let me introduce you to your crib, not to be confused with the toilet

It's another napless day around here. Elias is currently having a good ol' time in his crib, during afternoon nap attempt #2. His morning nap was delayed thanks to a poopy diaper event about 15 to 20 minutes after I put him down. He seems incapable of doing his business any other way lately, even if I wait longer than usual to put him down for a nap. Anyway, he finally fell asleep after another 20 minutes or so, around 10:15 or 10:30 I think it was, but still woke up at 11 on the dot. He seems to wake up at 11 regardless of when he falls asleep. After a bottle and snack we ran some errands and then came home and experimented with a way to squeeze in some much-needed me-time. Since I can't seem to rely on Elias's naps to get things done, and many evenings I'm downright beat by the time we get him to bed, I thought I'd try setting up the pack 'n' play near my art corner in our bedroom.


I plopped him down with some toys and a couple of books and he seemed to enjoy himself as I spent about 20-25 minutes finishing up a project that had been sitting on my table for a few days. Win-win.

It's quiet now. I wonder if he's asleep. Or maybe he's working on the second poopy diaper of the day. At least he's getting some use out of that crib. It's always a gamble. I wondered if I should try again to get him to nap or just throw in the towel and go for a walk on this gorgeous spring day. Can I have both?

In other news, here's that video I mentioned in my previous post, take one:



And take two:

11 months

Oh where, oh where did month eleven go? I only blogged three times in the past month! I can barely remember what happened yesterday, let alone over the past four or so weeks. But let me give it a try.


Well, to begin, as an update to my last post, today was a bit of a repeat of last Sunday (I'm beginning to think it's a weekend thing...more time with Dad?), but overall, Elias has been doing pretty well on the decreased reflux meds, napping pretty well for most of the past week, with a flukey cycle here and there. And he even had his first taste of processed dairy (as in a teething biscuit that includes milk in its list of ingredients). If he continues to show no signs of allergic reaction, we'll try yogurt sometime this week. And maybe cheese after that.


In other news, Elias continues to pull himself to standing every chance he gets, cruising along and around things and doing pretty well with the "finger walking." He's even stood on his own for a few seconds at a time but still drops to his bottom to crawl the second he really wants to get to something. And he is one fast crawler.

Month eleven has also been a big month for his language reception. He says mama and dada (or ma and da) discriminately pretty consistently now. He also says "buh" for book (the "k" sound seems to be a tricky one) and occasionally will do a somewhat modified version of the sign if I ask if he wants to read books. He knows where to go, either to his bookshelf or to the table next to his rocker, where there is usually a small selection. He also knows the sign for milk and seems to say "ba" at the same time, when I'm warming a bottle for him. Of course, he also says "ba" for ball (and occasionally other random things) so who knows. He definitely understands quite a bit though, looking toward and pointing out the ceiling fans, windows, doors, cats, and his hand, for example, when prompted. As far as body parts go, he can point out my nose or Neal's and is fascinated by our ears (which he'll look at if you say ear or hair - not sure if it's the similarity in sound or the proximity, especially in my case, since I usually have to tuck my hair behind my ear to show off the ear itself) but doesn't seem to know what to make of the question, "Elias, where's your nose?" He knows where his toes and feet are and we're working on his belly, but anything on his face is utter mystery.

Last Sunday being such a trying day prompted me to browse The Wonder Weeks, a book I've mentioned a couple of times before. The book is really fascinating, especially since the "wonder weeks" (sometimes more like month-long periods of fussiness, disrupted sleep, poor appetite, etc.) they describe do seem to match up pretty well to right around when I'm about to pull my hair out. But basically all I do is consult the book to confirm that, as in our latest example, yep, we're right around "wonder week 46: the world of sequences." Their basic premise is that infants go through various periods of development, and that during those "wonder weeks" you can expect them to be extra fussy, clingy, wakeful, defiant, etc. It's reassuring, I guess, although there are so many "wonder weeks" during the first year that really, they should write a book that tells you when to expect the few days of relative calm in between each fussy period.

Anyway, one of the things they write about during this latest "wonder week" is that babies will want to explore "what goes together and what comes next" by putting objects in a container, covering it, removing them, and so on. Sure enough, one of the "games" I like to play with Elias lately is something Neal actually started awhile ago by putting one of his finger puppets, a giraffe named Raffi (clever, huh?), "to bed" in the little compartment on his music table.


If you ask him, "where's Raffi?" he'll usually go to the table to look for him.


Once he's located Raffi he'll usually take him out and put him back again, as you can kind of tell from these pics.





I have some video that shows this little game we play, among other distractions, that I'll post shortly. It gives you a pretty good idea of what my day is like and while being an essentially stay at home mom, though not totally by choice at this point, can be pretty tedious at times, really, I can't complain.

what gives, kid?

When will sleep be less of an issue with this kid? After Elias's earlier than usual wake-up call last weekend (on Mother's Day, no less), he continued to get up a little on the early side all week (although at around 6:15/6:30ish, I guess I can't complain too much). But naps were much better than they have been in months. He seemed to be back to his long, late morning nap and slightly more challenging, shorter afternoon nap, with about three to four hours of awake time in between. Then suddenly this weekend he was back to fighting the naps. I've already forgotten what yesterday was like, but today, despite getting off to a great start by sleeping in until about 7:30, he napped for a grand total of about 30 minutes. There are possible reasons for the failure of both the morning and afternoon nap - poopy diaper, outside noises (now that the weather's warming up, we're keeping the windows open more often and it's like a whole new stage in the sleep training), emotions (Elias seems to be more and more sensitive to when I'm flustered and gets pretty upset about it all...um, easy solution there, kid!), key sleep items still in the dryer, etc. But part of me worries that the napless day is a result of a second attempt to wean him off of his reflux meds. As of Tuesday last week, he's back down to half his usual dose, administered in the evening, before the last feeding of the day. You might recall that we tried beginning the weaning process several months ago and then put him back on the full dose after about a month of very little and more challenging than usual napping. Putting him back on the full dose, however, did little to improve the nap situation, but that was also when he had the month-long crazy virus that started out as a stomach bug, turned into a cold, which lingered as chest congestion that brought on projectile vomiting, which developed into an ear infection and finished off with a mysterious, full-body rash. And when we took him off the meds last time the refusal to nap started literally that day whereas this time he actually seemed to improve in the sleep department the first few days of the decreased dosage. So who knows? Hopefully today was a fluke and we'll be back to our usual routine tomorrow, which includes a manageable amount of struggling on my part to get Elias to eat and sleep as much as I'd like.

first Mother's Day (and zoo)

So, just what did Elias give me for my first Mother's Day? A bright and early start to the day, of course! He woke briefly around 4 a.m., settled back down pretty quickly, and then was up for good about an hour and a half later. To his credit, Neal attempted to let me sleep in, but, knowing he had plans to make me a delicious breakfast, I couldn't seem to fall back asleep.


We started the day with cinnamon raisin French toast, real bacon (as opposed to the turkey variety we occasionally have), sausage, juice, and coffee. And more coffee. Mmm.

After Elias caught up on his sleep with a 2+ hour morning nap, we ventured out to Stone Zoo, just outside Boston, the smaller of the two zoos that make up Zoo New England.


Moms got in for free, otherwise I think I might have been a little disappointed with the $9 admission fee. But the smallish size of the zoo is perfect for an outing with an infant who's still taking two naps (on good days, at least), since it was essentially a long walk...with animals. And to mix things up, he spent a little time outside the stroller, with Mom:


And with Dad:


He was clearly more interested here in the camera strap than the black bear exhibit:


In fact, he seemed fairly uninterested in the animals, even the ones that weren't sleeping, although he did seem a little upset when we ventured away from the barnyard exhibit.


The zoo was followed by lunch, ice cream, and a very brief nap during the drive home. As usual, the car snooze sabotaged a proper afternoon nap, but overall, not a bad first Mother's Day.

small successes

Add ear infection to the list of things keeping Elias from sleeping well lately, another one of those firsts I wasn't exactly thrilled to jot down in the baby book. After a particularly rough day and night last Tuesday, I took Elias in to the pediatrician on Wednesday morning and sure enough, his ears were infected. We're about 2/3 of the way through a week and a half of antibiotics. Fortunately, Elias seemed to be feeling much better by the weekend, just in time to travel to Connecticut to attend his cousin's first communion and belated birthday celebrations.


I think this past weekend was our most successful visit yet and I have to give most of the credit to the portable booster seat I purchased earlier in the week.


My brother and his family are well out of the baby years so even though there are extra hands to help out, we always struggle a bit with recreating there some of the "stations" we've set up here at home. Most frustrating has always been meal-time, with either myself or Neal trying to hold a squirmy baby and eat at the same time, all the while keeping little hands from getting into foods he doesn't yet have the green light to try. I considered getting a used exercauser for him but he's mostly over the jumperoo we have here at home. It finally dawned on me to look into portable high chairs and the great thing about what I found, of course, is that Elias will eventually transition to the booster seat full-time. Let me tell you, it was worth all twenty bucks, and then some. I'm totally schlepping this thing to restaurants as well, since I'm not a huge fan of wooden high chairs. Those things have got to be even germier than shopping carts and there's no tray for finger foods, toys, or other things to keep Elias entertained while Neal and I inhale our food. Not that we eat out much these days, but it's nice to know this recent purchase might make those rare occasions a little more enjoyable.

Otherwise, Elias slept through about half of his cousin's communion and Neal kept him entertained in the "cry room" - which was basically the overflow room where all the people who preferred to chat went during the hour and a half ceremony - and outside the church.

Later that day we went to his other cousin's baseball game.


He seemed to enjoy watching all of the activity between games in particular, as they tidied up the field. Since the game didn't start until after 6, however, we only lasted a couple of innings before we headed back to get the bedtime routine underway.

Speaking of which (and backing up a bit...as usual, I'm behind on my baby blogging duties), washing Elias's hair has gotten to be more of a challenge the past couple of months. When he was smaller, we'd put him in the reclining newborn side of his bathtub and were mostly successful at wetting, washing, and rinsing his head and hair without getting water and soap in his eyes. But as he's gotten bigger, he's gotten better at resisting having his head tilted back and the water, etc., basically just runs down his face. Initially, he didn't seem to mind too much and a combination of hands and washcloths would keep most of the suds out. But over the past couple of weeks he's started to protest and developed a bit of dandruff in the front, where we were doing the poorest job of rinsing. We tried one of those pitchers with the elastic side, but, as I'd read, this doesn't really work too well if your baby doesn't want to tilt his or her head back. I read some reviews of the related shampoo visor, however, that claimed they worked better for babies and younger toddlers, and although what I found at Babies 'R' Us isn't exactly what I saw online, they seem to be doing the trick so far.




In fact, Elias seems to kind of enjoy watching the water flow off of the visor and into the tub. It's always really gratifying to find something that even partially solves one of the current problems at hand. I realized I've become really pessimistic since I thought for sure the five bucks or so I spent on this two-pack would be a waste and that maybe we could still get some use out of these as sun visors this summer. Occasionally, things actually work out the way you want them to.