You win some you lose some.

The Win.

For the past 2 nights Jessica has averaged 6 hours a night in her cot bed! It took an hour to get her to fall asleep Saturday night but without any crying she finally conked out and stayed in her 3 walled crib for 6 and half hours!! She got more sleep than I did (I was constantly waking up to check on her and make sure she hadn't wandered off into the house somewhere.) When she woke up at 4am to nurse I just collected her brought her back to our bed. Sunday night we tried again. Out of nowhere, Jessica decided that she wanted an early evening nap around 6pm, which means when she woke up around 7:30 she was not interested in going back to bed until 10:30. It took a lot of coaxing but eventually we got her down in the cot bed again. This time I didn't bring her back with me until 5am. (Looks like we might be on to a winner here!!) It was so nice being able to stretch out and move around without fear of waking the baby!


The Lose.

Jessica is NOT doing well with Stroller Strides. When we started it was a bit iffy, but after a few classes she finally came around. She'd get fussy near the end of class sometimes and require lots to entertain her, but by March she was doing brilliantly. She'd happily sit through an entire class, waving at passerbys and grinning at the other moms. Since the week we took off and went to Kentucky she has not been thrilled with sitting in the stroller during class. She'd start fine and then get angry halfway through for no apparent reason. As May went on it has gotten progressively worse. Last Friday, a friend of mine switched strollers with me during class so I could see what it was like exercising with a stroller built for purpose. I was excited. Jessica was not. I thought perhaps a change of immediate scenery would have helped. I thought wrong. She was just as angry as before, if not more so.

This morning I was hesitant, should I go to class? My hip hurts, my knee hurts, and the stupid toe, that I think is causing all the other pain, hurts. I decided I would try. I've put my membership on hold from the end of the month so I only have a few more classes left anyway. I might as well tough it out - get my money's worth! ;) Jessica disagreed. She happily sat in the stroller on the walk from the apartment over to class, but when it came time for class to start? Not a chance. She was livid. Absolute refusal to sit in the stroller. She was annoyed with me and demanded that Megan hold her through warm-ups. *sigh* The class headed off on their warm-up walk and I stayed behind with Jessie. I tried to console her, but it was fruitless. She was not going back into the stroller. Eventually I gave up and headed over to the covered play area on the commons and let her run around. She met a little boy named Riley and they played together for at least half an hour. They were smitten and Jessica wanted nothing more than to go home with the family. (I think it had a lot to do with his mom and aunt; two lovely, petite, dark haired very pretty women.)

Headed home again... sure she'll sit in the stroller now. Until a man in the elevator scared her that is. Shrieking tears down the hallway back to the apartment. Straight to bed. (Silver lining?-  she's in the cot bed!)

Seriously?

Jessica can now circumvent all our current baby corralling measures which means by the time I got to her, she'd already put a few teeth marks into her Daddy's xbox controller. (I don't fancy telling him... does someone else want to tell him for me?)

A few minutes later I decide it's time for an early lunch. The cat is twirling around my feet and I manage to drop a plate of buffalo chicken perilously close to her head. It shatters of course, leaving me with a lovely mixture of shredded buffalo chicken and porcelain to clean.

After I finally get lunch sorted I set it on the sofa (first mistake.) I head back to the kitchen to get a drink (second mistake.) Jessica has my fork and is scooping buffalo chicken into her mouth. Her first reaction is one of smug pride, then the hot sauce hits. Not so happy now. I quickly pour her a cup of milk and all is better. She must have a very bad short term memory though because she tries again a few minutes later. I set her milk up on the end table. Somehow I manage to knock the milk over with my new plate. Argh. Milk on the carpet. Clean that up. Turn around twice and I've knocked my plate over again. Buffalo chicken down! (on the carpet this time for good measure) I clean that up. Finish lunch, remove dishes. Turn around to find my baby about to put the carpet cleaner bottle spout into her mouth! *slow motion NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*  I save the baby. Replace carpet cleaner bottle with diluted apple juice. She seems happy.                              

I don't feel comfortable in my skin today and I keep meeting with painfully physical reminders. Can I just go back to bed please?                

A Belated Easter Greeting

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! John 11:25-26 

Easter went by in kind of a blur this year. Jessica and I had just gotten back from spending spring break with our family in Kentucky and we were kind of worn out. Jessica was thrilled to be back home with all her toys in familiar surroundings while Mark was just thrilled to have us back. We'd missed the Stroller Strides group egg hunt and we decided that Jessa was probably still to young to get much out of a crazy crowded group egg hunt, so we just stayed home. (Not that I can actually ever picture us at a crowded group egg hunt, it's not really our thing. I have to say, the Dosmann's really knew what they were doing when they decided to have a family Easter on the beach. That might be a tradition I steal.) I wanted to hit a sunrise service somewhere in Raleigh but I really didn't know where to go. Sunrise service to me equals a beach and I just couldn't get my head around a service in a carpark... I shared a bit of the Easter Message with her, but it was probably more for me than her since I don't have a children's bible yet and she seemed unimpressed at the lack of pictures in mine.

So there were no plastic eggs or chocolate bunnies in ribbon in our house but I did manage to catch a brief glimpse of the rare Easter-BunnyBabyBear....

Dear Jessica,

Next year I promise we'll do it better. Church, a meal, egg hunting and sweets.

Love,

Mummy

She's kind of awesome

and I don't care that I could be considered biased.

The other night we were eating dinner on the sofa, because we're obviously super parents. Jessica was sitting in Mark's lap happily munching through some stirfry. She, of course, decided she was done long before we were so she got down to run around. However, she was still carrying her new sippy cup. It's one of those super handy non-spill ones that we're not allowed to get the benefit from. Jessica refuses to suck from a cup these days so I have to leave the valves out. She's not quite ready to be released into the wild with a proper cup though. She can pick one up, drink and put it down again but I'm not naive enough to believe it wouldn't be an instana mess the second I looked away. I head to the kitchen to refill our non-sippy cup drinks. I come back. hmmm... sippy cup is upside down on the footstool. Luckily it's titled at just such an angle that it's not seeping out. Where's the child and why has she abandoned it there?  She's fussing with the roll of paper towels I've left on the floor from some earlier toddler incident. I pause. She tears off a piece. I look over at Mark and wave for his attention. He pauses and stares at the child. She's taken her little torn off corner of towel and is headed to a small milk spot on the carpet. Am I really seeing what I think I'm seeing? She starts dabbing at it. OH MY GOSH! Mark and I are both gobsmacked. There's lots of cheering and baby praising. She looks thrilled. We are amazed. I pick up the roll of paper towels and let her pull off a full sized piece and then I dab at the carpet with her.

My 14 month old not only understands that she's spilled milk on the carpet, she knows that it needs to be cleaned up, she knows how to clean it up, and even more impressively, she decides to clean it up all by herself!

This could be completely normal behaviour for a 14 month old, but since I've not been around many other 14 months old I choose to believe that my child is a genius. :p

Mark's comment? "She's obviously seen you do that before."  (Don't let him fool you. He thinks she's even smarter than I do.)

A walk to the park

All in all, not my best idea. We didn't have Stroller Strides today. North Hills Kids on the Commons didn't have their play blocks out today and I didn't think things through so I let Mark take the car to work. So around 1pm, Jessica (who is now very used to getting out of the house everyday) starts acting a bit restless. She sees the stroller and climbs in. I push her around the kitchen a bit. No? Not satisfying? Okay. We'll go to the park. Sounds like a superb idea doesn't it? (if you said yes, you too would be wrong.)

The closest park is North Hills. Only a mile. That's 3 minutes by car! However... that's at least 30 minutes pushing a stroller on foot. But that's okay! We can do this! Jessica is strapped in. She has a sippy cup. She's thrilled to be leaving the house! It's a lovely afternoon, not too hot if you keep moving and stay out of direct sunlight. We're making good time. I start to notice something. Hills. Lots of hills. (Apparently they didn't choose the name out of a hat when they named the place.) Right now we're predominately going down hill. That's great for now. We still have to get back home.. that requires going UP. I shake my head and try to forget about it. That will be future me's problem.

We get to the park. Hello North Hills park.

A little bit of backstory:


Tuesday we went to Bailywick park. It was warm. I had Jessica in shorts. Jessica's newest favourite past time is running. Splat. Skinned knee. I felt bad (She barely noticed)

Wednesday after Stroller Strides we played on the commons. I let Jessica go barefoot. The mats were baked in the sun and she burned her tiny feet. I felt HORRIBLE (She noticed big time, but she got over it quickly.)

So today I was prepared. She was wearing long pants. She was wearing shoes. I get her out of the stroller. She's excited. She goes running. SPLAT. This time she hits the concrete forehead first. We both noticed and we both felt horrible. She was crying. I was trying to be strong and not cry. (There were some other moms at the park who didn't even turn to look at us...) I called Mark and told him that I might be calling back in a few minutes and asking him to come pick us up. I couldn't see how I was going to walk back uphill with an injured crying child and push a stroller.

She pulled through. I didn't have to call Mark back and have him rush us to a doctor. She shook it off and played in the sand. She played on the slide. She dug in some bark. Generally, I think she enjoyed herself. 

Now it's time to head home again. Up hill. *sigh* We pack up, I give her some freeze dried strawberries to amuse her (which by the way, make her face look like she's been in a cat fight) and we head off. So far so good. Then there's the first baby hill. 

I say baby because they get worse than this. We tough it out. Get to the top and she breaks down. There's tears, there's snot, there's the world is ending bawling. There's nothing I can do. I have to get her out. So into the sling she goes. I am now wearing a hot, cranky, sweaty, sandy baby who must have a doozy of a headache. I still have to push a stroller. One handed. (and as many of you have heard me bemoan... this particular stroller does NOT go in a straight line if you're only using one hand.) Fun. We continue on. Ahhchooo! AaaaahCHOO! What in the world? Yes. I'm sneezing my head off. My head suddently aches. My eyes itch. We took a slightly different route home than the one out (I was steering for flat land) and apparently I'm allergic to something a road over from the way we came down. I have no idea how that's possible. Now we both feel rotten.

Drag the stroller up some stairs (the main elevator is apparently on service- so we had to go around the long way) and we're finally home. But there's one last little treat. The air was off in the flat so it's a toasty 78 degrees inside. 

Everything can be fixed. I took an allergy pill. Jessica's taking a nap. The air is on and I just ate something like 20 mini-nila wafers... can't let there be a net calorie loss today. 

Happy Birthday Leeloo!!

well.. yesterday. Her birthday didn't pass unnoticed but there wasn't a spare second to write up a Happy Birthday post for her yesterday. Considering that she can't read and doesn't use the computer very often, I don't think the belated nature of this post will bother her greatly.

 

Happy 7th Birthday Leeloo Kitty! We love you and can't even imagine what the past 7 years would have been like without you! You're an amazing furbaby!

Milestones

I wrote this a few weeks ago while we were without internet and I entirely forgot to actually post it.

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My kitchen is completely clean for the first time since our things arrived and Jessa is still asleep. The internet isn’t getting connected until Wednesday, so there’s nothing to distract me. Time to write!

This is less of a – what’s going on in our world post and more of an information dump. J As a new parent meeting lots of other new parents I can say, with complete authority, that one thing we love to talk about are milestones. We know that we shouldn’t compare our child to another, the same way we know that children all develop at their own pace. Just because your little one isn’t walking by 15 months doesn’t mean they won’t grow up to be an Olympic athlete. However, this does not stop us from throwing dates around like hot commodities. Picture moms on the stock exchange floor… (I exaggerate. J) So far all the moms I’ve met seem to have their Mommy pride in good check!

That said… I love to know when other babies hit their milestones. I just want to know what the general curve is, where mine is on it and what those other moms whose babies play concert piano are doing! ;)

So here it is, in black and white: Jessica’s First Year

Born: 6:06pm GMT February 18^th, 2010 (11 hours and 17 minutes after the first twinge) Here’s the full birth story as recounted by Daddy for those that are interested. Construction Complete

Stats: Weight- 8lbs, Length- 49cm, Head- 35.5cm

First lifted her head: By 3 weeks

Started grabbing things: at 6 weeks

First smile: Between 4 and 5 weeks

First laugh: 18 weeks – chuckling, 19 weeks – proper laughter

First unassisted roll over: 14 weeks

First able to sit up alone: 5 ½ months

First tooth – almost 6 months

First crawled on her knees: 27 weeks (6 months 3 days)

First stood unaided: 7 ½ months

First pointed: 9 months 2 days

First clapped: 9 months 10 days

First waved: 9 months 10 days (it was a busy month for you!)

First steps unaided: 10 months 10 days
* Proper walking: 10 months 17 days
* Confidant walking: 11 months