Baby Daddy

For 2 glorious weeks I get to be Stay at home Daddy again. Daycare is on vacation, so I am too. My goal for these weeks is to have Petra walking by the end. I don't think I'll be having any problem- she'll already take the odd step herself, and cruises around like crazy barely touching anything.

We certainly had a busy first day. We played and read at home a bit before walking out to get Daddy's hair cut. She snoozed the whole way, and didn't cry when she woke up at the barber. Then off to the park where she played in the sand, rode the swing and the merry-go-round, and crawled up and down stairs. Then she slept for the walk home and stayed conked out for another hour at home. Good baby!

Then off to meet Mommy for lunch. Everyone at UCLA was happy to see her, since it's been about 3 months since we last visited. We had a good visit, then went off to the play area at Westwood Pavillion (mall). As before, Petra loved it there, playing amongst the swarming throng of rugrats. One little boy adopted her and was never far from her side. Another baby had a good conversation of "aaahs" and "baaa baaa baas." We ended up staying there for two hours, long enough that when Mommy got off work she just met us and we all rode home together. Petra snoozed the whole way- she played too much and napped too little today. All Daddy's fault!

This weekend we went to Farmer's Market to get some tasty Huevos con Calabasitas for Petra. She just loves the food at Loteria Grill (and so do we). While waiting for the food, Petra took off on her own to explore one of the tschochke shops at the market- wind chimes drew her like a moth to a candle. She has no qualms at all about crawling off to explore on her own. Such a brave baby!

I've been working on getting Petra to sleep in her crib at night. I lull her to sleep in my arms (sometimes fighting her squirming and crying, but rarely for long), then put her down in her crib. She invariably starts crying and trying to get up, but usually some shushing and belly patting gets her back to sleep quickly. She now stays there until 1-2 in the morning, at which time she wakes up and won't go back to sleep without Mommy by her side. I'm sure as we work on it we'll get her to sleep longer and longer. I do get frustrated though in the middle of the night when she finally decides that she's not having any more of Daddy putting her down. The screaming and flailing (painful thrashing- she's a big strong girl now) wear me down quickly (and she probably knows this). We'll keep trying though.

Petra's had a cold the last few days. Snot production is at maximum, making it hard for her to breathe at night (and contributing to shorter times in the crib). She absolutely HATES the snot sucker, and screams hyterically when it is used on her (and who can blame her- try vacuuming out your own nostrils), but there isn't any way she can sleep with her nose clogged so badly. So, I just do it when she's already hysterical for Mommy, so the screaming is no worse one way or another, and Daddy is already the bad guy. Sigh.