Of No Sleep and Play

Since we have returned from our trip to Annapolis, C has not been the greatest sleeper. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's because she's learning so much, maybe it's separation anxiety... Who knows? I have thought about every sleep technique I know: just picking her up and cuddling, putting her back down when she gets up (which she can now do easily), letting her cry for 3 minutes and going back to see her, then 5 minutes, then 7, etc., just plain letting her cry out... the problem is that I can't pick one! Right now, most often, she cries not when I put her down, but when I leave the room. Last night, I did the putting her back down technique for 30 minutes. It worked! And she never cried, because I never left. It was almost a game for her and actually amusing for me to watch. Of course, I remained very serious and avoided eye contact, which would really have made it into a game. She was really really tired and so would get onto all-four, crawl towards the crib rail and then collapse and rest her head for a second. Then she gets back up and pull herself to standing. I lay her back down. She takes a breather there, then gathers up her strength, rolls over and crawls to another rail, and so on. I really like the momentary collapses though, it's as if she's saying "this rail looks so high, I'm just going to rest my eyes a little, just a little..." Eventually she didn't get back up and I was able to sneak out to go watch the premiere of Grey's Anatomy, of which I had already missed 13 minutes. Ah, the sacrifices one has to make for a child. In the middle of the night, when she cried upon my departure from her room, I did not go back in to play the down game. I was too tired. Wishful thinking led me to wait for a moment in the hope that she would magically calm herself down. She did! Now, she probably wouldn't do that during the day, but at least I know that she can. An unforeseen happy consequence of C's lack of sleep is that P, good husband that he is, takes care of her in the morning from 6:30-8:00 and lets me sleep. I'm sure my feeling of gratitude is good for our marriage, but I have also noticed that C now reacts differently to him. I think that one-on-one time with her dad has made him really part of our family in her mind. Of course she loved him before, and showed it. She would always smiled when she saw him. But now there seems to be a sort of complicity between them. Yesterday, C and I were playing in the play yard when P entered the room. C giggled and fleed, crawling, already starting a game. She looked at him with a big grin and then crawled away as fast as she could again, giggling still. P picked her up and she immediately burst out laughing. It was really adorable. When I bring her into our bed in the morning, usually when I can't deal with her being awake yet but she can't deal with not being up yet, she now climbs us both. Up until now, she would only climb me, pull my hair, give me wet kisses, etc. while P slept blissfully. Now she does it to him too. She'll even put her little head down on his belly to rest a little before she starts using him as a drum again. It's beautiful!
One of these father-daughter mornings gave me a little heart attack though. P had been taking care of her while I snoozed and even managed to put her back in bed after she fell asleep in her high chair. She woke up sounding pretty happy at about 9:00 and I decided that I would try to grab breakfast before going to get her. She often plays in her crib for 20 minutes either before falling asleep or when she wakes up happy. All the while, I could hear her moving, probably pulling herself up and cruising along the rails of the crib. So when I finally went to get her, and saw that the drop side of the crib was down, I freaked a little. She was standing holding on to it, and it was lower than her waist!!! I don't blame P, it's really easy to forget and it's not that obvious when she's lying down, but we were very lucky that she didn't see something she wanted on the floor. Had she thrown her pacifier overboard the way she often does in play... Ooof, I don't want to think about it!
I had another heart attack earlier this week when our dear friend L was babysitting. I came back and we were chatting while C was playing in the yard. L took a step back and tripped on the yard fence. For a moment, she tried to catch her balance, while C was playing happily just under her... L finally fell in, I screamed... and nothing. L fell about an inch away from C, was apparently unhurt herself and so we just laughed in relief. Still... I think these two incidents were the first to really freeze my blood and send my imagination on an infinite loop of "what-ifs". I'm sure it will happen many more times!
On the developmental front, C is getting good enough at walking around coffee tables that a math professor, seeing her doing so in the math lounge, said: "I conjecture she will walk by ten months". If C does, it will be her first theorem, I guess. She'll be able to write a paper saying " I proved Prof. __'s conjecture!" Aaaaahh, mathematicians. C has recently mastered the going down from standing feat. No more boom on the tush! She bends her legs to squat and then sits. She's much happier with that! Especially since the Boom on the tush was often followed by a smaller, but more painful Boom of the head! She also really enjoys taking two objects in her hands and banging them together to make noise. She's started doing something between clapping and the sign for "more" when she is excited or wants something. She talks lots... Different consonants: B, D, G, M have appeared, but still only one vowel: A. She hasn't said mama or dada with intent yet. It will come! Maybe by the next post? She now opens boxes to find objects in them. I hide her pink Teddy Bear in the box, and she'll go open it to find him. She loves it if he then plays peekaboo and gives her kisses. That warrants much giggling. I have also filled a small box with a variety of things like measuring cups, a shoe, a bottle, etc. I'll open it very briefly to show her that there are things in it then casually leave it next to me. She'll quickly crawl over to open it herself and empty it of it's treasure. She remains very observant. She stops and watch other babies laugh or cry and respond to it appropriately. She'll observe toys move or make music, obviously trying to understand. When she can't, her favorite coping mechanism is avoidance. She has been doing that for a while now, maybe a month or two. I remember trying to get her to make bah-bah-bah sounds. She looked at me, move her mouth and then quickly find something else to pay attention to. She now does the same when there is a phenomenon that she doesn't understand. I wonder if she'll do the same with school assignments? It will be something to watch for!

Annapolis

For labor day, we all went to Annapolis to visit Nona and Dida. We had already been before in May for mother's day, but C was too young to care about such things as the puppies... Now she cares! A lot! Her first reaction was one of excitement, punctuated with her characteristic attempt at communication with babies and animals: hah. Of course, she was a little unsure at first, so she would stay close to me and pull away if Dixie tried to lick her. However, after dinner on Thursday, Dida started throwing cheerios at the dogs with C in his arms. The dogs were running down the length of the hallway to catch the treats. C first looked surprised and then, all of a sudden, burst out laughing. And I don't mean smiling, I mean a full out big throaty laugh! After that, the dogs were her friends, whether they wanted it or not! Beau was not feeling very well that weekend and therefore spent most of it avoiding the little monster trying to catch his tail. Dixie on the other hand seemed to feel very maternal and protective. She licked C who delighted in the tickle, let C pull herself up holding on to her, trying to catch her nose, etc. A very very well behaved dog!
The weekend was a very good one. We also hung out with Aunt K., Uncle N. and B. and ate much cheerios and Gerber cereal. She has become a complete cereal junkie. I don't mean the mushed kind, which we finally gave away. She just doesn't care for mush, unless she can spread it on the tray and on her face. But when they are solid, they are much sought after. It is that weekend that she started being demanding of her feeders. Before that, she had climbed on other mommies at playgroup in search of the cheerios bag, but had not yet asserted her right to being fed cheerios promptly the way she did it with Aunt K. As soon as some distraction slowed down the supply line, a ringing 'ah would come to rise the slacker (this is a distinct 'ah from the hah of communication). This has now been going on for a week! If not answered, the 'ah becomes louder, then more imperative, then there is banging on the table or the chair tray, then screams. My little angel has become a beast. I feel like the mother of a coke-head. We are trying to teach her to say "more" or "encore" accompanied by the sign for it. Yesterday, she actually did it! Well, ok, she was still in the middle of putting a fist full of cereal in her mouth, so I'm not sure whether she understands the meaning of the sign, but she definitely is practicing it. I think she'll soon get it; she should, with the amount of cheerios she eats a day! As long as we consistently do it ourselves before giving her more, we'll have a signing baby in no time.
On the mobility front, there is constant improvement. We received a super yard from neighbors and C quite enjoys cruising around the edge of it. Mommy can't go very far most of the time, but it still gives me a reprieve if I need to fold laundry or go to the bathroom. She pulls herself up very easily and wants to do it all the time. She'll take my hands, or someone else's if I'm not paying attention, to stand. She's not that good at taking steps yet, but is trying to let go of what she's holding on to stand by herself. She has also mostly abandoned her precrawl, where she kept a leg bent, usually in her skirts so that it would slide, and pushed with her other foot. She started moving like that so that she could easily sit back down. C always hated tummy time and her biggest obstacle to crawling at first was the fear of ending up on her tummy and being stuck there like a turtle on its back. She now crawls on all four like the babies in diaper commercials most of the time. She reverts to the weird one for short distances only.
She has been sleeping very badly for the past week, with stretches of at most 3 hours. Before this, she had been taking nice long nights of 6+6, 5+7. We don't know what is happening. I am afraid that my milk supply has diminished and that maybe she is hungry. I have been pumping less often with all our social engagements (we're quite the socialites of the 'hood now) and now when I do pump, I think I get less milk than I used too. I'm going to try to give her a bottle tonight after she stops nursing and see how that goes. If that helps, I might look into herbs to increase lactation and maybe even call our pediatrician and get domperidone.