Nhamo in paradise

No sleep = grumpy

And I'm talking about me here, not the wee bear.  Gabriel had slept horrible last night, which makes no sense because the day before he had two great naps with the last nap ending about 4 hours before bedtime.  He ate well and his teeth didn't seem to be bothering him.  This should result in a great night of sleeping, yes?  No. For starts, he wouldn't go down to sleep at his 7:00 bedtime...took over an hour.  After waking for his usual 11:00 time to nurse, he then woke up at 1:30am WIDE AWAKE.  The kid was not crying like his teeth hurt, he simply didn't want to sleep.  It was like he wanted to just  'hang out.' Making things worse, he was just learned how to climb out of the co-sleeper and onto the bed.  (Yes, we have a crib on the way.)  After an hour of trying to get him back to sleep in the co-sleeper, baba took over.  He eventually fell asleep on her shoulder, but slept fitfully.  I think we finally put him back in his co-sleeper around 4:00.  He then woke up for the morning at 6:30. 

Luckily, around 7:30 I got a short reprieve, as baba fed him breakfast and I went back and crashed for a while.  Unfortunately, baba also had a paper to write this morning, so couldn't take him longer than 8:00am.  So I ate breakfast and played with him drowsily thinking "okay, just hang in there until naptime."  This week he's been sleeping 45-90 minutes consistently for his morning nap. Today, after he went down for a nap, I crashed into bed.  20 minutes later, just as I drift into sleep, guess who wakes up??  30 minutes of singing to a fussy baby later, I curl into bed only to be wakened again in - 20 minutes.

I was so done with him.  I always love him - but this morning I sure didn't *like* him.  Luckily, I was able to shake off my bad feelings n the shower and be the happy mama the rest of the day.  He helped by being super extra cute and smiling today.  As for me, I'm going to bed early tonight!

On a side note, the koala bear sleeps up to 22 hours a day.  I'm thinking about a trade in for a day. 

Happy Anniversary

To my partner, my friend, my love - happy anniversary. We'll go out to dinner tomorrow, and it will be wonderful to spend time alone together at a nice restaurant - I love dressing up and going out to romantic dinners.  I want you to know, however, that my favorite times - the times I hold most precious - are not the 'official' romantic occasions, but the unpredictable moments when the world fades for a second and we 'see' each other, connecting souls through life's craziness.  I'm so glad we found each other - and that it's you who is walking beside me on this life's journey.  Here's to one of the multiple unpredictable moments in the journey. 

"Baba"

Yesterday Ty was making breakfast while Gabriel bounced in his 'jump-up' thing (a bouncer you hang it from a door frame.)  She said he looked right at her and said "baba."  Go Gabe!  He is so in love with his baba.  :-)
 

W Look-alike Meter

I saw this on another blog and thought I'd try it out.  I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it was fun!

7 months!

The wee bear is 7 months old today.  The theme of this past month has been 'Get Moving!' Little boy is serious about this moving business.  He is now cross-crawling everywhere and  this past week has developed a new pasttime - pulling himself to a stand.  He uses any opportunity to do this - hence this morning's picture.  Poor baba just wanted to lay on the floor and play with her little boy.  He reached out his arms to her - 'how sweet - yes? - perhaps to give her a hug, to play?  NOPE!  He reached out to grab her hair and pull himself to a stand.  LOL.



His other focus this week has been climbing the floor pillow.  Every morning he crawls past all of his toys and heads for the pillow.  He tries and tries to crawl over this thing.  He gets so frustrated - but gets even more upset when I try to help!  Here's a pic of his climbing efforts.

Other  things  Gabriel has been up to:
 - Picking up blocks and hitting them together.  (also, hitting mom's hands with blocks as she tries to to change his diaper.)

- Feeding himself 'banana pops' and trying to pick up cheerios.  For the latter, he can pick them up in a 'raking' style, but can't figure out how to get them in his mouth.

- Trying out new sounds!  He started with mmmmm this month, and then quickly switched over to bbbbb. (I'll post more about this later)  The last picture is him making the 'mmm' sound.

- Playing peek-a-boo, better known as 'where's mommy?'  I'll put a blanket over my head and say 'where's mommy?'  He'll pull off the blanket and grin in delight.

(LOL - I just asked Ty 'what new big things has Gabe been doing' and she said "it's all big to me!")  Gabriel had a definate 'ah hah' moment yesterday.  He pushed his caterpiller toy, watched it move forward.  He then reached out, pulled it back to himself and pushed it again.  He paused for a minute and you could just see the gears turning.  He got this wonderful look of comprehension on his face and then spent the whole morning push/pulling this toy. And then today I recognized that he is purposely opening and closing the lids on his 'pop-up' toy. 

Too scared to sleep?

I think our little guy is starting some separation anxiety.  The last few nights he has has a really hard time putting himself back to sleep.  Usually he will sleep from 7:00 to 10:30, nurse, and then sleep until 2-3:00. I know he stirs in between this time, but he is good at putting himself back to sleep. The last few nights he's been waking up every 45 minutes and screaming for us instantly when he wakes (instead of putting himself back to sleep.)  It's a cry I haven't heard before.  Ty and I have been taking turns going in there and patting/cooing/singing him back to sleep.  I think it's separation anxiety because he settles down within minutes of our presence.  Any one have this issue at 7 months?

Visit from Uncle Matt

Yeah!  My brother Matt visited from California (LA).   I hadn't seen him in over 5 years.  On the one hand, I think 'Damn, that's a long time.'  And then he gets here and it's like we've never been apart.  He hasn't changed, I haven't changed - still brother /sister relationship type of stuff going on.  It's almost like 'comfort food'.  :-)  He's a great guy and I'm so very glad to call him my brother.  He even increased his coolness factor in my eyes by being able to quote eddie izzard skits with me.  :-)  It was wonderful to see him interact with Gabriel.  Here are some pics from our picnic in the park.  The second one is Matt teaching Gabriel that the secret to looking like you're the guy in charge is to point assertively (apparently this works in the movie industry.  I'll have to try it out in our departmental meetings and see how it goes.)  I also found out that his partner Katie reads this blog more than he does.  "She updates me' he says.  LOL.  Hey Kate - glad you're here and thanks for keeping the brother informed.
 

My hero...

Our usually evening routine goes like this.  Around 6:45 Ty gives Gabriel his bath.  She then hands him off to me and starts cooking dinner.  I take Gabriel into the bedroom, read him his bedtime story and sing/nurse him to a drowzy state.  Then I lay him in his co-sleeper and pat his back until he falls asleep.  The latter part usually takes a while (15 - 30 minutes), but usually it's a nice downtime for me because I browse the internet and catch up on blogs, etc.  Tonight, however, was a disaster.  Our little guy did NOT want to sleep, and kept crying and crying.  I tried rubbing his back, whispering to him, singing to him, holding him in the bed, nursing him...nothing was working.  By now, Ty had come in to help.  She leaned over him and he was surprised enough to see her face directly over him that he stopped crying for a moment.  She then started singing 'their song'...a beautiful lullaby composed by our rabbi.  It was the first song he ever heard, minutes after he came into this world.  Tonight, his eyes fixed on hers as she sang, and his breathing slowed.  Slowly, softly, he fell asleep.  My hero!  And his as well.  :-)

We have a tooth!

a 'fang' actually.  He bit down on my finger today and I felt small sharp pointy thing dig into my skin.  I though teeth were smooth on top?!  I'm bracing myself for the moment he bites down when nursing.  I shouldn't damper his newest accomplishment, though - so CONGRATS little wee bear!

Stealing hearts already...

I love this picture.

Small update...

As always, things are crazy around here.  I also just haven't felt like writing. I usually blog in the evening, after Gabriel has gone to sleep and Ty and I have eaten dinner (around 8:00.)  It seems that this past week I've gotten less 'me' time...or it could be that I'm just craving more 'me' time than normal, but either way, I don't want to blog.  Or, I do want to blog, but I just don't want to take up the little time I have to myself to do it.  So - quick updates.  The boy is now crawling everywhere.  He still uses one knee and one foot, so you think that would slow him down.  Nope!  On top of this, he has decided that crawling on the floor is not challenging enough.  Everytime I put him down in the living room he makes a bee line or the floor pillows..  Than he gets frustrated when he can't climb all the way up them.  He is also starting to get a little of that stranger anxiety.  He's been such a social kid up until now that it's easy to see when it clicks in.  He's still smiling at folks 80% of the time...but I can see this is going to change soon.  I also need to blog about sleep soon...just when I thought we had his schedule down, and he was sleeping well, he decided to change. 

Crawling?!?

Not  yet - but if the boy has anything to say about it, very very soon!  Right now, he will get onto his hands and knees (a position he can get to with ease now a days) and then pause for a moment as if he's thinking.  Then he'll pick up his right hand and place it down an inch or so in front of him (so far so good.)  His next move, however, is always the same - he picks his right knee of the ground and plants his food down instead.  So now he's stuck.  He's figures out that he can still do his little bunny hop from this position, so he can get to a toy that's out of reach, but you can tell he 'knows' there's a way to move much faster, if only he can figure it out!

I think this weekend Ty and I are going to have to baby-proof the house.

Hiking with Nana and Papa

Swinging with Baba and Mama

Bumps ahead...

Just when everything seems to be going smoothly, boulders crash into your path.  Our path is sleep, and the boulders are small white teeth erupting through my poor son's gums.  :-(   Sleep had been going really well for about two weeks now.  At around 7:15, after being nursed to a drowsy state, he would go down with minimal fuss (maybe 15-30 seconds of fussy noises), and then settle himself down to sleep and be out within minutes.  He would wake up every 3-4 hours to eat, but then go right back to sleep, keeping this pattern until he woke up for good at around 7:30am.  Our wonderful pattern came crashing to a halt last night, mainly because his teeth hurt him so bad he kept waking up every 30 minutes or so - and this is despite the infant drops (i.e.drugs) we gave him.  To make matters worse, however, he kept flipping himself over onto his back every time he woke up.  He can't sleep well on his back, so he would simply get mad instead.  ARGH.  It would take a good 15 minutes to get him settled, and then the whole pattern would start all over in another 30 minutes.  At 6:30am he decided he had had enough and wanted out of the bedroom.  Ty and I crawled ourselves out of bed and half played/half slept on the living room floor.   After about an hour of this, we succumbed to tiredness and put a movie in the laptop for him while we dozed in and out. Finally it was nap time and we all went back to bed!!! 

It is times like these when I thank the goddess that we are graduate students and, at least this term, do not have to be at work at 8:00am in the morning.  I have so much more sympathy and appreciation for those of you out there that can't fall back on morning naps!!  PS - I don't have a picture of him in his co-sleeper, so you get a picture of him eating his toes in the bathtub instead.  :-)

It's 11:02pm...

and I should go to bed.  Gabriel will wake up for the day at 7:30am, (if we're lucky), not counting waking at least 1-2 more times during the night to nurse.  So, I really should of gone to bed an hour ago.  At the same time, I crave 'me' time that is not rushed.  During the day, any time I get to myself is very limited and always within a time constraint, most often less than an hour.  7:00pm is the magic hour around here - all of a sudden I have hours to myself.  Ty and I have gotten good at balancing this time between spending time with each other and giving ourselves some space.  We might play scrabble for an hour or so, and then surf the internet on our separate computers, but in the same room.  Or we might settle down in different rooms, but call each other in to watch odd you tube video's of a colossal squid (like we did tonight.)  Either way, it's a much needed recharge before tomorrow.  At the same time, every morning I wake up craving more sleep, and think 'I will go to bed early tonight.'  And yet every night I crave more 'me' and 'us' time.  ARGH!

Crazy around here...

No time to write....so here's a picture.