#OhPhoebe

I really feel like every story about Phoebe, should now end with the hashtag, #OhPhoebe. She just never ceases to amaze.

Phoebe has now been in a big girl bed for a week. We made the transition in a hurry after my parents were watching the girls while we went on vacation and woke up to her screaming in the middle of the night (She was dangling off the side of the crib). It started out okay, albeit with some mishaps. Last Saturday, she refused to take a nap and instead grabbed books from the closet, some of which she shredded page by page. As a book lover, these acts really disturb me. As for Phoebe, she'll see a book that she destroyed and say: "I tore that." (But aren't you upset that you tore that?! GAH!)

The first night, it took her a few tries to stay in bed. She wanted to have her shutters open, so we'd go in each time we could see light streaming out of the room. I had also put a brand new bedside lamp by her bed, but she turned it on so much that first night that we took it out. Finally, we let her keep the shutters open and after she was actually asleep, we'd go in and shut them.

The next couple of nights were okay. I was beginning to think things were going pretty smoothly. Silly Stephanie! Fast forward to Thursday night. At around 4 AM, I woke up to find her next to the bed, staring at me, her face inches from my head. I yelped with fright, and pulled her into bed with me. She was quiet and not fidgeting, but I don't sleep when my children sleep with me, so after about 20 minutes, I nudged Chris and told him to put her back in bed. He said, "You're talking in your sleep again." He was seriously shocked to see her in bed with us. Chris took her back to bed and about 30 seconds later, she was out of her room and headed back to ours. So Chris had to continue putting her back in her room for about an hour. Awesome.

Friday night, I went out with friends to an 80s cover band called Tainted Love. It was super fun, but even though I didn't stay for the entire show, I still got back at around 12:30, which is really late for me. At 3 AM, we woke up to Phoebe screaming. Chris turned on the hallway light, went in and comforted her, and then left. As soon as he turned off the light, the screaming started up again. This happened several times. Finally, I decided to go in and sleep with her (she has a double bed, so at least there was room for me).

We went to the mountains on Saturday morning to visit with my aunt and uncle and grandparents, who had rented a cabin for a few nights near Donner Lake. The cabin owners are members of this homeowners association that allows access to a huge community pool. The weather was really hot for Tahoe, so we all enjoyed ourselves at the pool and got back to the cabin around 2 or 2:30. It was definitely past Phoebe's naptime. I put her in the room where the four of us would be sleeping. It took a few times of me gently reminding her to take a nap before the room was quiet. My aunt and uncle took my cousins and Charlotte to Truckee for some ice cream. Chris and I watched a movie on the third level (well, he watched all of it, and I napped for a good chunk of the time). Finally, at around 5:15, I decided I'd better wake Phoebe up or she wouldn't want to go to sleep later.

I found her passed out on the bed with the bedside light on. It was a hurricane style type lamp, you know, the type with glass surrounding the bulb. She had somehow taken the hurricane glass off so that now the paper lampshade was touching the bulb. I don't know how long it was like that, but the hot bulb was burning a hole in the lampshade! She could have seriously started a fire! And she was sleeping only a couple feet away. I shudder to think what could have happened to her had I waited much longer to get her up. (We immediately put the lamp up high on a shelf in the closet).

When we got home yesterday afternoon, we decided to do something drastic, which we hope will only be temporary. We changed the handle on her door so that it locks from the outside. And it's clear we needed to because shortly after midnight we woke up to hear her screaming, "Mommy? Mommy!" She had woken up and had tried to get out of her room. Chris put her back in her bed and luckily we did't hear any more from her after that.

Overall, Phoebe's a quick learner, so I'm hopeful we won't have to do this for much longer. But we can't have her roaming all over the house in the middle of the night either. We have too many stairs and too many lamps that can be turned off and on.

#OhPhoebe

"After All, Tomorrow is Another Day"

I must say, four days in, and I am loving Charlotte's new daycare lady, Miss D.  More importantly, Charlotte is loving Miss D. Monday, Chris and I went together to drop Charlotte off.  We were there for a little while and when we went to leave, Charlotte made one little noise of protest and that was it.  Each day since, she's only given Chris a wave bye-bye and blown him kisses.  When I go to pick her up, she's busy playing and running around, so busy that she doesn't run straight up to me and cling to my legs like she did at the other place.

What's also wonderful is that the other kids are not all there everyday.  On Monday, it was just Charlotte and the girl closest in age, Ava. On Tuesday, there were three, including Charlotte.  On Wednesday, four. And today and tomorrow, five.  Charlotte gets a lot of attention, and most days, Charlotte is the first one there, so she gets plenty of one-on-one time with Miss D.  On Tuesday, D took Charlotte, Ava and Addy to the nearby park, where they had a picnic and met up with some of D's friends, who also watch toddlers (one is the grandmother to triplets and watches them everyday, can't imagine!).  They saw geese and had a great time, according to D of course.

And of course, Chris is happy to not have to give Charlotte breakfast in the morning.  It saves him a lot of time, and Dione makes yummy breakfast treats like pancakes, scrambled eggs, waffles and French toast. The food overall is varied and much better than the other daycare.

I've already met the parents of all the other children, as they all seem to arrive for pick up at the same time I do.  I'm not sure I met a single parent at the big daycare. They spend time chatting with D, and I can tell she's got a good rapport with everyone. So yeah, in short I'm very happy with this new arrangement. Charlotte seems super happy almost to the point of not wanting to leave in the evening.

Also in good news:  We had our second food challenge yesterday with lentils, to which she had tested positive on the RAST test.  It wasn't as long as the first challenge (thank goodness!), and it was pretty apparent that she's not allergic to lentils, which is great since she loves them and they're such a good source of iron, fiber and protein.  So really, the only confirmed allergies are peas and sesame seeds. And that's it for food challenges for now, thankfully.  We need to do one with cashews at some point, but Charlotte's allergist recommends waiting until she's old enough to describe what she's feeling.  We might do it around her second birthday.  In the meantime, we're avoiding all nuts, which is fine.

The sleeping has improved drastically.  Pushing her bedtime to 7:30 seems to work really well, although she'd be happy until 8 or 9 if we let her.  Charlotte still lets out a cry sometimes when we first put her to sleep, but not the hysterical sobbing like last week.  It probably has to do with the nonstop playing she does at D's.

Rolling Over Queen!

Here is Charlotte rolling over from back to belly. Please forgive my excitement - I'm one proud Mommy!

Speaking of rolling over, weaning Charlotte from swaddling has been interesting. She's been waking up each night rolling over, and won't roll onto her back. Monday night, I held her arms down at around 2AM because every time I let go, she'd lift those legs in the air and roll over. Eventually, she calmed down and went back to sleep. Of course, it took Chris and me a long time to fall back asleep because we were just bracing ourselves for her to wake up again. Last night she managed to sleep okay, but that's because she's sleeping on her stomach, which is fine with us.

Weekend Update

Hi Everyone,

This is very stream-of-consciousness so I apologize in advance.

So Friday was Charlotte's four month appointment.  She's growing very consistently.  Her doctor was very pleased with her growth and tickled by her smiles and laughs.

Weight: 15 lbs 10.3 oz - 87%
Height: 27 inches - 100% (still off the charts and around the size of a 7 - 8 month old)
Head Circumference: 16.73 inches - around the 86th percentile - can't quite remember and don't really care?

I discussed with Charlotte's doctor that she eats a lot at daycare -- sometimes as much as 20 oz -- but still wakes up hungry at night.  As a result, we got the go ahead to introduce solids.  We're going to start with rice cereal and once she gets the hang of eating, we'll move on to pureed fruits and vegetables.  So we'll start that as soon as we A) get my boss's son's highchair, B) get a splat mat, and C) get some baby spoons.  We are SO not prepared.

Charlotte also got her four month shots. The Pediatric Injection Clinic was packed on Friday because of parents and children trying to get the HlN1 vaccine.  Luckily, as Charlotte was there to get shots other than the flu shot, we didn't have to wait in line at all!  And as Charlotte is too young to get the flu shot, I got it at the same time.  Score!  Charlotte handled the shots much better this time.  She screamed for a couple minutes, and was all smiles shortly thereafter.

During her exam, Charlotte was constantly rolling over on to her tummy and then back again.  Her doctor was quite impressed and said that if she wanted to, Charlotte could roll across the entire room that way!  Ack!  Mobility!  Time to start baby-proofing our house.

Speaking of rolling over....  So we've been swaddling Charlotte at night since birth.  She takes the swaddling as a cue that it's bedtime and goes to sleep pretty easily.  It's worked great for us until now.  Now, because she's rolling over constantly (mainly from back to belly), this is presenting a problem.  We're trying to wean her from the swaddling, but it's not going very well.  For one thing, it's a lot easier to roll over when your legs and arms are free.  As a result, we have to go up multiple times to flip her onto her back.  Last night she woke up at 12:45 and then again at 5:45, and both times we found her on her stomach.  The thing is, she hasn't gotten the memo that she can just flip herself to her back when she's tired of being on her tummy.  Instead, she starts crying because she's so frustrated.  Oh joy!

We have a great video of Charlotte rolling over onto her stomach three times in succession, so I'll have to share it here as soon as I get a chance to upload it.

Finally, we had a really nice weekend!  On Saturday, we headed to San Francisco to visit with our friends Nancy and Eric, who just moved there.  It was an absolutely beautiful day -- sunny and warm -- and we walked all over the Noe Valley neighborhood.  Two city blocks were blocked off for a Harvest Festival complete with face painting, pumpkin decorating, and a Halloween pet costume contest.  The winner was an adorable little dog dressed up like Frida Kahlo -- she even had the iconic uni-brow!  Charlotte had fun until about the end when she had a major meltdown because she was so tired.  We hightailed it out of there and she slept all the way back to Sacramento.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  Next weekend, Charlotte's first Halloween!

The New Normal

Charlotte is nothing if not consistent.  Every night for the past 4 nights, like clockwork, she wakes up hungry at 2AM and then at 6AM.  It's pretty eerie, actually.  This doesn't seem to matter whether she goes to bed at 8 (her normal bedtime) or later.  On Monday, we went out to dinner for a friend's birthday and didn't get Charlotte to bed until 9:30.  Two o'clock rolls around and there's that crying on the monitor!  Now, two weeks ago, I was a wreck with this change in sleeping, but it's become the new normal.  After I feed her at 6AM, she falls back to sleep on our bed and I get ready for the day.  So technically it's only one nighttime feeding, but it's still strange that she went from consistently sleeping 8 hour stretches to now not going more than 6 hours at one time.  I've done a lot of researching online and a general consensus is that at four months, babies just start undergoing major developmental changes and this affects their normal sleep habits.  Of course this had to coincide with my going back to work, which might be a coincidence or it might not be.  All in all, it's really not so bad.  She forces me to actually get to work early, which is a good thing. 

My Thoughts on Co-Sleeping

I've also read that when you go back to work, it's not uncommon for the breastfed baby to start waking up at night to get some extra quality time with mom.  The solution in this book I bought by Dr. Sears was super preachy -- something along the lines of "the experienced mother will just accept this new routine and enjoy this new bonding time with her baby."  So when I read this, it was 2AM on one of the nights I was frustrated and crying, and I literally threw the book across the room.  How dare you tell me that I'm supposed to just accept sleeplessness in the middle of the night when my baby used to be such a great sleeper?  This is also the same book that suggests that adoptive mothers can breastfeed their adopted babies if they just "try" hard enough, and that working mothers should bring their babies to work and "wear" them (please tell me which place of employment allows you to bring your baby to work).  And that the solution is co-sleeping with your baby.  Now, I'm not opposed to co-sleep per se, but the thing is, I can't sleep when Charlotte's in the bed with us.  She moves a lot, and I just can't settle down knowing I might pull the covers over her head and smother her.  So that's why we don't co-sleep.  Wait, let me rephrase this. That's why I don't co-sleep.  Charlotte and her daddy sleep just fine together. :)

So in sum, we're coping.  I'm definitely a little more tired than I'd like, but I actually get up in the morning and have time to take a shower, eat breakfast, actually blowdry my hair, all while Charlotte blissfully sleeps off her 6AM feeding (her daddy is also often sleeping still!).  And of course, my heart melts when we finally wake her up for the day and she just grins and grins like you're the best thing since sliced bread.