Happy 4th!

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays.  For one, it's not shoved near all the other holidays (except mother and father's day, but those aren't really holidays - you don't get the day off work or anything).  It has an actual celebration associated with it (unlike, say, labor day).  And there are Pretty Explosions.  We're spending the day with in-laws up in New Hampshire.  Well, Mr. Bisous is working.  Usually we have a cool party to go to on the shore, or a cool party to go to on a rooftop in Boston overlooking the big fireworks, but our shore friends were working this weekend, and our Boston friends have a new baby and aren't throwing that party this year.  

Random whine - Mr. Bisous will never figure out that sprinkling comet in the toilet is NOT the same thing as cleaning the toilet.  It's just not in his best interest to figure it out, and I'm not going to let the toilets get filthy to teach him that lesson, as if he wouldn't have learned it in his bachelor days if he would have learned it at all.  All right.  End of whine.

Child growth and development - the moose will be two months old tomorrow!  I can't believe it.   She seems to be twice as big as when she was born, but of course she isn't.  Still, she is a third again as big, and I remember my mind being blown with how fast they grow when they are wee.  She also has filled out her cheeks to proper Bisous Baby proportions, and I keep getting deja vu, because she looks almost exactly like the Bisousette did around that age - she just has less hair.  It helps that she wears most of the same clothes her sister did.

Bisousette is awesome, as usual.  Still tempermental, but one can call her "spirited" rather than "a pain."  Sometimes she even says "yes" instead of "no no no."  Which is good, because she still won't be two for another week.   I'm a little flustered with how fast she learns things - I'm running out of stuff to teach her with anything remotely resembling age-appropriate books or toys.  She knows all the basic colors (and has started branching out to gold, tan, etc.), can say her numbers up to 20 (though she can't reliably count things past three), knows all her uppercase and lowercase letters by sight and can fairly reliably sing the alphabet too.   Parking lots are a minefield, because she wants to read all the letters and numbers on the license plates.  I've started to teach her words - so far she can sight-read "car," "mom" and "monkey."  She also knows that TEXAS spells Texas, but rather like a cheerleader might.  She's beginning to speak more in sentences, though often gets the words in the wrong order.

She seems to have no interest in potty training, though I think she could do it once she realizes that the toilet it not punishment.  She knows when she is about to to need the bathroom - she just runs off into another room so we can't whisk her to the toilet.  I've tried to convince Mr. Bisous to build a tiny toilet for the small curious george doll to sit on while Bisousette sits on her baby toilet seat, but so far he hasn't made one. :)

 

Another milestone

Bisousette did the inevitable this morning - she locked herself in our bedroom as I was vacuuming in the hallway.  Of course, we don't have a key to any of the bathroom or upstairs locks.  Not that you need a key, exactly, but you do need a bit of metal the right size and shape to fit into the dopey push-button lock holes.  Bisousette has not figured out how to open doors yet, so she was really no help.  However, I was able to MacGyver a paperclip into the proper shape and set the beastie free.  Beasties, actually, as both cats were locked in the room with her, which must have been great laughs for them. 

In other developments, the moose is sleeping in her crib like a champ.  The only downside is that instead of waking up at 4:30 and 7:30am, as she had been doing, she now wakes up at 2:30 and 5:30.  And I totally have to take back what I said in the past about crib bumpers.  I thought they were stupid, ugly, and useless.  However, the moose is far more mobile and ooches around the crib like crazy.  No matter which way I put her down, she ends up on her right side, facing the room, in the bottom corner of the crib.  After a few times finding her with her head hitting the bars, or her foot sticking through, I went out and purchased some Target brand crib bumpers.  They don't look so bad.  Except that the baby looks like an inmate in a padded room - but a polka-dot padded room, with exterior brown and green stripes which match her walls nicely. It'll be a shame to take those things down when she starts climbing, which at the rate things are going physically for this child, should be some time next month.  (I'm exaggerating a touch.  Just a touch).

Finally

I think I'm losing a pound a week at this point.  So total pounds lost to date - 41.  The baby is 8 weeks old today - 56 days. 

Pounds left to lose for pre-preg weight?  21

Pounds left to lose for pre-wedding weight?  31

21 isn't so bad at 1 pound a week, though I know it slows down, then speeds up as the baby is weaned.  

Oh, whatever.  I just can't eat like too much of a jerk for now.  And keep lifting and walking, and hopefully in another month I'll be able to bounce as the amount of prolactin in the system chills out and the milk bar isn't quite so full all the time.

Going back to work

I went by the office for a few hours to sort through the huge pile of mail that accumulated over the past month.  Everyone was very glad to see me, which isn't always a good sign. 

It would be nice to stay longer at home with the baby, but mortgage calls.  I remember this from last time - it's rather a cruel irony that once the baby gets interesting, all cooing and smiling and lifting her head, it's time to go back to work.  If I were in some European socialist country or Canada I would have a government job (being a doctor), and I would get a crapload of maternity leave.  

Not that I would be the best stay at home mom, by any means.  Bisousette has watched more Dora episodes streamed netflix than I care to admit.  She's taken to shouting "NO SWIPING" at random intervals during the day.  (Swiper the fox, a Dora character... ah, if I have to explain it, your life is much better not knowing.)  And the baby spends a lot of time in the neglectoswing.  But she loves it.  

Crap, I have to go find my checkbook to pay the nanny for the week.

Fitness mom

For the second day in a row, both little angels are napping upstairs in their respective cribs at the same time.  And I've done my working out for the day (some DDR) - and I'm sore from doing weights yesterday.  It's one thing to be a spry young single thing limping into work sore from a tough work-out.  It's another thing to be sore, and then have to lug around a toddler and a baby and clean the house.  However, vacuuming helps loosen the hamstrings all tightened up from the first deadlifts in several months. 

(I can't wait until I go back to work and save up enough money to get a maid service again.)

 

Evening fuss update  - we've figured out over the past several days that the best way to soothe the baby during her evening fussiness is to put her down.  Which is the polar opposite of all the advice and my experience with Bisousette.   You have to keep moving her around - meaning 20 minutes in her crib watching her mobile, 45 minutes in the swing chair, 20 minutes sitting next to you on the couch, maybe after a while eating a bit... but holding her (unless you can keep up a brisk walk, brisker than is comfortable inside) only makes her keep crying. Hmmm.

I owe you a coke

I totally jinxed the baby's sleep habits with my entry a few days ago.  That night she slept rather poorly, but has since reverted to her earlier habits.  In fact, I'm going to put her in her own crib tonight.  We're practicing with a nap in her crib this afternoon.  Thus far she has slept in her swing chair, on the couch cradled in the dangerous arms of her boppy, on our bed, and (a couple times) in her bassinet.  She has really outgrown the bassinet, and makes herself nutty by kicking and hitting the sides of the thing (she can whack her parents with her newborn windmill arms without bother, but the bassinet, another story.  And the swaddling just hasn't worked out as yet, so I don't swaddle her.)

I'm sure her not being in the crib yet is my problem, not hers.  One, the glider was in our room from the "early days" where you really can't breastfeed and have them in a crib in another room.  Two, I'm still paranoid from reading that blog about the baby who died of SIDS.  But I'm going back to work next week, and I just can't be awake at night listening for the baby's breathing anymore, and that's what I'm doing after her one and only waking period between 3 and 4 am at night.  I have to remember the best thing I did for the Bisousette was to turn off the monitor.  I could hear her crying if I needed to.  I'll keep the monitor for now for the little moose, but it's getting to the point where she would possibly roll over back to front (she's been rolling front to back for about 3 weeks), and we can't keep her safely in our bed with the foam mattress topper.

It really is incredible, the different temperaments of the two offspring.  I remember having all these routines and things to do with the Bisousette as a baby.  There were 10 different ways to get her to stop crying.  Mobiles, trips outside, pacing, walks in the sling and carriage and baby bjorn, 15 different lullabies to sing to her that I learned by heart.  A spot to entertain her in every room for every daily task we had to do - the car seat in the kitchen that could be rocked as we ate or cooked.  The bouncy chair in the bathroom as I got ready or took a shower.  The swing chair for naps.  Every moment we had to figure out how to entertain her, or else there would be screaming and screaming.  We got to be very good at it, or I did.  I didn't think she was too difficult or colicky because she didn't cry 3 hours at a time - because we were always engaged in ways to keep her from crying.  Toddlers require this sort of attention, in a way, and for some parents, I'm realizing, this is the first time they might require it, which would be a rude awakening.

I don't have to have a special place for the moose when I take a shower.  This morning she woke up and blinked at me as I was getting ready to take it.  I told her to go back to sleep, I would just take a minute, and she closed her eyes.  I've never stepped out of the shower to a screaming baby.  She just takes the world as it comes, for the most part, with the only exception being in the early evening.  It also pays to ignore her cranking (not screaming, just cranking).  With the Bisousette, ignored cranking meant longer periods of screaming.  With the moose, it means she's awakened in the middle of her nap, and she's going to sleep for another hour and a half.  

With so much less irritability, it's been exciting to see her little personality wake up much more quickly from that spastic alien newborn stage.  She loves being sung to, she loves to cuddle, as babies do.  She loves looking at herself in the mirror, sucking on her fingers, when she can get them, and mobiles and lights.  Bisousette loved all these things, but spent a lot less time enjoying them, and a lot more time wailing.  It pays to have a pleasant disposition.

Other things I read last time that turned out to be true

The moose is one cool little baby.  She's smiling and cooing and when she sees herself in the mirror, she thinks she is the cat's meow.  Tummy time is difficult because she keeps rolling over onto her back.  She's the size of a small monster truck, and most people note how large and alert she is.   And she was routinely fussy around sunset for a few hours, though not so terrible.  She would tend to fuss, fall asleep for 10-15 minutes, wake up, fuss a little more, etc., until she went to sleep for the long haul.  But this week (she is seven weeks today), it is like a switch has been flipped - she is hardly fussy at all, unless she is hungry, for a few moments before gas or other GI function, or if she is overtired, which she hardly is, as she still spends the vast majority of her time napping. 

Also, she is starting to get so we don't have to change her diaper overnight, and she goes back to sleep very quickly after a feeding at night if we don't change her.  If we do, well, she can be up for her normal 90 minute awake time at 4:30am, and that's not so cool.  

In other words, she is the baby described as a normal baby in all those books and descriptions.  Chilling after 6 weeks (Bisousette was at her worst around 8-9 weeks).  90 minute periods of wakefulness before she falls asleep again  Eating approximately every 2-3 hours during the day and at longer intervals during the night.    (The Bisousette kinda ate all the time.)

As for me, I might be chilling out too.  I hadn't weighed myself since my OB appointment last Thursday - this morning I'm down 40 pounds total from the peak pregnancy weight.   I'm doing weights every other day (full body workouts with swiss ball and hand weights, nothing fancy) and when the weather is good, I try to take two walks.  The weather has been super craptastic this past week, so I haven't done much by way of walking.  I could do DDR, but I'm still having some physical issues that stand in the way, and should improve in another month or two.  Then I hope to get in 3 runs a week and 2-3 sessions of DDR in addition to weights, which will be done with the bowflex in the basement in addition to heavier hand weights.  I've not been in decent shape since the first pregnancy, and it is my goal, once the baby is a little older, to make some real time for myself to be fit, and to get back down to my good weight (130 or so, which is a long way away at this point).

Here's to cool babies.

 

Sleep training mama
The moose is a champion sleeper for someone not quite 7 weeks old.  She sleeps probably 6 hours during the day (usually a 3 hour nap, a 2 hour nap which overlaps with the toddler's nap! and a few other catnaps), and then will generally sleep from 10pm-4:30 am, eat, then pass out again until 8am.  Truth is, she sleeps so well that the 6 hour stretches are difficult for me, because when we wake up at 4:30. I have a tough time getting back to sleep.  You know, after all that sleep. However, I do need more than 6 hours myself.  Maybe I should go to bed at 8pm or something... 

This week at the farmer's market

I took the Bisousette, who was a big hit with the farmers once she admitted that she liked to play in the dirt.  We went here:

White Barn Farm

I picked up sugar snap peas, radishes, a head of butter lettuce, and scallions.  One of my goals is to try a new veggie each week, one I've not really tried before.  This week was radishes.  I know, I've had radishes.  Plasticky radishes that come with salad mix or in a salad buffet.  I've never actually bought any and ate them fresh.  So I got a little bunch, washed one, chopped a slice, and, woah.  Kinda bitter. Peppery.  Exactly what you would think of when you think of a stereotypical stern mom saying "eat your vegetables!"  Not my cup of tea- apparently the French dip them in salt and bite in to them, like an apple.  A bitter, peppery, salty apple.  Or have them sliced with butter and salt on bread.  Must be lots of butter.  

Anyway, I sliced one into small slivers and added it to my salad.  The salad was last week's head of romaine (which I washed, cut, then refrigerated in a bowl with a piece of paper towel and covered with saran wrap.), some corn cooked on the cob (shuck your ear, wash it, salt it, wrap it in a paper towel, mircowave for 3-4 minutes, cut kernals off the ear if desired, or rub in butter and eat - it is perfectly yummy), feta cheese, and my own salad dressing mix made of two parts olive oil, one part balsamic vinegar, some sliced garlic scapes (leftover from last week's run to the farmer's market), salt and pepper.  Jamie Oliver says 3 to 1 oil to vinegar in your own salad dressing, but I find that to be too oily.  

With the dressing and the cheese and whatnot, I hardly tasted the radishes, and it was good.  

Anyone have an awesome homemade salad dressing recipe to share?  I've started making my own, and I don't want to go back, especially since you have to be super careful with the store bought salad dressings or you end up with vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup concoction.  Plus, it's probably cheaper to make your own, all told.

I'm wondering what to do with the scallions.  Slice into omelets?  Make a oniony cornbread? Anyone love scallions and have a wonderful idea for them?  I still have some garlic scapes to cut up, and I think that would make a mighty fine cornbread with the scallions...

 

Whole Milk conundrum

Soon, very soon, the Bisousette will turn two.  At which point she is supposed to switch to 2% milk.  These recommendations are made because kids are fat these days.  However, the Bisousette is not fat, and I don't really believe that fat causes people to be fat - fat + fructose causes people to be fat.  Apparently a lot of people out there let their toddlers drink soda (really?  like, pepsi and that crap for toddlers?) and eat a lot of junk, cookies and chips and the like.  (Bisousette has cookies and chocolate and chips, actually, almost every day, just a very small amount, I hope.  Not entirely sure what she gets fed at the nanny's house when she is over there).  Milk is an issue because there are some kids who drink milk to the exclusion of eating other foods, but Bisousette doesn't do that.  She eats everything all day long (except olives.  I don't see martinis in her near future).  I buy fancy organic milk for her beefed up with omega 3 fatty acids.  So healthy fat, a robust amount, for her big ol' brain, which is 60% fat.  And when I cook for Bisousette, she eats what I eat, which is cereal or oatmeal or eggs in the morning, with fruit and after that veggies or fruit with protein, or maybe whole wheat pasta.  And a bit of chocolate chip banana bread today.      

Did you guys switch to 2% at two?