Ruh-ro...

Today is D's bday...and...her grandma and I let her cry the most she's ever cried. Waaaah!! Well, not really intentionally. She was chattering away in her crib when I had put her down for her nap around 9. After about 10/15 mins of that, I said to G, "Oh, she's not going down, I'm going to go in and get her." (btw, I am digressing here b/c this part is so cute it makes me laugh every time I think about it)
When I opened the door, this is what I saw: D standing in the corner of her crib, facing the wall and babbling. Just playing and the moment I opened the door and she saw me, she quickly jumped forward into the lying down position (as if looking like, "I'm sleeping!") It was hilarious.
I picked her up and all was fine. Then I passed her off to grandma and she cried a little bit, just protesting but then got over it. All was fine as I went off to make lemon bars.
All of a sudden, after about 20 minutes I hear D crying very loudly and grandma coming over to me saying, "If she rubs her eyes, does that mean she's tired and needs a nap?"
Um, yes, but that doesn't mean grandma can put her down for one. She's never experienced that as a naptime routine so, uh, no. That didn't work.
So, I go in to pick her up and she's better but then I hand her off to grandma again as I am still finishing my lemon bars. Dillon is crying very loudly and is clearly ver upset but I think she'll get over it. I let her carry on for the next 15 mins maybe? And finally go over to rescue her which at that point she is PISSED and not about to let me get away such blatant neglect so easily. She is howling even after I've picked her up and am trying to comfort her. She cannot be comforted. This goes on for another maybe 20 minutes with some moments of pauses in between but still hiccoughing from crying so hard.
Oh my...it's her birthday and I don't think her feeling were ever so hurt. Poor baby.
The good thing is, she finally did go down for her nap and then all was forgotten when she woke up. She had a fantastic birthday!!

Gutter mind

The more time I spend with D, the more I keep thinking this relationship we have is a lot like male- female relationships.
Take for instance, my previous post about trying to discipline her by saying no. And how she just laughs at me beeecaause in a male-female relationship, No always means Yes, right? Riight.
And now, D thinks it's funny to now drink from her sippy cup or bottle and just either let the liquid run out of her mouth onto her shirt or she spits it out. At which point, I say to her, "No, darling, we swallow...we don't spit."
Hello? There's the male-female thing again...
I don't know why my mind is always in the gutter.

Tweaking? Oh I should just leave that to the birds...

Hahaha...what was I thinking? Tweaking? First nap at 11am, second at 3:30? Whaat? Whoo?
Uh-uh. Not D.

She did go down for her first nap at 11 without a peep. Slept til 12:30p, but then wasn't feeling her second nap. I mean, who was I kidding? I can't expect her to go down after just 3 hours. But then as I was perusing the message boards at babywhisperer.com I came across a post of a mom who mentioned her sister's baby, unlike most babies, never had sleep problems when he was overtired. He just slept.
And then I remembered, hey yeah, D is the same way! She'd never really slept poorly if overly tired sooooo...she did not go down for another nap and didn't seem to tired so I pushed her a little more for a close to 7:30p bedtime.
Here's to seeing how long she'll sleep tonight!

Tweaking

Time to tweak with D's naps. Here was D's previous sleep sched:
6am wake up
9am-ish nap
10:30am wake up
1:30/2pm-ish nap
wake up whenever
Bed around 7:30p

She has always been an early riser and tends to start rolling around in her bed by 5:30am, if not sooner and we just ignore her and not pick her up until after 6am.

Lately, she has been refusing to go down for a nap by 9am so we've had rolling around and crying for an hour, then I pick her up and go ahead with the day. She usually ends up being super tired and goes down for a nap around 11am/noon?
Then no nap from whenever she wakes up til bedtime which now we have moved to closer to 7pm in order that she doesn't get too tired!
But now she is definitely waking up around 5am. Uh, no thanks...

So, starting today I am tweaking her naps. Just put her down around 11am. She fell asleep! No fussing! Wheee!
If she looks like she's going to sleep past 1.5 hours, I will have to wake her up. So that she can take another nap around 3/4pm (and only for an hour) and then back to her original bedtime around 7:30p!
We shall see how that works out.
This mommy thing is a constant struggle. Where's the fun? Cuteness only goes so far.

Inspiration

My mommy friends are so talented and such a source of inspiration. E is an amazing DIY baby food chef. At any one time she has at least 10 ingredients in her freezer ready to compile into a yummy meal. For instance, at the time that I was inquiring about her "pantry", these were the items she listed in her freezer - asparagus, sweet potato, rice, quinoa, bell pepper, peas, turnips, white beans, pureed cherry, oatmeal...all prepared and flash frozen.
And from those ingredients, she tossed them in a pan or in the micro to create baby fried rice (mushrooms, rice, peas, ground beef, green peppers)
Or Indian Dal: lentils, half cube of sauteed onion, chunked mango and yogurt.
WHHAAAT? This woman is awesome!
Why didn't I think of that?? So, I am going to hunt down a regular old ice cube tray and try to do the same thing.
Right now, I make everything fresh, day of, hour of because I can't seem to get it together. However, because of E's genius I too have frozen and ziplocked some sweet potato, asparagus and some spaghetti squash.
Next up, we have K...she creates beautiful bento box lunches for her two daughters. I mean, this woman is a creative genius. Really. See pic below:
Look at that car and the stoplight...that is really cool! So, when Dillon gets a little bit older and is not so picky about her food textures, I, TOO am going to create beautiful little bento boxes for her! Who knows, I just might start making bento boxes for the whole family...Boulder, Greg...me. Portion control is what K likes to reference.
And the third person who inspires me is J. I was over at her house the other day and here is how a conversation went between her and her almost 3 year old son, Eliot:
E reaches over to turn on the TV, E: Look mommy! I can turn on the TV!
J: No, Eliot, you cannot...(then after thinking about it, she rephrases), Yes, Eliot, you can turn on the television, but you may not.
E: I can turn on the television
J: Yes, Eliot, you can physically turn on the television but you may not. (voice a little more stern)
I mean, that worked. E thought about it and then stopped trying to turn on the telly. I thought that was so well phrased by J and really found it inspiring that she is such a reasonable mother.
May I be that level headed when dealing with a talking, walking Dillon. May I always be level-headed when she is throwing tantrums and trying to "push her weight" around here...

Expanding our repetoire of words

Wheee! D is soo smart! Or is that me being biased? Well you decide. Here is the list of words she recognizes (all in Chinese, of course!):

Wa-tze - socks. When we ask her where her socks are, she looks for them.
Tswan wa-tze - wear your socks. And when we say to her to "Tswan wa-tze" she puts her sock on her foot. Well, literally on top of her foot b/c she doesn't know how to put her socks on yet. :o)
Bi-tze - nose. Whenever you say that, she points at her nose!
Pai pai so - clap your hands. She will clap her hands when you say this.
Gwo lai - come here. She is working on this. She knows it, but is kind of stubborn to move.
Tsan chi lai - stand up. She will stand up when we say this.
Sway jiao - sleep. She doesn't love this word when I say it for naps sometimes, but she knows it.

I think that's pretty good for being not even a year old yet! All useless words right now, but hey, whatever. She's brilliant. Oh yeah, and whenever she hears the word, "yeayyy.." she will clap her hands. Or will clap her hands if she hears any type of cheering. How fun is that?

There's a whole lotta cryin going on...

And those aren't my tears that are flowing, mind you. Yup, it's the little D. She does a lot of crying when it's eating time. She is soo testing her art of manipulation - how hard do I need to cry before I can get my way? How many buckets of tears?
Really. I think.
Eh, could be a combination of tiredness and boredom?
But I vote for the former. I'm pretty sure she's practicing the art of manipulation because the moment we give her what she wants - to pick her up - she smiles and all the tears are gone.
It's crazy. It's been a few days now. Not every meal time but oftentimes at dinner. Oh she goes on and on. And when G's around, the show is even more dramatic. She knows she can touch daddy's heart...well, he's pretty good about trying to reason with her too and ignoring her tantrums.
Man, is she testing my nerves.