Sleep

I thought it might be interesting to write a post about sleep. Since we stopped having such a rough time with it, we've stopped writing about it and I don't want to forget what things were like at this stage of the game.

We've really come full circle from where we were at our most desperate point. To recap: even as a very little guy, M had a terrible time getting to sleep. We ultimately resorted to crying it out with him around 5 months because our main sleep solution - me walking him in circles around the neighborhood at all hours of the day and night - had stopped working. Or, I should say, it had stopped working in what I considered to be a reasonable amount of time. If we finished our 30 minute loop (usually after a couple of hours of trying other things first) and he wasn't looking drowsy by that point, I was about ready to pull my hair out.

So, we did cry it out and it was long and difficult and certainly not the fabulous "he cried for 10 minutes and then slept through the night ever after!" solution we thought it might be. But it did ultimately get us to the point where he would go down without too much trouble in between five and fifteen minutes at a reliable bedtime. At least, for awhile. Inevitably something would happen (like the ill-timed trip that threw us back into sleep purgatory for a whole month after we got back) and we'd have to start at the beginning again. Yuck.

Now, at the 15 month marker, things are very different but working better than ever. Since Mateo learned how to nurse off to sleep (which he did not do as a young baby), we have slowly gotten to the point where he nurses off for his naps (except for when he falls asleep in the car, which he also used to never do) and at bedtime. We know you're not supposed to do this and it's a bad habit and blah blah blah, but we aren't worried about that. It's working really well right now. It's sweet and comforting and nice for all of us. We know that when he stops nursing or when this stops working, that we will get back to the point where he can go to sleep on his own.

Here's our bedtime routine these days: we do all the getting ready, putting on jammies, taking vitamins and fluoride, reading a story, brushing teeth, etc, and then Mateo and I go into his room and sit in our comfy chair for some Mama's milk. After about five minutes, M has crashed out and Sacha comes in to sit with us. When M's all finished, Sacha picks him up and talks to him quietly as she puts him in bed and covers him up with his blankies. Then we both tiptoe out. And it's usually all done by 7:15 pm.

I love our nursing time so much. I love getting that 15 minutes of cuddle time with our normally very active boy. And I feel like I'm finally getting that peaceful time to connect with him that was so elusive in the beginning. We has such a hard time in the first three months and even after that, it took a long time for us to really get in a groove. Also, I rarely read or do anything else other than be with him when he's nursing. I try to take that time to be with him and enjoy the time we have together. I know it won't last forever!

After he goes down for the night, M sleeps for a period of time. He usually wakes up sometime between 12 am and 5:30 am. He's pretty unpredictable. We've been through trying to get him to do what we want (sleep through the night) without much success and right now are just going with what works for him. When he wakes up, I go in and nurse him and he conks back out and when he's done, I put him back down and go back to bed. Usually he just gets up once, or will wake up once in the actual night and once at like 5:30 am, at which point I nurse him again and he sleeps until 6:30 or 7. Sleeping in!

In the mornings, Sacha still usually gets up with our little guy like the goddess that she is. It's just for 10 or 15 minutes before we all have to get ready for the day, but it is sooo nice for me to have that bit of time to go back to bed.

That's what our sleep is like that this point. Hopefully things will be stable, or possibly M will miraculously learn how to sleep all the way through, until baby #2 makes her appearance...at which point all bets are off!

Valentine's Day

I keep thinking about the last Valentine's Day and how long ago it seems. M was about three months old and Sacha had not only just gone back to work outside the house but had just started the Teaching Job From Hell with a group of 50 five year olds. She was having a really tough time and I was also adjusting to being home by myself with the little guy. I remember that we went out to her school to bring her lunch and a sweet treat, but things were so chaotic that we just inhaled our lunch and had to leave the treat for her to eat later. Of course, things went on to stabilize and we both got used to our new roles and schedules and such. But right then it felt like we had been abruptly tossed out of our cocoon and weren't quite sure what to do!

Then, of course, the Valentine's Day before that was the day we found out we were expecting Mateo!

Anyway, today was different from both of the two above and it was a good Valentine's Day in its own right. Mateo and I brought his Mommy breakfast in bed with some flowers this morning and then had breakfast at my grandmother's house with my mom and my grandmother's caregiver, Susan. Mateo showed off his new name for my mom - his version of Grammy, which sounds like "Brah!" He can't quite do the G sound yet, so he substitutes B, which is much easier. He also learned how to say Susan's (su-su) name and repeated it and his version of Grammy long after we had gotten home.

Sacha brought us home a delicious surprise lunch and we enjoyed it along with some cupcakes Mateo and I had made. That's when the day took a downturn. After lunch, Sacha started feeling yucky in the tummy. Soon after, Mateo showed us that the intestinal upset that we thought he had gotten over last night was not, in fact, gone. Shortly after that, probably just from being around two people who felt yucky, even I started feeling icky. They both went off to bed soon after dinner and hopefully will feel better in the morning...and I feel fine now, other than just being exhausted. I have to say though, before yesterday, I had never considered the effect that toddler diarrhea might have on my psyche.

A few other less disgusting things - Mateo had his 15-month check-up on Tuesday and seems to be doing great. He weighed (and measured) in at 31.5 inches and 21 pounds even. I'll spare you the percentiles and just say that he's a tall and slender guy and the doctor was happy with his growth. He smiled and giggled for her and generally had a fun time. She seemed duly impressed with all his words and commented on her way out the door that he was ridiculously cute. We agree, obviously, and loved hearing it!

After the exam, we took M down to the lab and got his blood drawn so his lead levels could be re-checked. Before we left, Sacha made the doctor promise to call her cell phone only with the results so that she wouldn't come home to find us at a hotel if the numbers were bad.

Last time it took at least a week to hear anything, but this time I think the doctor must have been sufficiently worried about my mental health to speed things up. She had the results expedited and called yesterday to tell us that his levels had gone down somewhat. We were thrilled to hear that, as we had both been worrying that they might have gone up. I have to say, though, that after all the painting and house cleaning I've done for the past three months, I was hoping for a bigger drop. I guess progress is progress and we just have to keep working on it.

One more thing to conclude this epic novel - today after Sacha got home, we were chatting in the bedroom while Mateo went next door to the bathroom and turned the hot water on and off while standing next to the bathtub, as is his wont. He ran off to do something else and left the hot water running, as he usually does. One of us was about to go turn it off, as we usually do, when I decided to try something different. I said "Mateo, will you go turn the water off?" He stared at me blankly for a second and then said "Ah dah?" (all done?) in this voice like, oh, well why didn't you say so? Then he turned, trotted into the bathroom and turned off the water as Sacha and I gaped at each other. I keep saying this, but it seems that he really does understand us!

Two words together

We just got back from a wonderful dinner with friends and managed to roll ourselves in the door. Mateo displayed some adventurous eating tonight and sampled a variety of Chinese food. He seemed to particularly like the noodles, shrimp, and spinach.

He also continued to do a new verbal thing that he seems to have just learned. He's started to put two words together into primitive little phrases. The first time he did this, it was to say "up, please" (up PEES!). We taught him that one. However, he's now added a few more of these to his vocabulary- he says "Beast, cat!" about his favorite cat in the whole world besides Lucy, and he says the names of a few friends and then the word baby. For example, we saw his little friend Kylie this week and he kept saying "Ky- a, baby!". Tonight he added "'Maya, baby" to his repertoire.

His biggest verbal thing of the week came last night, when we were hanging out with his friend, Nils. Mateo was about to go to bed and I told him he should say night night to Nils. He sidled up to him very carefully until he got into hugging range. Then, he very sweetly said "Ni, Ni, nigh-nigh, nigh-nigh, bye-bye." It just about broke my heart, it was so cute.

Sun and clouds

For the first time in what seems like months, it's a (partially) sunny day here in our rainy city! It's mild outside and the sun's shining and we are soooo happy about it. The gray weather gets a little old by this time in the year.

We just had a wonderful time gardening outside....until our little guy launched himself into the biggest meltdown he's had in recent memory. He was trying to play in the alley next to our house and Sacha had to quickly pick him up when a car wanted to go by. M just totally lost it. He would not be consoled by either of us, which is very unusual for him. He had been cranky for a lot of the morning, but had been holding it together until that point. He just screamed and screamed and screamed while we both tried to comfort him until he finally let me nurse him down to sleep. We think he was probably tired and hungry and his teeth were hurting and maybe that just pushed him over the edge. It was quite the display of lung power, though. Hopefully he'll take a nice long nap and feel better when he wakes up.

On a happier note, I took some photos the other day of things Mateo likes to do in the mornings. Here are some of them:

Evading his diaper change:


Playing with the diaper pail:


Squishing in next to his crib:


Turning the light on and off and on and off and on and off:


Taking a pretend snooze:

Developing a roll of film???

My fifth grade math students are preparing for the state math test. They were taking a practice test in the classroom yesterday when a generational glitch came up. The question was about how someone had taken some pictures on a roll of film and only 9 of them developed because the flash was not working. If the roll cost (some amount), how much did each picture cost.

I looked at the problem and thought - great that is an easy division problem. This is one question students are not going to have a problem with.

Wrong. No one in my class knew what the phrase "developing a roll of film" meant. No idea what so over! What's a roll of film? It gets developed? What does that mean?

Too bad the test writers couldn't come up with a better question like if someone downloaded 9 MP3's from a website, and it cost some amount, how much did each song cost? Now that would have been a question the students could answer. Or printing digital pictures.

I think this is supposed to be a math test, not a generational vocabulary test!

Late risers

Someone, and I'm not naming names, has started showing his moms that maybe, just maybe, he can sleep past 6 or 6:30 in the morning. We've just begun to discover that if he wakes up after 5:30 and I nurse him and put him back down, he will sometimes sleep until after 7 am! This is big for all of us. It's practically luxurious for all of us to be snoozing that late. We'd like to send out a big thank you to our little guy for the extra sleep.

Of course, he's also having more teething pain and that got him up three times last night, so I guess it's all one step forward and one step back!

One thing I forgot to say in his 15 month letter: he's learned recently how to knock on doors. He will go up to a door and say "doo" and then "na!", by which he means "I will now knock on this door." And then he does.

Also, he knows that the cat is not allowed on the counters or the dining room table. He also knows that when she jumps up there anyway, we say "off!" So, now he says "off!" when the cat jumps up there. This morning, he was camped out on the kitchen like a little inspector, watching for any rule-breaking by the kitty.

Finally, Mateo's Apa is in town and they had a fun outing yesterday. They walked (Mateo rode in style) down to a nearby burrito place for lunch and then to a bakery for dessert. A good time was had by all and we had a lot of fun watching them play together.

15 month letter

Dear Mateo,
Little guy, you have just turned 15 months old! This is one of those ages that seemed impossibly old back when you were just a few weeks old. Somehow, though, here we are!

You are definitely a toddler now, although we still call you our baby. You have mastered walking. You even throw some running in here and there, to mix things up. Recently, you've fallen in love with taking walks with Mommy out on the sidewalks of our neighborhood. You trot along, holding her hand and shrieking in delight as you run along. You don't walk/run for very long at a time, because you get excited by every puddle, bird and cat you see in the neighborhood. You are helping us get to know our surroundings in great detail!


This month, you continued to learn new words and show us what a verbal little boy you are. For the heck of it one morning, we counted up all the words you can say or sign and we got to 60! We did count animal sounds as words, so the real number might be slightly less. But you really are quite the talker. For right now, you mostly say the first syllable of whatever word it is, often accompanied by the sign. We watch Baby Signing Time most evenings and you still love it. We tried the regular Signing Time videos, which are the next step up, but they're still a little over your head.

In addition to words, you've started to put together two words for the first time. It's very cute - you're in love with our friend Emily's cat. The cat's name is Beast. You loooove Beast. In fact, we think Beast was one of your very first words. One night, Emily and Eric and Nils were watching you while we went out to dinner...and when we came back, Emily and Eric said that you had been saying "Beast!" over and over. We thought that might have been wishful thinking, but you really did know how to say it. Last week, you saw Beast again and since then, you have been saying "Beast...cat!" over and over and over. You love to tell us that Beast is a cat, and we love to hear it!

Speaking of cats, we got our own kitty this month. You and Lucy, the kitten, are now best friends. You're at pretty much the same developmental age and you love each other. Morning, noon, and night, you can be found chasing each other around, playing together, and generally having a great time. You sometimes get too rough with her, but you're learning to be gentle. And, today, you demonstrated your new skill of giving kisses by leaning very close to Lucy and saying "MA!" That's how you give a kiss. You are such a loving boy.

You're starting to learn people's names, as well. You like to say "Ni!" when I tell you we're going to visit Nils, and you also like to say Bubby and Poppa and Apa. Most of the time you say Mommy and Mama for the right person, but that can still be a bit confusing. The easiest name for you is Mamima, your made up name for both of us!

You also love to brush your teeth, usually with some company:


You got another haircut this month. Mama took you to a haircut place and you sat very still and watched with big eyes as a nice lady cut your hair. Mama thought, wow, this isn't as hard as I thought! Unfortunately, the lady forgot to cut over your ears and Mama and Mommy still haven't been able to get you to sit still to finish the trim. Apparently, it is as hard as we thought. We just can't distract you as much as a whole hair salon can!

You've been sleeping well these days. This is sooo wonderful! You go down for the night very easily, almost always by nursing off to sleep. You wake up once in the night, usually, and we're pretty okay with that. We're working on helping you go back to sleep without nursing if you wake up a second time. You're transitioning to one nap during the day, which has been a little bit difficult. You tend to sleep for an hour or so if we're at home, but you're also likely to fall asleep in the car if we go anywhere before noon. Transferring you inside has become close to impossible, so Mama has been spending a lot more time listening to NPR in the car than she used to!

Here you are on the day of our heat outage:


In terms of food, you've suddenly decided that you want to feed yourself and that is that. Bubby and Poppa gave you a little booster seat that we can strap you into. That way, you can sit at the table with us and make a big fun mess. Your favorite foods are yogurt, cheese, milk, apples, bananas, bagels and cream cheese, and Superfood juice. You love to watch Mama make her hot cocoa every morning and know how to say that you need sugar (shu) and cocoa powder (coco) to make hot cocoa. It is too cute.



Lastly, we found out this month that you're going to have a little sister! We know that you'll be a great big brother and we're so excited for you to meet the new baby. You've been working through some possessiveness towards your parents - you don't like it when the kitty or another baby tries to sit on our laps! - but we hope our laps will be big enough for you and the new baby. We know our hearts will be :)


Mateo, we love you to the moon and the stars. We feel lucky every day that you're our little boy. We can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

All our love,
Mommy and Mama