Imagine it

We’re eating pretend cereal with our fingers off the picture on the box.

Going forward

Elise and Joni were out this morning, for the weekly visit. Aijuan says Elise says to move Angela up to 1.5 hrs twice a day from just the 1 hour twice a day with her hearing aid. Angela doesn’t seem to mind it at all now. Wish she could tell us how it is for her. Day will come.

Tidbits

Some updates…

On the going to bed thing, that has been a LOT easier. Maybe I’m just taking a lighter touch to it than she needed but haven’t had to do any bouncing or pacing in weeks.

Past few nights I just get her zipped up in her little blanket bag and don’t mess with her and she’s fine.

Even if she is still a little awake she seems content enough if I just walk around the room quietly sort of straightening things, maybe humming a little, just enough to know I’m there and she’s cool.

Last night she later woke up but just a minute bouncing and she was settled again.

So that has been great. She’s still mostly getting to sleep later than I’d like, though, tonight 9pm, but we’ll get there.

Aijuan is happy she is eating her cooking at lunch again. A trick was to put the homecooked in a leftover store bought toddler meal container and now she’ll eat it.

She’s starting to push chairs around and today turned off the (gas) stove. Oops! If she can turn it off she can turn it on!!

Elise says to be putting the hearing aid just an hour twice a day. Not wanting to have it so long it annoys her. Right now she doesn’t mind it like at first and that is encoraging.

She just got over another ear infection and we met with a pediatric ENT to discuss putting in tubes. I’m not sanguine about it but will do if seems best course. Aijuan wants to give another six to eight weeks and I’m down with that but I don’t think we will make it that long without getting another one. The intervals between them are getting shorter and we are going into a higher risk season. But we’ll see.

Funny little things

A couple of funny cute things she’s been doing. ..

She’ll get the laundry basket and start putting appropriate looking items on her head and shoulders like she’s trying to put them on. She hasn’t figured out how to pull them over her head yet so doesn’t get far but she has the idea and the interest.

Sometimes when I am holding her for a bit at bed time she will pat my back even before I pat hers. I have to keep from cracking up because I want her to sleep.

She likes to play hide and seek although hiding skills are limited to going out of sight around the corner and waiting, or looking, for me.

She will have a cracker and feed it to her Elmo.

She gets a kick out of standing up and with her arms and hands out like she is going to catch something, then will sort of crouch-bounce by bending and straightening her knees as she leans forward. She will make this “Uh uh uh! ” sound as she goes. She likes me to do it with her. I think she likes having enough balance down that she can do these kinds of movements. Like she’s learned a knew trick she can do.

She will take the Apple TV remote and point it at the tv and stop and start and stop and start and stop and start….a home movie we’d be watching. She’ll get the actual tv remote too and start pushing buttons and get it switched from the video input for the home movie and it then goes to loud static then complains and looks and me like I did it and gives me back the remote to fix it back.

Here’s a quick iPhone video with the laundry basket. Dish washer running in background.

Easier Tonight

Wed Sep 30 22:49:01 CDT 2009

Tonight i get home about 650-700 and she is asleep and Aijuan says she’s sleeping then says she will take a nap too “too tired”;

Later I think I hear her crying downstairs, so I go to check it out.

It wasn’t crying it was Aijuan with Angela watching the clips that Aijuan took yesterday at Story Time. Those moms and babies are rowdy.

So I made grilled cheese for everyone, but Angela wouldn’t try it. Then Aijuan went upstairs and I played with Angela until 9p then called Aijuan said i was going to get her ready for bed. Aijuan came down, and did the bath thing. I got her undressed and watch/played with her until Aijuan came and got her, then i went and made the bottle.

Aijuan brought her in and I put her in the swing and gave her bottle, and Aijuan went back upstairs.

I then took her to the crib, got her in her sleeping bag, and laid her down, and she was quiet for awhile, then wanted up, so I picked her up and bounced her just a while, then she wanted down again, so put her back. Sang/hummed a bit and she settled down. I laid down on the bed to see how it would go, and she later stood up at the rail and started calling me, so I went over and laid her back down, and resumed singing/humming.

She flopped around on the mattress, stood and the rail and jabbered, tossed her bear over the side, played around awhile, but I stayed cribside this time and kept patting/stroking her and singing/humming. I just kept doing that, hid my eyes behind my arm leaning on the crib rail. Trying to limit the stimulation and interaction to just the voice and the touch. At first used words in the songs, then to just humming. Later as she got more drowsy, I mixed in ’shhhhhhhh’s between short pieces of humming the song, and faded that into just shhhhhhhh’s, and gradually moved further from the crib. Nothing abrupt. She never came back up wanting to be picked up and seemed content enough I think just to have me cribside. Maybe that’s enough, but that’s what I did last night. Just went to cribside but didn’t pick her up.

Left the room at 9:49. I don’t know how long it took but it was not long, and drama-free.

I right now just want to get away from the physical effort. Bouncing, rocking, strollering, pacing, walking, etc. Get her to sleep cribside. Then start to leave before she is all the way asleep. Then reduce further and further. Keeping to the same basic core of bottle then story then crib and a song cribside and then make it shorter. That’s just tucking in at that point. So hopefully she gets weaned off me taying until she is asleep and she is comfortable with the basic core. I just gotta be consistent.

First Night Changes

Tue Sep 29 21:10:26 CDT 2009

Well, tonight we made a little progress, but maybe a step in a big direction.

For I don’t know how long, I have been rocking, singing, humming, bouncing, walking Angela to sleep at night. In the beginning of course when she was a ‘baby’ baby, and up through now, when she is less a ‘baby’ baby, but a 15 month old ‘baby’, 23-plus pounds.

When she’s really tired it is not so bad, but sometimes it takes longer. Last night took an hour, and tonight I just flat couldn’t do it anymore.

It went like this: she got her night night bottle (working on that…..), as usual, but tonight a little earlier, (which is good), and then carried her to the crib, layed her down in the sleeping bag, got her arms through and got it zipped up, and she turned to her side and was a little dozey. But soon stirred back and was standing up calling out to be picked up. So I came over, picked her up, and sat on the side of the bed with one foot on the floor and bounced so she’d settle down.

She started kicking to either be let down, put back, or carried around. I am refusing to do the latter unless there is really something wrong, (sick, scared, etc), but I felt she’s just wanting what she wants. So I laid her back down in the crib, and she was quiet. I started to stealthily sneak ninja-style back across the bed, so as to not be seen or heard and try and make a break for the door. Once I’m out, I’m free. But she stood up before I made it to the other side, and I froze and cringed and squeezed my eyes closed tight and waited to see if she would keep going or settle down. No luck tonight, and she starting calling out. So I went back over and got her to lay back down, and started singing/humming, (Down in the Valley, Hush Little Baby, Dvorak’s New World Symphony, 2nd movement, Red River Valley), but then she stood up again wanting to be picked up. So I obliged again and went to do a bit more bouncing but she started kicking immediately and I just couldn’t do it anymore and put her back in the crib. She laid down quiet for awhile, but then stood up again, but this time I didn’t pick her up.

I didn’t pick her up, but I stood with my hands/arms around her, trying to comfort and soothe. I didn’t want to just abandon her, but I wasn’t going to pick her up. So she cried and cried and wailed and wailed. Oh man, can that kid wail! Aijuan came in twice and I had to chase her off both times. Kudos to her for letting me try my thing.

Angela was wailing and crying and she sounded a bit mad, and sputtering, and I started to laugh some, and she was laughing too a little but still crying and mad as a 15 month old ‘baby’ can be, I guess. Finally(!) she was tired enough that she laid back down herself. I patted her and stroked her cheek and hair and was trying to soothe and sort of encourage and congratulate her or something, I felt proud of and for her, and that we were doing something significant and important for both/all of us.

That didn’t last long and she got up again for another bout, but this time was so keen on having me hold her but I stayed with her. She soon got tired again and laid back down. Tried to calm her down and she came back up one more time and then finally laid back down and I chanced to scoot out.

So that went from 8:30 to 9:00 pm. Thirty minutes. It was hard for everyone, and I am expecting the next few nights to be repeats, but we’ve all got to learn that she goes to sleep at bedtime without one of us walking, bouncing, wheeling around in the stroller up and down the halls, rocking, etc, just to get her to sleep EVERY night. It just got to where 1) I thought it was getting insane, 2) I couldn’t do it anymore, and 3) is not doing right by her, which really should be first.

It is sort of easier for everyone to just keep going. No drama. But this just can’t continue like it has. Not every night, when it is just a normal night.

I’ll still sing, and read to her at night but the physical toting around is going to stop.

So I felt like we held fast and went through it together and have started something we have to see through. It is difficult but it will be better on the other side.

I’m encouraged it didn’t go for hours, but I stayed with her still, but one thing at a time. We are weaning each other off this habit, and I confess I feel a little sad about yet another part of ‘baby times’ going past.

Bipedal

Angela spends most of her mobility on walking around. Really fun to see. She is more and more a little girl and less a baby every day. Today she “ran” up to greet me with a big smile on her face when I came in the door. I like to scoop her up high and spin around one time. She gets tickled and that is a joy. My little punkin.

It fits

Had hearing aid fitting yesterday for Angela. She doesn’t like it. Yet? She doesn’t like. A lot.

Not another one!

Argh. Another ear infection. Sigh.

And so, it begins

For some time now she knows where the remotes are hidden. Well where they used to be hidden. They’re not hidden anymore if she knows where they are.

She will point to them up on the mantel by the clock and make that “uh! Uh!uh!” insistent, “I want that get it for me” sound while pointing to it and looking at me.

Well how did she come to know about those thing?

Well we don’t watch tv per se but watch movies bought and homemade and photos and “slideshows”. They are all of Angela now of course, except for some movies I’m trying to watch at 10 minutes at a time.

And this new iPhone with the video on it makes easy to collect a lit of videos of which she loves to watch.

She will talk and dance and wave and laugh along with herself in the videos and some things strike her funny that I don’t get.

So I’m thinking gotta wean her off that big screen a bit. I don’t want it to be a habit. Even though she interacts some it is still basically a passive medium and we should be interacting with her more instead.