August - 1st week

I should've written yesterday - I was so bubbly and full of stuff today. Today, I come back to this page that I'd left open and can't remember anything. I had a minor nasal surgery today and perhaps the anesthesia has made me a little foggy.

Our boy slept until 4:45 am on Tuesday I believe. Wow. He slept til 3 am and some change last night. And if I can get his daddy on board, we can maybe just let him CIO this weekend and get him on the road to sleeping through the night. He's old enough and he CAN do it, he's just got to get used to it. I'd hoped we'd do it when Pam came, but once she got sick, it didn't work out. I talked to another mom with a similar baby and she said it took 4 or 5 days of a lot of crying, but her baby's been sleeping through since then. I tried it sort of last week and he cried for 1 hr and 11 minutes - in the bed with us! Not even alone in another room. So he's got stamina, but we'll have to let him express him stamina in his crib.

His verbal skills are coming along quite nicely. I got him a book of simple words and pictures and he points to a flower and says, "a wower." Cute. Now he sees them outside or drawn or whatever, but he recognizes them well. Lots of little signs that the connections are being made in general. Saw a picture of a plane and did airplane arms and started making raspberry noise.

Today when a friend came over to play with her 2 kids to provide redundancy until Mark got home to take over while I went to have my procedure done, he and the little boy said 'bye' to each other about 25 times back and forth while she buckled the girl in the car. Myles stood at the screen door, screaming "bye" and "bye-bye" alternately while the little boy did the same. Hilarious. I love how interactive he's become lately. He notices other kids. He's bridging the gap between himself and our friends w/kids who are 3-5 months older. He's also really tall, so he looks like one of them. Went to a playdate and when bubbles came out of the bubble machine, after hearing the older kids say 'bubbles' he did too.

It's really hot in Los Angeles

It's so hot, in fact, that a group of us mommies and babies were videotaped last week at a park for the local news doing spots on the heat wave. We were having a going away playdate for a mommy who's moving away to Indiana. We're so sad to lose her, she was the sweetheart of our group, but work calls. She's got a Phd and job offers are few and far (literally far) in between. Then I found out today that the leader of our baby group, whose husband also is a Phd, is moving to Seoul, Korea. Wow.

I've meanwhile, been having fun designing elements for my new digital scrapbooking kits. I don't have my own creative team, so I should probably take a break from designing at some point and scrapbook my own baby. Maybe my next kit should be blue and more masculine, so I could do some more pages for Myles.

Myles, meanwhile, is growing and changing at a lightning pace. He's saying more words everyday. He points to planes and says, "bee." No idea why. He's started to read a book on his potty. We're just getting him used to the idea of sitting on the potty. Today he crawled into his jogging stroller on his own. Subtle hint, huh?

New kit preview

Almost done with another kit. Not sure about the name, but I'm getting there. I love pink and green, so this one's called Berries and Pistachios at the moment. Take a sneak peak:

Big sister's leaving

My sister came into town to visit Myles on the 4th of July, coincidentally the same time as last year. A lot has changed. She visited a really cute, warm lump last year and came back this year to find a little boy. He's learned so much since she's been here: he can blow his nose (caught her flu), he learned to blow a little whistle noise maker we got from a baby party, he says "wawa," "open" - apparently he's been saying it for awhile, but we didn't understand "opie" "oppie" the way she did. And sure enough he only says it while opening and closing things. She bought him a potty, which he's scared to sit on, but likes to open the top while saying open. She's learned his lingo, which includes the undiscernable, "bee-dub." No idea what that's about. He can turn the rotary dimmer light switch, the cable box. He's said thank you, but "love you" doesn't really sound like English. It's funny how adding another person to the mix speeds things up. These are all added to his standard repertoire of "dog" (voiced as if he's totally surprised every single time), "dada," "mama," "hi," "hello," "bye bye," "oh no," "uh-oh" and "aww, man," which he learned from The Backyardigans. He's also made up "nummy num num," as a way to ask for food when he sees some that he wants. We're entering exponential growth as far as the vocabulary is concerned.

We had three days of him sleeping through the night - M,W,F, followed by him waking up every 2 hours last night. Hope ignited, hope set aflame! LOL. It was so bad, I had to sleep on the sofa so as to not wake up the rest of the house. He's had a great time. I hope he remembers her face on webcam when she makes it back home.

He's tried new foods: cut up (and peeled) hot dogs, corn on the cob which he adored yesterday and not so much today, burgers and fries and sweet potatoes. It's been a great visit and I'm sad to see her go, as evidenced by this late night post. She was sick so it wasn't even as much fun as it could have been and I'm still said about her leaving. Imagine if we'd had a full-on blow out. But as usual, nobody can make me laugh harder than my sister. I fell to the ground in fits of hysterical laughing with tears rolling down my face at least twice that I can remember. I can't wait to give Myles a sibling so that he may know the joy of having somebody else in the world who's forever connected, despite how similar or dissimilar they are. When my brother's not busy dividing and conquering my parents so that he may pillage them for every cent they have, we have a lot of fun as well. One year, we had a Thanksgiving with just the 3 of us kids and it was SO funny. We did imitations of our parents, told our favorite stories and just hammed it up. I feel bad for him, he's really missing out on the best of life, right now doing his imitation of an only child. But my sister and I, we figured out that our tastes are SO opposite. We like the opposite foods, we made a guy crack up in the store as she mentioned that "the chunks were rising" to her throat at the sight of some darling purse I showed her that she didn't like. She hates mayo, I love mayo. She hates curry, I'm honorarily Caribbean, I hate strawberries and am allergic to shrimp, both of which she loves. Friends need to be somewhat similar to you in order to make it, but siblings don't have that pressure. We don't have similar tastes, we don't even exactly have the same upbringing, but we have a shared set of references and a language of shorthand that can't be replicated, which is funny because we weren't close AT ALL growing up. She's nearly a decade older than me and I grew up moreso with my little brother who I used to be somewhat close to until he was old enough to talk. LOL. Fast forward several years, now she's one of the first calls I make. Enough of the wistfulness, I'm going to catch some more zzzzs.

Pictures to follow.

New Foods, More Pictures

Myles has eaten two new foods this week! Shouldn't be a big deal, but for him it is. He tried adult oatmeal this week and liked it and today tried sweet potatoes and liked it. He didn't immediately take to the sweet potatoes, but something in the way he rejected it let me know he might eat it if I prepared it just so. So he spit out the big chunk, I squished it much thinner and he spit it out again, but no yuck face. I mixed it with a bit of honey (he's over a year now, so it's safe) and he still wasn't thrilled, then I thinned it with even more water and then he liked it and came back for more voluntarily. He even said the words more and eventually signed the word more without saying it. He ate the whole ramekin I made for him and fell asleep. Progress! He started corn as well last week. Fruits don't work so well for us, but I'm going to try watermelon next week perhaps. He won't have grapes at all, nor apples. He's not totally revolted by oranges, but doesn't particularly like them either.

My sister's in town from DC and it's been great to get away. She watched the baby and let us have 2 movie dates alone. We saw Eclipse (guilty pleasure) and Get Him to the Greek, which was fantastic! I LOVE Russell Brand.

Here are so more random pics of Myles.

New Kit Completed

Here's a layout using the kit:

Credits: Kit-Outta This World, Template-Aprilisa Design.

Some respite

Had a horrible weekend where Myles had night terrors and started beating me up in his sleep. Pulling my hair, trying to punch me, head butting me, kicking me, the whole spiel. Saturday night was the worst, it was like a 30-40 minute episode at almost 4 am. Sunday was slightly better, but I was still on edge.

Finally last night, fed him lots before bed, including corn, on the advice of my Aunt Olivia's friend Candice. She said her son's night terrors were exacerbated by hunger. Fed him up, drugged him with tylenol at 11 pm at his first waking (he went down early at 7 after resisting both daytime naps) and he slept through the night, for real. First time ever this well. Okay, maybe 2nd time, but a full 7 hours. When he cried at 6am, we didn't even realize what had happened. No night terrors and an improved sleeping. Let's hope we can do a repeat tonight. This is the first uninterrupted block of sleep I've had in at least 10 months.

Additionally, the little one fed himself at lunch yesterday. He's usually sort of lazy and will feed himself snacks, but not food. But yesterday he fed himself chunks of chicken and tried to feed himself pasta with his spoon for the first time. He plays with the spoon usually, but this was the first time that contents of the spoon made it to his mouth. Thus proving right the statement, "progress is inevitable." He also tried to hold the water bottle several times. I've had to invest in more expensive bottled water because he hates bottles, resists sippies slightly less, but likes bottled water. So I got the kind with spouts and now he's much more of a water drinker (and spiller.)

He's such a stereotypical male - he'll push me to the edge and goes that extra mile to do something cute and make his way back into my good graces.

No, no, no

The boy has learned the word no. He actually HAS to say it at least 3 times together in quick succession, "no, no, no." Often he sings it as a song. And this started yesterday, but today was the first day he told Mark no in the correct context. Mark asked him to give him this pen he was holding and he replied clearly, "no." Wow! Game on.

He's also started paying attention to the television. It started 2 weeks ago when he started chanting "yeye" and "la" while watching Nihao Kailan. But then a couple of days ago, we were watching Backyardigans (me as much as he) and the kid said, "aww man!" And Myles repeated, "aww me!" He didn't finish the 'n' but he got the intonation totally down. He's a little parrot these days. Gotta watch it.

First Digiscrap Kit

New Venture

Introducing my line of digital scrapbooking supplies, Pixel Poubah! More about this and previews to come.

Feeling more hopeful

Just talked to my band guitarist who owned a car dealership for 20+ years and he said that although new car parts have skyrocketed due to lack of sales volume, I could get reconditioned replacement parts cheaper and that the quote was way too high in general. I most likely can get the car repaired for less than $2k, more like $1k. That sounds a lot better. We'd probably have to get a new car anyhow in 2 years when he have 2 babies in 2 big car seats, so if we could eek some more years out of this car, I'd love it. Also, we really intentionally have no car payments for a reason. I don't believe in getting a new car often at all.

I can't remember what I was about to write

Myles just did something cute, but the phone rang and it was the dealership telling me that my A/C repair is $2600 and all of a sudden, I can't for the life of me remember what I was just about to write.

Day 2 of weaning - hardcore version

We went 5 hours between nursing while at the beach. I've got to keep him occupied as we drop feedings. We dropped one feeding yesterday and we might dr0p an additional one today. He's still not upping his liquid intake yet to compensate, but I'm choosing to walk on faith that he'll catch on and get thirsty and give in to the cup. He'll take a couple sips from it for fun, but when he's actually thirsty is when he's most prone to resist it. We just keep offering it and at some point, it'll click.

I need to keep him out of the house and active in general this week - I think it's a good strategy for weaning. He's starting to add some foods to his repertoire. He likes peanut butter now and corn. Tried grapes for the 3rd time, he still hates them. Won't even try apples- I've sort of stuck one in his open mouth, but the taste was not good enough for him to voluntarily come back on his own.

We go for his 15 month appt tomorrow. I have a feeling he's WAY skinnier in terms of the percentile stuff. He's leaning out now that he walks. No more chub. I think he gets one of the shots that I put off from last visit, when they wanted to give him like 4 shots at once.

That's it for now. I'll be back later to put up some beach photos.

15 months old!

I thought he was just 15 months today, but looking at the blog, he already turned yesterday - I just apparently never know what day it is. He's growing up. Despite himself. Today I drew a line in the sand with the nursing. I can't take it anymore! The teeth are killing me - he's not biting, but I'm super sore. I pumped this morning and he wouldn't take any milk from 1 bottle or 2 different cups. He knows what's going on and wants no part in it. He's normally a little better with cups, but somehow he can tell this is the end. So I spent the WHOLE morning with him crying and whining.

To top it off, I locked my keys in our back house, so I couldn't walk him or leave the house to distract him. So after half a day of fighting, then a long nap, he wakes up ravenous. He starts downing banana puffs (which he'd stopped eating awhile back) top speed. Then I told Mark to try Cheerios to slow him down and he downs those just as fast. Then we go get his favorite chicken. He eats some of it, then starts revolting, chanting and yelling, "ma" and "mama" which doesn't refer to me, just my boobs. We distract him a little and then when dinner comes, he's hungry again. He tries corn for the first time. AND, for the first time, he accepts a new food readily with no grimaces, no pulling it out of his mouth or anything. (He pulled the green beans out of his mouth, but they were unsalted and fairly gross even to us.) So tomorrow, I'm looking forward to interesting poop with corn kernels in it.

Additionally, he goes to bed without much fight now. The last few nights he just lies down peacefully, you rub his belly a few times and then he goes to sleep. Tonight, he didn't even require me to stay until he was totally asleep. He was drowsy, I walked out and he didn't even care. Our little boy is growing up!

Link between diet and behavior

As much as I'd like to remain ignorant of the link between what I eat and how my child acts, it's obvious to me. He's a good kid, even when he's irritated, he goes from stellar to just average. But that decline is noticeable to me, mommy, who sees him all day every day. I had a gig last night, and they give me this most fabulous pasta afterwards that I normally can pretend I don't notice dairy in. It always separates the next morning and appears translucent, but last night, it was creamy and milky so I knew. I ate some anyhow, and this morning, my baby was off the chain. We Skyped with his grandparents and he could barely sit still, barely make eye contact, climbed on everything every second and just ran non-stop. As much as I get frustrated with having a baby with gastro challenges, I wonder how many people also have kids very sensitive to diet and just never noticed that the spastic fits match up with what's eaten?

Isn't it ironic

How 'bout the day after I spend hours designing a new backdrop look for my blog, THE NEXT DAY Blogger introduces these one click templates. Now everybody's going to have a great looking blog with no knowledge or effort necessary, and couldn't they have done it the day before I started all this?

We're on our way to swim class again. This is week 5 I believe and our boy is getting to know the drill. When you say, "ready, go," he tilts his head forward and closes his eyes, ready to be dunked, which is what we spend most of the class doing. He's not as in love with it as he used to be, but he's learning the important stuff which is to close your mouth when you go underwater and that going underwater's not that big of a deal.

---------

We went to class. He was in a much better mood than last week. He even kicked a few times when the lady pulled him head-down through the water. Then he was so knocked out from the water that he took a long nap while I showered and got our place ready for our playdate we threw today. We ended up having about 9 mommies and 10 babies. It wasn't as hot as I expected it to be in the middle of June, so no kiddie pool, but we got to use the water table and everyone was comfortable the whole time even without shade. Now the boy's knocked out since he only got 1 nap, and I'm equally ready to pass out, but we haven't eaten dinner yet. I'll be lucky if I make it awake through dinner!

Peace in the valley

The boy went to sleep at 7 pm tonight! Wow, that's early for us. Normally it's about 8:30 and during teething, it was even later. I thought I'd miss seeing his little face for the extra hour, but I gotta say it was heavenly cooking dinner with no distractions. I see him all day, so it's not that much of a loss. But his dad's out working all day and I like for them to get their time. Myles really likes his dad. Now that he can walk, he's in Mark's office with him quite often. He loves screaming out, "di-da!" It's such a beautiful thing.

Okay, I think I might actually like Costco. I've always loathed it. I've had a membership before and it was a waste of money. I never went. I abhor long lines and didn't have storage space. Now that we're in a house, I have room for 50 rolls of tp, an extra freezer, etc. Thoroughly domestic and middle American at this instant. But it's taken me 5 or 6 visits into this membership to be sold on it. The problem is, I'm an organized, planned, controlling shopper. And since the selection there is SO random, I couldn't really plan ahead. So I've been going, taking pics w/my iphone and plotting my purchases. I've finally sort of gotten a grip on which things I can get there. Tonight I got a disposable pepper mill (ours ran out and the REAL pepper mill we have is a deadly weapon with a baby around) for $3.99 and I swear it's got a full year's worth of pepper in it. Got 2-3 weeks worth of ground beef, some croissants and fancy Rosemary Olive bread, two whole chickens and all the lotion I'll need til 2011. I had to separate everything out into little freezer bags, but it's worth it.

Catching up on photos...

Here's the boy from May on. The fun's just beginning. He started walking on his own in May, so you'll be seeing a lot more of him upright. But then again, since the dog crates seem to be his favorite spot (I think he might think he's a dog), maybe you won't notice the difference! Parenting is wild. It's like riding a mechanical bull. It doesn't really matter how good you are at any one given moment because things change and you've got to stay vigilant and keep up with the latest thing. You can't stay mired to any one phase because, guess what? It's not going to last. It amazes me how almost everybody goes through it.

Myles loves sand. We bought him a sand and water table, but upon lots of advice, we're only putting either sand or water in it at any given time, lest it become a mud and mosquito table.

Myles got to see our friend's daughter, Makenzie, who ironically calls him "Chocolate Chip."

In a suite for two...

In the toy box with Paddington Bear from Auntie Margaret.

The reason there are so many pics of him in the dog's beds is because he's ALWAYS in there, much to our chagrin.

Finally, he sits in the chair. He's been scared of this chair since I got it. Max actually enjoys sitting in it more than Myles.

Horsey rides! New trick.

Here's Myles at the water table. He's obsessed with splashing and couldn't stop. Mark had to pull him away.

Couldn't resist letting him go au naturel.

This was the week her started walking - I think day 3.

He went straight from crawling to running.

A little spring fantasy

I've taken up digital scrapbooking recently - much less clutter than traditional paper scrapbooking. Plus, you guys know I'm a tech nerd anyhow. Here's my creation using the green-screen backdrop Mark got me for Christmas. I got Myles to sit in a chair and draped it over so that the arm would look correct when he was transplanted into digital world.

Credits: Joyful Day kit by L.K.H. Designs, Rainbow by Scrapidea-Timkova (Rainbrella Blogtrain)

Birthday Party...More Pics

Birthday Party

Backyard's ready for a party. Enough cars and plastic stuff for a bunch of kids.

Myles isn't too keen on the hat or cake.

Elmo is one of Myles' favorite.

The baby trying to push Myles is barely older than him!

2 1/2 year old Hunter laughs hysterically while 16 month old Hendrix eats a ball.

Owen, who's a month younger than Myles, tries to give him a push.

Everybody knows each other.

Mayumi stole Myles for the majority of the party. She, 7, and brother Morgan, 5, kept him occupied most of the time.

Myles give Morgan a few pointers on his driving technique.