My little moose is nearly three months old.  Her older sister, who kinda liked her at first, then kinda didn't like her (why is this THING still here who takes all my attention and everyone says she is cute but I'M THE CUTE ONE and you know what, she doesn't do a whole lot for me, dudes), now really likes her.  It has to do with that whole 0-2 month old babies are small and cute but lame and don't do much, whereas once they get a little older, they coo more, and SMILE and suck on fingers and are basically much more awesome each month, right up until learning the word "no."  Now the Bisousette is constantly telling me how the baby is smiling at her, and isn't that great (only she doesn't say isn't that great, she says, LOOK MAMA, JAH (her name for the baby) SMYNDS!  JAH SMYNDS! over and over and over. 

And when the baby sucks on her onesie and pulls it up, the Bisousette will chide her - "No, Jah, stop it.  Put down shirt." 

This week, Jah (formerly "little moose" and "2.0") not only has a better grasp of how to get her fingers in her mouth, she's discovered the thumb.  Now, Bisousette never got into the whole thumb-sucking thing, which is probably why she didn't learn how to go to sleep on her own for like 13 months.  But Jah thinks her thumb is the Second Coming, and she loves the thumb more than her mobile, which is saying A Lot.  The past couple of days she hasn't even wanted to eat much, because eating separates her from her thumb.  This has made the milk bar unhappy, and the freezer milk supply has enlarged yet again. 

On the bright side, she'll pretty much hang out anywhere without crying or fussing, because her thumbs are easy to find and go with her wherever she is.  I can sleep in an hour later while she chills with her mobile and her thumb in her crib.  

In other words, thumbs giveth, but they taketh away.  And unlike a binky (Jah HATES the binky.  In fact, the only one who has ever sucked on any of her binkies was Bisousette, who hated them in her time, but once she discovered a toy that did not belong to her, she had to have it.  Bisousette will suck on a binky and demand to be rocked.  We rock her because we understand about regression.), we won't be able to remove the thumb when the time comes.  Oh well, she'd probably have to have braces anyway.

Posted by bisous at 10:07 AM EDT

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I was reading an article on Babble about attachment parenting, how this woman doesn't feel up to the intensity of co-sleeping and babywearing and yet doesn't quite want to give it up, in part because it would look bad to her friends.

Sometimes parenting in the US begins to look like madness.  

Attachment parenting really took off with the success of these books by Dr. Sears promoting co-sleeping and babywearing and listening to the baby to figure out how to best parent him or her.  There's a certain "duh" moment when reading his book that makes it seem like a very natural, proper way to go.  So you get all geared up and consider cosleeping and buy slings and sniff a little at the advice to let kids "cry it out" to learn to sleep.

Then you go and have a kid.  Or two.

We coslept with both for the first month.  After all, it's the only way to get any proper rest when the child is up all the time and you are breastfeeding.  And it's not the breastfeeding, really, it's the million diaper changes.  Bisousette went into a bassinet for month 2-3, then her crib at 3 months and the little moose straight into her crib at a little less than two months.   The moose was always too big for the bassinet. 

Bisousette liked being carried around.  And I preferred to carry her for early walks, and I still prefer to carry babies around stores and to appointments and whatnot.  For one thing, the toddler can then sit in the top of the grocery cart, and for another, I hate lugging the damn carseat around through doors and around unless there is a compelling reason, like you are going somewhere that the baby needs to take a nap while you are there.  Other than that, I prefer the carseat to stay in the car.

As to wearing a baby around the house rather than sticking her in a swing or whatever - I couldn't stand that.  One, your back gets tired.  Two, have you ever tried to do laundry or dishes or anything with the kid in a sling?  Dr. Sears makes it sound easy, but in actual fact you spend the whole time holding the baby's head to keep it from banging against the sink/washing machine/lawnmower etc., so you start having to do all your tasks one-handed.  Bisousette didn't like all the leaning over, so it became a choice between doing laundry one-handed while carrying a squirmy, unhappy baby in a sling, or leaving the unhappy baby in the swing and getting your tasks done much faster and more efficiently.

The moose is perfectly content to be left alone.  In fact, when she is annoyed, most of the time she prefers to be left alone, and she will stop fussing once you just set her down.  She's the anti-attachment parenting baby, in some ways.  I only put her in the sling once (though I will use it more when she is an older baby - the sling's best use is for a near-one year old who can't quite walk so you can put her on your hip and go hiking or to the store or whatever).

I'm also a total convert to sleep-training.  I know if we never grit our teeth and trained the Bisousette, we would still be waking up nearly every night and going in to soothe her.  I know that with dire certainty, and since we were pregnant and working and exhausted, we went the route of letting her cry it out.  And it worked.  She slept so much better, and so did we.  I don't know if the moose will need sleep training, since she is a much better sleeper than Bisousette ever was at her age.  Even at two months she has a regular bedtime of 7:30, and she wakes up once or twice to eat, and has no interest in hanging out, but wants to eat and go back to sleep.  But if we do need to sleep train her, we will do it far earlier than the 18-20 months old that the Bisousette was.  I'm just too old to be up every night for the next two years, you know? 

Posted by bisous at 7:53 AM EDT

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Lance isn't winning this year - that's okay, he's still got a great shot at the podium with one mountain stage left to go before Sunday's ceremonial stage into Paris. 

But he just announced that he and Livestrong are partnering with Radio Shack for a new cycling team in 2010.  Radio Shack!  I guess that means I can't make fun of radio shack anymore.  

Posted by bisous at 2:05 PM EDT

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I was doing pretty well with working out almost daily until I went back to work.  Then it all went to hell, and between a weekend with Mr. Bisous working, so I had both kiddos all weekend, then I worked, then Bisousette's birthday, then my next day off Mr. Bisous worked again until yesterday, when I was exhausted and planning to go to a wedding shower until I busted my back a little.  But today was a nice day, with Mr. Bisous home, and I handed him the little moose and said, I'm running, you watch the kids.  And out I went.  Two issues kept me from bouncing too much before this - I'll be frank - incontinence and the milk bar.  But the first problem (which also happened after the Bisousette) seems resolved now.  The second, however - since I'm still fat, I'm wearing size large sports bras.  However, they aren't supportive enough for running with the milk bar, so I'm going to have to downsize to medium for that.  Medium is hard to feed the moose in, due to the tightness. Which means changing clothes before AND after running, which, as anyone with a baby knows, you're lucky to get a shower, much less time to run, and change, and change back again. 

So we'll see.  I surely wish she would learn to drink properly from a bottle, and then I would have more options.

Posted by bisous at 3:02 PM EDT

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... is now a big deal for babies, as we are supposed to be on our tummies to develop future motor skilz and to avoid having a flat head, but nowadays you can't leave a baby alone on her tummy, because then a) might fall asleep and b) have a double chance of dying of SIDS if they do fall asleep.

For Bisousette, tummy time was a daily ritual, me being a new mom.  For the moose, not so much.  Partly because tummy time seems to do the moose little good. She doesn't spend a whole lot of time wailing and trying to lift her head, as the Bisousette did.  Mostly she flips over immediately, or she finds her fingers and chews on them.  Since the moose almost always goes to her side in the night (I put her down on her back, but within a few moments she somehow moves to her side so that she snuggles up to her fingers and the crib bumpers), I don't worry so much about a flat head.  But it would be nice to put her front ways in the Baby Bjorn sooner rather than later, and that requires more head control.  

I don't have very many goals in life anymore...

Posted by bisous at 3:25 PM EDT

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I've been, well, a bit grumpy the past couple of days.  Best not to blog when one is grumpy, or one might blog something one might regret.  This is why I have a following of 20 rather than 200.  I'm too circumspect, and no fun anymore.  That's all right. 

Hmm, Bisousette (who was HORRID at her 2 year appt, or so I was told.  She screamed and screamed and screamed and would not let anyone undress her, and her weight was done while she was half-clothed and thrashing, but is somewhere around 30 pounds.  Her height and head are completely off the charts tall and big, and her weight is 70th percentile, we think) came wandering in saying "fix it.  fix it."  That's not always a good thing.  I better actually pay attention to her.  

Maybe one day I'll have the gumption to upload her birthday photos and pictures of cake cake and all sorts of good bloggerly things.  Until then...

Posted by bisous at 4:48 PM EDT

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Good news - the moose actually ate 5 oz while I was away today.  From a bottle.  That's more than the Bisousette EVER ate while she was still an exclusive milk drinker.  I already have about 100 oz stored up in the freezer - maybe this means that it won't expand to 3-400 oz like it was with the Bisousette. 

The moose has in the past week established a regular bedtime - she peters out right around 7:45.  Then she's been getting up between 11-1 for feeding #1, then between 4-6 for feeding #2 overnight.  Once the moose is acting a bit peevish, I can either nurse her and place her in her crib without waking her, or if I wake her, I can just put on the mobile and leave her there - either way she falls asleep! With the Bisousette, bedtime was a variable for many more months, and it took a good amount of time (nursing, sleep, waiting for deeper sleep, quietly putting her in the crib oh hope I don't wake her ARGH start all over) Even if you did manage to put the Bisousette down successfully, she would sometimes wake up if you creaked the floorboards, so you would literally tiptoe out of the room and down the hall.  Rinse and repeat two or three or four times a night.

But there was an advantage that I miss (not quite enough to wish for a tetchy baby again, but still...) those hours where I would be in her room, in a chair with a warm baby and a boppy and the ipod playing lullabies.  And I would have to be still and calm.  They were quiet moments we don't often have the excuse for anymore.  Tonight the Bisousette was off with the nanny as her children are coming home from vacation and the Bisousette wanted to see them after a longish break.  So I sat with the moose longer than I needed to, listening to Copeland's corral nocturne from Rodeo. 

Life is sweet.

Posted by bisous at 8:31 PM EDT

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The moose is still a darling little enormous baby.  She smiles and squawks and sleeps pretty well, usually waking up only once between 8:30 pm and 6am.  She also is establishing pretty regular naps along the lines I seem to recall Weissbluth mentioning in his book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." Around four months the kiddo starts to have 3-4 naps - one short one in the morning which is almost a continuation of sleep, then two longer ones in the late morning and afternoon, then a shorter evening one before consolidating the rest of sleep to overnight.  I'm not entirely sure that's the exact schedule of Weissbluth's study of babies, because I can't find the book.  I'm pretty sure I hid it to keep myself from pouring over it obsessively as I did with the Bisousette.  Which is funny, because while the book did help a bit with the Bisousette, in that it helped me to understand what she was doing, what to look for when she was sleepy, and when to expect the nap schedule to change (they go to 3 naps, then 2, then 1 at certain predictable ages), and also to stress the importance of sleep and not to disturb her precious napping cycle or sleeping cycle unless you had to, or very rarely, overall the book did not help me get the Bisousette to sleep.  Nothing but breastfeeding and swing chairs helped her sleep up until she grew out of them, and then a few hard core weeks of sleep training, followed by unrelenting cold-heartedness at nearly every nap time, bed time, and when she wakes up un the middle of the night, which still happens at least once a week.  Yep, she still screams for a bit at the beginning of every nap time and bed time, almost without fail.  And when she wakes in the middle of the night, we ignore it (unless she is sick, which she hardly ever is).  

Anyway, Weissbluth wouldn't necessarily help me with the moose, either, since she seems to be a good sleeper.  It's easier for her to get to sleep in the swing chair, but she will eventually fall asleep almost anywhere if it's time for her to nap.    

 So why am I sleep-deprived?  My own fault, actually.  One night I stayed up way too late without even realizing it.  Another time the moose woke up at 1am, but was happily jabbering to her mobile and probably would have gone back to sleep on her own.  She does that sometimes.  But I thought, hey, I'm awake, I'll go feed her and maybe she'll skip the 4am feeding and I'll be able to sleep the rest of the night until I have to get up for work (around 6:40am).  So I got up, fed her, and of course she also woke up at her usual 3:30 or 4am, then 6am, and I wasn't able to get back to sleep after the second time.   

So there's work, the Bisousette, summer schedule of parties and wedding showers and visits, and breastfeeding, which when the little one eats so little while you are away, starts to take your whole day.  Not only do you pump at work, and all the cleaning and organization that comes with the pump (you have to do it even if she won't drink it, to keep yourself comfortable and the supply going strong), then as soon as you come home, you basically park yourself on the couch and feed the baby on and off for a couple of hours.  Then it's bedtime and all the rituals that come with that for a toddler and baby.  Then it's your bedtime, then you wake in the middle of the night, then you're up and dressing everyone and trying to feed the baby as much as possible before you go, or maybe pump if she's not awake in the last hour before you go to work... it's just endless.  A good kind of endless.  But Divaquest was right on when she said you lose the weight fast.  I can't tell you how many dinners/snacks/lunches I skipped or scarfed down a chicken leg or a piece of fruit because that was the only thing I had time for.  

Anyway, tomorrow I work, and Sunday is the Bisousette's second birthday and party.  I'll make cake cake (and post pictures) - that's hostess snack cake varieties placed in a pan, covered with regular cake mix, then baked and frosted.  We'll see how it turns out.  

Posted by bisous at 3:56 PM EDT

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In my invite for people to come to the Bisousette's second birthday party on Sunday, I implored people not to bring presents.  We have so much stuff!  Yesterday Bisousette got a new Dora big wheel, and today two new outfits and a little lullaby horse toy - we're running out of room, and she's only two!  Where are we supposed to put our toys? But, perhaps more importantly, how is she supposed to know that Christmas and birthdays are special?  She gets new or hand me down stuff ALL THE TIME.  (Wow, what spoiled people we are altogether if a major complaint is we have too much).  

Posted by bisous at 6:07 PM EDT

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I've been sideswiped a little by my return to work.  And the moose has been no better than the Bisousette about drinking from a godamm bottle - the nanny was able to get her to take 1 oz today between noon and 6:30 pm.  Gah. 

Anyway, at her two month appt, moose was 14 pounds, over 25 inches, with a proportionate head.  So not chunkier than average, just gigantic.  I'm not sure why we have such over the top babies.  But there you go.

Posted by bisous at 9:01 PM EDT

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