Dear Lili babe,
I miss you. And you are only asleep in the next room. Not miss you like I want you to wake up miss you – you need your sleep. But it is just a little clue in to how much I enjoy being with you. I really do.
Today you just had a rotten cold. A crummy, crummy cold that had you sneezing all day and rubbing your nose and congestion and watery eyes and fussy crying most the hours of the day. I felt so bad for you. You seemed so miserable and there was really nothing I could do for you which was a total bummer as your Mom. Babies don’t know how to blow their noses so you go around wheezing snot in and out of your tiny holes and freak out when I come near you with a tissue or the little bulb device to extract the goo.
In other news I want to record some stuff while I remember…
Tricks – On Monday 10/20 we were on the playground and you pulled yourself up to a standing position which you do with some ease now and then ‘let go’ from the toy you were holding on to and stood there on your own for a few long seconds before plopping back down on your butt. Go Lili go!
Teeth – you are now working on 8. It’s kind of nuts! You have 4 completely in up top and 2 completely in on the bottom and 1 half tooth and 1 sliver of a tooth peeking through the gum. Soon you will be eating baby back ribs I swear you will.
Eating – has gotten much much better. You are willing to at least try most things and yet you still cling to your dramatics which I now find more comical and less serious (the kid won’t starve). A recent success I made was an Israeli cous cous salad with whipped goat cheese and little diced peppers, red onion, grated carrot and zucchini. But you never know with you though. One day you like it. The next – blech. Like the other day I gave you some chopped up bits of lamb and rice from our dinner the other night which you happily ate about three thousand bites of and then I ‘broke the cycle’ by introducing this sweet rice cracker type thing which you raised your eyebrows at as in ‘woah dude…you were so holding out on me with this’ and then when I attempted to go back to the little bits of lamb and rice you gagged and spit and looked as if I was trying to give you rotten fish. So yeah. Like that. My biggest accomplishment today was trying to give you a little chicken noodle soup for your cold which you weren’t having so I took the broth and poured it in your sippy cup and you guzzled like…2 oz. So there. Mom wins.
Tub – I have continued to still put you in the big girl tub and get in there with you. I’m sorry for the other night when I was only holding on to you with one hand and you slipped and inhaled a ton of water and couldn’t catch your breath and were literally crying in a total panic all freaked out. Sorry babe. I try my best. I really do.
Sleeping – you still wake up at 12PM, 3AM, 5AM and for good 7AM (although lately it has been 6:30AM). The books and doctors tell me/us we need to sleep train. I’m scared. You are a powerful force that will not be stopped. We’ll see!
Magician – you still continue to get into everything within a split second – it’s truly amazing. A turn of the head and you’ve scooted across the living room and are teetering on a slippery stack of toys trying to pull a heavy photography book off the shelf. That kind of thing. Or when we are out in public like today – I turn my head and you are into things I don’t even know how you got into. Today we were in a deli that had barrels full of coffee beans with plastic circle lids. I was paying at the cash register when I looked down quickly at you in the stroller and somehow you had grabbed one of this giant plastic circle barrel lids the size of a small pizza pie I’m not even kidding that read ‘FRENCH ROAST $7.99 LB’ and were clutching it on either side with your tiny hands and your drooling mouth on the rim. Mmmn. Great.
Imagination – your Dad said something the other morning that stuck with me. You woke up very, very early and he encouraged me to let you play in your crib for a while and not rush in there and encourage you to ‘use your imagination’. He is totally right. I’ve been trying to be better about that. As a result – instead of dangling a toy in your face at every second in an attempt to keep you occupied or happy – I let the gaps take place which you fill naturally. Like tonight. When you took my winter hat, threw it on your toes, laughed and grabbed it to do over and over again. You were right. I kept quiet and it was funny.
xo
Lili is just advanced. That is a toddler-eating attitude. Seriously, Olivia has had days where she eats 1 bite of goat cheese and a yogurt. ALL DAY. And then the next day, more than me. I try to be zen-like about it, but gah! It drives me insane. I have found the competition of other children at the table increases the amount of food eaten. No joke! Plus, you get friends over for dinner.
I’m happy to tell you about the sleep training we did with O (I didn’t have the heart for CIO, but this worked well), but let me know if you want to hear it. I’m sure everyone’s got an opinion, and they can get a little overwhelming, especially when you are sleep-deprived :)
We had the same sleep situation with our little guy- who is now 14 mo. Also heard the same advice to sleep train. We waited it out and our little guy has dropped (on his own) the 12 and 3am wakings. He did so right around 12 months. Hang in there!