Baby rice

Annika's almost 6 months now. She hasn't shown much interest in food, really. But the last couple of weeks have been a little rough, with her. She's up too much in the night. Last night she slept well through the evening, fed a lot at 12, then 2:20 a bit, then a few times (ARGH) between 2:30 and 5:15, then really well between 5:15 and 6ish, after which I had trouble getting back to sleep. And then the little squick woke up just after 7! I fed her AGAIN, then dumped her on Amps with instructions to beg the nursery to have her, and drop them both off there as soon as possible. He finally left in a torrent of in-and-out, door clanging, baby-screaming, Nina-singing chaos at 10. I got up shortly after that, went to work, and was still tired all day. 
   Anyway, it's like this with babies, and we should feel lucky that the past couple of weeks have really been the first time the little sweetie has actually ever been any real trouble. But now the theories come out of the woods: is it that she can't fall asleep on her own? (probably). Do I feed her to sleep too much? (probably, yes). Should we try 'cry it out' (CIO)? should we try 'pick up, put down' (PUPD)? Should we wait until she's actually 6 months (15 more days, folks!)  and is officially "ready" to sleep through, and "ready" for behavioural sleep interventions (no acronym common)? Should we ignore it and realise that she'll grow out of it whatever we do, and just not stress about it (ahhh, probably, yes)? When things get hard, the urge to do something grows, obviously. But what? And now that mumsnet, and the internet in general, are out there, all these theories and plans and other peoples' anecdotal experiences and disagreements and similarities to us and differences from us are laid out, easy to find. And how is it that she naps at nursery? They don't breastfeed her to sleep or drive to Clevedon in the car (last post). Apparently she'll sleep for 1:15 there, compared to about 6 min 30 seconds around here ... 
  Well, anyway, she seemed a little reachy at mealtimes, and going for inappropriate choices, like pints of ale. So yesterday we bought some baby rice. I didn't think she'd go for it, really, as despite being really quite interested in breasts (mine), she isn't a big eater. She was pretty puzzled at first, kind of sucking the spoon, turning her head away and then back again, spitting it out, opening her mouth again. But she took to it. She sucked it down, and then we made some more, and she gobbled that too. So maybe she's been hungry, poor little 9th-percentile-for-weight child. 
  Anyway, about babies and sleep, I had read online that when they do something new, like roll over, pull up to standing, or start "solid" foods, they can get excited about it, and wake up thinking about it or practising it. I was telling Amps this when we realised that I had just suggested that 3 tbsp of lukewarm, tasteless, sludge could actually be so exciting as to keep someone up at night.
  

Seaside

Sitting in the car with children sleeping, this is my view:

The magic wand

 Amps and I used to have this friendly evening debate: would you want a magic wand that would make you an amazing Thai dinner? Or one that would clean the kitchen afterwards? We both agreed that cooking is a lot more fun than cleaning, so we'd go for the clean-up wand. 
     Fast-forward many years ahead to today. The question I have for you is: how much would you pay for a wand that puts your children back to sleep?
Now, there would have to be some rules. The wand wouldn't work, say, when the child shouldn't be sleeping, so you couldn't just use it like a mute button (now, a mute button for kids? Probably that would be popular too. I won't go there).
     But at night, when it's sleep time, you could wave it, and your kids would go back to sleep. 
    I think this would change the world. Like a washing machine or a toilet, everyone would have to have one.  Who scrubs all their socks on a washing board these days? If you didn't have one of your own maybe there'd be a wandromat or something where you could borrow one for a bit. Or maybe they'd be tied to property (like toilets); you'd mortgage an extra 100k for it and sell it when they got to be 8 or whatever. Like washers, dishwashers, dryers (I remember those! oh, I want one, not so much for the drying as for the floor space), running water: it would liberate women. Women, who are by far the majority of the night-risers, the night-feeders, the night cleaning-vomit-out-of-the-bed, softly-singing sleep-deprived pajama'd ghost-people ...
    I figure 100k is probably a little steep. After all, we can survive without this device, in some sense. But I'd fork over 20k without hesitation, especially if I could mortgage the thing. And I'm talking £ here. 

A few pics while i feed this baby

At the park... in the car on the way back from the Cotswalds.. at the other park, and at the pick your own strawberries farm. These are good times, if tiring and overwhelming. But already I am sad in anticipation that they'll end so fast.

In motion

Annika's first four months have flown past. She's asleep, in the bedroom, on "my" side of the bed. Amps is out at the pub. Nina's in bed - her bedtime's great now. Annika, however, until 2 nights ago, spent her evenings in the living room with us, alternately breastfeeding and dozing on the sofa. This thing about spending time alone in a bed, any bed, even mine, is new to her. I've been in to settle her twice already. She sleeps with me, and Amps is exiled to the hard futon in Nina's room, poor guy. I never intended to co-sleep, but the thing is, the operative part of "co-sleeping" is sleeping. It's always felt like it's that or co-waking. Since day one it's meant that I spend the bulk of the night actually asleep, though it's broken up. And I can feed her without really waking up, or not usually waking up, not much.  Every night I consider putting her in her cot. Most days, at some point in the day, it occurs to me that it might be a good idea to get her sleeping in her own cot. Occasionally I even try it, only to have her cry an hour later (where otherwise she would have slept for 3 or 4 hours). Every night I give in, put her on my side of the bed and go back to sleep. In 2 months I'm supposed to be going to Boston for a few days, and every day, it occurs to me that I've no idea how Amps is ever going to cope. 
  In other news, for those readers (if there are any out there) who don't know already, we are moving to London. It turns out that this is expensive (breaking news!). We are attempting to purchase a small, non-period, 3 bedroom house in a pretty good location in North London, and the process is very frustrating. I have a cool new job, in a location so expensive that we can't live near it. We're looking forward to it, except that I'll have to commute across London every day with both the girls. Tube, bike ... not sure how it'll go. 
  Today I picked up my lovely children from their nursery, where Annika has now learned how to drink milk from a bottle (after gently starving herself for 7 hours the first long day we left her there). And they gave me this: 

It's a picture of me! It's a birthday card - not sure why it appeared today, whether it was made today, or was sitting in Nina's bag for a while. But it's awesome. I am so excited about all the amazing drawings I know she'll make. My mum still talks about our drawings, about coming into my room and finding all these treasures. Some of my brother's, and I guess one or two of mine, are framed in their house. His penguin is just awesome. Nina liked that I was excited about it, so she made this: 

The figure at the bottom is me. The circle above my head is her - Nina's head, which has one arm reaching towards me, and the other reaching skywards, with fingers and everything. Apart from the occasional bus and plane (both of which I've posted here, I think), her drawing is mainly scribbles,  colours, and the occasional surprisingly well-formed A or 5 or O or C. 
   I feel like we - Nina and I - had a subtle, and minor, rough patch since Annika arrived, and it's clearing now. On Saturday, we tried to go to her gymnastics - just a free play toddler session at a gymastics place. It was closed, and I braced myself for her to be just so disappointed; after all, I was disappointed but I tried not to show it. Just across from it, there is a very minimal, somewhat run-down, little playground with a slide. I laughed with her, went down the slide after her, chased her jokingly around, jumped with her off the little benches, and she loved it. I guess I don't do those things when I have the baby to watch, or a friend to chat with. I want to make sure to do them more. It's so charming, how good-natured she is, how robust. It was bittersweet, in that there were beer cans on the ground, and, er, evidence of drug use. Of course she didn't care, but I was sad to see these markers of "the other side of town", and yet at the same time, so charmed to see her so happy. 
 Preschooler in motion: 

baby

Three!

 Three years ago today - in fact, three years less 23 minutes from right now - we were in the hospital having Nina. I can't believe she's 3, although I've kind of been thinking of her as my three-year-old for a couple of months because she just doesn't seem 2 at all. I got one of the emails, from mumsnet or babycentre or whatever, about 'your child at 36 months'. It said that she'll be able to make 3-4 word sentences with good grammar! Well ... Nina can say things like: "well, I'm not going to be afraid of the rain anymore, because if it rains, I'll just wear my wellies, but the rain does sometimes hit me in the eye ... so we should bring an umbrella". She knows most of the letters. She can pick them out on the keyboard, and when prompted by what sound comes next, can type simple words: Nina, Mummy, Papa, Gramma (obviously I didn't bother with Grandma), cot, cat, etc. She can pick them out of a pile of floating letters in the bath. She can scoot so fast on her scooter, she can balance a 2-wheeler with no pedals. She can sing, and with reasonable accuracy she can repeat a simple sung phrase though it helps if she happens to like the words. She can jump, and can even hop on one foot. She can do somersaults. She can hold herself up, hips to a bar, and flip over upside down. She can count. She can play memory, with a deck of cards. She can make very quick work of a 15-piece puzzle. She can assemble her toy plane with her little screwdriver (prompting the occasional very inappropriate-sounding comment about 'screwing'). 
  I told her that if we'd had two babies (instead of just Annika), I would have gone crazy. She later said that if we had one of Pingu's babies, there would be two and Mummy would be crazy. She got her doll baby, put it beside Annika and said "now you're crazy, Mummy!". We were walking to the zoo and I said I had two girls, and she said, no, there are three girls (counting me). I asked how many we'd be if Papa was here, and she said '4'. And if Papa and Andrew were here? --5. That was more than a month ago. She can understand that we don't do certain things because it might make people feel sad or hurt, and she can offer to do things that I've said will make me happy. She used to say that when Annika came, she'd hold her for me so I could run. She knows that we don't talk about fat tummies because people might feel sad. She wanted to wait before we had our cookies so that Andrew could share some.
  Perhaps most impressively of all - if it is explained to her that it's still sleep time, because it's 6am in a hotel room and we have jet lag - she can talk quietly to herself for 15 minutes and then go back to sleep. 


Nina - will you ever read this? Know that I am insanely proud of you, all the amazing things you do, how kind and loving you are, how you can understand how people feel, how gentle and sweet you are to your new sister. The day you were born transformed us completely. I'll never have a day when I don't think of you and love you and wonder at how much you've made my life richer. 

Three years old today!