Bedtime Weaning

     Although I recently mentioned there is no end in sight to Laura's nursing, I have since grown tired of nursing her at bedtime. We have already worked our way from nursing to sleep to nursing to wind down before Daddy puts her to bed. But ideally, I would like the bedtime routine to be just Daddy. Last night she was having an absolute fit at bedtime and I threw up my hands and said, "Enough is enough - I'm not nursing her at bedtime anymore!" So tonight, instead of nursing to 'wind down', we picked three stories, and I read them to her in her dimly lit room. It seemed to do the trick in transitioning her to 'bedtime mode'. She still asked to nurse after, but I told her she was a big girl and didn't need to nurse at bedtime anymore. I brushed her teeth and let Josh put her to bed. She is still awake now, but she is up there chatting away with her bears and will fall asleep on her own soon enough, probably before I finish writing this post.
     I will still continue to breastfeed her during the day, but these bedtime nursing tantrums have really turned me off. A friend of a friend said that, "Breastfeeding is great as long as it is working for both people." I thought that to be a rational stance, so I decided since bedtime nursing was no longer 'working' for me, that it would have to stop. Plus, I won't be able to nurse her every night if I am working in the evenings, and I think it is important that her bedtime routine be consistent. So, at 19 months, I guess I have technically started the weaning process; tonight is the first night of The End of Bedtime Nursing, and it's off to a good start!

Neophile

     neophile (noun) - a personality type characterized by a strong affinity for novelty

     A while ago I came across this in one of my baby books,  Amazing Baby by Desmond Morris - that all babies are neophiles; they love new things:

          It is something that is stronger in humans than in any other species. 
         Given a rich, varied and friendly environment, every toddler will 
         spend hours every day trying out new things and exploring different 
         possibilities, as she feeds her growing brain with a variety of sen-
         sations and experiences. (Morris, 130)

     I found this concept intriguing as I had noticed this to be so true of Laura. Even when she was a little baby, I remember her crying when we would come home from somewhere, and I just knew it was because she was bored of exploring our house and would rather be out and about learning new things.

     However, this past week, her neophilia has worked to my advantage:

     Laura has come to an age where she has started to remember relatively long-term things. Like ladies with pointy needles who poke her and it hurts.  After her 15-month doctor's appointment, it was requested that she come in for an extra check-up between then and her 18-month appointment. So I brought her in about a month and a half later just to have her weighed and her height measured. But she remembered the doctor's office, she remembered the nurse who hurt her, and she remembered that she did not like being there; she threw an absolute fit the whole time we were trying to take her height and weight. I began dreading her 18-month appointment where she would actually have to have another needle. But, by some twist of fate, our doctor switched offices between her weigh-in appointment and her 18-month needle appointment. And, thanks to Laura's neophilia, she was too busy exploring the new Pooh-adorned walls of the baby exam room to realize what was coming. So she did really well having her height measured and weight taken, and didn't even end up crying for her needle (to be fair her mouth was full of boob, thus making it difficult to cry). And now we are gloriously needle-free until she goes to school!! And I'm sure she will have forgotten by then. Hooray for neophilia!
(The only crappy part of this story is that she woke up in the middle of the night miserable with a huge fever and kept us up for two hours.)

Carrot Night

Just another one of those nights I want to remember... :)

     Laura had an extra long nap today, which allowed me to start dinner before she woke up. Dinner tonight was garlic bread and fresh pasta with fresh homemade tomato sauce with ingredients from the garden/ farmer's market. Mmmmm. And Josh didn't come home from work starving and grumpy - an added bonus.
     After dinner, it was hot in the house, so we all went and sat outside in our yard that we've enjoyed so much this summer. Josh and I were talking about the garden and I mentioned the carrots were almost ready. I picked some to show him how big they were. My 18-month-old who will only eat vegetables if they are cooked, pureed and spoon-fed to her proceeded to take great interest in them and munched one down all to herself. Granted, the last few bites were a little slow going and much more fun to tease the dog with (how else can she get him to chase her around the yard giggling wildly?), but I was fairly shocked she would voluntarily eat so much raw carrot of her own volition.

    
     I really just enjoyed everything about tonight: relaxed and calm dinner preparation (followed by it being delicious), enjoying our yard so much and the company of each other, having fresh food at our fingertips, and everyone actually enjoying it. Sooo nice.

It also helps that my child is, well, super adorable ;)

Daddy and Laura pondering bites of carrot

Willow enjoying a carrot top. She even tried eating the greens.

I just love garden carrots so much!

Sleep Strike

     Somewhere between 11 and 12 months old, Laura weaned herself down to one, gloriously 3-hour long afternoon nap (before that she would maybe nap for 30 minutes twice a day. It was awful.) But, last week, about four of the seven days Laura flat out refused to nap. Going from three hours to zero was a little dramatic, in my opinion, and it's not even like she could make it to her usual bedtime without crashing. I was terrified she was trying to give up naps all together until I found out that an 18-month sleep regression is not uncommon. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that we took the cardboard out of her window and the rail off the side of her crib during that week. ;) Thankfully she seems to be getting back into some semblance of a sleep routine now.     
     We are trying to transition her to a big girl bed, and we thought it was going well:

     But, apparently she was telling the truth when she said 'no'. Ha.
     Oh well, we'll try again later.

The Hippy in Me

     This past week we have been attempting another detox... though I have to admit, somewhat half-heartedly. This detox happened to fall during one of Josh's recording sessions with his buddies, one of which referred to it as "hippy food". I'm not sure if he meant it to be offensive or not, but I decided to take it as a compliment. I have always had a secret love for hippies. I love the earth, and nature, and protecting the earth, and being as natural as possible, so this post is dedicated to the hippy in me. :)

     I read somewhere that all of this new "go green" propaganda is just the newest fad... I don't really consider myself one to jump on the fad bandwagon, but if it is so, then I guess I have jumped on this one. To be honest though, I have always been on the "crunchy" side of things. My mother's influence. I grew up on a hobby farm, where we didn't have TV and ate fresh vegetables from the garden all summer. My mom is very frugal, and a lot of times that translates into hippy-like tendencies (not to mention she was a teenager in the 60's). And whether I liked it or not, many of her frugal and hippy-like tendencies were passed on to me.

My hippy-like tendencies:

• We don't have cable. Or cell phones.
• I refused to go on birth control as a teenager because I didn't like the idea of laboratory-synthesized hormones messing with what was naturally occurring in my body. It wasn't until Josh and I started dating, and he begged me to go on some kind of birth control, that I did. I wish now that I hadn't let him talk me into it (thank you for the extra 15 - 20 pounds I have never been able to get rid of, Depo-Provera!) Since Laura was born and I have been breastfeeding her, I was especially keen to avoid drugging up my system again with anti-baby hormones. Apparently the mini-pill is safe, but we have been using more natural methods of baby prevention - and guess what? They work. I also try to avoid taking any other medications (like Tylenol, etc) unless I am really miserable.
• I am still breastfeeding Laura about four times a day at 18 months and don't plan on stopping any time soon.
• We use cloth diapers and mama cloth. I can't stand creating the amount of garbage per week that we would if we used disposables.
• We recycle and compost.
• I like to repurpose items instead of throwing them out.
• We don't buy items that are individually packaged. If we need snacks like granola bars/cookies, I make our own and "package" them in reusable containers. We try not to buy bottled drinks/ juice boxes, either.
• We generally eat things prepared from scratch. Laura has never tasted jarred baby food.  
• We try to eat organically grown foods as much as possible, not only because they are better for us, but because they have a less terrible impact on the environment in their production.
• We grow some of our own veggies.
• We do not use fertilizers in our garden/ on our lawn. And we use a reel mower.
• We use soap nuts instead of laundry detergent. I am planning on switching to wool dryer balls, as well. 
• We try to buy or make natural cleaners for kitchen and bath, and avoid disposable cloths/ mops.
• We only own one vehicle and Josh bikes to work most days so a lot of the time our van goes unused.
• We are still rear-facing Laura in her carseat, and will be for a while. 
• I avoid sunscreen at all most costs, and generally don't use hand creams or lotions, either. (Now I just need to wean myself off of nail polish and chapstick.) :)
• I don't shower every day. Apparently it's better for your skin.
• I go barefoot all summer. Sandals only if I am going out in public.
• I only use deodorant if I'm going out. Something about slathering weird, who-knows-what kind of chemicals right adjacent to my milk-making glands bothers me.
• My outlook on the world is generally in agreeance with the old hippy slogan, "Make love not war".

So there you have it. Self-proclaimed hippy.

18 Months

     18 MONTHS:

• 1 bottle of baby shampoo
• 7 40L bins of baby clothes
• 8 doctor's visits
• 260 loads of laundry
• 546 nights of interrupted sleep (minus maybe like 10)
• 3820 diaper changes
• 5694 photos 
• infinite amount of love

     Yesterday, our little monkey turned 18 months old. 

     Now, I have considered her a toddler for a while... but a baby toddler. ;) I think the general consensus though, is that by 18 months your baby is officially a toddler. There are so many things that remind me every day that she is growing up so quickly. The other night we randomly decided to go to McDonald's since we were out and about at dinner time, and we ordered her her very first own meal. A cheeseburger Happy Meal with chocolate milk. And she even ate most of it. This was very emotional for me for some reason. I guess because she is, like, officially a kid when you have to order her her own meal.
     In the last two months, she has been increasing her vocabulary almost daily. She has well over 40 words by now, I'd say. It is so much easier to communicate with her now (which is great) but at the same time, it's just another one of those things that reminds me that she isn't a baby anymore.
     We are going on vacation next week, and when we come home and are settled back into routine we are planning on taking the rail off her crib. I'm thrilled that she is becoming more independent and learning/ doing new things, but I don't know quite how to describe this feeling I have about her leaving babyhood behind.
     Another sad fact about the 18 month mark is that I am going to have to go back to work now. I rationed my maternity leave money so that I would be able to stay off longer, but sadly, it is almost gone now, and I have a student loan to finish paying off. So back to work I go. Hopefully I will be able to pay it all off before #2 arrives (don't get too excited, there is no #2 yet, we're still in the planning stages), or at least be able to finish paying it with maternity leave money then. The plan right now is to get a waitressing job in the evenings (probably part-time) so Josh can stay home with Laura and we won't have to pay for/ send her to daycare. Wish me luck! (Or just give me $15 grand...) :)
  
Happy 1 1/2 Birthday, Laura!

PS I don't know why Photobucket won't let me add the 17 month caption... also thanks to Josh for helping me embed the slideshow <3

Night Away

     This weekend, at just shy of 18 months, Josh and I left Laura overnight for the first time. One of Josh's good friends was getting married, and when we had spoken with the bride and groom earlier this year about whether or not Laura was invited, they said it was fine, "It's not like she's an infant anymore." Hmmm, I thought, if you think our one-year-old is going to be less disruptive than an infant... yeah. I'd rather not be the one to break it to you (on your wedding day, no less) that one-year-olds are hell raisers. So, we decided for the sanity of the bride and groom, as well as our own (mainly mine, since I would likely be the one chasing her around all night) that she would not be joining us. 

     Since Grandma had been bugging to keep her overnight anyway, the new plan was that Laura would be having a sleepover there. Although she is comfortable with my mom, I worried about her because for the last few months she has been going through the shy/ stranger anxiety phase; I don't think she was at a good point developmentally for me to leave her for so long when she felt this insecure. BUT at the same time, after 18 months I felt due for a night off! And I was really looking forward to having some 'adult only time'. So, after going over a lengthy instruction manual on how to operate my child, off we went, leaving Laura at Grandma's. I cried a little when we drove away. And then again when someone brought it up at the wedding. But then I was okay, and actually even started having fun. :)
     The wedding was held at a small resort nestled beautifully amongst the pine trees on the shores of a small lake - a very intimate and rustic setting. We arrived for the ceremony with little time to spare, as Josh informed me as we were getting ready to leave the hotel (we weren't able to stay the resort, sadly, due to financial constraints) that he had left his dress shoes at work. So we made a short pit-stop to rectify that situation, putting our arrival time within minutes of when the ceremony was to start. But, we didn't miss anything, so all was well. The ceremony was held outside overlooking the lake, and although the forecast was threatening thunderstorms, the rain held off until after dinner.

The ceremony was really lovely, and the bride was beautiful.

 

 

 

 

They released butterflies as part of the ceremony. So pretty!

 

     After the ceremony and the wedding party had snuck away for photos, we had dinner in the lovely chalet overlooking the water. Everything was really nice. We stayed until midnight or so and then drove back to the hotel. After a night of very little sleep (but probably not for the reason you're thinking of) we headed back to the resort for the Farewell Breakfast. It was really great being able to get together with all of Josh's friends for the weekend. 

     After breakfast we drove back to my mom's place to pick up Laura. Although I didn't really miss her, I was looking forward to seeing her (and nursing!). When we walked in, she came straight over to me, put her arms up to be picked up, and said, "nursing". LOL. I guess that's all I'm good for. Honestly, I was expecting a little more of a reaction than that...
     She was very tired as she had a late/ short nap, and didn't go to bed for Grandma until 11:30. So, we packed up all our things and headed out. She crashed very shortly after I started the car. Once we got home she seemed her normal self again... until it was time for bed. Mommy and Daddy were very tired and wanted to go to bed early. Going to bed early seemed like a good idea for Laura, too. Except she wouldn't go to sleep. I seemed to have broken our relationship and her trust in me that I would be there for her in the morning. She wouldn't let me leave. Poor monkey. It took a good hour of her crying and me reassuring her over and over that I wouldn't be leaving until she would go to sleep. But she ended up sleeping for about 14 hours once she did. 

    I guess I don't really know how I feel about the whole situation, still. It was very nice to enjoy adult company, but I feel guilty because Laura seemed so disrupted by it all... :/ hmph.