurant, plopped her in a high chair while we had lunch, she people-watched and drank water dropped into her mouth from a straw, then we hit the road again. 12:30p rolled around quickly and she went to sleep again. Unfortunately, that nap only lasted half an hour because Mr. W drove too fast. We got to Allie’s grandparents’ house by 1:30p and immediately commenced to turn their living room into Allie’s playground.
Allie’s wearing a Cubs outfit because it was a gift from a coworker, who kinda assumed that because Mr. W’s family is from Chicago that he’d be a Cubs fan. He’s a White Sox fan, as with most members of his family, except for Rocker Bro. I sent this photo to Rocker Bro with the caption, “Hi Uncle Jimmy, guess where I am!” It was a quiet relaxing Saturday at grandma and grandpa’s, and we set up Allie’s playyard/bed in a spare room, blasted white noise on her iPad (yes, HER iPad, Mr. W’s 1st generation that he’d replaced with the 3rd generation), and she went down for the night on time like a pro. She did wake up and wail twice, the first because the clocks at the house chimed each hour with a lot of sound effects, and Mr. W’s parents took the battery out of that clock for the rest of the weekend. The second wake-up, she just gave a wail, then a whimper, and was quiet again. It was a challenge with no cameras to know what was going on in there, but I didn’t want to open the door and go in to check on her because that may wake her up, and if she sees me, she wasn’t going to go back to sleep.
On Sunday, it was crazy meet the family day. Everyone and their mothers (and grandmothers and grandchildren and babies) came to the house to hang out throughout the day. Allie was GREAT with all the new faces, and she in particular liked to crawl to the little girls, reach out her hand, and interact with them. She taught Rocker Bro how to crawl…
…she had her first rocking horse ride…
…she showed everyone how she now stands, and claps (started clapping Friday), and makes funny faces. See funny face in 24-second video below. 😀
Naps were challenging that day because the noise level was high, but she still went down in her room at grandma and grandpa’s and was transferred into the play yard just fine. She didn’t stay down long for the second nap, just 30 minutes, but you’d never know it by how well-tempered she was into the evening, even tho we had to delay her bedtime by an hour because people were still over. I ended up just staying in the room with her for the second nap, hiding behind the blocked-off section of her play yard, because I wouldn’t be able to check on her to see if she was awake from outside of the room without opening the door and letting in immense volumes of people laughing, TV blasting, kids running around playing. Who would nap when they’d rather be out joining in that much fun, right? Even tho that nap was short, I was pleasantly surprised how the white noise eliminated a large amount of outside voices, except for the sounds of metal hitting counters or kids running and screaming close to her room. She slept pretty well that night with no audible wake-ups.
The car ride home was more of the same; her morning naptime hit, she yawned and just went to sleep. When she woke up from that first nap, we were a bit far from stuff so she got a little impatient, straining against the seat belt and yelling to be let out. I had to entertain her with songs, hand-tricks, pretenses of eating her foot and hand, all of which worked for only so long before I had to resort to what I didn’t want to — a cartoon video of some Miss Spider’s Tea Party something-or-other on iPad. She watched that for awhile and when she once again got impatient, thankfully we got to a shopping retail outlet and pulled over. I changed her in a relatively empty food court restroom’s baby station, but there was nowhere to feed her. I decided that a Maidenform employee was more apt to help me than a Guess employee, so I popped my head into the store and asked across the racks of bras on sale, “I’m sorry, I have a random question. Do you know where there may be a restroom with a lounge where I can nurse my baby?” The employee pointed out a couple of possibilities, but then offered her store’s changing room. She said the benches in there aren’t too comfortable, but it’s private and quiet and air-conditioned. I thanked her gratefully for her very generous offer and were shown to a room. Allie took a look around once we were in and let out an amused half-chuckle.
“Huh!” she said.
“I know this is weird, but it works!” I told her. And she ate and ate until her little tummy was round. We walked around the outlet a bit after that, bought her some cute outfits at Old Navy, then got back in the car. Remember the bear from the sheriff’s department she’s addicted to sleeping on? It put her right to sleep for her second nap, too. She was SO HAPPY to see it.
Many babies have a security toy, stuffed animal, or blankie…my kid has a giant bear rug.
Mr. W flew home amidst warning indicator lights and beeps that came on in his car that said “PROBLEM.” We dropped his car off at the dealership maintenance department soon after we got home and unpacked. Turned out the oil was so low that he may have damaged his engine, as for each hard turn or hard braking he did, the oil would drop below the sensor level and set off the indicator warning. He’s going to try just topping off the oil regularly instead of spending $4K on a new engine just yet. Ack.
Just for poops and giggles, here’s a 2-minute clip from Monday after our return home, when Allie was playing with Mr. W. She likes to arch her back now and see the world upside-down, like I did when I was her age.
And here’s a video of something Mr. W was excited about all weekend, Allie standing on her own and clapping. He kept saying Allie stood for like 10 seconds unsupported and clapped, but I never saw it, cuz every time I came over from making her next batch of new food puree (sweet potatoes this time!), she’d see me and get distracted and not do it. She’d wave and smile at me, tho. In this video, she does stand and clap, but not for 10 seconds. (The couch behind her is plush leather on the bottom and sides, and plush microfiber on top, so don’t worry, there aren’t hard edges for her to fall against.)
Here’s something else we discovered on Monday. She now holds the bottle by herself! We don’t bottlefeed her because when we’re home, she’s exclusively nursed, but I’d wanted to use up some milk that Jayne had out and thawed but didn’t use.
I wonder what else she does that we aren’t aware of. Maybe she sells original artwork and sculptures online.
We had a new person, also a vet hospital technician, come by and medicate Dodo day and night. She cost double what the other girl (who was not available last weekend) charged, but it was okay by me to pay her $20 each trip because Dodo was in good hands. Catherine loves cats, has cats of her own, is used to taking care of animals at her job, and even plans to get a Scottish Fold like Dodo as her next cat. I got text updates from her telling me how everything was going at the house, and she even stayed after meds to clean up after Dodo’s litter, make sure food/water is clean and plentiful, and give him lots of love and attention.
Last Friday, I aged another year but I insist that I remain in my “mid-thirties.” I figure 38 would be “late thirties,” so I’ve still got a few years. It seems like just a couple of years ago that I was making this argument about being in my “mid-twenties.”
Mr. W kept asking me what I wanted for my birthday. There really wasn’t anything I could think of. If Allie weren’t in existence, or if Dodo weren’t doing pretty well, I may have a few birthday wishes. Not knowing what else to do, Mr. W ended up bringing home what seems like 2 dozen beautiful yellow and sunset roses from his Costco shopping trip, and taking a couple of hours off work so he could take me out to an early dinner while Jayne was still at home with Allie. We had a delicious adults-only meal at Seasons 52 at South Coast Plaza, and after that, walked into the attached swanky mall to Sephora, where after a looooong hunt (and being delayed half an hour by an annoying salesperson who insisted she was “like, like, a makeup artist, like, you know,” and wasted my time putting unwanted shades of eyeshadow on me that made me look like a zombie despite my saying I just want a simple matte gray to go), I found my gray eyeshadow. It was a Sephora store brand, cuz EVERY OTHER brand they carried was either metallic or glittery or shimmery. I got overexcited and selected 3, and Mr. W insisted on paying for them at the register. So yay for a very much appreciated birthday gift! And good gawd, when did some powder pigments start costing $13 each?!
I was SWAMPED trying to clean up a certain problematic floater’s mess with a 3-defendant attempted murder trial at work, but I don’t want to dwell on that. It’s a good thing that in this day of layoffs and difficulty in getting a job, that I’m gainfully employed. Unfortunately, certain others are also equally gainfully employed, even tho apparently I’M doing THEIR work. Okay, I’ll stop now. There were good things that happened at work on my bday, too. For instance:
My former court reporter Louise must’ve had early notice that she would be in our courthouse on my birthday, because she popped in prepared with three very sinful, very gourmet cakelets (yes, I just made that up) from The Great Dane Bakery for me. This place makes wedding cakes, so you can imagine how fancy her little cakes were. I was being floated all over the building, so I “didn’t get a chance” to share. In the afternoon, a few hours after consuming one such cakelet for lunch, my courtroom assistant noted after witnessing my 700 wpm phone conversation about a case, that I was on a sugar high. Later, the nausea and headache set in. Amazing how sensitive my system has become given my very careful eating ever since I started prepping for pregnancy (and now breastfeeding). That didn’t stop me from eating the other 2 cakelets. YUM.
Of course, given the above birthday indulgence yesterday, I had to go for a run this morning. Mr. W opted to not go, so he stayed home with Allie. Finding myself not accountable to anyone for my run, I got lazy and slowed to a walk shortly after starting up a hill. Suddenly, I looked up and saw this:
So I sighed, obeyed, and ran the rest of the way, not stopping again until I reached home. As my friend Danielle said, “Sign, signs, everywhere are signs.”
I must’ve earned my karma, because Allie was THE PERFECT BABY today. She took her first nap at 8:30a for an hour and a half; took her second nap at 12:30p for another hour and a half. Mr. W’s son came over during Allie’s 2nd nap and we all went out to sushi for Son’s birthday which was earlier in the week. Thanks to her great rest, Allie was so happy, she didn’t even get stranger-shy around Son like she did about a month ago. She was super well-behaved and patient while we ate at the sushi bar, too. After this early dinner, Mr. W and Son went to purchase Son’s bday gift, an iPad3. I swear, Mr. W should get commission for those things. (My mom called, and I told her what our plans were today. She said, “An iPad? And you only got eyeshadow for your birthday?!” I guess she’s a lurker on my social networking site.) I stayed home with Allie and got to enjoy her wonderful mood all day, giggling, playing, dancing, humming. It inspired me to take a 10-minute video of her doing basically nothing but hanging out, crawling and playing, enjoying herself and her blocks that I stack up and she likes to knock down, and a sturdy plastic bag that I inflated and ziplocked. (I know, I’m not supposed to let babies play with flimsy plastic bags or any plastic sheeting, but she was well-supervised.) She’s so like her brother Dodo. You can buy all the expensive stuff you want for them, but their favorite things will be plastic bags, cardboard boxes, and crinkly paper. Mr. W and Son got home from the Apple store in time to spend some time frolicking with Allie before her bedtime, which was also caught on my 10-minute video.
Allie went to bed for the night without a hitch, and Mr. W is spending quality time chatting with his son in the backyard. I finally have the computer to myself. Now, if only the screaming neighbor boys would stop making all the noise playing basketball on their driveway outside of Allie’s bedroom window, it would be a great evening. They kept Allie tossing and turning. I blame summer’s long days and Daylight Savings hours.
Claudio emailed me mid-week last week something about how we “need to catch up.” I haven’t seen him since before pregnancy, so obviously he’s right, but I was also wondering what prompted this “need.” I knew that he’d moved from his bachelor pad in San Diego to live with his girlfriend in Anaheim, but I didn’t even realize that until fairly recently. Claudio said he was working from home all last week and could spare a longer lunchtime, whereas my lunches have been shortened by half an hour daily due to my need to get back and pump, so he agreed to drive up to the court for lunch on Friday. I agreed to postpone my pumping a bit.
Turned out, there was nothing dramatic going on. Nobody’s pregnant, had a scandalous fight, made any dealbreaker discoveries about anybody’s past. He just realized that he hadn’t seen me since he moved from San Diego and wanted to spend some time with a friend. I don’t think it’s all Claudio; I haven’t seen much of anyone since having a baby. There just doesn’t seem to be time to get out and do anything meaningful around her naps, and it’s too hard to have people over when the baby’s demands require so much attention. Besides, I can just see my friends’ faces if I have to whip out a boob to feed Allie. Some friends who have had babies, no biggie. But I don’t think my male friends would quite know what to do with themselves. (Not that I would do that; I’d retire to her nursery.)
Anyhow, I’m happy to have good friends who understand and don’t take my disappearance personally, and I’m happier to have friends who go out of their way when they know I can’t go out of mine (anymore). I can’t help but wonder how my future peer groups would change, though. I know that a lot of people with young kids say that their friend circles now only involve other couples with young kids, and that makes sense. But I’d like to think that my friends are lifetime friends. After all, we stuck by each other when I got married and they stayed single. I did form closer friendships with other new moms, tho, as we text/talk frequently and share tips and experiences.
In case you’re bored, you can take up to 3 minutes to watch the below video of Allie giggling. This was taken May 26. We’d just bought her this little sleep-and-play outfit and Mr. W thought the fake Levi’s tag on her fake butt pocket was so cute. (He’d thought it was a real tag at first, then realized it was painted on.)
“One of the charms of a child,” my judge said earlier, “is their ability to be completely absorbed in observing someone. I sometimes become conscious that a small child is observing me — maybe it’s the movement, or the gray hair, who knows — but they are so completely engrossed in the study, until another distraction, something else comes along that takes their attention, and they just move on, with no memory [of their previous object of study]…” He paused, a big whimsical smile on his face. Coming back to the present, he looked at me and said, “I envy you.”
This conversation started because he asked me whether Allie has been interacting much with other babies her age. I told him she hasn’t had much opportunity, but she loves watching older toddlers, especially little girls, play at the parks. Little girls love her, too. They often come up and want to watch her closely, or speak to her. One little girl over the weekend walked up to us and offered Allie her pink cowgirl hat. If you’ve got one minute, you can watch this on the below video, taken by my mom as my parents, maternal grandma, and we had a late lunch at The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate my mom and my joint birthdays.
Isn’t it funny how grownups talk to babies? My grandma looked totally silly. Mr. W thought it was creepy that the entire soundtrack of many of these video clips taken over the course of the meal consisted of this:
Allie: Aaaah.
Allie’s grandma: Aaaaah!
Allie’s great-grandma: Aaah aaah aaah aaahhhhh!
Allie: Aaaah.
Allie’s grandma: Aaaah! Aaaah!
Allie’s great-grandma: Aaah! Aaah! Aaaaaahhhhh!
But yes, Allie is becoming quite the people-watcher. As long as we bring her some of her purees and feed her before our meal comes, Allie is content to sit in her high chair and watch the world go by, even if it’s happening behind her.
It’s very telling who the “kids people” are when you have a kid. Some people (usually older grandma types) would stop in their tracks and come over to talk to Allie, ask me how hold she is, etc. And then there’d be others (usually younger, high-school age people who are more absorbed in their own worlds) who wouldn’t make eye contact with Allie, even if Allie is staring hard at them. I used to be one of those until I got pregnant (unless I was with a baby I knew). I find myself liking “baby people” more. What kind of evil person would ignore a baby this cute, right? =P I remember as a kid also being able to tell the difference based on how adults behaved toward me, and I had resolved to not be like the non-kid grownups, until I became one of those. And then I understood how annoying kids are. Haha. And then I canceled my Disneyland annual membership.
It was also at Cheesecake Factory this weekend when we made a big discovery. Mr. W allowed Allie to chew on his thumbnail and all of a sudden, he said, “Her upper teeth are out.”
I said, “No, the doctor [at the 6-month checkup] said they’ve come down but it’ll be awhile until they’re out.”
“I can FEEL it on my fingernail,” he said.
So I poked her little upper lip up, and looked, and THERE is the white ridge of a big left front tooth, out at least one millimeter already. Her right side looks to be just on the cusp of cutting the gum, too. Wow. She’s been gnawing on her teething toys rather ferociously and sleeping about an hour less a day than normal, could this be why? And just a couple weeks ago, I was wondering why I’ve once again become sore after she nurses, like I had been in earlier days. Jayne had also wondered why she’d been clingier and slightly crabbier a couple random days within the last couple of weeks.
“I’m growing up, mommy,” Allie seems to tell us. “I have my reasons.”
We tried to visit my parents at their home on Saturday late afternoon to celebrate Father’s Day a day early, but Allie took such an epic noon nap (she slept for 30 minutes, woke and fussed and cried for 20, then dropped down and slept another hour and 45 minutes until I went to wake her up cuz it was getting so late) that by the time we hit the road and had to deal with the massive freeway congestion due to an early car accident, we realized there wouldn’t be enough time to spend at my parents’ until we had to turn around and take the long drive back home. So I called my mom and postponed the visit for a day. Instead, the three of us had a dinner out at The Counter (gourmet burgers) and ran some errands at Home Depot so that Mr. W could re-landscape two little areas in our front yard. Allie does pretty well at the restaurants in the high chair now, provided we bring along her purees and feed her there first. After that she plays with her toys at the table and people-watches.
Sunday, Allie’s napping was even worse than what she did to us on Mother’s Day. It seems like she knows when the holidays are and makes sure to give us a hard time as her own little joke. I remember Thanksgiving and Christmas being major cry-days. Mother’s Day, she had a difficult noon nap and then phased out her 3rd nap. Yesterday on Father’s Day, Allie fell asleep in my arms while I soothed her to sleep for her morning nap, but the doze didn’t survive the put-down, and she refused to go back down. I picked her up, she settled into sleeping position immediately on me, dozed off again, and again, when I put her in her crib, she woke up and popped up on her hands and knees, refusing to go down. This time I walked out so she could soothe herself into sleep, as she’d done before. However, now that she could do all sorts of stuff to keep herself awake, such as roll around, sit up, play with the bumpers, crawl to a different section of the crib to look out, she was active and cried through her entire morning nap period. As soon as I got her at the end of the nap time, she was fine.
During Allie’s 45 minutes of screaming, rolling, crawling, sitting, and crying, it was very hard for me but I sat on my hands and stared at the monitors, doing what I have learned through much research to do (i.e., nothing). Mr. W came downstairs and said it was pointless how I was just “torturing her.” I told him it’s not torture, it’s sleep-training, but I think he was upset at me all day anyway. He enjoys the fruits of a well-rested baby, but he hates me for it and the process. I guess I have to be okay being alone in this if my priority is doing what I think is best for Allie’s development. I’d read other resources recently suggesting the exact same thing I’m already doing, and saying that now is an essential time to put her sleep needs and nap training into action.
Allie’s noon nap lasted over an hour and she was out solidly, didn’t even turn her head. At this point I had spoken to my mom and told her I would be putting Allie down around noon and she’d sleep hopefully an hour, and my parents offered to come to us so that we wouldn’t spend so much of Allie’s very limited awake time on the road. They were running on Asian time and didn’t get to our house until almost 3:15 and were surprised when I said Allie was about to take her 3rd nap. My mom said accusingly, “You told me she was going to be done with her nap!”
I said, “Yeah, at 1. It’s 3:15!”
So Allie spent about 15 minutes playing with an excited pair of grandparents before I took her upstairs to try for her “as needed” 3rd nap, the nap she’d been phasing out almost half the time. She yawned, rubbed her eyes, and fell asleep on me, but as with the morning, she woke up and resisted at put-down. I picked her up, she immediately went to sleep on me again, and protested upon put-down. I tried the put-down three separate times but finally gave up. She did get a few minutes of dozing on me, I guess. I was a sweaty mess and just took her back downstairs. Mr. W looked a little smug when he saw my nap efforts failed. He reminded me he’d told me that she wouldn’t take it, but I had to try because she’d missed one nap already. We all went to a Chicago pizzeria for an early dinner. Allie’s moods were fine the whole day except for when she was crying during nap protests.
Mr. W suggested going to a nearby park with my parents on our way home as it was still early, 5:30p. So we played there awhile, with my mom being papparazzi.
Allie with Daddy and Grandpa on Father’s Day. My dad said that they went to Sprouts just before they got to our house, and a young male grocery checker looked up at my dad and said good-naturedly, “Oh, happy Father’s Day!” My dad thought it’d be fun to give the poor kid a hard time and said, “How do you know I’m a father?” Awkward. Dad laughed telling the story, saying the kid just assumed that because Dad is gray-haired that he must have kids.
Allie tries to stand when she’s sitting, even without something to pull herself up with. She’ll just bounce up and down on her butt hoping that miraculously, she’d bounce high enough to end up on her feet. When we offer her a hand, she eagerly takes it and pulls herself up to stand and walk.
She had a lot of fun being bounced around on daddy’s shoulders, having access to pluck things she couldn’t any other way, such as leaves and daddy’s hair.
In the car on the way to the park, my dad asked, “So when she sleeps after this, she stays asleep all night?”
“Yeah, until 6:15 in the morning when we have to wake her up before we go to work,” Mr. W said.
“Wow,” my dad said.
On the way back from the park, my mom said to Allie, “Sleep like a good girl, okay? Hope you can sleep aaaaall night!” I had no doubt at the time that she’d sleep all night through. It’s the one thing I can count on these days, given how her naps have been. But I started feeling nervous, now that it was brought up. I didn’t know how to handle if she started waking up in the middle of the night. Back in the day, I would just go in and feed her because that’s likely the reason she was up crying, the rare times she was. Now, I know she can sleep the whole way through (with natural awakenings, of course, after which she puts herself back to sleep without making noise). But I’d heard a few people say that babies stop sleeping through around this age and would wake and cry. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when that happens. Do I do the sleep training thing and just not respond so she’s given an opportunity to learn to self-soothe through those periods again? I know she’s vulnerable at this age, due to her growing memory and her ability to make mental connections, to developing a night-waking habit once she realizes she’s able to get someone to respond to her calling. But I can’t just not respond if she’s actually wailing for long periods of time. How much time do I let her cry? 🙁
Back at home for the night after my parents had left, Allie went to bed easily, nursing to sleep quickly. But suddenly, a few hours later at 9:30p, I heard her wail. She let out a few more wails, then got quiet again. By the time I was able to force myself through my immobilizing terror and go grab my cell phone so that I could see what was going on thru the baby cams, Allie had moved to the foot of her bed and was sitting up. Mr. W was oblivious, playing his game on the computer with his ear buds plugged in. I showed him the baby cam on my phone, and he cursed. I stood in the living room, frozen, staring at the monitor, reciting over and over in my head, “Lie down and go to sleep. you can do it. Just lay down. Put your thumb in your mouth. Lay down and close your eyes.” At some point I became aware of my hard breathing. And then my sweating. Allie crawled around, pushing down on the crib bumper to look over it. I know that Jayne sometimes ducks down in Allie’s room after putting her down and Allie’s caught her there before and laughed, suddenly finding herself in a game of peek-a-boo, so maybe Allie’s checking to see if someone’s there for her hidden behind the bumper. It probably wasn’t more than minutes before Allie settled on a position she liked, sucked her thumb, and went back to sleep. But it felt like hours. Overnight, I was awoken by what I thought was Allie’s wail, something that hasn’t happened in awhile. My head saying, “Please be an auditory hallucination, please be an auditory hallucination,” I checked my cell phone for the baby monitors. Allie was asleep, and I was relieved and exhausted. I’m not sure if I’m truly getting auditory hallucinations in my sleep, but it’s shocking how much random noises sound like a muffled baby wail — screeching car brakes, cats, drunk people far away, garbage trucks.
I’m hoping this is just a very, very short developmental thing. =P
I’ve wondered for a long time now whether the sausage pizza and breadsticks served at children’s mecca restaurant Chuck E. Cheese’s is really as good as I remembered from childhood, or whether the food was just delicious relative to my immature taste buds and enjoyment of myself in a play environment. For years, I’d been wanting to go back to check. I suspected that my adult tastebuds, more attuned to quality, natural foods and freshness rather than processed foods, would revolt. I was excited to finally put Chuck E. Cheese’s to the test on Sunday for lunch with Mr. W and Allie when Mr. W spontaneously offered to go there for lunch. Turns out, I would never find out.
The children’s restaurant chain has completely evolved. The menu has a variety of gourmet sandwiches on ciabatta bread, vegetable platters, buffalo wings, an all-you-can-eat salad bar, and was advertising a “new” quality pizza with lots of deluxe ingredients as opposed to the cheese, pepperoni and sausage options in the days of my childhood. Gone was the giant vat of colorful balls that kids used to leap into despite rumors we all heard of hidden rats, vomit, and syringes in its depths. So much for nostalgia. This Chuck E. Cheese’s was clean, advanced, had carousels and arcade machines, even a toddler section fenced off from the regular kids section. Upon entry, Allie was stamped with an invisible-to-the-naked-eye number and Mr. W and I were stamped with the same hidden number so personnel can be sure we leave with the same child we brought in. The prizes that can be redeemed for game tickets, however, were as cheesy and cheap as ever. We ordered a deluxe combination pizza with a salad bar and I can tell you, everything was delicious to my more sophisticated tastes. =P
Even though Allie is on solids, she was denied the pizza she kept trying to grab. She wasn’t happy about that.
Allie: “I don’t accept your explanation of why I can’t eat the food at a place that’s designed more for me than for you.”
Don’t feel too bad for her; she got a yummy zucchini and rice puree when we got home. She enjoyed THAT. Plus, she got to make new friends with giant painted rodents and drive and ride new things, like horses.
“Hey Chuck, maybe you should drive. I can’t seem to reach the steering wheel with my feet, even.”
“This pony is kinda small, even for me, daddy. I feel silly.”
“Okay, now THIS pony is too big! I’m not sure I like this.”
“I’ll drive you to school, daddy.”
“All abooooooard!”
“So this is a schoolhouse? Nooooo! Let me out of here!”
Breaking out of the school.
“Don’t worry, mouse, I’ll break us out of this joint. Just sit back, relax, and leave it to me.”
“I’ll just start the ignition…”
“…check the mirrors and look over my shoulder as I back out…”
“…and we are on our way!”
“Awwww, pulled over by Daddy! What are the chances?!”
Back to school. Hard labor in the schoolyard.
What does the “E” stand for in “Chuck E. Cheese,” anyway? What’s this rat’s full name, Charles Edward Cheese?
On Saturday, we were running low on our supply of baby wipes (not that we need a lot anymore cuz she’s been pooping clay-like balls since she’s been on peas that we can just pick up in one neat non-stick wad) so we took Allie on a Costco run. Mr. W is impulsive of a shopper, but now he’s impulsive for bigger-ticket-items for his baby girl. I couldn’t talk him out of buying her a 3-stage tricycle or a jogger stroller that converts to a bicycle trailer. So Allie got some cool new rides.
The tricycle by Little Tikes, I had to admit reluctantly, is fun and functional. There’s a flexible sun-shade that can be moved to block sunlight from any angle. The detachable steering wheel panel has buttons and signals with sound effects and lights. Each time Allie turns the wheel, the turn signal clicks and blinks just like in a car. She’s a little young for even the first stage (no pedaling required, there are stationary foot rests for her to rest her little feet on), as she can’t even reach the foot rests. The trike at this stage is controlled by a parent pushing/turning a steering stick behind the trike, and the steering is surprisingly easy and responsive from that apparatus.
There’s even a zippered storage pouch and a cupholder on the parent-control stick for the parents, plus ample storage for toys, etc. on a little bin attached to the back of the trike. I’m not sure the differences between stages 2 and 3, but I suppose at some point the parent-steering is removed and the kid can pedal him/herself around. Maybe the interactive effect with steering wheel comes off so only the handlebars are on the front. Here’s a video demo of our little walk.
Here’s the conversion jogger/bike trailer. It’s big enough and has the seatbelt arrangements for two kids, which for a 6-month-old like Allie means we’ve gotta find something to stuff in there on her left and right so she doesn’t fall over on her side during a bump. She’s young for this thing, too; Mr. W did a turnaround run at our cul de sac and when I saw Allie coming back up the driveway, her eyes were wide, she had her arms outstretched with hands facing behind her like she was trying to hang into something (but there’s nothing to hold onto) at the back for support, and she had slid down and was slumping in her seat. This isn’t going to work, there’s just too much room and too little support in there. But the unit is cool; the back wheels are removeable and click on easily, and once off, the entire thing collapses pretty flat for storage. A big window/entrance in the front has a zippered screen to block flying rocks, perhaps, and a transparent vinyl window can be rolled down and zippered over the screen to waterproof the cabin when necessary. The front wheel and axle can removed and an included metal arm attachment popped on to attach the unit to the back of an adult bicycle. We didn’t try this part, yet, and I didn’t try the stroller myself, so I don’t have much feedback on that.
I tried to get Mr. W to save some money by not getting these things, yet, but he said that Costco’s inventory is sporadic so if we don’t get these now, they may not be available once Allie is big enough for them. She can just grow into them. Allie’s gonna be one spoiled girl when she gets her first car at age 13. Every kid should be so lucky as to have an impulse shopper for a loving daddy.
