Month: May 2007

Mama had been having a very difficult week with Austen. Her sleepy and cranky little girl has refused to nap, and screamed and bucked wildly when Mama tried to get her to sleep in her swing. Mama was ready to resign her position as Mommy, or at least take a sabbatical. Luckily, there seemed to be a breakthrough today.

After an unsuccessful attempt at napping in the swing, Mama waited an hour and then cajoled a sleepy Austen into her bedroom. After a diapey change, Mama asked Austen if she wanted to do sleepies in the swing or the crib. Austen pointed and said “crib.” Amazingly, as soon as Mama put Austen into her crib (with her bottle of water) she settled down and drifted off to sleep. Unbelievable! Austen never naps in her crib. For her entire life, she’s napped in her Fisher Price swing. In the past when Mama or Dada have tried to put her in the crib, she’s only jumped around and yelled a lot. Maybe all the fussies this week were a result of Austen being ready to nap in the crib — after all, the little swing has been getting pretty confining for 32″ Austen.

Mama and Dada always said that Austen would make the decision to start napping in her crib. When it comes to fundamentals, she just can’t be forced to do something. It’s like forcing a scared cat to retract her claws and lie still. You have to wait for her to make the change of her own volition. Hopefully, this will turn into a permanent change. When traveling, it’s difficult to cart the swing around and it’s weight limit has been surpassed.

Mama had decided she will not force Austen to give up her bottle. Why fight a losing battle? Austen is too strong willed to force her to do something she’s dead set against. Mama will just wait until Austen decides to give it up. Of course, Mama herself has still not given up her security blanket from infancy. Don’t ask — it’s embarrassing.

Austen loves to hang out with Riley. She can’t quite say her name but manages to blurt out Ri’ey. It’s no wonder Austen is called fiesty or maybe she’s just very focused on block building. Riley is so helpful and tolerant.

Austen’s linguistic skills continue to improve at an escalated pace. She’ll try to say almost any word. Point to something and say its name and Austen will do the same. She also regularly forms simple sentences by combining words: “Bye Bye, Chacha!” “Bye Bye, babies.” “This is Mama’s cup.” “Scout! Get down.” “Here you go.” “There she is!” “More cheese, please!”

Austen also has started using names when identifying her family & friends. In addition to Chacha, she now calls Grandpa “Pa.” She hasn’t figured out what to call Grandma yet; when you tell her it’s Grandma, she repeats “Mama?” and looks around for Mama. She’s said “Jan” for Auntie Janet, some version of Heather for Auntie Heather and “Mor’an” for Morgan, although she needs to practice for a while before it sticks. She’s also excited to see her good friends Mia, Riley and Aaron and usually greets them with “Hi Mia,” “Hi Ri’ey” and “Hi ‘Run,” respectively. She’s working on learning all her friends names.

For about two to three weeks, Austen has been drinking a lot of water throughout the night, waking up several times. It started off with just a little bit but at its peak, she drank almost 20 ounces in the middle of the night, often soaking her diapers, PJs and sometimes the bed sheet. Waking up two to four times each night, Dada quickly became pooped out. Fortunately, we were able to get her switched back to drinking more during the day and not the night!

In addition to making the sounds of various animals, Austen now identifies the animals by name. “Cow. Moo, mooo.” She uses this skill to sing the Old McDonald song. She sings the ee-i-ee-i-oo chorus, adds the animal (…and on his farm he had some … “Ducks!”) and then repeatedly makes the animal’s sound. She’s content to sing the song on her own or along with someone. Sometimes, you can hear her singing it as she’s going to bed or early in the morning before Mama or Dada tend to her.

Austen has started throwing some tantrums, so Mama and Dada try to only say no to her when absolutely necessary. She has a strong desire to feel in control. Time Outs work when Austen swings at the cats or stands on chairs, but Dada and the Rodey family aren’t very good at discipline so there isn’t a lot of consistency at this point. They still insist “She’s just a baby.” Mama knows she’s a clever little whipper-snapper, who will take advantage of pushovers without stopping to bat an eyelash.

In the mornings, Austen watches videos (Baby Einstein and the Wiggles) while eating waffles, yogurt, fruit and cheese. For lunch, she usually has mac and cheese, or chicken and fruit … with chocolate milk. She also enjoys a nice chicken burrito. For snacks, she likes cheese crackers, raisins, crispy rice bars (a.k.a. boo-yeah bars), and fruit bars. For dinner, she eats some sort of meat, lots of fruit, rice or bread, and string beans or peas or edemame. She’s a big fruit eater, while Mama sometimes struggles to get her to eat high-protein foods.

At the very end of the month, Austen started napping in her crib, giving up her well-used swing. Most days she only takes one nap but it happens early, around 11:30. By 5pm, she’s often a bit fussy. Austen and Mama often miss classes or play dates because of her lunchtime napping, and Mama wishes her nap would move to around 1pm if she’s only to have one a day.

Mama has recently commented a lot on how Austen seems to have some sort of innate fascination with farm animals. Is it in her blood? If so, it skipped a generation because Mama wasn’t crazy about living on a farm. Austen is fascinated by singing and dancing and animated behavior. She’s even imitating it now. Mama sees a possible future for her on Broadway. At the very least, Austen and Mama will enjoy many trips to Manhattan to see shows.

There are days Mama feels like a failure because she can’t get Austen to nap or sleep, although it’s clear she’s tired and/or hungry. Much yelling (on Austen’s part) and frustration are involved. Today, Mama and Austen missed out on a birthday playdate. Major bummer.

In college, Mama and her friends called each other by “Loser” nicknames (“Meiwah Loser,” “Cinda Loser,” etc.) in a benevolent effort to take the pressure off when it came to grades and academic success. “Might as well forget about getting an A!” Maybe Mama will start calling herself “Mommy Loser.”

Mama and Austen visited Starbucks today, as they frequently do. Mama loves her “special drinks”: Green Tea Latte. Austen also enjoys the apple & cheese snacks. While eating at the table, Mama gave Austen a small, empty starbucks cup to play with. Austen studied the cup carefully, saying “Cup” several times, and then started repeating the word “Star” as in “Starbucks.” Austen recognizes pictures of stars but there was no picture on the cup. Just the word! She must have seen the word enough times in books and videos to recognize it. Or else this was an incredible coincidence.

Austen always loves park visits and especially the parks that have kids play areas including slides, walkways and older kids.

Here’s Dada up in a tree showing off his climbing skills.

Dada got tired and tried to convince Austen to lie down with him. It worked by baiting Austen with new shoes, bought by Auntie Heather earlier in the day, but only for a few short minutes.

Auntie Heather visited Austen this weekend. We spent the time doing lots of activities, even though Austen was not on her best behavior.

On Satruday afternoon, we went to a birthday party at Gymboree. Austen hasn’t been to gymboree in a while (although she takes an art class there) but immediately recognized the layout & toys. She quickly went to work by climbing the slides and the oversized shapes; she also rocked on the wooden horse. After some play time, everyone went up to eat some pizza. Austen never ate pizza before and previous attempts all failed. At first, Austen pushed away the pizza and ate only the crust but after Dada took a bite, Austen decided she’ld try it. She loved it! In a few minutes, her slice was gone and the last few bites went in all at once.

Afterwards, we played outside, drawing with chalk on the driveway and enjoying the pleasent weather. Austen became fussy so Auntie Heather & Mama gave her a bubble bath while Dada picked up some Afghan food. We all ate together, the grown-ups enjoyed had some alchohol (it was Cinco de Mayo, afterall!) and after Austen went to bed, we watched a movie (Dada & Auntie Heather fell asleep on the sofa but Mama enjoyed the movie).

On Sunday, we went shopping in Westfield. We stopped at a shoe store, where Austen was happy to let the sales person (aka “nose”) put shoes on her feet. Austen also enjoyed looking at the older kids. She walked up and stared at two older boys, who suddenly became shy and unsure of what they should do. They tried walking away but Austen just followed them. Afterwards, we ate Mexican food at Tinga, a favorite of Mama and Austen’s. Then, we wandered to another store, which was supposed to be closed but just opened as some of us were standing in front admiring the shoes.

We wrapped up the excursion by shopping at a nearby Trader Joe’s, where Austen fell asleep in her stroller, which she never does. She skipped her morning nap and was really tired but she slept for only 10 minutes and woke up in time to say goodbye to Auntie Heather, in her typical lovable manner.