Today Molly yelled out “Put the flag up!” to Kit, Claire, and me. We all heard exactly the same thing. She clearly wanted us to hoist some sort of flag, but she would not expand on the idea. What kind of flag? Where to display it? She only followed with, “Baaa ba ba ba baaaaa. Pft pft pft.”
Hi Dada
Okay, okay. I know this does not count as officially talking. It was a pure accident, or something like that. But this morning when I walked into the room where Molly was sitting on the floor, she looked right at me and said, “Hi Dada.”
Then she proceeded to say, “Ba ba ba aba. Haaaaaaah. Da da da.”
Then she spit up a little bit.
Out for a Walk
Yesterday on the way home from school, Claire said, “Maybe tonight, after we do all our work and stuff, we could go for a walk.” I don’t know what inspired this. Maybe the new neighborhood? Maybe all the walking we did on our vacation in Florida a couple of weeks ago? Maybe the beautiful spring weather? It was brilliant how she framed it as “after we do all our work and stuff” so I would not object or say, “Well, sorry, but we don’t have time”. Not that she had to convince me. A walk in our new neighborhood on a nice spring evening? I was sold!
I did tell Claire that there was not much time for a walk, so we would have to eat dinner quick. Claire said yes, but we should not eat too fast because we did not want to get food stuck in our throat. When dinner was done, Claire and I got geared up for our walk. Claire suggested that Kit stay at home because Molly, who was asleep, would not want to be left all alone. Wow. Claire had all the angles figured out.
Claire and I took a 10-minute walk around the corner and back. We talked mostly about street walking safety, the plants and trees, and some of the pretty houses. Claire wanted to go longer, but we needed to get her back for bath & bed.
Tonight, Claire suggested we go for a walk again. This was not a bath night, so we had a little more time. This time Claire wanted to go for a longer walk and bring along her water bottle in case she got dehydrated. We brought along Muffin this time too, as per Kit’s suggestion. A block or so out, Claire said she wanted to run to get more exercise. So Claire, Muffin, and I jogged down the street. After another block or so, Claire asked for some of her water, and Muffin was panting a lot. We did intervals the rest of the time, walking a block, jogging the next, and so on for about 15 minutes. This was all Claire’s idea. She said exercise is really important, and kids and adults should do it every day. I really don’t know where she is getting this crazy information.
The Petite Ninja
Molly is really getting around at school, where we has free reign to explore. She can’t crawl yet, but somehow she finds her way from one side of the room to the other without anyone actually seeing her do it. We think she uses a complex series of rolls to get herself from one place to another, probably taking a break when she catches anyone’s attention. She moves around so much, and so invisibly, that the teachers have dubbed her The Petite Ninja!
(I would have included a silly picture of a petite ninja, but alas, all the top image hits are for something called The Petite Ninja Warriors on “America’s Top Model”. Sigh.)
Helping Hand
Claire offered to feed Molly her solids this morning. Claire did not want to simply “help” feed Molly. She wanted to just do it herself. Claire has been on a real helping kick lately, wanting to help fix dinner, wanting our help to clean up her room, etc. Claire had been pretty good with some limited Molly feeding in the past, and frankly I could use an extra hand with things, so I decided to turn Claire loose to feed Molly. She poured Molly’s pureed carrots into a little bowl, got a baby spoon, a set up shop in front of Molly, who I had already sat down in her feeding chair wearing a bid.
It went really well. Claire did a careful and thorough job feeding Molly, even cleaning up the food mess as she went, and Molly got lots of carrots. See for yourself. (The sound seems to be missing for some reason. I think my camera phone is messed up. It’s not big deal, though, since everyone was mostly quiet anyways.)
No Hoax
The recent positive changes to Molly’s sleeping pattern are sticking (for now), after a temporary setback.
Molly got sick again a few days ago, and all the congestion and drainage was bugging her in her sleep. She had three tough nights, tossing and turning and waking up every hour or two. She was not sleeping much at school either during the day, and she was getting to be a bit of a mess.
Then, once her health improved, and we moved her out of her swaddle so she could position herself any way she wanted, she started sleeping like a maniac. On Wednesday night, she slept 12 hours, from 7 pm to 7 am! This is the famed “7 to 7” holy grail of baby sleeping that several other baby parents have told me just happened magically one day to their babies. (I don’t remember how or when this happened with Claire; I guess it wasn’t quite as momentous of an event). Molly is also falling asleep easier now without the swaddle. As long as the timing is right, I just turn on the white noise, cuddle with her while I sing Rock-a-bye Baby a few times, and put her in her crib. She usually throws herself on her side and falls asleep right away.
Proving it’s not a fluke, Molly has kept this 7 to 7 pattern up for the three nights since. The one gotcha is that she consistently wakes up one hour into her sleep, right during Claire’s own bedtime routine. Last night, Kit was out of commission, so I had to let Claire finish up her own teeth and hair brushing by herself and then watch a little extra TV while I went upstairs and soothed Molly back to sleep. There were no complaints from Claire on the extra TV!
Stomach Sleeper
Molly has been waking up around 4 am for a while now. It doesn’t matter if we put her to bed early or late, or how much she eats the night before; she usually wakes up around 4 am regardless. She starts talking and stirring. When we check on her, her eyes are normally wide open and she is smiling or even giggling when she sees us. Any other time of day, this is a very sweet sight. But not at 4 am! Go back to sleep! It’s 4 am! I am always repeating this mantra to Kit. I don’t want to see a giggling baby at 4 am. And of course it takes a while, sometimes 30 to 60 minutes, for Molly to fall back asleep. More often than not, I don’t get really back to sleep; I just dose until 6 am. If I feel peppy, I just get up early and get a few things done.
But last night was a different. Rather than the usual light babbling and stirring 4 am, Molly woke up really crying. When I checked on her, she was laying on her stomach. Now, we always put her to sleep on her back to help avoid the SIDS and what not. But tonight she had rolled herself onto her tummy in her sleep and sounded rather annoyed by it. I rolled her back on to her back (SIDS and what not) and gave her a pacifier because I really wanted to get back to sleep. Molly suddenly flipped herself back on her tummy and then immediately fell asleep, eyes closed and not a peep! This is the first time she has ever gone back to sleep that fast! And for the first time in memory, Claire woke me up that morning rather than Molly, and at 7 am no less! Molly was still sound asleep on her tummy until 7:30, shattering any past sleep-in records.
Perhaps I should be cautious about jinxing this, but this seems the like sleep breakthrough I had been waiting for. I dare to hope that this is the beginning of better and longer sleeping for Molly (and for me and Kit). Of course, I know better than that. Babies are notoriously unpredictable. Just when you think you have them figured out, they’ll throw something new at you. But I can say for sure that I enjoyed sleeping in until 7 am at least this one morning!
Moving Beds
We have been talking with Claire a little bit about moving to a new house this summer. She does not seem concerned about it. In fact, from her experience this is just business as usual. This will be the fourth house and third city for this four-year-old! She probably just thinks we move every year, like some sort of migrating animal.
There is a possibility that we may put Claire and Molly in a room together in our next house. Claire’s reaction varies wildly from time to time, from excitement to defiance. Last night was the later. “I will never, ever, ever share my room! Don’t put anyone else in there with me! Okay?” She was in sort of a bad mood at the time.
Claire has also been using her newly apparent problem-solvig skills to try to arrange everyone. One of her early suggestions was to move her bed into the room with me, Kit, and Molly. Or we could leave Molly downstairs in the guest bedroom and let Claire move up with us. “Or maybe we should move your and Mommy’s bed into my room,” she said peering into her room to size it up. “Actually, it might not fit. My room is kind of small. Hmm.” Anyways, you can see the theme. Claire would prefer to sleep in the room with us. After all, Molly is still in the room with us, mostly due to space concerns. This inequity will be corrected in the new house though. Unfortunately for Claire, the solution will be to move Molly out of our room instead of Claire moving in!
(Re)discovery Green
Kit was on call this week, and her mom came up to help out in case things got crazy like they did last time. I took the opportunity to take Claire to Houston this weekend to see my parents while Kit, her mom, and Molly stayed back in Austin. Claire was really excited about the trip and kept asking when we were going to Houston. In particular, she wanted to get back to Discovery Green, where were were rained out by a sudden thunderstorm last time we visited.
This time the Discovery Green visit was without incident. I could tell you exactly what we did, but maybe pictures would tell a better story.
McG Kids 