Wren's sleep seems to be improving. I am hoping this is not a short-term marvel but since that night he slept till 5am he has not woken at 1.30am again. The following night he slept from 7.30-3am and then woke at 5.40am and last night it was:
7.30pm
4am (nurse)
5.15am (muttering)
6.30am wake
That was a wonderful night and I am very pleased and proud of him.
His fourth molar has cut through and is still working its way out but perhaps that had been bothering him.
He is now pushing a Hot Wheels monster truck around the kitchen floor. He crawls with it under one hand and mutters to himself. He really likes the monster trucks which are really for age 3+ so I shall have to watch him.
Since our babysitter quit suddenly I have advertised. My ad yesterday must have had the right buzzwords because I have had 4 replies. All are from nanny's who watch children with their own child present. I think that would work fine. We are looking for 8 hours per week - one morning while I am working at school and one other morning for errands and general R&R. I am going to interview a few of them by phone this afternoon.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
First haircut, first sleeping through the night
Yesterday, I trimmed Wren's hair for the first time. He looks very boyish and sweet with blunt and crooked bangs and tufts of hair sticking out at the nape of his neck. He was very tolerant and I kept my eyes on the goal of not paying $22 dollars for a 10 month olds haircut. It took about 3 minutes so it was money well saved.
That night Wren went to bed at 7.30pm and I woke at 4am wondering what had happened to him. Usually, I wake around 1.30am when he cries and Josh goes in to try and settle him. Lately, it has been hard so I have often got up and nursed him back to sleep at this time. Afterwards, I remove the earplugs I put in at bedtime in an attempt to get 3 hours uninterrupted sleep.
Last night I still had my earplugs in at 4am - that is 6 hours of sleep (the longest stretch since Wren was born).
I crept into Wren's room to see how he was. I felt quite wide awake and frisky after my good nights sleep so I was a bit disappointed to see him sleeping deeply. I considered waking him to nurse so he would sleep in but then became curious to see how long he would sleep.
It took me a long time to get back to sleep because I was so well rested. Eventually I managed to do it by remembering the dream I was having when I woke up and returning to it and continuing it voluntarily. This had the desired effect and I woke again to Wren (crying) at 5.15am. So Wren slept from 7.30pm till 5.15am without waking Josh or I. I am slightly suspicious that he cried and I didn't hear him but it can't have been for long or Josh would have woken.
Now, fingers crossed that he does well tonight too.
That night Wren went to bed at 7.30pm and I woke at 4am wondering what had happened to him. Usually, I wake around 1.30am when he cries and Josh goes in to try and settle him. Lately, it has been hard so I have often got up and nursed him back to sleep at this time. Afterwards, I remove the earplugs I put in at bedtime in an attempt to get 3 hours uninterrupted sleep.
Last night I still had my earplugs in at 4am - that is 6 hours of sleep (the longest stretch since Wren was born).
I crept into Wren's room to see how he was. I felt quite wide awake and frisky after my good nights sleep so I was a bit disappointed to see him sleeping deeply. I considered waking him to nurse so he would sleep in but then became curious to see how long he would sleep.
It took me a long time to get back to sleep because I was so well rested. Eventually I managed to do it by remembering the dream I was having when I woke up and returning to it and continuing it voluntarily. This had the desired effect and I woke again to Wren (crying) at 5.15am. So Wren slept from 7.30pm till 5.15am without waking Josh or I. I am slightly suspicious that he cried and I didn't hear him but it can't have been for long or Josh would have woken.
Now, fingers crossed that he does well tonight too.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Infant Pointing
Wren points all the time so I was interested to receive reports of a new study on babies' pointing:
A new theory of infant pointing provides evidence that when 12-month-old infants point for an adult, they are trying to influence his or her mental state, rather than using the adult as a "tool" to obtain a desired object. The evidence suggests that infant pointing is produced by the uniquely human motivation of cooperation, and that it is an essential milestone in the development of language skills.Source: Child Development 78 (2007): 705-22.
"Ah ha!" or "What?"
I guess this theory suggests that when Wren points at a ball or fan or cat he is not wanting me to say "CAT" or to GET THE CAT or "LOOK, A CAT" he is trying to co-operate with me in things CAT.
Still, its ambiguous. Influence the adults mental state how exactly? Drive the adult nuts? Get the adult confused? Get the adult co-operating in pointing?
This adult's mental state is influenced, okay!
MEANWHILE:
This is Frost's poem of the morning:
If you heard a bang in a park
Then there would be two things waiting for you
Because if you take the b off the bang
Then that spells Ang, the avatar
And if you put the reakfast in front of the missing B
That spells BREAKFAST!!
Monday, November 5, 2007
Nightdark Losing
Last night our clocks switched back an hour at 2am. This suits everyone except those with young children. Young children cannot be switched back an hour at 2am. They want to go to sleep an hour early and wake an hour early. In Wren's case, morning was 4.45am which had just become 3.45am. Yuck.
I let him cry for 15 minutes and he fell asleep for an hour until 4.45am nightdark losing time and we got up. Through diligence and perseverance I managed to get him to bed at the usual time by the clock rather than by the body. It was seven thirty BTC and he was exhausted.
I bet he will wake in the 4's so I am going to bed in an hour or so in resigned anticipation.
Got to love those long hours of darkness in which I drink instant coffee, clean up the living room, unpack the dishwasher, make Frost's lunch and watch half a CSI by 6am.
I let him cry for 15 minutes and he fell asleep for an hour until 4.45am nightdark losing time and we got up. Through diligence and perseverance I managed to get him to bed at the usual time by the clock rather than by the body. It was seven thirty BTC and he was exhausted.
I bet he will wake in the 4's so I am going to bed in an hour or so in resigned anticipation.
Got to love those long hours of darkness in which I drink instant coffee, clean up the living room, unpack the dishwasher, make Frost's lunch and watch half a CSI by 6am.
Like greased lightning
Wren does not like me to go out of his sight so when I had to do the laundry I put him in the sling and carried him and the huge pile of laundry to the basement. Wren helped me pull the laundry out of the basket but when I had finished stuffing it into the washer he motor-crawled out of the laundry into the basement. I quickly poured in soap and pressed start before following him.
I found him 4 steps UP the basement stairs with a horse chestnut in his hand. He kept on going full speed to the top with me following close behind.
What was the hurry?
He had left a half chewed Swedish Fish on the carpet when I picked him up. It had been dropped from Frost's stash of Halloween candy. He picked it up and looked up, pleased.
Wren has been enjoying a wider range of food recently (including the candy fish) due to my decision to allow him wheat, a bit of dairy and some fish. Josh has felt its okay to give him these things but I have been vacillating between naturopath advice to hold off until age 1 or more and pediatricians who seem to advocate excluding different foods. Our pediatrician says no fish but wheat okay. The Current Time magazine even talks of introducing peanut butter before age 1 (verboten in the US but not in most African and many SE ASian countries) to try and reduce peanut allergies. This is all speculation but shows how little science is in the current dietary restrictions for Western infants.
Wren had French toast for breakfast. It was wheat toast made with milk and whole egg. He thought it was delicious and washed it down with pear sauce and baby cereal.
I found him 4 steps UP the basement stairs with a horse chestnut in his hand. He kept on going full speed to the top with me following close behind.
What was the hurry?
He had left a half chewed Swedish Fish on the carpet when I picked him up. It had been dropped from Frost's stash of Halloween candy. He picked it up and looked up, pleased.
Wren has been enjoying a wider range of food recently (including the candy fish) due to my decision to allow him wheat, a bit of dairy and some fish. Josh has felt its okay to give him these things but I have been vacillating between naturopath advice to hold off until age 1 or more and pediatricians who seem to advocate excluding different foods. Our pediatrician says no fish but wheat okay. The Current Time magazine even talks of introducing peanut butter before age 1 (verboten in the US but not in most African and many SE ASian countries) to try and reduce peanut allergies. This is all speculation but shows how little science is in the current dietary restrictions for Western infants.
Wren had French toast for breakfast. It was wheat toast made with milk and whole egg. He thought it was delicious and washed it down with pear sauce and baby cereal.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Bub-bull
Halloween was lovely. Frost was ecstatic in his ghoul outfit and Wren accepted being dressed as a lion. Frost collected almost 3kg of candy and would have eaten a large portion of it were it not for bedtime. I am not sure if or when he will sleep.
Frost loved going door to door and saying "Trick or treat". He was very chatty and complimented people on their decorations, asked for "more" candy and discussed which his favorites were. The only house he did not like was my favorite - an almost-mansion which had converted the front porch into a haunted house with ghoulish animated figures, black-light, creepy bloody limbs and spooky voices. Frost hid outside and asked me to get him candy. As we left he shouted out to groups of kids approaching "watch out for that house it is super-scary!"
Wren is becoming a good mimic of real words although he has yet to use them intelligently on his own. At Infant co-op he was watching bubbles being blown and staring intently. I said "bubbles" and pointed. He pointed and said "bub-bul, bub-bul." I was not the only one who heard him and a number of people commented on how clear it was. On the weekend he did a similar thing with Josh when he was watching the fire and Josh repeated "fire, fire." Wren said "fie.... fie..."
Wren enjoyed a lollipop while trick or treating. It kept him very very quiet and sticky for a very very long time. After it was gone he sucked on his mane where some sticky sweetness remained.
Frost loved going door to door and saying "Trick or treat". He was very chatty and complimented people on their decorations, asked for "more" candy and discussed which his favorites were. The only house he did not like was my favorite - an almost-mansion which had converted the front porch into a haunted house with ghoulish animated figures, black-light, creepy bloody limbs and spooky voices. Frost hid outside and asked me to get him candy. As we left he shouted out to groups of kids approaching "watch out for that house it is super-scary!"
Wren is becoming a good mimic of real words although he has yet to use them intelligently on his own. At Infant co-op he was watching bubbles being blown and staring intently. I said "bubbles" and pointed. He pointed and said "bub-bul, bub-bul." I was not the only one who heard him and a number of people commented on how clear it was. On the weekend he did a similar thing with Josh when he was watching the fire and Josh repeated "fire, fire." Wren said "fie.... fie..."
Wren enjoyed a lollipop while trick or treating. It kept him very very quiet and sticky for a very very long time. After it was gone he sucked on his mane where some sticky sweetness remained.
Monsters in the night
Last night, on the eve of halloween, we were visited by a few different kinds of monsters.
The first is our familiar beasty - Wren - who has taken it upon himself to wake at midnight and wail and shriek like the most fiendish ghoul. He will not settle himself even after 20 minutes of crying. He won't settle if Joshua goes in to him and so I have to get up and soothe him. Last night I did this by patting his back and singing. This is not easy because the crib has high sides and the position cuts of circulation to my arms while hurting my back. If I lower the sides he could fall out but the click and squeak of raising the sides would wake him so I do not risk that move. He fell asleep after 20 minutes of hiccoughing and fixing me with a baleful eye when I broke the rhythm of my rubbing and patting and singing silly songs about mocking birds and diamond rings.
The next beast comes out of the darkness to our back door. I come out each morning to find the cats' water trough knocked over and their bowls empty. Now, Kasharoo could empty a catfood bowl but I would not expect her to knock over the water. This morning I found the ceramic catfood bowl smashed at the bottom of the back stairs. It seems an uncatlike thing. I suspect a raccoon. I am not sure what to do other than buy a plastic catfood bowl and put the water at the base of the stairs.
Tonight is Halloween and I shall post pictures from our own trick or treating tomorrow.
The first is our familiar beasty - Wren - who has taken it upon himself to wake at midnight and wail and shriek like the most fiendish ghoul. He will not settle himself even after 20 minutes of crying. He won't settle if Joshua goes in to him and so I have to get up and soothe him. Last night I did this by patting his back and singing. This is not easy because the crib has high sides and the position cuts of circulation to my arms while hurting my back. If I lower the sides he could fall out but the click and squeak of raising the sides would wake him so I do not risk that move. He fell asleep after 20 minutes of hiccoughing and fixing me with a baleful eye when I broke the rhythm of my rubbing and patting and singing silly songs about mocking birds and diamond rings.
The next beast comes out of the darkness to our back door. I come out each morning to find the cats' water trough knocked over and their bowls empty. Now, Kasharoo could empty a catfood bowl but I would not expect her to knock over the water. This morning I found the ceramic catfood bowl smashed at the bottom of the back stairs. It seems an uncatlike thing. I suspect a raccoon. I am not sure what to do other than buy a plastic catfood bowl and put the water at the base of the stairs.
Tonight is Halloween and I shall post pictures from our own trick or treating tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Crows have friends too
While I often write about Wren, Frost is (of course) also very interesting and entertaining. Here are some snapshots of Frost at age 6 and a third:
1) Frost likes to be funny. His sense of humor is not always well timed. Yesterday I went out the back door to put out the garbage, carrying Wren. It was very cold and I was wearing flip-flops. When we got around to the front I knocked on the door, asking Frost to let me in. He replied "sorry, I can't let you in because I can't find Mummy!" I said "Frost, it is Mummy, let me in". He replied again "wait, I am going to go and ask Mummy." There is silence and some thudding as he goes out the back door and comes to the front porch. I was not laughing.
2) Tactical Poverty: The school is doing a Trick or Treat for Unicef fundraiser. Each child has a little box. Now that Frost can read he has learned that 9c can feed a child for a day. The flipside is that he feels it is very cheap to be a poor person and people will feed you. When I mention that we don't have enough money to buy something he wants he says "well, why don't we just fly to Africa and be poor for a while and we will get all that Unicef money?"
3) The meaning of things: Frost is learning lots of new words. Sometimes, I stop and check he understands the meaning of word he is using. This morning it was "distracts". I asked him what distracts means and he said it means that someone does something so that you notice while their friend does something else you don't like. I think this meaning comes from the theme of pickpockets in a Tintin book we are reading. I explained that it can have a more general meaning of "capture your attention".
I gave as an example: "That noisy crow distracts me from driving".
"Well," said Frost "that's the same thing because Crows have friends too!"
4) To dress or not to dress: Frost needs a lot of encouragement to become and remain clothed. He prefers to walk around naked. When he gets home from school he seldom remains fully clothed and whenever the doorbell rings there is a frantic rush to the bedroom to find new shirt and pants. This morning Frost came to me wrapped in a blanket. He explained:
There are two reasons I prefer blankets to clothes: 1)Blankets are warmer and 2) Blankets are portable like clothes.
So saying, he wandered off trailing 6 ft of blanket behind him.
1) Frost likes to be funny. His sense of humor is not always well timed. Yesterday I went out the back door to put out the garbage, carrying Wren. It was very cold and I was wearing flip-flops. When we got around to the front I knocked on the door, asking Frost to let me in. He replied "sorry, I can't let you in because I can't find Mummy!" I said "Frost, it is Mummy, let me in". He replied again "wait, I am going to go and ask Mummy." There is silence and some thudding as he goes out the back door and comes to the front porch. I was not laughing.
2) Tactical Poverty: The school is doing a Trick or Treat for Unicef fundraiser. Each child has a little box. Now that Frost can read he has learned that 9c can feed a child for a day. The flipside is that he feels it is very cheap to be a poor person and people will feed you. When I mention that we don't have enough money to buy something he wants he says "well, why don't we just fly to Africa and be poor for a while and we will get all that Unicef money?"
3) The meaning of things: Frost is learning lots of new words. Sometimes, I stop and check he understands the meaning of word he is using. This morning it was "distracts". I asked him what distracts means and he said it means that someone does something so that you notice while their friend does something else you don't like. I think this meaning comes from the theme of pickpockets in a Tintin book we are reading. I explained that it can have a more general meaning of "capture your attention".
I gave as an example: "That noisy crow distracts me from driving".
"Well," said Frost "that's the same thing because Crows have friends too!"
4) To dress or not to dress: Frost needs a lot of encouragement to become and remain clothed. He prefers to walk around naked. When he gets home from school he seldom remains fully clothed and whenever the doorbell rings there is a frantic rush to the bedroom to find new shirt and pants. This morning Frost came to me wrapped in a blanket. He explained:
There are two reasons I prefer blankets to clothes: 1)Blankets are warmer and 2) Blankets are portable like clothes.
So saying, he wandered off trailing 6 ft of blanket behind him.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Hacker
Frost (6): You know what I have been doing in my room since I quitted Insane Aquarium?
Me: No
Frost: I have been trying to find out what Daddy's password is.
Me: Why do you want to do that?
Frost: So I can get into his things and see what is there!
Me: So how do you do it?
Frost: I have been trying to type his password but there is this green arrow button that says "have you forgotten your password?" So I click on the question and I click on the letters but I have no idea how to start and go into it. If you click the green arrow, I think, oh yeah! But I have to type that password like 5 times?
Me: So what do you type for the password.
Frost: Well, the question says to me "fraction" so I have no idea how to type that but I try to type that but I don't know if it actually was fraction. Can you come and see what I mean about logging onto Joshua's website thing?
Me: No
Frost: I have been trying to find out what Daddy's password is.
Me: Why do you want to do that?
Frost: So I can get into his things and see what is there!
Me: So how do you do it?
Frost: I have been trying to type his password but there is this green arrow button that says "have you forgotten your password?" So I click on the question and I click on the letters but I have no idea how to start and go into it. If you click the green arrow, I think, oh yeah! But I have to type that password like 5 times?
Me: So what do you type for the password.
Frost: Well, the question says to me "fraction" so I have no idea how to type that but I try to type that but I don't know if it actually was fraction. Can you come and see what I mean about logging onto Joshua's website thing?
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