Funny Face

Zane has started making a couple of faces that we're a little unsure about. They seem to be a united pair, as he usually does them both in a short space of time. The one on the right is like an open faced "Gee this is exciting" face which he could do as his first smile, but I'm not sure why it has been resurrected now. The one on the left began to appear when Zane realized we were (or might be) unhappy with something he did. I think the face on the right is Zane saying "This is OK, right?" and the one on the left is "Why did you yell OW really loudly? Is that bad?" Sometimes he makes the face even when we don't disapprove, as if to say "Was that wrong?" I guess he's got some new brain connections about right and wrong. He'll also sometimes pause before doing something and look at me to see if I'm going to stop him.

Zane has learned to go up on tip-toe, and now can reach all sorts of things that were formerly 1.5 inches too high. It's a surprisingly large amount of things. We're going to have to make another round of moving things and adding latches to higher drawers (like the one above, which he is not supposed to be getting into). He owns one drawer and one cupboard in the kitchen, but that is never enough.

Sleep has been a little better, but eating has gone down the toilet. At one point I was getting him to eat smooshed food three times a day, or at least his breakfast. Now he refuses everything I offer him on a spoon. He wants to have the spoon, which just creates a big mess. I think he will only eat what he can pick up and put in his mouth himself. Dinner last night was about 3 skinned peas. Tonight was actually fairly successful with several bites of cheese, a few crackers, and some tastes of jello. I plan to breastfeed for two years, but I was hoping it would begin to be supplemental at this point. I guess not.

Wednesday Zane and I walked down to the Ballard Locks. We saw squirrels and boats and seagulls and booming waterfalls and fish swimming up the ladder. It was pretty exciting. Actually, the water roaring over the dam was the most interesting to Zane since he is such a hydrophile. He wanted to get very close, but I didn't want him wiggling out of my arms and going ker-sploosh. That would have been bad.

It's only 8:11, but Zane is in bed and I'm heading there, too, hoping to rack up 8 cumulative hours of sleep .... Yawn.

Toothy Bean

I tried to get a good photo of Zane's new teeth, but he really wanted to get the camera, so it's a bit fuzzy.

Zane got sick *again*. Last Monday he came down with his first fever, and he was at 101-103 for about 30 hours. It then morphed into a cold with a yucky cough. Michael got the cold, too, but I've escaped this time.

I had just embarked on a new sleep plan (The No Cry Sleep Solution), but I wasn't able to follow it religiously because of Zane being sick. I brought Zane into bed a lot since he was plenty miserable and needed comforting. By the end of the week, though, I've either made a breakthrough or he's just done with a fussy phase. I'm now just wrapping him in a blankie instead of swaddling him, which I wanted to get away from. For the last several days I've been able to lay him down in a warmed up bed and he often turns over and goes to sleep. If not, I use a mini cry-it-out routine that is also working. I leave him in the crib, and I go lie on the bed. He'll carry on and cry, but eventually lie down and sleep. I stumbled upon this one night when I was so tired of trying to make him sleep that I just took a mental break and put him down in the crib while I lay on the bed. After about 10 minutes of screaming he fell asleep. Last night it was just 5 minutes of medium crying and mumbling to his bunny Bob (see Bob at my shower). He threatened to throw Bob over the side, but then in the gloom of the room I saw Bob quietly slip back into the crib. Zane decided he didn't want to sacrifice Bob just for his anger. This mini-cry method seems to be good because I'm not leaving him alone and he can see me, so he's not scared.

I'm still not having much luck getting Zane to eat consistently, but here's a video of Zane feeding himself a banana for the first time.


Well, Zane's in bed and sleep-time's a wastin'. Have a great week!

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Well, we've had to say goodbye to Sebastian bun. Michael really worked with the buns to get them to bond. Sometimes they would groom each other and be nice, and then they would fight. We kept hoping there would be a breakthrough. Well, there was -- a breakthrough into JoJo! A really bad fight erupted last Tuesday night which ended with JoJo in the emergency room for stitches. Michael had to sit and wait in the same room where we helped Bijou die.

We really liked Sebastian, but it is now clear they won't bond. Maybe sometime we'll try again with another less dominant rabbit, but meanwhile JoJo just needs to recuperate and join us upstairs again. I've missed her while she's been all penned up downstairs with Sebastian.

Fruity Bean

Zane has been making good use of his new teeth to bite into yummy fruits. Sunday we walked to the farmers' market, and I gave Zane fruit to hold on the way back since it keeps him entertained. He's done that before without molesting it. This time he went to work with his new teeth, producing this little work of art that looks like a mouse got to it. Yesterday I gave him a nectarine to try, and that went over pretty well, too. I was impressed with his one-handed fruit eating skill.

Zane has also unfortunately been exercising his teeth on me. He always used to gum me and that was just fine. Then he got the bottom two teeth, and they were a little sharp, but not too bad. Well, holy guacamole, now that he's got a matching set up top he's biting the bejeezus out of me. See exhibit A of my left arm. Three areas are quite bruised and there are some raised welts you can't see in the picture. Starting today I will no longer stand for it. I say "Ow!" really loudly (that part is easy), and then I put him down and walk out of the room for 30 seconds or a minute (that part is hard). He seems to be getting the picture pretty quickly. Not only does it hurt, but I don't want him to be a social outcast with the toddlers.

Monday we went in for our latest developmental testing, and Zane scored above average in fine motor, problem solving, and social skills, and average for communication. I'm supposed to work on simple word games with him. The idea is to get him to begin to copy sounds I make, not just make them randomly. He certainly talks a lot, but as far as I know he doesn't copy me. He wants to do all of his own talking. Tuesday he began sticking his tongue out at me when I waggled mine at him, so that's a start.

Wednesday our friends Uma and Olivia came to play. Uma is one month younger than Zane, and we know her from a support group and from library story time. Mostly they played near each other and not together, but that's what I understand babies do. It's called parallel play.

Zane's top two teeth are both finally through, and his cold is gone, so we expected to have some good sleep. Sigh. Now something else is going on which mystifies me. I can go through the going to sleep routine for night or naps, and he relaxes and falls asleep, or almost asleep. As soon as I try to put him in the crib he wakes up, and starts crying and writhing. I pick him up to lull him back to sleep and he bucks and writhes and cries and screams, all with his eyes closed! This happens in the middle of his naps, too, and I used to be able to shush him easily for another sleep cycle, but not anymore. He's so clearly very tired, but doesn't want to be asleep. I can't tell if he's hurting, or afraid to be alone, or afraid to sleep, or what. I don't want to give in and always hold him for naps or bring him to bed for sleep. I hope this is just a weird phase and not something actually wrong with him.

I'm working on Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep solution book, so I hope to work on our nighttime sleep and get it better under control. I'm so tired I'm getting very cranky, and I worry I'll get sick, too. Her no cry nap solution really cleaned up Zane's naps, so I hope the night sleep will follow. I did a sleep log last night, and although he was in bed from 9pm to almost 7am, he really only got eight and a half hours of sleep. This is pretty normal for Zane, but not enough for babies his age who should be getting 11-12. At least he's getting his nap quota now.

Well, right now he's had an almost 2 hour nap, but we had about 15 minutes of bucking and crying in the middle of it. I wish I knew what was wrong ... Hopefully tonight will go well. Every night I hope.

Monday morning. Phew, a pretty good night. Zane asleep at 8:30 and me at 9:30. Up for nursing at 12:30 and 4:30 for only 15 minutes each. He started to fuss after the 4:30 nursing, so I just brought him into bed so I could sleep, and we slept until 6:45! Yay! We both feel pretty good today.

Hoser

Zane did end up getting a yucky cold. That plus cutting his fourth tooth made for last week's nasty (non) sleeping. I ended up staying home from work for one day and getting him much better. He's got a burbly cough and a little snot, and now so do Michael and I. Naps are *much* better, though. Today was the champion of nap days with three long naps (totaling over 4 hours!) and early to bed. A sleep book I've been reading has convinced me to try to get Zane in bed earlier than his usual 9:30 or 10. I have noticed that he actually seems to sleep longer the earlier he goes to bed, so this might just work. Today I did our routine one hour earlier, and he was in bed at 8:30! And now I have time to blog.

We've been having a pretty sad wet Spring, but a few warm days have cropped up. Last Monday we got some surprise sunshine, and Zane and I headed to the backyard with Michael and the buns. I turned a hose on just a bit and Zane had a great time playing with it and getting muddy. This was really his first chance to get dirty outside like a kid should. The picture on the right shows the aftermath.



On Monday I also finally put up a swing for Zane that I got from a neighbor down the street whose boy is now too big for it. I've had it lying around for over a month, and of course it only took about 5 minutes to put it up. Oh well, we really haven't had nice weather to use it before now. I think we'll still go to playgrounds to swing because that's an adventure.

Today was another warm day. I've been looking forward to hot weather so that Zane can get outside for some naked baby time in a pool. He loves water and bath time so much I figured this would be super fun for him. This morning we went out and got an inflatable pool and some sunblock. I was so excited to try it out! But, it ended up being a bit of a bust. The water was cold, and Zane has only experienced nice warm bathwater. He whined and didn't want to be in it, even though I only filled the pool with an inch of water here and there (the ground is lumpy, so it just made puddles in the pool). I guess next time I need to wait for a hot day and put water in the pool ahead of time so that the sun can warm it up.

Today during Zane's nice long afternoon nap I did some kitchen cleaning. There were some pretty yucky areas around the bottom of some appliances. It was fine for us, but Zane puts his fingers in everything and it needed to be cleaned. I got the bottom of the 'frige cleaned off for our new science alphabet magnets! I'm very excited about them. Not the best for actually learning the alphabet (we'll get the classic ones for those), but really cool for the geek factor. I haven't figured out what each letter represents. E.g., J has jade and Jupiter on it, and E has evolution, electricity, Einstein and Earth, but Z is zeros and what, bacon? Hmmm.