Thanksgiving

What could I be more thankful for, than having such a wonderful little girl? We went to have Thanksgiving dinner and a sleepover at our friends' house, and Petra was great the entire time. We put a pack-n-play in the laundry room, and put crickets on the white-noise machine, and she napped and slept wonderfully (12:30-6 for those keeping score!). She and Katie slept right through dinner, letting us eat like grown-ups, then woke and had their own Thanksgiving dinner. So sweet of them. The girls played nicely, and we all had a nice trip to the park. All in all a very relaxing Thanksgiving. Thank goodness!

Petra has been in love with the cordless/cell phones for awhile- she holds them to her ear and "talks to grandma". We got her her own toy cell phone today, which she loves. He's saying "Hlo" now whenever she holds it to her ear.

Our little sweetie has been very helpful in the kitchen- as you can see here and here. She's always grabbing herself a piece of fruit when the fridge is open.

Worms

OK, not really worms, but words. There's a movie reference in there if you can find it.

In her own words:
Shoes
Toes
Remote
Cracker
Cricket (virtually identical to Cracker, different context, I hope)
Ball
Mama
Daddy (SURE, that's what she's saying. She still calls me Mama half the time)
Cat
Door (or "Go", not quite sure, but they are semantically related in her book)
Water

She rubs her hands together when we wash our hands or say "wash your hands"

She turns around and around to make herself dizzy (and will do it on the command of "round and round")

She plays Peekaboo unprompted (lifts her shirt up to cover her face).

I lay her down to sleep in her crib, say goodnight and leave- and she goes right to sleep! (staying asleep all night is a different matter, but she is waking less often, and usually puts herself back to sleep quickly).

She bites. Ouch, not a good one. But it seems to be only when she is getting tired. Hopefully we'll get her to stop before someone gets hurt.

I love this baby!

Uh-Oh

Petra climbed up onto the couch this morning, grabbed a remote and flung it on the floor- "Uh-Oh!" she said.

Then she grabbed another remote and flung it- "Uh-Oh"

Then a magazine- "Uh-Oh"

Then a newspaper- "Uh-Oh"

I tried to explain to her that when you do it on purpose, you don't say "Uh-Oh"!

I think she's learning all sorts of bad habits at daycare. Like this "Uh-Oh" thing, and now if you try to pick her up when she doesn't want it, she drops to the ground and goes completely limp. Pesky kids!

In addition to Uh-Oh, she also said "Mote" when she picked up the remote, and she did the "cereal" sign when I asked her if she wanted some cereal. She is such a smart baby! And did I mention that she whistles now? I love this baby!

Slip sliding away

We'll get to the sleep training update in a minute, but first, the fun stuff. We had a 3 day weekend, and nothing at all on the calendar- no birthday parties or parents groups, friends all out of town, no play dates, no big sales. We had a great time just hanging out with Petra. We spent one morning at the Pan Pacific park playground, where Petra indulged in her love of slides (and learned an important lesson about static electricity), and one morning at a playground by a farmers market in Santa Monica (where she rode the bouncy riding toy again). She had a great time everywhere we went. It's so nice to have a little girl who is so happy and playful. She meets, and plays with, other kids, and steals every toy she can get her hands on.

She is such the independent little girl! At one point she just took off from the playground, crossed a walkway and a big open field, just to steal a ball (her favorite toy) from a kid playing soccer with his dad. Half the time she picks the ball up, occasionally she throws it, and now she has started to kick it along. Is there any money in women's soccer?

Petra continues to amaze us in a thousand ways. Just a few include:
*A newfound love of animal crackers, which led to her adding "kakaa" to her vocabulary. Such a big smile she gets when I giver her one!
*Handwashing motions whenever she sees us wash our hands (or, for that matter, when she gets near a puddle).
*Endless chatting and babbling (sure, cute now, but wait until she's 2).

And now the sleep (or lack of sleep) update. Things are going pretty well. Worst night she woke up every hour on the hour, and took about 10 minutes to get back to sleep (lots of whining cries). Second worse was a night with a 2 hour block in the middle of the night when she would go to sleep, but wake crying 5-10 minutes later. The best night had a solid 4 hours without a peep! She doesn't really cry much at all now, just a cry out when she wakes, but she lays right down to go to sleep as soon as daddy comes and says everything is OK. She still wakes too often (4-6 times a night), but I think she is getting better about soothing herself back to sleep.

Tonight mommy put her down for the first time. Not quite as smooth as when daddy does it, but she went to bed in her crib yet again. We've even managed to completely avoid backsliding and bringing her to bed with us, as tempting as it has been a couple of times.

Don't forget to check the photo album for more pictures.

Second Night

Much better! Hardly any tears at all, though she still woke up a number of times. Now though, there would be a little whine or two, then she'd flop herself down and go back to sleep. There was about 1.5 hours in the middle of the night where she would wake herself every 5-10 minutes though, so we have to work on that, but she is doing wonderfully!

And now, I've probably cursed it and tonight will be hell.

The first night of the rest of your life

Petra stayed in her crib all night last night, for the first time.

I'm not saying she slept all night, but we put her down there, and that's where she stayed until morning. It wasn't as bad as I've sometimes read it can be, but it was still not fun having her cry.

She's always slept in bed with us, though for the last few months she's gone to sleep in her crib, but come to bed with us when she wakes up howling at 11 or 12 or 1. Basically, it's because we are lazy, and the sound of her crying hurt us so much.

But she's growing up, and it's better to get her sleeping on her own now than later. We surveyed the whacko theories and draconian methodologies out there for sleep training, and ended up with "The Sleep Lady." Basically, though, they all come down to the baby crying and you not taking her to bed with you. TSL has you next to her crib for a couple of nights, then a little further away, then at the door of the room, then in the hall, etc. etc. until she's going to sleep on her own without you helping. We needed to follow a system to help steel our resolve to follow the system, rather than cave and bring her to bed. We both put in ear plugs and went to it.

Going to sleep however, isn't really the issue with us. Petra goes to sleep pretty easily. I take her back to her room, it's dark and the classical station is on the radio, and in 2-10 minutes she's out. Not a problem. The problem is when she wakes up howling and won't lie back down, and won't stop until she gets in bed with us. All the "systems" seem to act like getting to sleep is the problem, and not staying asleep.

So, you ask, how did it go? Not too bad. She went down at 7:30, her normal time, but woke crying at about 9 (earlier than usual) and didn't want to go back down. I sat with her, shushed her, patted her etc., but she howled for a half hour before falling asleep standing up with my arm around her. What a heartbreaker!

She stayed asleep until about 1am, then had another 20 minute cry before flopping down on her but and collapsing forward asleep. Again, not the way I'd want her to go to sleep. This is building self-soothing skills?

2:30 she did 15 minutes of crying before the sit and collapse again.

3:30 only 5 minutes; 3:50 (!) another 5 minutes; 4:30 about 10 minutes, and 5:40 about 10 minutes. She definitely didn't like being covered up, despite the chill in the air. She'd be out, and the second I'd cover her she would start yelling and stand up again.

So, total of only 1 hour and 15 minutes of crying for the first night. I've read about kids doing that EVERY TIME they wake up.

My biggest fear was that she'd be cranky and mad at me for forcing her to sleep in the crib, but after she woke up at 6:15 or so (just enough time for me to take a shower) she was her usual happy morning baby self. Hooray! She was a darling as we walked up to the polls together to vote (and play with a doggie outside). Though she fell asleep on her feet in daycare a little later, and slept an hour on the couch in the middle of the daycare scrum. Poor tired muffin!

And let's not forget poor tired daddy too! He got less sleep than Petra (and WAY less than mommy- those earplugs really work!). Thank goodness for espresso.

A Cold Day In...

Seattle, actually. We all went up for 5 days while daddy was at a conference. Just to welcome us SoCal folks- record low temperatures! Funny thing was, all the Seattlites were saying how great the weather was! Just because the sun was peeking out occasionally, and it wasn't pouring rain (except when we were walking to/from the Children's museum). Mommy arranged for us to meet some of her invisible friends at the Children's museum at Seattle Center. We planned for this by staying at the Mayflower Park hotel, right at the monorail station, so we wouldn't have to go out if the rain was falling. Of course, the monorail wasn't running, and the bus was coming something less than frequently. We ended up walking most of the way there and all the way back, and on the one rainy day of the trip. Brrrrr! The only good of the cold came from Petra deciding that wearing a hat is actually OK! Before this, she wouldn't let you put one on her head for more than a second.


Petra had a great time at the museum though. Within minutes she had conked her head on some concrete and had a nice bruise on her forehead (thank goodness, we wouldn't want the invisible friends to think we were good parents!). She got it by fearlessly climbing some steps and going headfirst down a slide a couple of times (with no trauma), but got brave and tried to WALK down the slide. Hilarity ensues. She recovered quickly though, and took off through the museum. She loved playing at the water table, and she insisted that I lift her up in the air to pat Clifford the Big Red Dog ™ on the nose. The Children's museum, of course, is not really a museum. It is a pay per use playground, the kind of place that used to be called public parks (or rec centers), but with more funding. That's all the ranting I'll do though, because Petra loved it.

Petra also visited the Rem Koolhaas library a couple of times, and had fun there (especially with a big stuffed leopard she found). Very cute.

Speaking of cute... When mommy comes home on the bus, she sends a text message so we know when she be arriving. Daddy's phone has a special "brrriing" sound when these messages arrive, and Petra recognizes them. As soon as she hears that sound she says "Mama!" and starts getting excited. Such a clever monkey!