filmed on 12.25.08

yes, i know this is not really a “phone”, it is an ipod.  but julie doesn’t know the difference between the iphone and ipod yet.  lets not tell her!

everytime she picks up a phone or ipod, she ALWAYS says she’s calling “uncle glenn”

filmed on 01.15.09

Happy Birthday, Julie!  It’s hard to imagine you’re TWO years old already!

While Katie was sleeping in the sling snug as a bug in a rug, Julie sat on the step waiting for the trashman (our big Wednesday morning activity!).  I can not believe that Julie will be a big fat TWO years old in 2 weeks!  I’m bummed that I won’t have much time to make a super cool cake for her this year…she’s really into elephants…errr…”eeeeeeeg-go” as she calls them, so I’m thinking of something elephant but simple…we’ll see. 

I admit to being a little superstitious.  Perhaps there’s nothing to it, but what if there is?  I certainly don’t want to take that chance!  That’s why it has taken me this long to talk about this subject…but it’s been almost 3 weeks (dare I say I’ve lost count!?).  Julie has slept almost all night (in her own bed) for about 3 weeks!  WHAT is going on?  When she does wake up “early”, it’s usually aroun 5am, but most mornings she sleeps until ~7ish!

 When we told people Julie was “co-sleeping” (sleeping in our bed), almost everyone gasp, and most warned us that once she’s in the bed, we will “never get her out”.  I gotta say, it was a rather peaceful transition, and it happened when SHE was ready.  The first night was a little rough, she whined for 16 minutes, if I remember correctly, but we knew she was whining because she was tired, not because she was scared or missing us. 

I’m glad the transition was peaceful, and I’m still a little surprised she was ready to go to her own bed at 13 months (it took us about a month to figure out what she wanted).  After hearing everyone’s horror stories, I braced myself for this to be a long drawn out situation that would someday become a “problem”.

Now I’m just waiting for potty training to start!

Today we went to Ikea to find a bookshelf for Julie’s new playroom (more on that later).  She was doing pretty good while we were there, but after a while she got super antsy (she was in the stroller).  Roger went to the car to get the bjorn, but while he was gone, she started getting really irritated, so I took her out of the stroller and held her.  She wanted to push the stroller, so we did that until my biceps couldn’t handle the burn any longer, then I sat down on a couch, and let her stand in front of me.  She went straight to the stroller, and started pushing! We walked all around the Ikea store with her pushing the stroller from a bar just above the storage compartment.  She must have pushed that stroller for a good 30 minutes!!!

She’s been wearing the Robee knockoffs that I found at Target, decent shoes for getting around the house, but the suede leather souls just didn’t seem like enough protection on the feet when going out in public (especially in cold weather).  So after that incident at Ikea, we went shopping for big girl shoes! 

First we went to Nordstrom.  I usually love that store because the customer service is (usually) unbeatable, and their return policy is the best I’ve found, but their children’s shoes customer service wasn’t that great.  This was my first experience, so maybe another day it will be better.  We ended up getting her these shoes at stride rite.  I like the fact that they offered to measure her foot, something Nordstrom didn’t even offer, and we were totally clueless on how children’s shoe sizing works or even what size she would wear.  She’s a whopping 3 1/2.  We got a size 4–for growing room!

So far, she pretty much hates the shoes.  It’s a big adjustment from the suede leather she had before (and the only shoe she had ever known).

Pretty much all Julie’s life, she’s slept in our bed.  It worked out great because in the middle of the night, when she was hungry, I would just roll her toward me, and she would nurse until she went back  to sleep.  There were nights when she had trouble sleeping, but those were rare. 

Then about 7 months ago, when she was about 7 months old, she started having a hard time going to sleep in our bed, so we transitioned her to the crib.  When she would wake in the middle of the night, Roger would bring her to our bed, she would nurse, and go back to sleep (in our bed).  Gradually, over the past month or so (13 months old), she started having problems going back to sleep after nursing–she would toss and turn a lot and wanted to nurse for 3-4 hours straight.

It got to a point where Roger was getting up in the middle of the night, walking around the house until she would fall asleep, then he would hold her while she slept, and he would sit in a chair.  Most nights he would do this from ~1am – 6am, when he would have to go to work!  Other nights, I would take her to the guest bedroom and try to sleep with her in a different bed. It was after one of these nights that I realized she wanted to sleep, but couldn’t for some reason and it was time for a drastic change. Neither of us got any sleep that night–maybe 2 hours.  Then I spoke with my dear friend who had just gone through the same thing with her 16 month old.  She told me what she did, and I tried it the next night (this past Wednesday).  The plan was, to put her to bed as usual, when she woke, nurse her, and put her back in her own bed.  I am not an advocate of cry-it-out.  However, a while back Julie developed a new cry that she only had when she was tired.  Once I recognized this cry, it became easier to let her cry for short periods of time, as long as the crying was tapering off.  For instance, if she was crying, but only getting herself in a total rage, it’s not worth the crying, because she won’t go to sleep, but if she’s whiny/crying, and it starts getting shorter and shorter with periods of silence, I know that she is starting to fall asleep. 

I DO NOT recommend doing this with a young baby/infant.  Julie gave us lots of signals that she was ready to sleep alone, and we know and understand her different sounding cries.

It’s been 4 days since we started this new routine, and it has gotten better and better!  The first night, she woke at 3:30am, I nursed her and she went back to sleep in my arms.  I put her in her crib, and she did cry/whine for about 14 minutes, then she slept until 7am!  The next night she woke at midnight, but was able to go back to sleep on her own, and then didn’t wake again until 7:30am.  Last night, she didn’t wake at all, and slept until 8:30am!  She does make some whining sounds in the middle of the night, but it only lasts for a few seconds (and I don’t believe she is actually awake when she does it).

Another change we made was with naps.  She used to nurse to sleep in the morning, then I would put her in the swing (it was the only place she would sleep).  Then around the same time, about a month ago, she didn’t want to be in the swing anymore, so I would end up holding her everyday, trying to not move a muscle, and not make any sounds, because even the sound of me scratching an itch would wake her up!  So, the first day following our new routine, I nursed her to sleep, then put her in the crib.  She cried for about 20 minutes, but eventually went to sleep, and slept for 1 1/2 hour (one of her longest naps!). 

Thank you Erika, for your support and kind words to help one seriously sleep-deprived family!

Roger has been on business travel since Sunday, and I’ve stepped in for bath time.  Bath time is definitely Daddy’s domain, and I’ll be happy to hand this responsibility back to him when he gets back–Daddy is just way more fun, and Mama is all business.  We use this soap called ”California Baby”, we tried tons of different soaps, and this seemed to be the perfect consistency, it makes the “perfect bubble” (according to Roger), and the smell isn’t too crazy (I find Mustela to be WAY too fragrant).  So this brand, California Baby, comes in a bottle with a very short screw-on cap.  When the bottle is empty, Roger adds it to the “tub toys”.  For the past two nights, I’ve noticed Julie trying to unscrew the bottle, then last night, I watched her try to pick up round shaped toys to help her turn the lid.  First, she tried a foam letter “O”, then she tried a ring toy of about the same size as the “O”.  When neither of those worked, she tried banging it with her bubble blower–which also didn’t work.  I’m sure she’s been pondering this puzzle ever since last night, and tonight might be the night that she cracks the case, so to speak…

Yes, the sleepy bug that bit Julie turned out to be the teething bug.  I suspect that the sleepy bug bite took about 48 hours to take effect on her–during which time, she slept.  Perhaps she was resting up for what was to follow.  Once the poison of emerging teeth hit her blood stream, Julie woke, and has been in a total rage ever since.  We’re not talking “a little fussy”.  This is full-on pissed off, nothing-will-make-me-happy-but-keep-trying, dont-pick-me-up, dont-put-me-down, dont-try-to-feed-me-but-i’m-starving, 5-alarm-sounding TOTAL RAGE.  One thing that works most of the time is nursing.  The problem with that is that I need to take a bathroom break, and also sitting in one position for several hours starts a numbing sensation in the back that doesn’t feel too good.  And I’m here alone, so Julie also has to endure me taking breaks to get something to drink and snack on. 

For all those “experts” who claim that teething is a painless event in a child’s life, they are one of the following:

• not parents/no parenting experience
• severely incompetent and inexperienced
• complete liars who want parents to think they’re crazy

In any case, I invite any of them to spend a day here at the Loo Residence, and experience the bliss that is teething.

Julie got her first tooth at 5 months.  At the time, before the tooth popped out, I had no idea what was happening.  After all, “most” babies don’t even start teething until 6-8 months (at least that is what I had read in some articles) and isn’t teething “a painless event in a child’s life”?.  She had become a total monster, and I had no idea what was going on.  Now after 8 teeth, and each as painful as the last, I am still a little surprised to see how the process of teething changes my sweet-but-”needy” baby into a screaming monster. 

When I took a peek at Julie’s gums about a week ago, I noticed some physical changes in her gums, but nothing shining thru.  When I felt around in her mouth, I could feel the tips of the molars just under the skin.  I have been able to feel her molars under the skin for a very long time, but I noted that there was a different feel–I could actually make out the sharp edges of the teeth.  At this point, I know for a fact that all 4 “1-year” molars are coming out–the two uppers already poked thru, and the two lowers are just about to poke thru.  In addition, I have noticed some physical changes where the upper canines will come in, and I suspect that those will either pop out while the molars are cutting, or very shortly after.  This means that she’s cutting SIX teeth at once.  And those first 8 teeth?  those were just a warm-up for this.  Aside from the personality changes that teething brings on, Julie has developed a terrible runny nose–she always gets this when upper teeth are coming out.  This is not just any runny nose, this is a bright green snotty slim that comes out in big globs–very messy!  These days, whenever Julie sneezes, she takes off crawling away from me because she knows that a tissue is coming her way.  Why do babies hate having their little noses wiped?

So.  I guess you could say this is the conclusion to the whole “sleepy Julie” situation that lasted for about 2 days.  Didn’t I say that was “just a phase”?  Luckily, this is “just a phase” too, but it will last a LOT longer than the sleepy phase.  ugh…