Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies

2 months away

Mar 28, 2011 — 12:09 am

So Kate’s birthday is still 2 months away. I know that, because that means I have less than 2 months to get her friggin scrapbook done and I am busting ass. Kate is helpfully taking 1 1/2 hour naps twice a day, which is letting me on it. I have… 2 months semi-done. Of 10. And some of the pregnancy stuff done, but not all. Aaagghhhh. I really really want to have it done to put on display at her birthday party! So I’m working feverishly on scrapping. Some of the local moms also scrap so we’ve been getting together one evening a week for a couple of hours. Which is helpful and yet more chatting than working on my end. I work best when I get all focused and silent in the middle of the night.

I’ve also been keeping my eye open for the toy I wanted to get her for her birthday. Kate has a lot of toys, and yet it’s still hard not to keep buying cute fun things. For the bigger items, however, I try very hard to find them second-hand. The Leap Frog music table she has and loves (her “big Christmas present”) was bought off a local mom for cheap. The exersaucer that gave us many months of hands-free time was given to me by a coworker. For her birthday I had it in mind to get her the Fisher Price Learning Home. My best friend Kel had one for her boys and I remember watching her youngest play with it for a very long time in terms of child attention spans. She, and several other friends, swear by that house. When I saw it on Craig’s List I snapped it up. And you know, she’s so young she doesn’t have any idea about birthdays… not to mention that she’ll be getting a ton of new toys and I’m all about spreading them out. Plus she was getting bored with the music table and really needed something to crawl on/around and play with.

And that is why Kate has been playing with her “birthday present” for the past week. The good news is that it lives up to expectations, she loves it! She very quickly figured out the different things on it. It’s now a common sight to see her toddle over to it and flick the light switch a few times, or ring the doorbell, or open and close the mailbox. Her favorite, however, is the radio. It’s really quite hysterical because she crouches down to push one of the four buttons to start a song (usually pressing it four or five times in a row just for good measure), then turns to play with something else. When the song ends she leans over to press another button (four or five times). The funniest is when she starts the song then opens or closes the door, because the sound effect for the door cuts off the song. She’ll sit there for a quite a while, starting the song and inadvertently stopping it, over and over again. You can see the frown on her face, like she just doesn’t understand why the radio is doing that. (I actually think that’s the reason she pushes the button so many times!)

… I just realized that the 3 pages I wrote in Kate’s baby journal document for her 10 month has magically disappeared. Son of a bitch, now I have to re-write it all. Ugh.

Toddler and Teeth

Mar 30, 2011 — 2:12 am

I had over a week of huge long 2-hour naps from Kate. Twice a day. Plus a normal bedtime and good nights. Den was away for a week so I’d bring her into bed with me and oh MAN is it nice having a king mattress all to ourselves! Kate had me nearby, I got to spread out, we got some good sleep! Even after Den came home, still she was taking massive naps. I figure growth spurt – she’s been a very good napper for the most part, but naps over an hour and a half are still crazy long in her world.

Yesterday she was resisting napping so I put it off and went to work with her, returning home when she had had enough and was getting close to melting down. I got her home and put her to bed and slept a long time! So long, in fact, that she didn’t want to go to bed. And I’m not talking hysterics, I’m talking she was perfectly awake and perky and happy. At midnight I finally said $@!%$@#! and went to bed with her, she finally got tired. This is why Kate doesn’t take evening naps anymore. It’s just a bad idea.

Today? Today she refused to nap. Period. I wrestled her down for all of 30 minutes while tied tight in my arms, but then she woke up and that was that. There was poo at inopportune times as I was trying to get her down, she nursed at weird times so then refused to nurse when I was trying to use the Mighty Boobs to knock her out. There was even times when I had her almost asleep, or so I thought. And then she’d twitch and start babbling to me, touching my face, and struggling to get up and crawl away. What the hell?

That time I was losing my patience and so I took a page from her book and screamed out loud, shaking my head against the pillow. Kate stared at me, and screamed back. I screamed again. She giggled. From there it disintegrated into a tickle fight, with her laughing hysterically in my ear. I thought to myself, now that’s how to deal with frustration!

She slept for maybe 30 minutes in the car. I thought, okay that’s fine, she’ll go to bed at a normal hour. Bawahahahahaha. No.

Apparently tooth #2 finally decided to make an entrance. I can feel it now, slightly above the gum line. Which explains all of the weirdness of the past two days. I hate teeth. Can’t she stay gummy forever? And why do I get a child who absolutely refuses to sleep if the slightest thing is bothering her? She’s way too much like me. (I’m the same way, to an obsessive degree. The blankets and pillows have to be just right. I can’t sleep at all if DH is snoring or the dog is licking or something is pinging outside the window.)

Yes I realize I shouldn’t post about sleep only when it’s sucky. But I feel like posting, “Awesome naps! Great nights! This rocks!!” is just begging for trouble. So instead I just look back in retrospect and think, man, that was so awesome.

::

Kate is starting to move into 12M clothes. She still fits into the 9M stuff (with a few random exceptions), but she can wear some of the 12M tops and pants. It’s really weird to me because I hold up a 12M item and laugh, thinking it’s so huge. Then I put it on her and realize, no, actually, not huge. How did this happen?

Today I was looking up woven wraps – researching and looking for used ones. I was reading things about carrying a toddler and they were saying things that all applied. And I realized, oh my GOD I have a toddler. No wonder it’s getting so hard to carry her on my front – I know she must be around 19lbs now. That’s not insignificant. She’s no tiny baby anymore! I mean, I knew that, but I just never equated Kate with the pictures of people doing back carries with their toddler.

New Carseat!

Mar 31, 2011 — 1:48 am

Kate has been using the infant carseat we got at Devin’s baby shower, a Graco Safe Seat 1. It goes up to 30 lbs and was one of the first infant seats of the larger, higher weight limit variety – at the time most went up to 22lbs. I figured I would be wearing my baby more than lugging around the seat (because it is heavy, even without a baby in it!) so I was more concerned with a higher limit than portability. I love that seat. It installed easily, it fit Kate great from day 1, it still fits her comfortably today, and it’s easy to use. The only annoyance is having to re-thread the harness straps when you want to move them, but that’s the same for any infant seat out there. Kate is currently only around 19lbs and on the middle harness height (of 3) so she still has plenty of room to grow in it. I probably could have kept her in it until she was 18 months, and with her it’s a sure bet she’d outgrow it by height than weight. So in hindsight I didn’t really need the higher weight limit, but maybe my next kid will be a chunker. (The Safe Seat has been replaced with new higher-limit SnugRide infant seats.)

Regardless, a few months ago I got all excited at a sale and purchased Kate a convertable car seat. (Note: Put off purchasing a car seat as long as possible, especially if you plan to use it for multiple children. A car seat has an expiration date, typically 6 or 7 years, and the longer you put off buying a seat the longer you’ll be able to use it.) I finally decided I really wanted to install it just to see how I liked it. I want to figure out if I’ll be using the MyRide as her primary carseat in my SUV or putting it into Den’s car as a secondary. Either way I need to buy a second convertable seat and I need to decide what to get.

I chose the MyRide for a few reasons. Firstly, it has a rear-facing weight limit of 40lbs, which is fantastic. I plan to keep Kate rear-facing until at least 3, so I needed a large rear-facing seat. She will be outgrowing by height long before she hits the 40lb weight limit. Now there are multiple carseats on the market now that are great for extended rear-facing, and I chose the Graco mainly because of how much I loved the infant seat. I liked their buckle and chest strap, both of which are significantly different than any other brand’s. (Smart move on their part!) I checked out reviews and found that the MyRide was getting a lot of good buzz. It sells for around $140, which is significantly less than the Britax seats I was originally going to get. And lastly it comes in a completely awesome pink and brown fabric cover that I love, hee hee.

Installation didn’t go as well as I had hoped the first try – and it wasn’t the seat’s fault. The SUV’s LATCH locations are apparently completely assanine, so I can’t use them in the center (or on the sides, for that matter. They’re placed in the middle of the center and outboard seats, what the fuck?). The center seat has a simple lap belt, which actually is perfect for installing car seats… if you can manage to adjust the stupid thing. I grunted and pulled and wiggled and tugged and that sucker is TIGHT. And Kate, wathcing me from her position strapped into her infant seat sitting in the back of the SUV, got tired of the arrangement and started crying. I gave up, left it, and called Den to let him know I was stuck at home until he could get the seat installed. When he got home it took him about 60 seconds to adjust the seatbelt, I pushed on the carseat while he buckled it in. And man, that is the most solid carseat install I’ve ever seen in my life. Perfect angle without any pool noodles or towels, no futzing around, just carseat click and that thing doesn’t budge.

At first I was not entirely happy with the MyRide. Going from an infant seat to a convertable – especially a large one – looks weird to start with. Kate looked so small in it! There is nothing for her to rest her head on when she sleeps (which is not a safety concern, just a general comfort thing). It does sit pretty high, about the same as the infant seat did, and I sometimes bonk her head on the ceiling when lifting her in to her seat, so that was a bummer. My main concern was that the harness adjuster seemed to require a lot of force to pull on. The infant seat was always so easy to snug tight – and I do get it very snug, I’m obsessive about that – so I was irritated. It’s also a very wide seat, so if you’re trying to fit three across in your car this is not the right seat for you. Kate will be in the center until we have another child, then they will both have to be put on the outside seats – but my SUV is very narrow and we are going to have that problem with just about every seat out there except for the Radian (which I don’t want). But I wanted to use it for a week or two before making a decision.

After a couple of days I’m liking it more and more, and getting less concerned about it. Kate seems to like it just fine, she happily kicks her legs, plays with the strap, babbles, and chills out like normal. The first day she whined as I was tightening the harness, but that could have been because I was taking too long or because she was confused about this new seat or something else entirely. (Regardless, even after whining she was still perfectly happy as soon as I started driving so it obviously didn’t bother her much.) I removed the harness covers (which are optional) and I’m quicker at tightening the harness and today she didn’t complain at all, plus I think she figured out that this is her new seat. She even fell asleep in it a couple of times, she didn’t seem concerned by the lack of headrest.

Would it be nice to have some luxury features that come with a Britax? Oh yeah. The Britax seats had a very smooth, easy harness adjustment, velcro on the straps to hold them open, and extra padding in the seat. The new Marathon and Boulevard also have an adjustable headrest which allows you to adjust the height of the shoulder straps without uninstalling the car, a very nice perk! But are they work the extra $100? Hard to say. If I were to do it again would I get a MyRide? Maybe not. But regardless, the MyRide will rear-face for pretty much the same length of time (same rear-facing weight limits, approximately the same shell height), and I’m still very pleased with my purchase. Even if I end up getting a fancier car seat for my vehicle it will make an excellent secondary seat for our other vehicle. And at this point, as long as Kate likes it and it doesn’t give me any trouble, I’ll probably be keeping it.

Plus it is SO pretty. ;)

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