Mom's Blog
Saturday 3/17/12 (3 years, 5 months old)
I took Anastasia to her first movie today. We live a couple blocks from a theater, so I took her to see The Lorax. I got some free movie tickets from work, so although I was optimistic that she could make it through the whole movie, I didn't care if we had to bail. I explained the protocol - no talking, keep still, and we can get popcorn and a "spicy drink" (aka Coke). She took it very seriously, followed all the rules, and enjoyed the whole movie.
Monday 3/13/12 (3 years, 4 months old)
This weekend, we took the girls to Las Vegas. It was an easy hour-long direct flight from San Jose, and we didn't bother bringing much gear or carseats, just one suitcase for all four of us. Anastasia is easy to travel with at this age. She's happy to sleep on a pull-out couch in a hotel, and she's good on airplanes. We did bring the double stroller, but really should have brought a single beause Anastasia is too much of a big girl to be seen in a stroller. Instead, we pushed around this big stroller with just one baby in it. If only I got a dollar for the number of people who saw the empty spot in the stroller and said, "Oh, you lost one!" My favorite was when a man looked at Anastasia and Adrianna and asked if they're twins. Yes, twins, born 26 months apart.
Sunday 2/26/12 (3 years, 4 months old)
Anastasia is very much into her routines. Her nighttime protocol has about 15 steps, and they all have to be done in the exact order. We let her pick two books from her shelf, but she has around five favorites. One is called "Counting Kisses, by Karen Katz". Every night, I read the title and author, and she says, "... by Karen Dogs". She just loves that joke, and it never gets old. Tonight I read another of her favorites, "I'm a Big Sister Now" by Joanna Cole. But this time, she read the whole book herself. She's memorized the book word-for-word. For posterity, I'll list her other favorites here: "Little Dragon's Big Surprise", "Goodnight Moon", "The Backyardigans", "Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots?", "Periwinkle Goes to School", and "Doggies".
Sunday 1/15/12 (3 years, 3 months old)
It's official. Anastasia has dropped her last nap. She now sleeps 8pm to about 8am, and that's it. I also made a recent discovery that she's a genius. I made a YouTube video showing that she had memorized the colors of all 26 letters in an ABC puzzle. (They follow a sequence of 5 colors, but she didn't just memorize the pattern, she memorized every color. So if I said, "What color is the Q?" she always answered it correctly, even if she couldn't see any part of the puzzle.) She's also got a pretty good sense of humor. She tries to joke around, but other times she just says funny stuff unintentionally. Today she said, "Hey look! We got some new hookers!" And she pointed to the magnet clips on the fridge.
Tuesday 12/24/11 (3 years, 2 months old)
We took Anastasia skiing in Lake Tahoe for the first time. Okay, maybe calling it skiing is a stretch. We rented her some skis and I pushed her around on the bunny hill. She seemed to like it. She kept asking to go on the lift, but I knew she didn't realize that it's more than just a ride, and that you have to ski off of it. After about 45 minutes, she was done, and I called that a success.
Tuesday 11/1/11 (3 years old)
I took Anastasia trick-or-treating last night. She was Tinkerbell. Only about 25% of houses on our street had their porch light on, so we crossed over to another neighborhood. She understood that she had to say "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you". However, she kept asking if she could go to another house before the people went back inside, and then she would want to eat the candy she just got. After about 10 houses, we got to a crazy haunted house, where they had a smoke machine and a woman on a loudspeaker chanting creepy things. Anastasia freaked out when she heard the woman say, "Spiders". She wimpered and asked to be carried home. She's 3 feet tall, and 30 pounds, so that was a workout. When we got home, Matt announced that we'd had a grand total of 3 trick-or-treaters. Quite a change from our old neighborhood!
Wednesday 9/21/11 (2 years, 11 months old)
We enrolled Anastasia in a ballet/tap class, and she loved it. There were about 7 girls in the class, but only two (including Anastasia) participated in the actual class. The others were scared and clinged onto their moms. Anastasia made a new friend (Katalina?) and looks forward to next week.
Saturday 9/10/11 (2 years, 10 months old)
Oh no, has it really been 3 months since I updated the blog? Yikes! Well, Anastasia adjusted well to our move to California. She had fun visiting family in Florida, and was an excellent traveler all around. No problems on airplanes or in her "special bed" in the hotel (aka pull-out couch). When we got here, she kept commenting on the breeze outside, which made me wonder if the air in Charlottesville was completely stagnant. It's definitely cooler here, and it never rains, so she can play outside everyday.
It took about four weeks before there was an opening in her new Montessori school right up the street, but she's in now, and has been going about a week and a half. She's been shy, but her teacher says she has a new friend (named Ria?) Most of her classmates are Asian (Chinese or Indian), and the school is bilingual (Mandarin and English). She's also thrilled to have Aunt Kate living with us. She hangs out in Aunt Kate's room any chance she gets.
When we first got to California, Anastasia had a bit of a regression in her potty training, but she's back to normal now. She going through a phase where she yells in the middle of the night for silly reasons, like wanting some milk, or for us to restart her iPod. After two times, I'll threaten to take away her Winnie the Pooh bear, and she whips back into shape. It's funny that we have to deal with our preschooler more than our baby at night.
Wednesday 6/22/11 (2 years, 8 months old)
Anastasia loves her new toddler bed. She does get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, but as long as she doesn't bother us, we're fine with this.
Sunday 5/29/11 (2 years, 7 months old)
Two milestones, both of them negative. First, Anastasia came downstairs after we had put her to bed, which meant that she climbed out of her crib. Time for a toddler bed. Adrianna could use the crib anyway. The second negative milestone is that Anastasia proudly announced that she had cut her own hair this morning. Sure enough, we found a clump of hair in her room, and hair all over her shirt and pants. Actually, you can barely tell by looking at her, she just added some layering to the side. Nevertheless, I immediately took her to her salon to fix it up, and tried to explain that she should leave the haircuts to the pros.
Friday 5/27/11 (2 years, 7 months old)
Anastasia and her sister spent a week at Granny and Poppa's house, while Matt and I went to Maui. Anastasia was very good on the 7-8 hour drive down. Once she was there, she was a little out of her element, but I think she enjoyed it. We called a couple times, but that apparently made her sad, so we didn't talk to her after the second day. She was very surprised to see us when we got back, and then she announced that it was time to go home to our house.
Wednesday 5/4/11 (2 years, 6 months old)
I'm proud to say that Anastasia has been very good about saying "Please" and "Thank you" unprompted. The other day, she thanked Matt for making dinner with a "Thank you so much, daddy!" She also likes to make jokes. She'll say to me, "Whatcha doing daddy?" and I'll say, "I'm mommy!" and she'll laugh and say, "That was silly!". She also keeps saying, "We need a vacation! Let's go to vacation." I actually think she thinks "vacation" is the ski resort because then she'll describe the place we stayed during spring break. This weekend she goes to a birthday party and she is thrilled about it. I asked her what we should get them for their birthday and she said we should get them a birthday cake and "presidents". (She always brings politics into her conversations - we apparently wash our clothes in the "Washington". Of course, I laugh at these things, so she keeps saying them.)
Sunday 3/26/11 (2 years, 5 months old)
Since we have an 11 week old in the house, we can really appreciate how nice it is that Anastasia never wakes up at night. She goes to bed around 8:30 and will sleep until we wake her up in the morning (which is around 7:45 or 8:00 on school days or 8:30 to 9:00 on weekends). At this point, she still takes a 2-3 hour nap after lunch as well.
Two other things worth mentioning. First, Anastasia is very helpful with Adrianna now. She puts her paci back in if it falls out, and she tries to feed her a bottle. She also told me that she missed Adrianna last night when Matt took her over to watch basketball at a neighbors house. The second thing is that Matt has declared Anastasia potty trained. We've had her in regular underpants for three days now (we keep her in a pull-up during naptime though, because she's in a crib, so she can't get out to pee if she needs to).
Thursday 3/24/11 (2 years, 5 months old)
We had parent-teacher conferences this morning. Matt and I met with Anastasia's head teacher, Jane, who showed us some of Anastasia's recent artwork, and pointed out that Anastasia loves stickers and loves to sew. I knew about the stickers but not the sewing. Jane said Anastasia is also very good at focusing on a task and getting it done, which she says will serve her well in real school later. Above all, she said Anastasia has been a joy to have at school as she is very well behaved and helpful. (Now if we could only get her to mimic that behavior at home!)
The other thing Jane pointed out is that we really should put away the pull-up diapers, as nearly all of the other kids have completely retired them. We've been lax about going 100% with the potty training, mainly to avoid cleanups from accidents, which are bound to happen. But the teacher said that while some kids need to wait well into 2-years old to be fully potty trained, Anastasia is otherwise advanced for her age, so we basically need to suck it up. We realized Jane was right, so when I picked up Anastasia from school, we made a big deal about going to Babies 'R Us to get a second one of her favorite potty (it's plush and padded - she complains about the plastic one we had downstairs and wouldn't use it). We also bought a dozen pairs of underpants. When we got home, we implemented our "no pullups except for naptime" policy. So far, no accidents, but I've literally made her sit on the potty every 30 minutes!
Sunday 3/20/11 (2 years, 5 months old)
Anastasia is officially in "Why?" mode. Absolutely everything I say gets a "Why?" response, and no explanation will satisfy. She'll just say "Why?" again. She probably picked that up at school. The other thing she picked up at school is to call everything "work". Let's do painting work; I'll do this work. Today I showed her how to do some cleaning work. She wanted to wipe down her table, so I showed her that she needs to take everything off of the table first. Later, I came into our office and found a million papers on the floor. There Anastasia was wiping off the computer desk, and she had followed my instructions to remove everything from the desktop first. I realized I should praise her rather than get upset about all of the work I'd have to do to re-organize the papers and put them back where they should be.
Monday 2/28/11 (2 years, 4 months old)
I've fallen off the wagon with the blog. I'm busier with two kids, so something had to give. I just thought I'd provide a couple quick updates. First, Anastasia has switched over to being very helpful with Adrianna (from being either dismissive or slightly competitive). Now she insists that we pick up the baby when she cries, and she guesses what is wrong, usually involving the paci. The next big thing in Anastasia life are puzzles - she loves them. She has a big puzzle that she solves over and over. It's pretty impressive because it's about 50 pieces. Finally, Anastasia has a new catch phrase: "actually". She says it all the time. "Actually, this is mommy's drink." or "My puzzle is upstairs, actually." Neither Matt nor I say "actually" much, so she must have picked it up at school. She loves school, by the way. I hear all about her friends at school (Stella, Lizzie, Henry, Oliver, Reagan, ...) and the various songs they sing. She also makes sure to tell me who was sad that day. "Hayden was sad!"
Sunday 1/9/11 (2 years, 2 months old)
The biggest news in Anastasia's life is that her baby sister, Adrianna, was born this week. Anastasia was excited that "Granny and Papa" came up to stay with her while we were in the hospital, and she didn't seem to miss us one bit while we were away.
Everyone wants to know how she's handling the new baby, and I'd say it's been hit or miss. On the one hand, she's very excited to see what the baby is doing - she'll ask, "Where's baby sister?" or "What's baby sister doing?" But on the other hand, she wants to be carried around all the time, especially by whichever parent is holding Adrianna. She also has a newfound interest in all baby items, including pacifiers, bottles, baby clothes, baby shoes, and even swings and bouncy chairs. She gets very angry when things are too small for her, so we've been enduring a bit of whining and tantrums. (Fortunately, just threatening to send her to her room is pretty effective. Surprising considering how much fun her room is, but then again, what she really wants is to be with us.)
The other common question I'm getting these days is whether Adrianna will get her own blog. I think what makes the most sense is to have one merged blog, since the reality of both of their lives is that they're now sisters, and many of their experiences will reflect that. So I'll be setting that up soon (in my copious spare time).
Saturday 1/1/11 (2 years, 2 months old)
We spent our first Christmas at home in at least 13 years. We usually go skiing, but given that I'm about to pop, I'm on travel lockdown. We took this opportunity to get our very first Christmas tree. Anastasia LOVED the tree, but she didn't really "get" Christmas, and we never ran into Santa, so she doesn't know about him. She's still a little young to understand presents, so we didn't want to overwhelm her. We wrapped up 6 toys, and had to spread out opening them over two days because she wanted to play with everything for an hour before moving on to the next gift. I think her favorite gift might have been Mr. Potato Head.
We are also in heavy prep mode for Anastasia's little sister, who will be arriving within the next 2-3 days. Anastasia is very curious about the bassinet and changing table, and she wants to play with them constantly (putting her baby dolls into the bassinet, changing their diapers). She's also very intrigued by the pacifiers and bottles which have resurfaced. That said, she also wants to be hugged and carried around a lot, so she senses that something is up.
Other than that, Anastasia has entered the mode where she likes to be in control. She wants to pick her clothes, put on her shoes, and even tell me what to wear or not wear. "Mommy, you wear this pretty dress." "Mommy, take your jacket off." Or even, "Mommy, go lay down." She's definitely to the point where she understands 100% of what we say, and she can express almost 100% of what she's thinking or feeling in words. (This is both a blessing and a curse!)
Tuesday 11/30/10 (2 years, 1 month old)
I know, I know. I'm told I'm long overdue for an update. A few big events have transpired since my last entry. First, we had Anastasia's 2nd birthday party where there were 14 toddlers and babies present. The kids loved the pizza and cake, though we forgot to account for the parents, so they got pizza and cake and juice boxes too. Anastasia had a lot of fun and took a 4 hour nap afterward, so she was pooped.
Shortly after that, we got a call from our favorite Montessori school saying they had an opening in the 2-year old class. Originally we planned to wait until January when the new baby came before enrolling Anastasia, but then realized that might be too disruptive already, so we moved up her enrollment. The last couple weeks, we've dropped by the school during outside playtime to get her used to the other kids in her class (she already knows Lizzie from that class). This week is the break-in period to make sure she adjusts to being in the classroom. So far so good. She gets excited to go to school, and she ditches us to run into the classroom. Honestly the biggest challenge had been switching her schedule so that she wakes up at 7:30 instead of 9:00 (and adjusting our schedule too so that we wake up before her).
The final news is that we're officially in potty training mode. She'll successfully pee in the potty about twice a day, but we still have to prompt her to go, rather than the other way around. Our doctor said that having Anastasia at school where other kids are going to the potty a lot will help speed up her process. Gotta love peer pressure, even at 2 years old.
Tuesday 10/19/10 (23 months, 4 weeks old)
Anastasia is starting to assert her independence. She used to be totally agreeable to any outfit I'd put her in. Now she wants to pick what she wears. The problem is that she always wants to wear this one striped tank top and sandals. Meanwhile, it'll be 50 degrees out. Her other top choices are pajamas. We actually went out to dinner with her in a pair of halloween pajama pants with bones on them because we didn't want to fight about it. She also wants to do things herself, "I'll do it!" and then gets mad if she isn't successful. On the plus side, she wants to help clean up, so I'll let her wipe things down or help push the vacuum.
We've toured a few more preschools. It's pretty crazy that some preschools cost more per year than I spent on four years of college. Still, we haven't been to a place that has a mid-year opening, but we're getting on all of the waiting lists.
Thursday 10/07/10 (23 months, 2 weeks old)
Matt and I have started the daunting task of searching for a good preschool for Anastasia. We're up against several hurdles. First, Anastasia's birthday is mid-fall, which means she often doesn't meet the age cutoffs. Next, we'd ideally like a part-time program for her, but our definition of part-time differs from the norm. We do NOT want something that ends at noon everyday, because that doesn't work for our schedule. We want something that goes until about 3PM only a few days per week. Our current top choice is the International School of Charlottesville, where they focus on teaching French or Spanish (by immersion from native speakers). This would be great given how much time we spend in Quebec. The catch is that the school doesn't have any openings until next fall. It would be nice to get her into a program by January when the next baby comes. So we're going to tour the school and try to get the scoop on whether there is any chance of an opening mid-year. Fingers crossed.
Monday 09/20/10 (about 23 months old)
Anastasia (and her parents) survived a 7 hour drive to Myrtle Beach this weekend. We tried to time it so that we got on the road around naptime so that she'd sleep the first 2-3 hours of the trip. Unfortunately, she was too excited about the new DVD player in the car, so she barely slept an hour. By the time we arrived, Matt and I were so sick of her favorite youtube clips that our heads were spinning. We all went to a wedding, where Anastasia proceeded to dance the night away. She never left the dance floor, even if she was the only one out there. She loved the attention. In other news, her language skills have continued to amaze us. My favorite quotes were "No singing Mommmy!" when I tried singing along to one of her songs, and "No dancing Daddy!" when he moved his shoulders to the beat. Apparently, we're already embarassing her.
Saturday 08/28/10 (22 months, 4 days old)
Anastasia is obsessed with the kids that live right next door. From our sliding glass door, she can see into their kitchen window, and she goes crazy when they are in view. They are named Luke and Gabrielle, but she just calls them "Friends". If they see her, they'll run outside, and she'll start jumping up and down and yelling "Outside!". She would go over there six times a day if we let her. Today we went to their birthday party (they turned 3 and 5) at the pool and she had a blast, but needed an early nap because she was so worn out.
Saturday 08/14/10 (21 months, 3 weeks old)
Anastasia's language has really taken off. She speaks in full sentences, narrates everything we do, and understands everything we say. Aside from her ABC's, her numbers, and various songs, she knows a lot of colors - her favorite being yellow. For some reason, she loves pointing out everything that is yellow. She still gets pretty shy around people though and won't say much then.
Wednesday 08/11/10 (21 months, 2 weeks old)
Anastasia is a much better eater. She'll eat most things we offer her now, as long as they're not too weird. Her favorite things to do while we're here in Canada are going to "Jungle Magique" (the indoor kid park) and going to McDonald's. She'll talk about both for hours. While at Jungle Magique, we noticed that she has a pretty funny running style. It's very girly, with arms flailing. So to add to her girlyness, I painted her fingernails and toenails pink. She loves it, and says "Pretty toes!" Her other funny phrase is, "Thank you. You're welcome!"
Wednesday 08/04/10 (21 months, 1 weeks old)
Anastasia and I flew to Canada yesterday on what may be her last free flight. She was very excited to be on an "airpeen!" and she recited her ABC's during the entire second leg of the flight. She gets from A to P, and then kinda mumbles from there, with a few discernible letters in roughly the correct place. I was impressed since we didn't teach her that. She must have picked it up from one of her children's songs on her ipod, which is playing nonstop in her room. Anyway, we also took this opportunity to test out the new contraption we purchased. It's basically a set of wheels that turns a car seat into a stroller. She loved riding in it around the airport, and often fell asleep in it, and I loved that I just pulled or pushed her like a rolling bag and had another hand free. I also didn't have to check the car seat or wear it like a giant backpack. The thing was pricey given that it's just some rollerblade wheels on a plastic board with a telescoping handle, but I decided it was well worth every penny after just this trip alone.
Friday 07/30/10 (21 months, 1 week old)
We revamped Anastasia's room, removing all of the random extra furniture, and giving her more room to play. She got a new dresser, bookshelf, bean bag chair, and some artwork. The room looks great, and she loves playing in there now. It made me realize we should have done this a year ago. I guess it took my nesting instinct to return first. Hmmm...
Saturday 07/10/10 (20 months, 2 weeks old)
Anastasia is very attached to her daddy. The moment he leaves the room, she asks, "Where's Daddy?" and she follows him around everywhere. When he cooks dinner, she's right underfoot. Occasionally, when Matt goes in to get her in the morning, she'll ask, "Where's Mommy?" but it's much more rare.
Thursday 06/24/10 (20 months old)
Anastasia has started answering every question with an excited "Yes!" (regardless of whether the answer really is yes). I'd heard about the No phase kids go through, but hadn't heard of a yes phase. She also called me "Kim" recently. She said, "Mommy. Mommy." and when I didn't answer, she said, "Kim!" Reminds me of the phase we all go through during teenage years where we call our parents by their first name.
Monday 05/24/10 (19 months old)
Anastasia got her first real haircut yesterday. Unfortunately, I do not love the haircut. I told the hairdresser that we just wanted to clean it up, and that we'd eventually like it to be all one length. Well Anastasia completely freaked out during the haircut. I had to hug her just to hold down her arms. So I couldn't really see what was going on, but the next thing I knew, the clippers were out and she was buzzing around Anastasia's neck! Who uses clippers on a girl!? Well, now she looks like Dorothy Hamill. At least it'll grow.
Another fun milestone: Just now, Anastasia was up in our room playing, and then she started chanting, "Juice. Juice. Juice." Then she went downstairs, went into the pantry, grabbed a juice box, then brought it back upstairs for us to open it for her. Maybe we can teach her to pour a bowl of cereal and then we'll be all set.
Thursday 05/06/10 (18 months, 1 week old)
Anastasia had her 18 month checkup yesterday. People have been commenting that she's getting tall, and we confirmed that in the appointment since she went from the 35th percentile for height up to the 75th percentile (a little over 2 inches) in only 3 months. Meanwhile she only gained about a pound or two so she's looking leaner. Well except for the big round belly that she fills up with gummy candies. Other than that, the doctor asked how many words she says, and I didn't really know so I guessed 30. But on the car ride home, Matt and I named over 70 words she uses at this point. My favorite being "octopus!" which is one of her bath toys. Here's the current list of words if you're curious.
Saturday 04/24/10 (18 months old)
Today is Anastasia's half birthday so I figure it's time for an update. Now that the weather is getting nice, Anastasia loves hanging out outside. She goes to the sliding glass door to see if any kids are outside (they usually are) and then she'll say "Open!" She likes the idea of playing with the other kids, but as soon as they run over, she gets shy. If they run away, she'll follow them. If no kids are around, she'll go door to door - she won't knock on doors, she just gets on people's porches and starts taking toys, knocking over chairs, and generally causing mischief.
Friday 03/26/10 (17 months, 2 days old)
Two events worth mentioning. First, Anastasia has at least one new molar. Second, we finally made it through an entire day without mac-and-cheese. For lunch, she had chicken. For dinner, she had black beans, applesauce, and crackers. Random, I know, but what are you gonna do.
Tuesday 03/16/10 (16 months, 3 weeks old)
We officially have a picky eater on our hands. Anastasia wants mac-and-cheese for lunch and dinner every day. If we offer her anything else, she refuses it and says "All Done!" Tonight we tried to add some plain rice to her mac-and-cheese and she spit it right out. Last week, we were in Boston, so we couldn't make mac-and-cheese. We tried buying some fancy, fresh mac-and-cheese from Quincy Market, and she rejected that too. She barely ate a thing all week. She will eat bananas and blueberry pancakes for breakfast. She'll also eat crackers, goldfish, and apples as snacks. But when it comes to lunch and dinner, it's mac-and-cheese or nothing.
Tuesday 03/02/10 (16 months, 1 week old)
Anastasia finally decided that walking is more convenient than crawling. She has known how to walk for a couple months, but would only take steps about 5-10% of the time, and would always switch to crawling the moment she fell. But overnight she changed her mind, and on Sunday, she just started walking everywhere. Now she only seems to crawl up/down the stairs, though she has managed to make it down one step (to the landing) on her feet.
In other news she is definitely going through a phase where she loves repetition. Now that she talks, we know that she wants to do the same things over and over in quick sequence. She wants to (a) watch the Mickey Mouse Hot Dog Dance on YouTube (and she knows how to restart the song), (b) look at pictures and videos of herself on the computer, and (c) push her baby doll around in a basket. She would do these three things all day everyday if we let her.
Monday 02/15/10 (15 months, 3 weeks old)
Major milestone today! Anastasia peed in the potty! The backstory is that I never would have imagined trying to potty train a 15 month old. But after Anastasia started consistently saying "Poop!" just before she did it, we figured we'd buy a potty and introduce it to her. I bought a cute potty on Saturday and she was instantly curious (though she mainly wanted to put lots of things in it (e.g. cell phones)). Anyway, with her Sunday night bath, just before putting her in the tub, we sat her on the potty for maybe 10 seconds. Then tonight, we did the same thing, not expecting anything to happen. But this time, she immediately started peeing. We went wild! And of course, I had to take a picture of the pee in the potty as evidence!
Wednesday 02/03/10 (15 months, 1 week old)
Warning. I'm about to tell you about my scariest moment as a parent. I'll start from the beginning. On Wed 1/27, Anastasia had a doctor appointment for her 15 month shots. That night she started acting strangely. She cried in the tub (she loves baths) then when I took her out she started shaking. After putting her to bed, she woke up screaming. Matt said she was burning up, so we took her temp with the instant ear thermometer and it read 106F. We gave her Tylenol, changed her into cooler pajamas, but she still woke up crying every hour. The next day was a lot of the same. She barely slept at all. That night (Thursday) we put her to bed at 8PM and she woke up at 9PM screaming. Matt tried to calm her down by walking around the house with her. At around 9:20, her eyes rolled back, and she started having a seizure in his arms. I completely freaked out. I was crying and hysterical when I called 911. Anastasia went through a spell during the seizure when she wasn't breathing and her lips turned blue. But the operator told us that we could not do CPR until she stopped seizing. So we just had to sit there and watch helplessly. After about 3 minutes, the seizure stopped, and the operator warned us that she would go limp and appear dead, and that another seizure might happen. (Fortunately, it didn't.) The ambulance and fire truck (?) showed up a few minutes later. Somehow the whole neighborhood was right behind them, and about 20 people poured into our house. The paramedics scooped up the baby and I grabbed my purse and rode along in the ambulance. During the ride to the ER, she seemed to be getting better. She started groaning and looking around at the chaos. When we arrived she was crying and had cooled down from the winter air and the ibuprofen they gave her.
At the ER, we learned she'd had a febrile seizure, which is caused by a rapid rise in body temperature. It's apparently pretty common in babies, and has nothing to do with epilepsy. They were perplexed that she had no other symptoms to indicate what was causing the fever. They tested for a kidney infection (which involved a catheter - poor thing) but that came up clean. They sent us home with instructions to rotate Tylenol and Motrin every few hours until the fever was under control, and to call on Monday if she still had no other symptoms. The fever stayed high (but under control with the drugs) until Monday, when we got our answer. Just after the fever dropped, she broke out in a full body rash. That's when we learned she'd had roseola, which is a common baby virus. It is characterized by 4-5 days of high fever, followed by a rash once the fever drops. And the kicker: 15% of babies that catch roseola will have a febrile seizure. Since babies catch roseola from other babies, we knew she'd caught it at the pediatrician's on Wednesday. It was then that the comment made by the receptionist rang in my ears. "Thank goodness - a well baby!" Yeah, not for long thanks to you guys! Anyway, she's now back to her old chipper self, and is sleeping 13 hours solid at night again. So our sanity has been restored.
Wednesday 01/06/10 (14 months, 2 weeks old)
Anastasia spent the day at Jungle Magique while Matt went skiing. Jungle Magique is a huge playland for small kids, with a huge glass window overlooking the ski lifts. It included a ball pit and lots of toys and padded things to climb on. She missed her 11 AM - 1 PM nap, so I figured she'd melt down, but she was so excited by the new environment that she was still going strong after four hours. (I took 60 pictures, so I'll post the highlights soon.) The other kids loved seeing her, and would yell "Attention! Il ya une bébé!" to make sure the other kids didn't bump into her. She loved exploring, and absolutely loved the baby slide. She went down it (with me holding her) about 50 times. We left when Matt was done skiing, and she conked out before we got out of the parking lot.
Tuesday 01/05/10 (14 months, 2 weeks old)
Anastasia has four top teeth coming in at once, which may explain her crabbiness. The two on the right side of her mouth have fully erupted, and the two on the left side are visible and are protruding, but still have some skin to break through. She keeps pointing to her mouth and whining. We're also suspecting an ear ache, because she also keeps scratching her ear. I used a Q-tip to clean it and she seemed very happy about that, and she grabbed the Q-tip and tried to clean it herself. Matt objected, so I took it away from her, and she went back to scratching.
Sunday 12/27/09 (14 months, 3 days old)
Anastasia took her first steps! She was holding onto a chair and gave me this look - I can do this! She pivoted and took two or three steps into my arms. Matt missed it, but Julia saw the whole thing, so she can confirm. Anastasia's vocabulary has also doubled this week alone. She clearly understands words like feet, head, ball. She repeats everything we say, and also says a few things to let us know what she wants, like "Up". She also points to her head and that means she wants to hear "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" on the iPod, which along with Old McDonald are her favorite songs. On the downside, she's spilled two more cups of coffee in the past three days. She lunges for it and knocks it over before we have time to react. She also threw my Blackberry down the stairs. Each time, she says "No, No, No!" before doing it, so she knows what she's not supposed to do!
Thursday 12/17/09 (13 months, 3 weeks old)
We took Anastasia on the train to New York and stayed Sunday through Wednesday. She liked crawling up the aisle and checking out people. One guy had a laptop, which is a magnet for her. She loved New York. She's a city girl, and doesn't mind the sirens or honking one bit. She's too busy checking out the lights and people. She did not like the roll-away crib, however, so she ended up in the big bed with us. (She always ended up sideways, kicking me in the face.) It took her a while to get to sleep the first night because she was so excited to see us next to her. We were worried that she'd get too used to being in our bed, but things went right back to normal when we got back.
Monday 12/07/09 (13 months, 2 weeks old)
Another milestone. Today, Anastasia started standing up on her own. When she does it, she holds up her hands and cheers. Then when she falls, she claps. She's so proud.
Friday 11/27/09 (13 months old)
A few big milestones occurred this week. First, Anastasia demonstrated that she could successfully descend the stairs. She'd been itching to try it out, but we kept stopping her since she would appear to try to go down head first. I decided to let her go ahead (and catch her) just so she wouldn't be so curious. But to my surprise, she rotated at the last second, and backed down the stairs. She stumbled a couple times, but I helped reposition her and she was eager to continue. Once she got to the bottom she looked at us with her proud face, waited for us to clap, and then went up and down the stairs another 13 times.
Other than that, she's been practicing a bunch of new skills. She likes to climb onto a chair or couch and back off again. (Over and over, of course.) She also loves to "figure out" her toys. If there's a switch that turns the toy on/off, she's obsessed with it. If it's motion-activated, she bumps it. If there are buttons, she pushes them all. Finally, she likes to push things around (such as a laundry basket) so she can walk behind them.
I also had a big milestone today, in that I retired the pump. I packed it up in a Tupperware bin, along with a big bag of pacifiers, bottles, milk bags, and everything else feeding-related that Anastasia has outgrown. It all went in the attic today (where it will remain until the next one comes along). I had planned to quit pumping once Anastasia reached 12 months and could have cow's milk, but it took a month and a definite plan to stop, so we ended up getting to 13 months before I was completely free. In retrospect, that $300 pump paid for itself 10 times over, given that formula costs about $2000/year. It was also great because Anastasia was only sick for a total of about four days in her first year.
Sunday 11/22/09 (13 months old)
It's been a while since I've blogged. The biggest changes now are related to her eating and mobility. She is phasing out baby food and is mostly eating "people food" now. She likes Mac&cheese, crackers, steamed veggies, some small pieces of meat. She demands a fork during her meals, even though she can't maneuver it. She pokes the food with a fork, then uses the other hand to pick up the food and put it in her mouth. She's almost completely off of breast milk now, and is perfectly happy with whole milk. (We'll give her bottles with 1/3 breast milk, 2/3 cow's milk until we run out of frozen milk.)
She doesn't walk on her own, but she'll walk when holding our hands, or when pushing her walker. She can't steer the walker yet, so she bumps into walls, then looks at us to reposition it. She's a pro at climbing up the stairs, and is showing interest in descending the stairs head first. (She's fearless.) She started learning how to turn around and drop off the bed feet first, but we haven't let her fall the whole way yet.
Wednesday 10/28/09 (12 months + 4 days old)
On one hand, I can't believe it's only been a year that we've been parents. On the other hand, I can't believe Anastasia is already a year old. I found one of her little newborn diapers that used to swallow her up, and now it looks fake, like no baby could possibly fit into it. It's funny to me how every baby goes through the same phases. Right now she's going through the one where she likes to splash her hand in the toilet and unroll all of the toilet paper. Every baby does this!
She got five shots on Monday. This time she flexed her leg and tightened the muscles during the shots, which probably made it much more painful. She cried louder than ever before, but got over it in about 5 minutes and was fine for the rest of the day.
Wednesday 10/21/09 (11 months + 4 weeks old)
Anastasia loves to dance. She used to just rock to the music, but now she moves her arms too. Just in time for her birthday party on Saturday!
Monday 10/19/09 (11 months + 4 weeks old)
It's official. Anastasia has two teeth! Previous sightings were ambiguous, but these are clear as day. Rumor has it that late teethers get a lot of teeth over a short period. I think this is ideal. Why drag out the pain?
We had to install a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs since she bolts up the steps the moment we look away. She's very good at the steps now, and hasn't shown any signs that she's likely to fall in a while. In fact, a couple times now we've looked away for a moment, then heard her on the baby monitor upstairs in her room, so she made it up on her own. But we'd never forgive ourselves if she fell.
Sunday 10/11/09 (11 months + 3 weeks old)
Yesterday, I watched Anastasia figure out how to fit the block shapes into the correct hole. She held a block that was shaped like a cross, then scanned the available holes (a star, a circle, a square, etc.), found the cross, and inserted it. She did this several times in a row. I thought maybe it was a coincidence, since the cross hole was closest to her, so I rotated them, and she still went for the correct hole. She's a genius.
Friday 10/09/09 (11 months + 2 weeks old)
Anastasia climbed all the way up the stairs this afternoon. I have two minutes of video that documents it. She's pretty good at it, except she likes to rest every 4-5 steps, and she hasn't figured out that you can't just sit back down without making sure there is something to sit on. So Matt followed her and made sure she didn't tumble back down.
Yesterday, Anastasia spent the day in the office with me. We set up her pack-n-play. She had fun exploring my office and crawling down the hallway and into the grad student cubes. She had a tough time falling asleep with me right there in the room, but after a stroller ride around campus, she dozed off. I managed to get a tiny bit of work done.
Another big event is that Anastasia and I went apple picking with the girls from CS this afternoon. We went on a hayride around the orchard (no horses were involved, for those of you who know my hang-ups about animal slavery) and Anastasia enjoyed the whole experience. She ate a doughnut and had some cider.
Monday 10/05/09 (11 months + 2 weeks old)
We've managed to keep Anastasia out of day care for her first full year. At first, it was because the waiting lists were too long, so we couldn't put her in day care even if we wanted to. But recently, our friends got a spot at the UVa Child Care Center, only to pull their baby out after a month because she had gotten sick three times in three weeks, so they felt it wasn't worth it. (You have to keep your baby at home when she's sick, but you pay either way.)
Our current setup is that Matt stays home with Anastasia on Mon, Wed, Fri. On Tue and Thu when Matt teaches, Anastasia is with the nanny. We share the nanny with our friends (Aadi's parents), so we alternate where the nanny goes: On Tuesdays, Anastasia goes over to Aadi's house, and they share the nanny. On Thursdays, the nanny comes to our house. The nice thing is that the babies haven't gotten sick. Until now. We just got a call that the doctors think that Aadi has the swine flu! Needless to say, we'll be keeping Anastasia away from Aadi this week, and we'll have to wing it on child care. (The nanny watched Aadi today, so we don't really want her around Anastasia until we know she didn't catch anything.) Fortunately, this is a pretty convenient week to be without child care since Monday-Tuesday is fall break. On Thursday, we'll just bring Anastasia into the office with us.
Friday 09/18/09 (10 months + 4 weeks old)
Anastasia now crawls like a champ, and stands up on her own. Every time I'm in the shower, the curtain will open, and a baby will peek in. She likes to crawl into the bathroom and use the tub to pull herself up into the standing position. She then searches for the soap dish so she can eat the soap (poor thing had already taken a bite before we caught her once). She's not walking yet, thankfully.
The other night, Anastasia went to a party and got to hang out with four other babies (Aadi, Lizzie, Oakley, and Anika). There was an attempt to take video of all of them on the couch, but it was apparently pure chaos with babies pulling hair, crawling off the couch, crying, etc. (As you can infer, I was out of town, so I missed the event.) Aadi was the only boy, surrounded by a group of girls, but none of them could appreciate it yet.
Sunday 09/06/09 (10 months + 2 weeks old)
Anastasia stood up on her own yesterday. She's been determined to stand up for a couple weeks, but generally gets frustrated. (She tries to pull up using her arm strength alone, rather than planting her legs, but who am I to critique her style.) Yesterday, Matt put her on the changing table, and she quickly leaned forward, grabbed the edge of the crib, and stood up. She hasn't been able to repeat this anywhere else yet, but it's only a matter of days before she starts standing everywhere, and we forget that this is a new trick.
Wednesday 08/26/09 (10 months + 2 days old)
Here's how you realize it's time for a baby gate ... Today, Matt set Anastasia up with some toys in her room. She can entertain herself for a good 30 minutes or an hour that way and generally can't get into much trouble. He walked downstairs to refill his coffee. Then we heard Anastasia making some grunts a little too loudly - if she were still in her room, we shouldn't have heard her so clearly. Matt sprinted to the stairs to find that Anastasia had already descended one step and was on the landing heading for the next step. He darted up the steps and grabbed her, and she laughed. His next stop was Babies R Us for a baby gate.
Another episode this morning provided more evidence that we have to watch Anastasia more closely these days. Usually she sleeps 9PM - 8AM. But last night she went down at 7PM and slept until 6AM. Now, we don't do 6AM, so we fed her and gave her some toys to play next to our bed, and then dozed back off to sleep. This worked for about 30 minutes, but when we woke up, we found that she had unplugged Matt's cell phone and had chewed off the USB connector. Then she found a magazine in the bathroom and had shred it to pieces. Do we have a baby or a puppy?
Wednesday 08/19/09 (9 months + 3 weeks old)
Anastasia has been full of beans tonight. She has crawled over every inch of the upstairs, getting into everything. Books get pulled off the shelves, papers get shredded, and of course, every visible cord gets pulled. After each adventure, she looks at us and laughs, then scans the room for her next target.
Monday 08/17/09 (9 months + 3 weeks old)
Matt and I have each been away from Anastasia overnight, but we hadn't both been away at the same time. On Saturday night, we went to see Phish in Baltimore, so Anastasia spent 24 hours at her great-aunt Jackie's house near D.C. She liked the change of venue and all the new toys (including the freaky Chucky doll that scared all of the adults). And we hear that other than one midnight scream, she was very well behaved and happy.
Thursday 08/13/09 (9 months + 2 weeks old)
We had to adjust the crib today. Every morning when we go in to check on Anastasia, we find her sitting up in her crib trying to pull down the mobile. She is so sneaky about it! We don't even hear a peep. After months of watching those froggies circling above her head, she can finally get them!
She can now stand indefinitely if she's holding onto something. But she can't sit back down, so she just stays there and whines when she gets tired. She's also obsessed with cords these days. Any cord in sight is like a magnet. She makes a beeline over to it and pulls on it - laptops, lamps, ...
I've been able to get many huge laughs out of her. I showed her the "heads, shoulders, knees and toes" song, and she would burst out laughing each and every time I'd get to "toes". Another time I was laying on the floor, and she crawled over trying to sneak up on me. When I looked over, she burst out laughing. So of course, we repeated that game over and over.
Monday 08/03/09 (9 months + 1 week old)
Literally two days ago, Anastasia learned to wave hello, and now she does it non-stop. First, she would just wave and say Hi to Matt or me. But today, we took her out for a doctor appointment and to Target, and she waved to everyone who came up to her. I can just tell her, "Say Hi", and she'll wave. She definitely understands certain phrases, like, "Where's Daddy?" (she'll look around for him) or "Where's the baby? There she is!" (she'll pull up a blanket to play peek-a-boo).
Anastasia has also become pretty mobile. She is getting less content sitting in one place, and she'll quickly lunge to her belly and start pivoting and military crawling. She can stand on her own for a few seconds when holding onto the couch, but she can't (or won't?) pull herself up into the standing position yet.
Wednesday 07/22/09 (almost 9 months old)
Anastasia and I both survived our longest time apart. I went to Spain for 7 days to teach a class. Meanwhile, Matt and Anastasia drove down to Myrtle Beach to visit Matt's parents. He packed up a cooler of frozen milk, and other than two bags that leaked when he defrosted them, there were no feeding issues. I flew straight to Charleston from Spain, and we were all glad to be reunited. The drive back was much easier since I can climb into the back seat to entertain or feed Anastasia during the drive.
Monday 07/06/09 (8 months + 1 week old)
Interesting fact: After today, Anastasia will have been outside of my belly longer than she was inside.
Sunday 07/05/09 (8 months + 1 week old)
Anastasia ran 6 miles this morning. We took her out on the maiden voyage in her "new" jogging stroller. It was raining and I forgot her sweater, but she still had a blast. One of the other runners gave her an old t-shirt to cover up with, and the sunshade kept her dry. The jogging stroller was an interesting story. I picked out a BOB stroller and had found one as cheap as $285. Then I thought I'd check on craigslist to see if any used ones were around. I posted a want ad, and someone emailed me saying that one was for sale at Habitat for Humanity for $50. Matt and I went there the next day and it was actually for sale for $20! It was dirty, but it rode well, so we figured we could try to clean it up. Even if it didn't clean up, we could throw it away since it was $20. We got it home, powerwashed it, dropped the cloth parts into the washer with some bleach, and it came out looking brand new.
Friday 06/26/09 (8 months + 2 days old)
Anastasia is making baby steps toward becoming mobile. Until now, she's been conveniently immobile. She sits up perfectly, and we have been able to sit her in the middle of the bed with several toys, and we don't have worry that she'll move to the edge and fall off. But now, she pretty quickly pivots her body around. She occasionally thrusts herself onto her belly from the seated position, and has done the army crawl or backward crawl once or twice. Pretty soon, we'll have to babyproof the house, and chase her around.
Saturday 06/20/09 (almost 8 months old)
Travel to Dublin was unbelievably easy. It was a 6 hour non-stop flight from DC, and Aer Lingus provided baby bassinets for the babies, which was fantastic. Basically, we sat in the bulkhead row and there was a large two-person wide tray table that folds down and holds a baby-size bed. There were lots of babies on the flight and they were all happy. The 2-year olds were a whole other story.
Tuesday 06/09/09 (7 months + 2 weeks old)
The drive back from Quebec was long (14 hours) but was fine. We split it up over two days. Something about Anastasia's car seat is like a laxative for her. Every diaper blow out happens in the car seat. The one going through airport security, the one right before the family picture at my niece's wedding, and the two that happened during our drive down. She never minds or complains; we just get a surprise when we pick her up, and then random strangers offer us ziplock bags.
Over the past couple weeks, Anastasia has become a lot of fun. She loves to play with toys and make single syllable sounds. She can entertain herself for an hour just sitting on our bed with a couple toys. She grabs everything within reach, and inspects it thoroughly before shoving it into her mouth. It's very convenient that she can sit up on her own now. Especially since she can't crawl yet, so we don't have to chase her down or baby proof the house yet.
Wednesday 05/27/09 (7 months + 3 days old)
Anastasia had her first few flights recently. First we flew non-stop from DC to Salt Lake City (5 hour flight) and had no issues. Getting through security was straightforward; she had a bottle during take-off so her ears adjusted to the pressure; she slept across our laps for an hour; she woke up cheery and stared at the other passengers until they looked back, then squealed with excitement, which they loved. She slept well in the hotel-provided crib, and later by my side at my brother's house. She loved meeting her cousins and playing with their toys, and she even liked our crazy schedule. The flight east was slightly more challenging because I had to go it alone with her, and we had a layover. I had to carry a diaper bag and my pump along with the baby, which made getting situated in the airplane a challenge. Fortunately, other passengers offered to hold her while I put my stuff under the seat, and she and I were fine with that. She was very good on both legs of the flight (which were both full flights so she had to sleep in my arms). Bottom line: flying with Anastasia is no problem as long as both parents are there.
Monday 05/04/09 (6 months + 1 week old)
Anastasia had another round of shots today, and she didn't even do the pain cry. It was more of a whine, and then she immediately forgot about it. We found out her stats, and she's still right at 50th percentile for height and weight. We introduced her to pears today, and she gobbled them up like I've never seen. She grabbed the spoon and tried shoving it in her mouth herself.
Anastasia didn't do so well at the wedding last weekend. We dragged her out to dinner on Friday night after a 6 hour car ride, when she really just wanted to sleep, so she was not happy. Then she worked herself up so much that she wouldn't sleep Friday night at the hotel. Every two hours, she'd wake up and wail. So of course, she was tired the next day, and wasn't in the mood to be social, so she got upset when people doted on her. She was very good during the ceremony itself, and was okay for some of the reception, but we had to call it an early night when she started to melt down (she slept 11 hours solid that night). Since she doesn't freak out at home, we just don't know how to calm her. Usually, food or the crib cures all. In fact, we know her signs well enough that we can usually get her fed and in the crib before it gets to the point of tears. But travel messes things up, so we can't put her down when we need to.
Sunday 04/26/09 (6 months + 2 days old)
It appears that the whole stranger anxiety ordeal really just lasted a week. Anastasia is perfectly happy being held by others these days. She does get moody when she's sleepy, so we have to get her to bed at the first sign of sleepiness (rubbing eyes) or we're in for it. She's getting picky about where she sleeps. She won't just fall asleep in her stroller at dinner the way she used to. Now she doesn't want to miss a thing, so she'll try her best to stay awake, and then just get mad about it. We're going to a wedding next weekend, so we're not sure how she's going to hold up without a nap. She can't stay awake more than 3-4 hours before wanting her bed.
Wednesday 04/15/09 (5 months + 3 weeks old)
This week, the nanny was at our friends' house, so we dropped Anastasia off over there on MWF morning. We figured it'll be nice to give her some social time with another baby. She definitely notices and stares at other babies, but doesn't play with them yet. One thing we learned from the nanny is that Anastasia seemed to miss her crib. I saw this as a red flag - we need her to learn to sleep wherever, because we have several trips coming up. So we bought a pack'n'play that we can travel with, and she seemed to like it.
Thursday 04/09/09 (5 months + 2 weeks old)
We started with the nanny this week. She came on MWF morning. On Monday, I had a bunch of meetings, but on Wednesday, I was able to get in a workout and run some errands before heading to school. Nice!
The feeding has been going well. Anastasia is getting the hang of the spoon. Our doc told us to only introduce one new item per week, so the first week was rice cereal, and the second week was carrots. I don't think she liked the carrots so much. (I don't blame her, they're pretty nasty.) Plus the carrots were a total mess and stained her clothes and bibs. We feed her at dinnertime, then immediately give her a bath. She doesn't fill up on the solids, because we offer her a bottle afterward and she still sucks down several ounces.
Sunday 03/29/09 (5 months + 5 days old)
We gave Anastasia her first meal tonight! She had rice cereal. She sat in her high chair for the first time, and ate from a spoon for the first time. She did pretty well! She had about 6 spoon fulls, and then lost interest. We called that a huge success, and we'll do it all over again tomorrow night. (See the week 22 photos for the action.)
Wednesday 03/25/09 (5 months + 1 day old)
It's been about 48 hours since Anastasia's shots, and I think I can safely say that these shots didn't bother her one bit. She came home, slept 5 hours, and then woke up cheery and completely back to normal. She has two welts on her legs from the shots, but doesn't seem to care.
Monday 03/23/09 (1 day until 5 months old)
Anastasia got a round of shots today, which wasn't nearly as hard on me as last time. Though we had 24 rough hours after the shots last time, so I'm sure we're in for it tonight. I also asked the doctor about the possibility of Anastasia teething, and sure enough, the doctor spotted two little bottom teeth coming through. That explains Anastasia's moodiness these past few days - I thought she was just hot. The doctor also said that we should think about introducing solids since Anastasia is eating 8 ounces at a time, and most babies her age eat 6 ounces (the calculation is (age in months + 1 ounce) per feeding).
Sunday 03/22/09 (2 days until 5 months old)
Everyone is accusing Anastasia of teething. I am in denial. Yes, she's drooling a lot, and chewing on everything she can get her hands on (including her hands themselves) but she's just too young! Babies get their first teeth anywhere from 4 months to 12 months, but I figured she'd be a late teether. I was. I peeked her in mouth and thought I might have seen some white spots for two bottom teeth, but I can't be sure. We're taking her in to the pediatrician tomorrow for her shots :'( so I'll ask her then.
Friday 03/13/09 (4 months + 3 weeks old)
I think Anastasia has outgrown the pacifier. For the first four months of her life, she wanted one non-stop. Now, she often rejects it when we offer it to her. Our plan was to wean her off of it around 12 months, but it's looking like that won't be necessary. She's also becoming a chatterbox. We took her to a party and she went through this spell where she constantly wanted to make noises. Everyone swore she said "Hi" and "Yeah".
Thursday 02/26/09 (4 months + 2 days old)
These days, Anastasia consumes about 25-30 ounces of milk in a given day, though that will increase with time. Since she was born, I've been freezing any excess milk I have produced, in case I'm ever sick, away, or if I can't keep up with her appetite at some point. So far, we've pretty much never had to thaw any of it out. So we have well over 1200 ounces (10 gallons!) in a deep freezer. Since it's only good for 6 months in the freezer, I realized that I need some sort of plan. I contacted the National Mother's Milk Bank about making a donation of about 600 ounces. I started the long process of becoming an approved donor. It requires an 18-page application, phone interview, various blood tests, and a minimum donation of 200 ounces. The milk gets pasteurized and then delivered to preemie babies in hospitals across the U.S. It's kinda like giving blood, just a little weirder. But I figured it was either donate it, or throw it out, so this way I'll feel like I've helped someone, somewhere.
Tuesday 02/24/09 (4 months old)
Anastasia turned 4 months old today. We ended the rice cereal experiment after two nights because we realized she sleeps all night until 8 am either way (as long as we gave her at least 6 ounces of milk before bed), so it wasn't worth doing anything contentious. The doctor called and asked to reschedule her 4 month shots earlier, but I wasn't comfortable with that. She just got her 2 month shots 6 weeks ago, so it just seemed too soon. Plus I have to mentally prepare to subject her to the shots again. Those little eyes looked at me like, "Why would you do this to me?" and she was out of sorts for two days while she recovered.
Wednesday 02/18/09 (3 months + 3 weeks old)
The rice cereal experiment appears to have been successful. Anastasia slept soundly from 11PM to 8AM, and woke up happy. (We found her in her crib wide awake and singing to her mobile animals.) We fed her again at 8:30 (no rice cereal) and she went back to sleep. I went online last night to find out if we're putting the right amount of rice cereal in her night bottle, and I found that it is a VERY contentious practice. The militant moms bash anyone who gives their baby anything but breastmilk before 6 months. They also claim it causes allergies, risks choking, confuses the baby's portion control mechanism, etc. So I'll have to think about it more before continuing.
Tuesday 02/17/09 (3 months + 3 weeks old)
We hit another milestone today. First, I should preface this story with the disclaimer that Anastasia has not had a drop of anything but breastmilk since birth. Well, Matt came home with some rice cereal, and we decided to add some to her last bottle before bed. People have told us to do this to get her to sleep better, but she has always been a pretty good sleeper, so we hadn't jumped on it. While prepping the bottle, we got concerned that the half tablespoon of rice cereal might clog the slow-flow nipples on her bottles, so we also decided to break in the more advanced drop-in bottles (they hold 8 oz rather than 4 oz, and they have a medium-flow nipple). Matt filled the whole bottle, and I fed it to her at 9:30 PM. She emptied all 8 ounces, which is about 2-3 ounces more than she's ever consumed at once. I immediately felt afraid to move her, knowing that she'd spit up several ounces if I did, but she got antsy and spit up all over herself and me anyway. That earned her a new set of pajamas ... which she subsequently spit up on. (Note to self: 8 ounces is too much!) We just put her to bed (at 11PM) so we'll see how well she sleeps tonight.
Tuesday 02/03/09 (3 months + 1 week old)
Anastasia rolled over this morning! Of course, I missed it. I was downstairs sterilizing her bottles when I heard some cheering upstairs. Matt says he put her on her belly on the bed, and she flipped onto her back.
Tuesday 01/27/09 (3 months + 3 days old)
Anastasia had her 3 month birthday on Saturday, and her sleep and eat schedule appeared to have stabilized. She sleeps about 14 hours at night with two wake-ups for a meal. Basically, she eats every 4-7 hours. Well, the past two days have been crazy. She has consumed a ridiculous amount of milk. Anytime she's hungry, we give her 4.5 ounces of my milk. Well, she ate at 3AM, 7AM, 10AM, 1PM, 4PM, 7PM, 9PM, and 12AM. Yes, eight times in 24 hours. Aside from that, she went to bed yesterday at 2PM and slept anytime she wasn't actively eating until about noon today. Then she was pretty much awake non-stop until 10PM. Totally weird. She's definitely hitting a growth spurt.
Wednesday 01/21/09 (2 months + 4 weeks old)
Since several people have asked about it, I figured I'd announce that Anastasia is officially out of our bed. She actually loves her new friends on the hanging mobile in her crib (though she gets mad when they stop moving, so we have to go in and wind them back up). We have a 5-10 minute bedtime routine where we'll swaddle her (she still likes it), wind up the mobile, and insert pacifier. After a couple minutes, we have to reinsert pacifier and wind up the mobile. Repeat about 2-3 times, and then she's out.
Thursday 01/16/09 (2 months + 3 weeks old)
We finally got around to taking Anastasia in for her "two month" doctor appointment. Yeah, I know, she is a week away from being three months old, but the delay didn't kill her. We'd been pretty unsure about her latest height and weight stats. The official word is 11 pounds 8 ounces, and 23 inches long. Quite a jump from birth, but not quite as high as we had thought, since she looks like such a chunker. But she did jump from being in the 5th percentile for height and weight to being in the 50th percentile, which is perfect.
The heartbreaking part of the doctor visit was that Anastasia had to get a bunch of shots. Two squirts in the mouth, and three needles in the leg. She was all happy and smiley, and then the shriek from the first needle (which was large!) Within seconds of finishing the shots, the nurse scurried out and shut the door so we could comfort her. Matt snatched her up and held her until she settled down. It didn't take long for her to stop crying, but she's been behaving differently ever since (moody, restless, sleepy) so the vaccinations definitely made her a little sick. Poor thing.
Monday 01/05/09 (2 months + 2 weeks old)
We broke in Anastasia's passport with a trip to Mont-Tremblant, Quebec. It was a 14-hour drive, so we split it up over two days. She wore a Santa suit the first day (which was Christmas Day) and she slept the whole drive. Grandma Pat visited us from Maine and got to meet Anastasia for the first time. She also babysat while Matt and I went skiing. Yesterday, we all went snowshoeing. Anastasia was strapped to Matt's chest in the Baby Bjorn. She slept through it all. Then we took her out to one of our favorite Mont-Tremblant pubs (Casey's) so that Matt could watch the Eagles game. You guessed it - she slept through that too. Despite all the sleeping, she has been awake quite a bit, and she is a huge eater these days (as you can tell by her chunker photos). She is starting to outgrow some of her newborn clothes, and she has officially moved up to size 1 diapers (from the newborn 6-10 pound diapers).
Sunday 12/21/08 (1 month + 4 weeks old)
Anastasia is under the weather. The poor thing has a very stuffy nose, so she has been snorting and choking. I tried using one of those booger suckers on her little nostrils, but it didn't work so well. She's still in good spirits, and hasn't cried about it, but she has been sleeping a lot, and it's clear her immune system is working hard.
Friday 12/19/08 (1 month + 3.5 weeks old)
I took my first trip without the baby this week. I went to Boston Tuesday - Thursday. There were certainly some logistics I had to work out. On the baby's end, she was fine with daddy because I have pretty much produced twice the milk she needs since she was born, so we have at least 500 ounces of milk in the deep freezer. Then on my end, I had to bring my pump and find somewhere to use it for 15 minutes every four hours (finding a private place with an electrical outlet is extremely challenging). Fortunately, Intel had a "nursing mothers" room which was fantastic. It was a locked room with several private partitioned areas inside. Each private space had a chair, rolling cart, electrical outlet, phone, and magazines. Then there was a fridge and a sink in the main room. Perfect!
One of the days while I was away, we had our friend Ginger watch Anastasia for four hours while Matt administered his course exam. Of course, I pulled a fretful mother move, and had typed up a one page manual for understanding all of Anastasia's signals (e.g. she sticks her tongue out when she's hungry, but if you miss that signal she'll make a unique whine that sounds like "eh eh eh". If she bucks while she's eating, it's because she needs to be burped, etc.) I was hoping to reassure Ginger that we're not that picky about sleeping or eating schedules or sterilizing the pacifier, but I'm sure the one page typed document sent another message!
Saturday 12/13/08 (1 month, 3 weeks old)
Anastasia has changed pretty dramatically lately. She used to just sleep and eat. Now she likes to do push-ups if we put her on her belly; she likes to lock her legs and "stand" if we hold her up; and she has started "cooing" more. (She used to just grunt.) She is awake for long periods now (3-4 hours) and she'll show some signs of boredom if we try to leave her alone too long. She definitely likes staring at her parents now too. If we're feeding her, sometimes she'll forget to eat because she's too busy staring at us with what we like to call "crazy eyes". Speaking of which, the jury is still out on her eye color, which is driving me crazy!
Wednesday 12/03/08 (1 month, 9 days old)
Anastasia's passport arrived today! Wow, that was fast - we just applied for it on Friday! Apparently, it is okay for babies to have their hands in the photo.
Saturday 11/29/08 (1 month, 5 days old)
Anastasia has smiled fairly regularly since she was about two days old. But here's the catch: she would only smile in her sleep and never to our face. That all changed yesterday. While Matt was holding her, she smiled at him. I was right there, so I witnessed it (I was excited and jealous all at once). Then this morning, I got up to join my running group at 6AM. When I got home, Matt announced that Anastasia had smiled at him again. I was only gone for an hour and she chose that time to smile? If she doesn't smile at me soon, I'm going to be forced to believe Matt's comments about her liking him more than me.
Friday 11/28/08 (1 month, 4 days old)
Matt's mom told me I shouldn't relay this story on my blog (or I'd be pounced by sleepy moms), but I couldn't resist. Anastasia slept eight hours straight last night! (1AM - 9AM) We couldn't believe it. We think she was just exhausted from all of the Thanksgiving Day activities. I learned in childbirth class that "sleeping through the night" actually means five straight hours of sleep, and that you should not expect that before six weeks of age. So it's official: we have the best baby ever.
Today, we took Anastasia to the post office to apply for her passport. Getting a legal passport photo was quite the ordeal. Normally I'd think $15 for a passport photo was overpriced, but the poor postal worker had to earn it. After about 10 attempts, he got one that he considered okay. (I'm still not convinced since her hands were in the photo, but I chose not to complain.) With expedited service, it was $175. But we will get it back within two weeks, and it's valid until she turns 5 years old, so it was a good investment.
Monday 11/24/08
Today is Anastasia's one month birthday. She has started to be much more alert these days. She's awake around 6-7 hours a day now (not in a row, of course), and she stares at us when we talk to her or feed her. She used to ignore us. She'd stare at the ceiling fan while we fed her, and she'd fall asleep when we held her. Babies are born recognizing their parents voices, so it's cool to think she's finally starting to recognize our faces.
Friday 11/21/08
Anastasia is 4 weeks old today! It's amazing how much she's changed. She is so much bigger and every day brings something new. She'll make a new noise or a funny face. She's still a fantastic sleeper and eater, though we're dealing with two new challenges on those fronts. First, she's started with the Exorcist-style projectile vomiting. Sometimes we suspect we overfed her (which seems hard to do with breast milk), while other times we think we put her on her back too quickly after eating. Who knows, but it often requires a bath for her and possibly us too. As for sleeping, we're trying to get her out of our bed and into the crib in her room. She always sleeps on a crib positioner pad that keeps her from rolling around (not that she can yet) and that keeps us from rolling onto her (not that we've ever come close). She manages to sleep in her crib for about 4-6 hours, but once she wakes up to eat, she won't go back in the crib. So we break down and put her back in our bed so that we all can go back to sleep. Eventually as she sleeps for longer stints, it'll mostly be in the crib.
Saturday 11/15/08 (3 weeks, 1 day old)
Today, we took Anastasia on her first road trip. We drove 100 miles east to Williamsburg to visit Anastasia's great uncle (Kim's uncle). She slept the whole way there and back. She was mostly awake during the visit, which is becoming more typical these days. She seems to stay alert for about 2 hours at a time. Anastasia's aunt LeeAnn and cousin Bailey were visiting from Phoenix, and they stayed with us for two nights. We managed to take Anastasia out for a sit-down lunch at TGI Fridays yesterday with no issues - I was able to eat while she slept, I fed her afterward, then she went back to sleep during the ride home.
Sunday 11/09/08 (2 weeks, 2 days old)
We met our running group at 7AM this morning. We had to factor in an extra 30 minutes of prep time this morning to get Anastasia fed and dressed in layers for the 37 degree morning. Anastasia's boyfriend Kieran was there this morning - he's 5-weeks old (twice her age!) Kieran, his dad Kevin, Anastasia, and I were the walking portion of the running group, and everyone else did their normal 6-mile run. Then we all met up at Greenberry's for morning coffee. Oh how I love that I can have coffee again!
Another big activity for the day was Anastasia's first bath. We weren't allowed to give her a real bath until she lost her belly button stump. Until now, we've just been giving her sponge baths, which she has hated. We expected her to hate the real bath too, but she didn't complain a bit (see the photos page). Matt made sure to point out that we don't need to bathe her every day, because I think he figured I'd be just as obsessive about cleaning the baby as I am about cleaning the house.
Friday 11/07/08 (2 weeks old)
Anastasia lost her belly button stump this morning. I missed the excitement - Matt was changing her when it rolled out. I read online that some people save these things, but that sounds pretty weird to us. Right now we have it sitting on the nightstand until we decide whether to toss it.
We took her in for her two-week checkup this afternoon. We've really fattened her up! She gained almost a pound this week, going from 6 pounds even to 6 pounds 13 oz. It's all in her new buddha belly. Matt calls her "pear shaped". That definitely didn't come from my side!
Wednesday 11/05/08 (12 days old)
A friend told me that breastfeeding burns 1000 calories a day. Nice! This is why I was able to eat the bulk of a cheesecake this week, but I'm back in my pre-pregnancy jeans. It's nature's bonus for doing the right thing.
Wednesday 10/29/08 (5 days old)
Okay, admittedly, I'm writing this several days after the whole childbirth ordeal, but I'd rate the whole thing as "totally doable". Next time, I won't hesitate on the epidural. I held out until an hour before she was born this time (partly by choice, and partly because the anesthesiologist was working on a "trouble case" before me and took 45 minutes to get to me). But the epidural converted the whole thing from a horrific train wreck to a completely pleasant experience where I could focus on what I needed to do. Granted, my labor was particularly traumatic because I was given pitocin to induce labor. Pitocin is pure evil, but it does its job. I went from 2 cm to 10 cm in a couple hours. I also went from comfortable to being in tears during that same time. But before I knew it, I was comfortable again thanks to the epidural, and when it came time to push, I had plenty of energy and she was out after only about 10 pushes.