Sleep training?

My little Jah was 6 months old last Thursday.  I celebrated by turning off the baby monitor.  Of course I still hear her and I still wake up when she cries in the middle of the night, but we are one step closer to emancipation. 

Thing is, I am a sucker and I don't really believe in sleep training while the child is still breastfed.  And listening to experienced moms, the kids don't really sleep through the night, meaning a nice 10-12 hours like the Bisousette, until they are weaned, unless you are especialy lucky.  

So I will continue to yawn and wear two sizes larger than I like for a few more months.  Partly because the sleep deprivation really saps my motivation to do anything but survive and go to work, and partly because I just don't lose the last of the weight until the baby is weaned. 

Sacrifices we moms make!

Bad Blogger!

A whirlwind combination of halloween, daylight savings, grading papers for my class, a weird shadow and high pitched buzzing sound on my home computer I'm fairly certain was designed to happen by Michael Dell to force me to buy a new laptop after two years, the need to complete 10 continuing education credits (including 4 legal credits) to renew my medical license and figuring out how to bill insurance companies has left me VERY busy.  And tired.   

Today I've graded all my outstanding papers and  completed 6 of my 10 needed CMEs, so I can breathe a little easier.  

I'll be around.

Don't lose faith.

Jah is the best baby ever but since she goes to sleep at 6:30 she still needs to be breastfed at 3am and 5am and who could blame her?  It's my fault for not being able to go back to sleep at 3am, right?

Potato leek soup

Just now I completed this potato and leek soup recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini.  I picked the recipe due to its simplicity - potatoes, leeks, salt, pepper, and water.  Since Mr. Bisous drinks his coffee black and I drink tea, we usually don't have any cream around for creamy soup recipes.  While we have thyme, basil, and oregano growing in the sun room, I don't plan ahead enough to think - hmmm, maybe I'll buy leeks at the farmer's market this Saturday and we can have soup with potatoes, so let's pick up a hank of rosemary.  

My first impression - hmmm.  Needs more salt.  Added salt.  Hmmm, tastes like watery potato.  But then I added in the reserved micro-sliced bits of fresh green leeks along with a few "resolute twists" of the pepper mill and SHAZZAM!  Awesome leeky flavor and texture.    So if you are tempted to leave off either of those steps, do not!  Soups and french cooking require a level of sophistication and care I'm not quite used to.  But every now and then I get it right despite myself. 

 

The best things about farmer's markets

1) Takes up the morning and uses up a lot less cash than Target

2) Talking to the farmers about how to prepare yummy food

3) Meeting the neighbors

4) You can throw 5 different kinds of apples or potatoes in the same bag because they are all the same price, unlike at the grocery store where every variety has its own code and separate bag and price.

5) Red, white, and blue potatoes!

6) Radishes.  Never thought I would crave radishes, but this weekend I got a bunch of radishes and a bunch of dill and threw them together in the processor with some salt and a single glop of mayonnaise and - wow!  Awesome dip for veggies, spread on crackers, or sauce for cold whole wheat pasta.

7) Tomatillos, red onions, a jalepeno, cilantro, salt and pepper for yummy, barely spicy pico that the toddler will eat

8) Fresh bunches of flowers cheaper than at the grocery store, and they last longer.

 

Toy redux

The Bisousette is getting plenty of joy out of the baby toys the second time around.  Like when she puts the entire baby gym on her head and runs around "My hat, mama!  Look at my hat!"  Today we brought up the exersaucer, and Bisousette immediately demanded to be put in it.  I ignored the warnings about not putting anyone who can walk in it, and right now she is sitting and spinning and playing with the buttons and basically enjoying the thing to pieces.  When she was a baby, all she ever did was gnaw on it. Gotta love the age inappropriate toys.  We knew when we were having a second girl that we would get double use out of all those pretty clothes.  Getting triple use out of the toys is just a bonus.

 

Snoopy Steve
The property manager at my new business site makes me very nervous and paranoid.  And I'm a good person who doesn't do anything wrong.  Today Mr. Bisous (who is at the office finishing up some work we had to do to make the office HIPAA compliant) was throwing out some stuff, and among the things that ended up in the pile to throw out was the sign blank that was up before the sign-person put our new business name out in front of the office park.  Snoopy Steve, property manager, swung by to check out who was using the dumpster and grilled Mr. Bisous as to how the sign got into the garbage pile.  He had no clue, nor do I - maybe our office manager or my partner threw it out?  He also posted a note on our door saying we need a building permit for the work we were doing (we don't because it is basically a glorified receptionist desk with no electrical, structural, or plumbing work) and was very intense about the signage on our window (we got a note saying our signage was possibly too large even though we hired the guy he recommended AND told the sign guy to make our sign just like everyone else's sign)... ah, the woes of being a business owner.

Hunger pangs

It was a nutty day as I had to bring the small ones to IKEA, where Lily always has a meltdown.  I don't know if they pipe in a high pitched noise to irritate dogs and toddlers there or what.  We were picking up stuff for the new office (hello end tables in faux walnut for $7.99 apiece), and by the time we got through the winding maze of materialism (by the end we had a furniture cart and a regular cart with Bisousette in the cart and Jah in the Baby Bjorn and thank heavens a nice man held the elevator for us or we would all still be at IKEA), we were all tired.  But then we had to go put the end tables together, and by then it was nearly Bisousette's nap time.  I could go home and cook something, or we could stop somewhere, and somehow the Bisousette knows what "McDonalds" is even though we've been there maybe 4 times her entire life, mostly while I was pregnant with Jah.  I don't even let Bisousette watch commercials, so those McDonalds marketing peeps are pure geniuses.  We passed by a McDonalds, though it was on the wrong side of the road, and Bisousette points and tells me "There's 'donalds, Mama, and we get fries." 

We stopped at another 'Donalds nearer the house.  (Fast food is crap in New England, btw.  It's like they've never heard of Arbys or Wendys and every corner has a McDonalds and a Dunkin Donuts.  There's not even anything to eat at Dunkin Donuts that won't make your arteries rigid and your pancreas lose its will to produce insulin).  I got a two cheeseburger meal.  Then, for some reason, I added an extra quarter pounder with cheese.  And I ate them!  Well, Bisousette had most of the fries and most of one of the cheeseburgers.  

Now, I hadn't had lunch in about three days because I've been hard at work starting up the new business.  I've been eating a lot of fruit and veggies from the farm stand.  And I've lost >50 pounds in 5 months.  And I suppose I'm hungry.

But still!  'Donalds got me good today.  Sorry, arteries.

 

Adorable Ignorable Jah

As the second child and the sibling of an intensely social 2 yr old, little 5 month old Jah gets the short end of the stick.  I mean, she does get to snuggle with Mama most mornings for an hour or two, but other than that, she spends most of her time in her swing, in the bouncy seat, in the car, or on the floor.  Her favorite place, oddly enough, is the floor.  Or maybe not so odd because she can roll around and bat at her toys.  She doesn't fuss much except when she is hungry.  Otherwise sometimes she wants a boo bah boo or a song or two, then you can put her down again.  If she is fussy and you have to ignore her because certain toddlers have to be fed/rescued/entertained/taken upstairs and put in crib for naptime/ or you have to do laundry or want to vacuum just one more room, about 75% of the time when you come back to pay attention to Jah, she has fallen asleep.  She'll sleep anywhere and quite often does.  You can ignore Weissbluth's dire advice to NEVER WAKE a sleeping baby, because when she does wake up as you take her out of the car seat, or when the toddler decides to practice screeching, or when a major car accident/murder/crowd on TV is too loud, she goes right back to sleep once you rectify the awakening situation. 

In other words, Jah is one of those babies that trick people into having more babies because newborns are so easy.  

This morning, Jah was asleep on the floor (and I even managed to scootch her over from her little pool of drool before she fell asleep in it), and I vacuumed right next to her head, and she never even woke up.  That's a cool baby.

Sometimes I feel a little guilty about how much more attention the Bisousette got - that child took constant attention and care as a newborn and baby.  She's actually much easier as a toddler than she was the first year of her life.  However, Jah seems perfectly happy to swing and snooze and watch the toddler, cats, and family go about their daily business.  She doesn't like strangers or crowds, which is a little different.  Bisousette was always on her best behavior when there were plenty of people around.  Jah's only fussy days are when there are visitors.  I'll actually take her up to her crib to nap so she can get away from it all.

One more interesting thing about being a mother of two, including a baby, is that I was so used to Bisousette getting all the attention.  She's an attractive child with a very social temperament, and she knows exactly how to manipulate the willing adults in any situation (grocery store, restaurant, etc.)  When I'm wearing Jah in the Bjorn and Bisousette sits in the cart, and someone says "Oh, how cute!" I automatically assume they are talking about Bisousette.  Then "how old is your baby?" or some other comment makes me realize, oh, they are looking at Jah.  Loveable Jah who is very adorable indeed with her big cheeks and refined baby features, but not unusual-looking as Bisousette was with her enormous cheeks and gorgeous eyes and hair.   Not that I think Jah is less attractive than the Bisousette, no indeed, she is as lovely as babies get in my biased opinion.  They are just different looking, and Bisousette's appearance has always sparked comments from others from day one.  The Bisousette doesn't seem to mind sharing attention.  Her self-image is positive, after all, and she thinks Jah is as cute as everyone else does.  So win win, I suppose. All of this is incredibly shallow, but what mom doesn't want cute little girls?  As long as they are smart, well-behaved, and amazing in every other way too?   

They learn to speak, y'all!

Bisousette opens a drawer in the kitchen and pulls out a place mat.

"Look, Mama!  It's a carpet!"

"That's not a capret, sweetie.  It's a place mat."

"It's not a place mat, Mama.  It's a carpet."

"It's like a carpet.  Place mats are like carpets that go on a table."

"Carpets don't go on the table, Mama.  They go on the floor."

 

Children? What children?

Birthing a new business is time consuming, y'all.  We don't have any new photos of Jah in like, forever. 

I did have the oportunity to curse PCs and call IT this week.  I secretly love to call IT because there are few people geekier than a psychiatrist, and an IT specialist fits the bill.  This may be why I also love meeting with my accountant twice a year.

Anyway, we have an IT crew for the new business!  And they are geeky!  And awesome! Liam IT guy resurrected the languishing hardwired FIOS in the walls of our new office. And in the process discovered that the Verizon numbskull who set up the service managed to crosswire the internet and phones (plug a "cat 5" ie ethernet cable into the cat 5 port, and 2 phone lines go out!  Verizon tech support: are you certain that you didn't put the ethernet cable into the phone line?  Business partner: you are aware that an ethernet cable is considerably larger than a phone line and therefore would not fit into the phone jack,yes? - Verizon tech support person goes into list of "idiot" supporting characters in starting a business, along with credit card machine man, who could not figure out the meaning of 10%.  And he's like, a banker, dude.)

In the awesome list of small business support characters:

citizens bank managers (so cute and friendly and managed to set up our account despite the crappy  beta version of account software they'd been  handed that day)

Paychex payroll perky sales associate.  So perky!  And helpful!  Such a great service for small business!  Sign me up!

Ezclaim tech support - who several minutes after our phone call called me back just to make sure  that I understood exactly how to arrange the billing of our practice to make it as cheap as possible.

Used office furniture and craigslist - some things you should spend money on.  Office furniture is not one of those things.

Mr. Bisous - who is building the reception area of our office.  For free, because he is just that awesome.