settling in and sleep

I've been such a bad mommy blogger on this side of the move so far but I've been trying to give myself a break by reminding myself that we've only had our stuff for about a week and a half now and are technically still unpacking. We hit a bit of a plateau last week when I think we both became anxious to work on other things, things that generally do not involve cardboard or packing paper, but my lack of progress on those other things seems to be overshadowing the progress we've made on project move. We're feeling fairly settled in, despite some additional things to do in the way of unpacking (books, mostly...lots and lots of books), babyproofing (finally tethering things to the wall, something we never did in the earthquake-prone Bay Area, but which is now, of course, doubly important), and decorating (for someone who's spent the majority of her adult life invested in the arts, I'm not so good with interior design). That said, the place is pretty livable and Elias definitely seems to be enjoying the more open living plan of this apartment compared to our Boston digs. Backing up a bit, though, here are a few images documenting our week without stuff.

Thanks to Grandma Joanne's belated birthday gifts upon our arrival, Elias was not without toys those first few days in our new place.


Sadly, no airplanes to be seen out these windows.


Our cat Xander (who, along with Sophie, we were reunited with the first weekend after we arrived) approves of the pint-sized furniture.


I've since had to break down the table and store it with the chairs in Elias's closet, after he took a spill and got his first real "boo-boo" a little too close to his eye.

Here Elias gets his first taste of strawberry aguas frescas at Cactus Tacqueria, which was and, as it turns out, still is our favorite place to go for burritos.


While the moving crate was being unloaded a couple of Fridays ago, I took Elias to the San Leandro marina, just south of the Oakland airport, for a stroll and to watch the planes land. On the way back to the car we stopped at two different playgrounds - Elias's obvious enjoyment is a bit unusual as he seems to be pretty bored with the swings these days.


Later that weekend, while I unpacked Elias's room and the kitchen, Neal took him to Children's Fairyland near Oakland's Lake Merritt, our old/new neighborhood.


We worked pretty quickly to get Elias's room, the kitchen, and most of the bedroom done by the end of that first weekend and have made slow but steady progress on the rest of the apartment since.

Otherwise, the highlight of the past couple of weeks with Elias has been sporadic teething (I'm guessing he's getting his first set of molars) and the continued transition from two naps to one. For the most part, I've been able to keep him up until about 11 or noon before putting him down for one mid-day or early afternoon nap and a few times that one nap has lasted quite long (three hours to be exact...I don't really know what to do with myself after the typical max of an hour and a half). But for the most part, whether he takes one nap or two, he rarely sleeps more than an hour and a half or two and the transition continues to wreak havoc on any kind of predictability in terms of scheduling activities around his sleep needs. After almost a week of the one, mid-day nap, yesterday he was back to the morning nap from 9:30 until about 11 and another from about 2:30 until 4. Today, on the other hand, thanks to a restorative ten or fifteen minute snooze in the car on the way home from our morning activities and not one, but two poopy diaper interruptions during an attempt at a later afternoon nap, he basically didn't really nap at all.

As far as night sleep, it took him about 4 or 5 nights until he seemed more or less adjusted to west coast time, waking up sometimes as early as 3:30, groggy and confused but seemingly ready for the day. We could usually coax him back to sleep until 5 or 5:30. And while he's still waking up in the middle of the night every now and then (I'm not sure if it's night terrors or if he wakes up briefly and freaks out because it takes him awhile to recognize where he is or what), for the most part, we're back to a 7:30 bedtime with minimal protesting/babbling and waking up around 6:30, on average. It's funny how in hindsight, writing about it a week later, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. A friend told me that it takes about a day per hour of time change for them to adjust and I'd say that's fairly accurate - those first three nights being the worst. But like any difficult stretch with a child, when you're in the thick of it, it's like there's a part of you that just doesn't believe that things will ever get better. Like in the midst of all that there was a little part of me that thought, oh great, Elias is going to wake up at 3:30 every morning for the rest of his childhood. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. For now, at least.