Beach!

Last week, we took a trip to Port Aransas.  My mom, dad and sister went too.  Mira and I went last summer, but this year Brian was able to come too, so that was extra nice.  We rented a 3 bedroom condo that had a short boardwalk over to the beach, so we spent every morning playing on the beach.  Then a short walk back to the room for lunch, put the girls down for naps, then in the afternoons we swam in the pool or went back to the beach.  In the evenings after the girls were asleep, we were able to take nighttime walks in the surf.  It was really fun.  I wished it could have lasted longer.

Ellowyn liked sitting in the shallow waves.  For being only 7 months old, she did really well on the trip.  She woke up a little more often at night, but that's just to be expected at that age.  Otherwise, she was pretty happy and would tolerate about an hour or so at the beach before needing to head back to the condo for a break.  I had brought along the baby carrier that I use when we're in the pool, and I spent a lot of my beach time with her on my chest.  I'd go out into the water till it was up to my waist and the waves would come up to wash over Ellowyn's legs and body.  She enjoyed the motions that my body made while carrying her in the waves.  

It took Mira a little while to warm up to the beach experience and on the last day of our trip was when she was really starting to get comfortable with the ocean and the waves.  But she really loved playing in the sand.

We had a great time and already plan to go back again next summer.

Mira feeds Ellowyn

Mira loves feeding her baby sister.  Ellowyn cooperates nicely.

Catching up since my last post

Another month between posts.... I am seriously falling down on the job.

Ok, well... let's catch up.

Ellowyn:
We had some hiccups with the solid feedings, but it seems to be worked out now.  She went through a period where she was whining all the way through feedings to the point that I would just give up and nurse her.  I finally decided that the reason for it was that she was frustrated that she couldn't eat solids faster or get more immediate satisfaction with them.  Combine that with a terrible case of constipation that just would not clear up no matter what I tried, and we actually gave up on solid feedings for about a week there.  But she's back on now and I've figured out that the trick is to feed her when she is neither hungry nor tired.  I know.... feed her when she's not hungry.... seems counter-intuitive and more than a little superfluous, but it's what works.  Right now it's more about teaching her what solid food is all about rather than actually ingesting nutrition anyway.  

Ellowyn is also getting very mobile.  She's not crawling quite yet, but it will be very soon.  She still can't sit up unassisted, so she spends most of her time playing on her tummy.  She rolls and scoots all over the place.  Other than that, she's still sleeping great and is just doing really well overall.

Mira:
These hot hot summer days are hard on Mira.  We can't go any of the parks that we normally like to play at, I can't take her swimming unless I've got someone along to help, and in the afternoons the car gets so blisteringly hot that we can't even go anywhere in the car.  So the morning is our only time to get out of the house and then our options are pretty limited.  We've been doing lots of playdates at our friends' houses (or having friends over to our house).  It helps just to have different toys to explore.  We also do some indoor activities (museums, bouncy places, indoor playgrounds, the mall where we can ride the train and the carousel, the pet store, etc) but the options are limited.  So I've been really thankful lately that we've got Mira in a weekly gymnastics class.  It's been good for her.  It's tiring for me because I have to spot her on the equipment while I wear Ellowyn in the carrier, but still it's worth it.  She recently moved up to the older kids' class (previously she was in a class with 2 to 2.5 yr olds, now she's with the 2.5 to 3 yr olds).  I was nervous about the switch because I wasn't sure she had been at it long enough to keep up with the older kids, but she really rose to the challenge and I was surprised that she was doing so much more on the very first day with the older group.  I mentioned that to the teacher and she told me that it often happens that way because kids take cues from their peers so the older group pushes her to challenge herself.  So she's doing really well in gymnastics: forward and backward rolls, climbing on the uneven bars, flip overs (spotted) on the parallel bars, walking on the balace beam, etc.  In the last class (yesterday) she took a bad fall and busted her lip really good.  She was crying and bleeding everywhere and we went out to get ice and clean up.  Before she was even done bleeding, she was asking to go back in to class.  I was so proud of her for that!

Mira is really coming into her terrible twos.  Lots of whining and complaining and throwing fits and deliberately causing trouble.  It's getting to be a real challenge a lot of the time.  But that's a whole blog post all by itself... I may write on that soon.

Me:
I'm still working through this PPD stuff.  I don't have all the answers yet.  My GP is concerned about some vitamin deficiencies that came up in my blood work, so I'm taking additional supplements and then I'll get my blood retested in about a month.  My OB is concerned about my cycle irregularity and intensity, so he's ordered an ultrasound to check for "structural abnormalities" but I can't take it until after my next cycle so basically... who knows when.  And I'm also seeing a psychologist who specializes in PPD, is expensive as hell (we are paying her out of pocket since she refuses to deal with insurance claims), and is also utterly awesome and really seems to get me and is really helping me see some things more clearly and work through some emotions and identify some things that need to change.

Oh and I had a birthday.  It was kind of crappy, truth be told.  The day of my birthday, Brian was too exhausted from working long hours (poor guy, they're really asking a lot of him lately), so I let him sleep in and made him breakfast in bed.  Then I did get to have a nice dinner with my family and my mom took me shopping AND kept Mira overnight (thanks, mom, I can always count on you).  So that was nice.  The day after my birthday, Brian took Ellowyn and went grocery shopping for me in the morning so that was a nice break.  But after that, all hell broke loose.  Mira came home from my mom's house sick and spent the whole afternoon sobbing in my arms because she was so miserable.  Any time I would put her down she would scream bloody murder.  And all this time, I was alone and trying to deal with Ellowyn too because even though it was a Sunday Brian was back at work.  The next day our AC broke and the repair man had only bad news: we needed an entirely new system to the tune of $6000.  The entire day I was trying to juggle both girls and scheduling the repairs and finding somewhere to be that was not my hot house and still getting someone to the house when the repair guys needed someone and trying like crazy not to have to cancel my therapist appointment because they have a non-refundable late cancellation policy, so finding a babysitter who didn't mind watching a sick toddler and an infant (who was also starting to get sick BTW) and then the girls not napping because we were in a strange house even though they really needed to, being sick and all.  And a husband whose work is still being demanding so can't help much at all.  And then over the next few days, Ellowyn not sleeping well because she's sick, Brian leaving for work before we're awake and not getting home till after we're asleep... It was kind of a nightmare.

But now it's Friday.  Brian will be home from work before dinner tonight (!!!).  And then shouldn't (!!!) have to work this weekend.  And I have friends coming over on Saturday night to belatedly celebrate my birthday.  So hopefully things are getting better and I can say that I survived.

Ellowyn is 6 months old

Ellowyn turned 6 months old last week.  In some ways it feels like that half year has gone by in a blink.  In other ways, it feels like it's been forever.  But one thing is for sure: I am totally in love with this girl.  

Just like her big sister did, Ellowyn continues to slip down the growth charts: she's now 50th for length (down from 75th at 4 mo) and only 10th for weight (down from 25th at 4 mo).  As always, the pediatrician is unconcerned, he just says I have slow-growing babies.  Her head, on the other hand, is big as ever: still 90th percentile for head circumference.  

She's still sleeping great: sleeping for 12 hours at night, usually up only once a night, and napping 2-3 hours each day.  And every time I put her down for bed, she goes to sleep on her own.  She is awake and happy when I put her down, I give her her lovey and turn on her mobile, and then I leave the room.  She babbles a little bit and then falls asleep.  This is an entirely new concept to me.  With Mira, I always actively parented her to sleep: we nursed, we rocked, we sung, we cuddled, we patted.  Not with Ellowyn.  She would rather be left alone, thank you very much.  It was kind of like reverse sleep training because SHE trained US.  I would try to rock her to sleep: no way, she was not having it.  But set her down alone in her quiet room... sleeping in 5 minutes.  In some ways it's nice because I know that I can just lay her down and she will sleep if she's tired.  In other ways it's a little sad for me because I *liked* cuddling Mira and having that quiet time with her to sit and gaze into each other's eyes and sing softly in the dark and just be together, relaxed and intimate.  I don't get much of that with Ellowyn, so I really relish those brief seconds when she will let me just hold her close.

Ellowyn has started babbling a lot!  Lots of B and D sounds.  Her favorite word is "blah", which she will say repeatedly and often.  This is also something that we didn't experience really with Mira.  Perhaps that's why Mira was a late talker, but she never babbled much at all.  Not so with Ellowyn.  All that time she used to spend "singing", now is spent babbling up a storm.  It's ridiculously adorable.  

She's still not quite sitting up yet on her own; she needs a little support on the back and sides.  But she is moving all over!  She rolls in both directions and even scoots along on her belly.  Already, she's getting into things on the floor the way a crawler does because she can scoot all over the room!

As for her reflux...  A couple weeks ago, I forgot to give her a couple doses of her reflux meds and she didn't seem bothered by it.  So I just... stopped.  She still spits up, but is unperturbed by it.  Her reflux discomfort symptoms are few and far between, so I feel like it's worth it to not be medicating her any more since there is some evidence that Ranitidine (her reflux medication) inhibits calcium absorption.

And that brings us to: Eating!  After Ellowyn had an allergic reaction to avocado (!!!), we have been very cautious in what she gets to eat and when.  (She seems to just be very sensitive to environmental allergens: she had a bad reaction to HYPO-ALLERGENIC laundry detergent, too.  It's a good thing she has an OCD mommy.)  She has had baby oatmeal, acorn squash, carrot, pears, plums, and sweet potato... all with no allergic reaction.  So that's good.  And she LOVES to eat.  She literally DIVES for the spoon.  She whines if you can't shovel it in fast enough.  She thinks eating is the best thing since nursing.  

Staying cool

Ellowyn playing in some water in the baby tub while Mira eats a popsicle.  (The popsicle is homemade: when I made Ellowyn's baked peach baby food, I froze some of it with sticks in it for Mira.)  

Gymnastics!

On Friday, Mira started a gymnastics class!  She really loves it.  They do fun floor activities like playing with bubbles and scarves and bells and singing songs.  And then they do a little tumbling: forward rolls, side rolls, donkey kicks, etc.  And they also have a bunch of bars and beams and other typical gymnastics equipment and the kids get to hang and balance and swing and play on it all.  It's a parent/tot class (they don't offer solo classes until the kids are at least 3 years old) so I'm following her around and spotting her on the equipment and doing the floor activities with her so it doubles as a light work out for me!  

The teacher was really impressed with Mira's strength and how long she could hold on to the bars and hang from them.  I told her it was from all the rough-housing she did with her daddy at home!

She was fearless on the balance beam.  She climbed right up onto it and before I even noticed she was trying to stand up on it.  Luckily I got to her in time to catch her as she almost pitched forward onto her face.  The teacher quickly showed me how to spot her in such a way that she could still feel her own balance and then after that she wanted to walk both balance beams over and over.

So we've signed up for the next two months.  I really like this gym because once she turns 3, they have other class options in addition to gymnastics: dance, sports, martial arts.  So not only will she get to see those things going on at the gym, she'll also get to try them out if she is interested.

Ellowyn's first solid food

A few of days ago, we decided to let Ellowyn try solids. Mira’s first food was avocado, and it seemed to work well for her since she’s quite the little foodie now, eating almost anything even at an age where most kids get picky. So we thought: hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So Ellowyn’s first food was also avocado.

I think it went over pretty well:

I was really pleased with how she seemed to be so into it, grabbing at the spoon, opening her mouth wide for more, easily swallowing with no tongue-thrust reflex. We’ve clearly picked a great time to start her on solids, developmentally speaking.

HOWEVER...

A day after she first tried avocado she developed this red spot next to her mouth, about the size of a quarter. After it had been there for 2 days and was still red, I decided I’d better have the pediatrician take a look at it. He thinks it’s hives: an allergic reaction. And we’re pretty certain it has to be from the avocado, since we were observing the 4-day rule and so hadn’t introduced any other foods yet. (And thank goodness we did it that way because if we’d tried other foods too then we wouldn’t know what to avoid.) The doctor said that even though avocado is a food that is very unlikely to produce an allergic reaction, babies can have a reaction to pretty much anything.

So after only two avocado feedings, we’ve now stopped solids and are back on exclusively breast milk until the hives clear up completely. At that point we’ll try some other food. Cereal would probably be safest, but I’m tempted to do some acorn squash or pears or something else foodie-ish.

Just like I did with Mira, I’m making all of Ellowyn’s baby foods from fresh produce (rather than buying jars of processed food) and I’ve already made a few batches that are in the freezer ready to go: pears, plums, and carrots. Next I plan to make squash and peas.

Anyway, I’m really hoping that the next thing we try goes better. It scares me to think that she could have a more severe allergic reaction to something and her airway could close up. But the doctor says that’s unlikely and thinks we could even try avocado again in a couple months. (Apparently, sometimes babies have a reaction to something when they are younger but then their body and digestive system matures and they no longer have that reaction any more.)

Ellowyn picture spam

Here's Ellowyn in her exersaucer.  She loves it, but she's a little too skinny/wobbly for it, so we have to stuff blankets around her in the seat to keep her stable.

Ice in a mesh feeder helps with teething.  Also, it's just kinda fun.

Wearing her geektastic onesie.  You can see that she's just devastated that her parents are dressing her in such embarrassing attire.

Mira is the Potty Master.

Mira is the Potty Master.

We have not had a single accident since my last post.

So Mira had one intro day followed by two rough days, and then was completely potty trained by day 4.  I am in awe.

We've even had multiple outings: to a friend's house for a playdate, to the doctor's office, to the swimming pool, to the store.  No accidents.

At home, Mira is still mostly going bare-bottomed, but it's really just for convenience because she has been doing great wearing underwear and shorts/skirts.  She has a few pairs of shorts/skirts that she can get down by herself so we've been wearing those whenever she needs to be dressed.

As of yesterday, she was still having a lot of "false alarms" where she'd try to go but nothing would happen.  But today, the only false alarms happened while we were out of the house.  At that point I wonder how much of that was really that she thought she had to go or whether she just wanted to check out the foreign bathroom.

We're still working on using a big toilet as opposed to her little floor potty.  When we go out, the big toilets are her only option (unless we happen to be at a friend's house who has a toddler potty).  As of yet, she has not been comfortable enough on them to use them.  I've ordered a portable potty seat that will sit on the big toilet and adapt the opening to her size, but that also FOLDS UP so you can put it in your diaper bag.  (21st century mommies have the coolest gadgets!)  We'll see how she likes it once it gets delivered.

I also ordered one of those toilet seats that you put on your toilet in place of the existing seat, and it has two seat sizes built in, one little toddler sized one and one big one for adults and you just flip one seat up to use the other.  The idea is that we'll install that on one of our toilets at home and then hopefully Mira will be able to use that at home instead of the floor potty.  Cleaning the floor potty after every use is getting rather old.

The hardest part has been when Mira needs to go potty while I'm nursing Ellowyn.  Mira can do all of it herself, except wiping.  So she still needs me to come in when she's done and clean her up (and also clean her potty).  If that happens while I'm nursing Ellowyn, then I have to interrupt Ellowyn's feeding to go take care of Mira and let me tell you: Ellowyn DOES NOT like her feedings to be interrupted.  We basically listen to her scream until I can get back to nursing her.  So that's why, as much as possible, I'm trying to get Mira to be able to use the potty independently.  That's our next goal: being able to go without Mommy's help.

Mira's still in a diaper whenever she sleeps.  I figure we'll wait to bed train until she is waking up with a dry diaper at least part of the time.  Right now she always wakes up wet.  But when she's awake she has complete control.  She can even hold it, if required.  Which reminds me... the other day I was nursing Ellowyn while Mira was eating lunch and Mira told me she needed to pee.  I said, "I'm nursing Ellowyn right now.  Can you hold it?" And she responded, "Holding this spoon, Mommy."  (She had a spoon in her hand.)  Lol.

Anyway... great stuff.  Mira is awesome.  The end.

Potty training for realz

On Friday Mira started potty boot camp.

I found myself stuck at home again, unable to leave the house, partly because Ellowyn wanted to take multiple naps and partly because Mira said she wanted to stay home.  I'm so tired of being stuck at home most days.  But I figured that if I've gotta be here, I might as well accomplish something.  So when Mira said she wanted to stay home, I responded with, "Ok then it's NO MORE DIAPER TIME!"

That was about 10am on Friday morning and ever since then Mira's been diaper-less when awake.  That's the new rule: no diapers during waking hours.  And for incentive, I'm rewarding any pees/poops in the potty with a chocolate chip or an M&M.  I wanted to make the reward sufficiently small that I wouldn't mind if she had multiple in a single day.  I was hesitant to use junk food as a reward (mostly because I worry about that creating unhealthy habits later in her life), but chocolate seems to be the only thing that she's really motivated for.  (I've tried stickers and little toys and just a lot of praise as rewards for using the potty in the past, but nothing works as well as chocolate. shrug.)

She's spent most of the time since Friday morning either completely naked or wearing only a shirt.  Although we have experimented with several different kinds of training pants, for now it's just easier for her to be bare-bottomed.

Friday was day 1.  Throughout the day, I would ask her to try sitting on the potty regularly, and we'd read books while she sat on the potty.  It went really well, with only one accident and multiple pees in the potty.  But Mira did ask for her diaper back more times than I can count.  In the past, I let her have her diaper back on whenever she'd ask for it, but now if she asks for it back, I say, "You're a big girl now, so we're going to work on using the potty.  No more diapers when you're awake."  And then if she starts to get upset about it, I remind her that she can earn M&Ms by going in the potty and that turns her around and gets her excited about it again.

On that first day, we even had to make a brief trip out of the house to go to the post office.  We were gone about a half-hour and Mira wore cloth training pants while we were out.  She did a really great job and the trainers stayed dry the entire time.  At one point while we were at the post office, Mira said she needed to pee.  I looked all over, but there was no public bathroom.  So I told her I couldn't find a potty and I asked her if she thought she could hold it in the car till we got home.  She said that she could.  I asked her if she was sure and she said yes.  And then she did just that: she held it all the way home and when we got home, she went inside and sat on the potty.  (She didn't go pee right away, but I was still so proud of her.)

On Saturday (day 2) we had some set-backs.  Maybe it was because Brian was doing a lot of the potty work with her that day and he was doing things differently than I was.  Or maybe it was just because she hit some kind of hump where the novelty wore off and she was just not into it anymore.  Whatever the reason, there were a lot of accidents on Saturday and very few successes.  At one point, Brian gave up and put her diaper back on.  Of course, when I walked in and saw that, I took the diaper right back off... and Mira pitched a fit. And then after that she thought that if she just had enough accidents then she would get her diaper back.  So that was an uphill battle.

Sunday (day 3) started off a lot like Saturday.  And I was getting really frustrated because she'd have an accident less than 5 minutes after I had just made her sit on the potty and try to go.  And that's when I messed up.  I waited until I was sure she needed to pee and then I sat her on the potty and told her she couldn't get up until she'd gone pee. BIG MISTAKE. It totally backfired on me and she sat there crying for over an hour and not a single drop in the potty. I felt terrible and I totally lost face with her because it wasn't an ultimatum that I could stick to. It was all wrong. And I know it was all wrong and so I at least can be sure to never do that again. But I felt (and still feel) embarrassed and guilty about the whole thing.  Once she and I had both calmed down, I explained to her that I acted out of frustration and I shouldn't have done that and told her I was sorry. Sweet girl, she said "I'm sorry too mommy." I guess the best you can do when you screw up is to own up to it and apologize and learn from it. So if nothing else, I got the opportunity to model apologetic behavior to Mira.

Thankfully, I can say that I think a breakthrough came AFTER that incident, so it's possible that I have narrowly avoided traumatizing my daughter into wearing diapers for the rest of her life.  Later that same day, she went to the potty all on her own, no one asked her if she needed to go, she just ran over to the potty and sat down and went.

Today, (day 4) has started off great.  Two successes by 10am and no accidents.  So maybe, just maybe the hard part is done.  Also, today has yielded some great potty training Mira quotes: "There is pee inside my tummy, Mommy" and then, excitedly, "Pee is coming out of my butt!  Pee is dripping out in the potty! Yay!"

Throughout this entire time, Mira has always consistently done her number two's in the potty.  We've never had a poop accident.  Which is really great because I hear often that the poops are more difficult for many kids to master.  So we've gotten lucky in that respect.

The first goal is just to consistently use the potty when awake, with no accidents.  And I feel like we might be getting close to that.  She's using a little floor potty and mostly not wearing pants.  So then the next steps would be to try to work on using a big potty (so that she is comfortable doing that when we are out of the house) and to start wearing pants and pulling them off/on when using the potty.