We had a lovely Father’s Day weekend. Peter’s one request was no gifts so we went the home made route:
Just what every dad wants – silly glasses! They were a big hit:
Baylor is clearly excited:
Please note the oh-so-cool-improvised wands on the sides. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.
Peter and I had a blast planning Baylor’s 2nd birthday party this year. It was so much more fun because she actually understood what a party was and that it was all for her. We had crazy straw cups, the new climber, a bouncer, a home-made game of “Pin the Stuff on Baylor”, design your own glasses, cookie cake and lots of friends. What more could a girl need?
Just waiting for her buddies….
Bubbles make everything fun!
Auntie Ali
No boys allowed!
Pin the Stuff on Baylor – will be more fun in a few years
Willow makes “design your own glasses” look goooood
Blow out the candles before the wind does!
Check out Stephanie’s blog www.manyhatsofamom.com for more great pics and her daughter Kelsey’s favorite parts!
This week Bay’s bag of choice was my big beach tote. She could easily fit inside it if she wanted and it takes her two little baby man hands plus a lot of strength to carry it around, but she loves it.
Contents:
A hat
Her sandals
A bottle of lotion
Butt Paste diaper rash cream
A ziploc bag
Her Mini Mouse purse – she needs a bag to carry all her bags!
Play food ice cream and cookies
Rasins
A bowl of Goldfish crackers
Her Barbie cup
The box from a new bottle of Benadryl
Her “goggles” – she think because her sun glasses have a strap that they are goggles
Her business card that daddy made. It reads:
Baylor E. Wand
BaP (Big Girl at Play)
Available for Bar Mitzvahs, Weddings, Parties and Funerals
This morning at 1am, during my second visit to Baylie’s room and after Peter’s second visit to her room, I found myself thinking the same phrase over and over; Baylie is a sleep terrorist.
When Bay was a newborn and several months after, I knew I wasn’t going to get any sleep. Not that knowing I wasn’t going to sleep at night was any prize, but the alternative was the anticipation of a restful sleep and then having it repeatedly disrupted. While I have the honed skill of not having to be fully awake in order to comfort B and get her back to sleep, lately the process has been a bit more involved, Rocking her, barganing with her and then putting up with a few minutes of screaming (both Baylie and myself) in order to get her to go back to sleep is forcing me to be in a hightented state of awareness. Thus making me very cranky.
As I was trying to guess the reason she couldn’t get back to sleep this morning, I couldn’t help but think that these little acts of wakefulness are indeed acts of terrorism. They are meant to make me feel a little uneasy each night, never really knowing if it’s going to be a dream-filled peaceful night or one where I pull myself out of my cozy bed, stomp across the living room and focus very hard on not falling alseep in the glider and thus dropping the kiddo. Only to put her in her crib and have her spring back up screaming.
And so the Sleep Terrorist wins another battle…
I knew this was coming. I just didn’t know it was going to be so soon and soooo dramatic.
Since giving up her pacifiers, Baylie has become increasingly obsessed with her stuffed animals. Particularly any recent acquisitions. The obsession has gotten so severe, she can’t sleep without them and needs them for at least 20 minutes after waking up. I’m sure here dentist and orthodontist will agree that these fluffy friends are much better for her teeth than a pacifier, but I think the pacifier may be better for Mommy’s sanity.
Our new bed time ritual involves getting Kat, Beanie Butt Bear, Little Bear AND blankie out of the crib. Bay attempts to carry all four of these items plus a cup of milk to the couch to snuggle before being shuttled off to bed. After prayers, we put the pillow down, then her, then blankie over top and then hand each animal to her individually while she decides their placement next to her. Last, the “aquarium” at the opposite side of the crib is turned on.
On top of all of this, Bay’s not been sleeping well – she was up we think 6 times last night. I say “think” because I’ve trained myself to go into her room, offer whatever comfort she needs and then get back to bed without having to fully wake up – it’s a skill – so I can’t be totally sure how many times I went in and repeated the same ritual. A normal suggestion would be to remove several of the thousand security items in order to allow her to sleep without rolling over on on them repeatedly, but I’m thinking that’s not an option. I’m praying that the sleeplessness is seasonal or molars coming in or allergies or something that isn’t going to last until she’s 12 because the men with the big butterfly nets will have come to get me long before she reaches puberty.
When Baylie wakes up, the reverse of the ritual is preformed. I intervened after watching her get increasingly upset when Daddy was not “doing it right”. First, Bay picks up Kat. Then she hands me her blanket – which I am to put over my shoulder. Then both bears. Then I pick her and Kat up, hand her both the bears and then attempt to carry her out of her room while she clutches all her animals while laying her head on her blanket on my shoulder. To say this process is annoying is an understatement.
But at least this way she’ll have pretty teeth, right??
For those non Catholics (or Catholics who forgot) today is Ash Wednesday – which is why many are walking around with what looks to be schmutz from pressing their forehead against a dirty window. It is the commencement of Lent, the time where we prepare for Easter. Or otherwise known as the time where people come up with something silly in their lives to give up and promptly bail on it four days later.
Baylie and I attended Mass this morning with Pop and Noni (Jim and Jude – my parentals) and also Uncle Mike (“Aaah My” as B says) joined us. We were a minute late and ended up sitting in front of Pop and Noni – which means Bay spent the entire hour walking or trying to climb back to them.
After getting our ashes, B was horrified. I have passed my germ-a-phobe ways on to her so she was disgusted by the fact everyone had dirt on their heads. She made a face that she usually only uses when she is telling me she needs a diaper change – a furrowed brow, a wrinkled nose and her little gapped front teeth showing. She then proceeded to point to each of our heads and say “eeewwwww”. When I pointed out that she too had the dirt, she began to rub her own head and mine to get clean. Thankfully she’s adorable so most of the parishioners around us didn’t mind her judgment.
Needless to say, the ashes didn’t make it to pancakes after church.
Last Sunday afternoon, we decided to venture out to one of the great hiking trails near our home and enjoy some nature. It had rained the night before so we knew the desert would be particularly beautiful. The clouds were big and puffy, the air clear, it couldn’t have been nicer. Peter carried Ms.B in the backpack and we enjoyed some great family time.
The Iphone camera doesn’t do the view justice. There is snow on the Four Peaks in the distance. Cotton candy clouds and blue blue skies.
Happy hikers
A few weeks ago a friend told me that her son got a small staph infection from his pacifier after having a bad cold. I made the mistake of sharing this anecdote with Peter who immediately decided it was time to throw Baylie’s “minkies” out the door.
While I know that at some point she was going to have to give up the pacifier, I just figured it was something we would do when she was, like, 10. So I held him off for about 2 weeks but lost the battle this past weekend. I had to agree that it wasn’t the worst idea to get rid of them – I was just afraid of the aftermath.
Aaaannnddd I was right.
After nap time on Saturday, Peter got a big envelope and wrote “For the Babies” on the outside. Then Bay got to add her personal touch and one by one, add the pacifiers to the envelope. She was happy to pack 7 of them away, but hesitated on the last one. After gentle encouragement from Daddy, she happily added the last one. They sealed it up and put it in the mailbox. All we had to do now was wait for the inevitable meltdown.
That night was rough getting her to sleep, but not the end of the world. She fussed a little during the night, but for the most part, it was not the end of the world. She did cry for several minutes saying “buuhh bbbyyyeeeee!!!! buh byeeee!!!” in the saddest voice I’ve ever heard. It was killing me. The solution to her pain was a mere 5 feet away in the mailbox outside the front door and I couldn’t get it for her. I was dying. But she quickly calmed down with a rock and a kiss and then slept semi well.
The big issue was nap time on Sunday. I knew it was going to be ugly, I just didn’t know how ugly it could be. I again rocked her to sleep and then put her down only to watch her pop back up a second later. We decided to let her cry it out for 10 minutes. At 4 minutes, I was concerned about the sounds that were coming out of B’s little mouth so I went into check on her. Apparently in an act of opposition, Bay had torn off her diaper and proceeded to pee all over her crib. A.MA.ZING. Peter continued to rock her in the bedroom while I stripped down her bed. An additional hour of rocking and she finally went down and stayed down. Sheesh.
Sunday night I was not up for the fight and was this close to giving in and getting the minkies out of the mailbox. Thankfully Peter’s competitiveness outweighed his exhaustion so he took over the downing process. There was the typical fussing and then silence. He exited her room and there was still silence. I was so grateful, but not amazed. Peter has had the ability to calm the kiddo since the second she was born. She was all screams when she was carried to the side of the delivery room to be weighed and measured and it wasn’t until Peter leaned down and whispered to her that she was quiet. When I asked what his secret was for getting her to calm down this time, he said that he simply made her look him in the eye while he told her that she was a big girl and that she could go to sleep without a pacifier. She responded “noooo” and so he repeated himself. She then responded “ok” and laid down in her crib. Done and done. Daddy does it again!
Nap time today was rough. The kid has some amazing lungs. A few minutes of quiet time, 10 minutes of crying followed by 10 minutes of rocking and she was out. This is a significant improvement over yesterday so I’m thinking by Friday, we should be in a good place. I’m pushing the blankie and a stuffed animal of her choice so that she gets attached to one of them. As someone who had her yellow satin blankie until she was 11 years old and took Foofur the dog with her to college, I think these are safer options. People might laugh if she has a pacifier. But a stuffed dog is always in style.
I’m starting a new weekly post called “What’s in Baylie’s Bag?”. Since Bay has been able to carry a grocery bag, a beach bag, a shopping bag, a bucket, a bag made for kids or a purse, she has filled it with various items from around the house. She will carry said bag around to various locations, unload some or all of the contents, reload and then move on. At some point I end up emptying said bag to either clean up the house or if something important has gone missing – a phone, the remote or a shoe – it’s almost guaranteed to be in Baylie’s bag. The contents never fail to make me laugh – it cracks me up to see what she’s found to be important enough to carry around with her. So I laid out her treasures and took a picture. Here’s what was in this week’s REI shopping bag:
Contents:
Barbie
Barbie’s brush
2 pacifiers
Play food cookies and 2 bottles of soda
Nesting cups
A head band
Her UofA hat
Boo boo bunny
A hair tie
Star shaped sunglasses
Swim goggles
What says Valentine’s more than a dog being tortured with love bug antenna? A love bug herself, that’s who! And if heart-shaped glasses at a friend’s party and a loving cousin who is willing to brave the “Mystery Machine” Jump house with a hundred ankle biters isn’t love, I don’t know what is. Happy Valentines Day!
The Goon Room 