Latest Flickr Photos

www.flickr.com

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

No sleep and marbles

Rex is 7 weeks today. This is the period where my baby book says he is supposed to start to lengthen his sleep periods. Rex is not a big reader yet, so he's not sticking to the book's schedule. Rex's longest sleep period is for only 3.5 hours when he goes to sleep at night around 8:30pm or so. After that the sleep periods get progressively shorter until morning breaks.

Also, Rex is like his sister, he has tummy issues after a feeding, so sometimes its hard for him to get back to sleep. I've started to drive myself crazy thinking its something I ate that has made him gassy. Last night he was up and down between 3 and 8am. He wouldn't sleep for longer than 1/2 an hour. So you can imagine my desire to find a reason for his gassiness and try to fix it. But I'm starting to think its not me, its him. And I have to admit I have no control over this one.

And speaking of gassiness, the other area, I have little control over is Fay's potty training. She has successfully gone number one in her little potty, but refuses to go number two. So I took an idea from a mom friend of mine....and I'm using marbles. After Fay did so well with a Dora potty sticker chart (she got a sticker after each pee-pee on the potty), I'm trying something similar for number two.

The Potty chart only gave us about 7 stickers and then there was no motivation to go on the potty anymore. I need a much longer period of motivation. So I have three cups of marbles. There are three different colors. One for pee-pee, one for poo, and one for dressing herself (hey, might as well throw that in there). When she gets all the marbles from their starting cups to the finish bin, she gets a present. And she already knows the present is some kind of Little People Toy. She loves all things Little People.

So far today, one day one, she has earned one marble for going number one. But she also had an accident on the playground when we tried to go out without a diaper. So...we will see if this has any effect.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Nana visits

Happy Nana

My mom came to visit last week and to meet Rex for the first time. Her visit fell mostly over the weekend, so she was able to spend a lot of time with both kids. Its nice for me to have the grandmas help with several things....playing with Fay while I nurse Rex, holding Rex while I play with Fay, or household stuff like laundry.

Fay tried to rule out the first option by using a new phrase I've not heard from her before...."I want to play by myself". She said this on the last day Nana was in town when Nana tried to play with her and Fay wanted mommy instead. Ryan is no stranger to this attitude. Fay has always displayed her preference for mommy harshly, or candidly. Its difficult for me to see her do it to my mom, since Nana doesn't get to see Fay everyday. But we all know its not personal, so I assume my mom took it in stride. In fact, my mom may be tickled to know that I received the phrase from Fay just yesterday. She wanted to play with me at first, but then when I colored in her coloring book the "wrong" way, she told me she wanted to play by herself. I guess everyone gets attitude these days.

We spent time playing at home, going to playgrounds and going to the "Water Taxi Beach" with friends. The Water Taxi Beach is an area near South Street Seaport that has a sandy play area with picnic tables. They serve kid friendly food like hot dogs and fries...and parent friendly drinks with alcohol. The best of both worlds. Fay had a good time playing in the sand with her friends. Rex had a good time sleeping in the Baby Bjorn. And the adults attempted to have a conversation.

On the day before my mom left, Fay was in school, so she took Rex and me out for a day of brunch, pedicures and shopping. The outing was in honor of my birthday which occurred a couple weeks ago. It was really nice to be pampered since the actual birthday was filled with mostly kid activities. I do have to point out that each stop we made involved nursing Rex. Nurse while eating brunch, check. Nurse while getting a pedicure, check. Nurse in the dressing room of a clothing store, check. My boy Rex loves to eat.

Baby with a view

Before leaving, we all had drinks on the balcony, with Rex as the centerpiece.