One giant leap

Joseph hadn't slept well for weeks. If it wasn't a cold or cough to keep him awake, then it was teething or traveling or ear infections.

But by the second week of January, all of that seemed to have dissipated, and yet he still wasn't sleeping well at night.

To be honest, it was a little demoralizing. We had been so proud of ourselves for getting him to sleep through the night at 7 weeks. We would tell friends our formula that we had adapted from The Baby Whisperer -- always respond when the baby cries, but put him back as soon as he was calm, and repeat as necessary. Once he got a little bit bigger, we told ourselves that he was big enough to sleep through the night, and so we would still respond -- but always with the pacifier first (assuming he just wanted to suck). If he didn't accept that, then and only then would I feed him.

And it worked for us. One morning in July, I called my mom in excitement. "He only woke up twice in the night! And both times he took the pacifier!"

The next night, he didn't wake up til 6. We felt like champs. The next few months went fairly well in terms of sleeping through the night. It was a difficult adjustment to Eastern time for him, but once he went down he usually stayed down, except when he had a cold.

Yet here we were again, with a 7 month old baby who hadn't slept well at night since November. He seemed perfectly happy in the daytime, most of the time. Naps hadn't suffered too much. He didn't seem sick anymore. He just wasn't sleeping like he used to.

In fact, he was even eating at night again -- 3 full meals, even. Once I realized that, I thought, "Oh, of course! He needs solid food!" But he wasn't loving it. Rice, oatmeal, pears . . . you had to sneak it into his mouth, and he rarely swallowed it.

One day, in frustration I went to the Wonder Weeks book. The idea in the book is that babies go through "leaps" in which the world changes dramatically. I estimated how many weeks old Joseph was and tried to find that section. To my dismay, he was at an age where he was supposed to be quite pleasant by any calculation. Fine, I thought. Maybe they calculated wrong. Are there new skills he's supposed to have developed? As I went through the checklist, I saw that very few of the skills from the previous leap had been acquired. "Stupid European babies . . . they're more advanced than American babies at this age," I thought. Problem was, the book had assumed that babies were crawling by 5-6 months. And Joseph was nowhere near that. He could scoot backwards on his tummy and could move around sitting up but had shown very little interest in crawling.

I was at a loss. He was eating like a newborn, sleeping like a newborn . . . what was up? I would talk to mothers of younger babies who were sleeping just fine. I would tell myself, "Sleeping through the night shouldn't be a goal, anyway." But it still bothered me that I had gone from an expert of sleeping babies to utterly clueless. I assumed he was going through a growth spurt, but when would it end?

Finally, two weeks ago, I buckled down. It was time for solid foods. I decided to give oatmeal a third try. To my amazement, he ate it! More miraculously, he liked it the next day! When we introduced bananas, he gobbled them up. He would open his mouth for more, something he had never done before! My heart leaped. Would I finally get to stop nursing around the clock?

Yes. After a few days of solid foods, he would take the pacifier rather than the breast when he woke up at night. Between that and him rolling onto his tummy and needing us to turn him back over, he still kept us up a bit at night, but the night feedings were over. And gradually, he started sleeping longer and longer stretches again. Thursday morning, he didn't wake us up until 6 (and then after his feeding, slept til 9). I was full of milk, and I was happy.

And within a matter of days, things started to turn around. Little teeth started to poke up. He started to seriously try to crawl and watch us as we crawled. On Thursday he crawled on his feet rather than on his knees. On Friday he crawled on his knees rather than on his feet.

And just like that, we had a mobile, solid-food-eating, considerably heavier baby than the Joseph of just a few weeks ago. One small step for man, one giant leap for Baby Moon.

Now, if only those teeth would completely break through . . .

Travel bug

The air's definitely not gross here in Michigan, but it's been just as cold the past few days. Factor in the humidity and the wind, and suddenly you've got me not leaving the house for a few days.

And then there are the books. Last Saturday, we went to a few thrift stores with ultra cheap books. 25 or 50 cent books. And we managed to find good books, too -- Ella Enchanted and The Boxcar Children and books like that. So about $7 later, we have 20 new novels and picture books that I've been rereading nonstop.

The last one I read was Bloomability, which is about a girl who lives in Switzerland for the school year. After I finished, I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. And then while I was brushing my teeth, it all hit me. That slight bit of cabin fever and the descriptions of Switzerland and thoughts of friends who've gone to tour England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, etc.

I came back into the bedroom and told Kevin, "Let's go to Europe this summer for a few weeks."

And now that it's the morning, when I'm a little more realistic, I still want to go! Kevin has no major responsibilities during the summer. This would be by far the best time for us to go, at least in the next decade.

There's just one big issue -- how do you tour Europe with a 1 year old??? (I'm beating myself up now for not going 2 summers ago when we were just doing research and for never even considering study abroad, but that's another story.)

Talk to me about it. Convince me that I shouldn't make any life plans at 10 at night. Or convince me that it's the best thing ever and that having a toddler will only add to the experience. Or, if you are my parents or Leslie, consider coming along. :)

A Story About Leslie

Joseph is napping right now, and I have found myself in the rare and amazing position of being bored. It's incredible. That is what happens when you deep clean the living room on Wednesday for company rather than on Thursday.

 To dispel the boredom and my free time, I decided to spend time on gchat. Then I decided to write a blog post, and the following exchange occurred:

 me: anyway
what should I blag about?
 Leslie: me?

And after a few minutes of thinking, I just came up with a story about Leslie. Once upon a time she was my teacher and I was her pupil. She would teach me everything she learned in the afternoons or on weekends. We had a big green chalkboard whereon she would teach me spelling and math and social skills, and I was usually a willing participant.

However, there was one time that we were playing school that she decided to read me a book just like elementary school teachers did. So she pulled out Peppermints in the Parlor and began to read. I didn't like the voice she used for Aunt Twice -- it was too desperate and shrill. I didn't like how dangerous it seemed just for them to come home with a cab. I thought it was the worst book ever.

 "Are you done yet?" I asked impatiently.

"I'm only on page 13!" she responded, and I just about died. Luckily it was time for dinner and she never finished reading the book to me.




Hrm. That story wasn't as interesting as it was in my head. I feel like I ought to say more, but I just remembered something else I ought to clean.

Endings are hard.

and ps: I did eventually read the whole book, and was kind of obsessed with it. The sequel was terrible, though.

pps: here's a better story about us as kids if you didn't get your fix today.

Thanks, Dad

After I sent out a plea for help regarding the interpretation of some wooden blocks we recently purchased, I received this email from my father:

Kyra –

Please allow me to set the record straight on some of the blocks.

-          Exhibit A is obviously a member of the “long legged lemming” species.

-          Having just read about Sampson (I am also doing Old Testament, so I appreciated your comments), I am pretty sure that this is the jawbone of an ass, or a lion, or something.  We could call this block “Lehi” and be etomylogically defensible.  It obviously can’t be a dragon or a sea monster, since they don’t exist.

-          C is obviously a pair of dissimilarly-sized cherry bombs, with an arrow indicating the net direction of the blast if they are detonated.

-          D was correctly oriented the first time.  It is the symbols of an offshoot of a Zorastrian sect, which later influenced early soviet-era planners.

-          A baby long legged lemming.  They are born with ears, but they are absorbed as they age.

-          A PN junction with a little bit of polysilicon trace.  (Jeesh!  What do they teach down at BYU?)

-          Clearly a tram.  You got that one right.

-          TV’s never have legs like that these days.  This is a little girl microwave, with a bow.

-          H: It is turned sideways.  This is a jet-powered jet.

-          Lumiere.  Or Alley Oop sitting in a boat (he always had thoese weird-shaped arms.)

-          J: It is upside down.  It is one of those sleek aluminum campers, with elongated elliptical wheels.

-          A pensive Joseph.  I got that one.

I am impressed that you have selected such a culturally and linguistically diverse set of blocks.  Nothing but the finest for the education of our little one.

I do remember there being an expectation that the blocks displayed everyday objects, which most of these are not, but perhaps I never checked the cupboards properly growing up. At any rate, thank you, Dad for enlightening us. And thank you, Mom, for ascertaining that these blocks will make Joseph a creative genius. I have hope for the future again.

Blocks

Now that Joseph sort of plays with toys (thus occasionally allowing me up to 5 minutes of free time, woohoo!), we decided to get some wooden blocks. We decided to splurge on a $3 dollar set from Walmart which was made in China. So, you know, not exactly the heirloom type, but they work well enough.

Except, they don't. Oh, they stack just great and have the letters of the alphabet on them like they're supposed to. But on the non-lettered and non-numbered faces of the cube, they have bizarre pictures.  And how am I supposed to be a good educational mom when Joseph's blocks have abstract art that I can't decipher on them?????

Here, let me show you.

Exhibit A:

Now what is that? A seal? An ermine? My guess is a cat, but where are its ears?

Exhibit B:

Is this some kind of saw? The remains of an eaten fish? I suppose if you turn it another direction . . .

Then it's a dragon. Or a sea monster. Or is it a horse? Am I supposed to teach Joseph that this is what a horse looks like?

Exhibit C:

Say what? Are these billiard balls? Men with only mouths, expectorating onto a triangle? This one seriously took me a while. But once I turned it the other way . . .

Oh. Heigh ho Cherry-O. That is a weird looking stem holding those cherries together, though.

 Exhibit D:

A bow and arrow? An arrow stabbing the moon? Hmm, let's rotate it.

Is it some kind of umbrella? That's still not right . . .

Oh, it's a tulip! With the weirdest blades ever.

Exhibit E:

 My guess is a bunny, but your guess is as good as mine.

Exhibit F:

An RV with a satellite dish attached on the left? A camcorder?

Oh, it's a jar!

You might be thinking, of course it's a jar and that other one was a flower. You might think I am being deliberately dense since the blocks are going to show everyday objects.

Well, I then retort, what is a

TRAM doing on the blocks then? Not a helicopter -- there's another picture that's definitely a helicopter. Nope, this is a tram. That doesn't seem like an everyday object to me.

So when you look at this and say

"Of course that's a TV!", I say, "You never know. That could be an oven with horns."

(Although, I am pretty sure it's supposed to be a TV.)

Now onto Exhibits H, I, and J. I really don't know what they are. Based on other blocks, I can tell you what I guess their orientations are supposed to be, but I'm stumped. And this is where you, dear blog reader, can be of assistance.

So, without further ado,

Exhibit H:

It's a house, that much I can tell. But what's sticking out?

Exhibit I:

To me, it looks like a man in a boat trying to send out distress signals. But remember, we're thinking everyday objects here (except for a tram). (ps I don't think it's candles, so I won't accept that answer.)

And finally . . .

Exhibit J:

What the . . . ? And this is the proper orientation, we're pretty sure! Any ideas?

If you can figure these out, that would be fabulous.  I'm despairing that Joseph's education will be lacking because his blocks are too ambiguous for me. Or worse, he won't even know what a proper horse looks like.

And that would be sad.

Like this.

Toys

When I was 9 or 10, I realized I hadn't played with some of my toys for a while. I went down to the playroom and got out the farm toys - the farmer, his wife, the horse, the fence, and began to make a story up.

But something snapped in my brain less than a minute into my play. I instantly realized that I didn't like playing with toys anymore. I immediately cleaned up the toys and walked away, never to play with them again.

And that was that. Oh, maybe I played with Barbies a bit longer (can't remember), and I was still fine with making marble contraptions, but the actual making up stories with toys lost its appeal in an instant.

Until now.

Yep. I play with Joseph's toys now. I play with them like I'm 4 years old -- making up stories with bad guys and good guys, all the while singing the plot to Joseph. I never do it unless he's playing, too, of course -- he's at the age where toys are actually kind of fun to knock against each other, which means he can help the story move along a bit. But for the most part it's just me singing and moving the animals and vehicles around. Kevin is highly amused.

You know, someday Joseph will be aware enough to know how cool I am not. But I am grateful that that day is not today.

When Joseph went to Providence

When Joseph went to Providence, I think he took great care

To catch each fever, cough, and cold upon the plane ride there. ¹

To urgent care he went to send an ear infection back

And took amoxicillin in a little paper sack.

Joseph was feverish and listless on Christmas Eve. Poor guy.

By Christmas, the fever had mostly dissipated, but he had a runny nose, tons of drool, and a grumpy disposition. 

I think that all the people there went just a little wild --

So awed to be the family of Kyra’s perfect child.

Perhaps all through the chilly hours they met each loud demand

Hold me!

Hold me!

Get me out of this high chair!

And cheered when Joseph learned to clap his little, gentle hands.

And close beside the Christmas tree, beneath its golden light

He held his little blanket close upon that snowy night.

¹Also, I'm certain he was teething. But nothing has come of it yet.
²Actually, urgent care was in Roosevelt (a half hour from Duchesne). But it fit here, I think.