Easter - A picture is worth a thousand words...

"More"

I read a book recently about teaching babies sign language. I was a bit skeptical but decided to give it a try. WOW!

We started teaching Lydia "more" first. After about a week and a half she has connected the dots and is now signing "more" at dinner. Lydia's "more" is a huge smile and hand clapping but we now know exactly what the child wants.

There are many advantages but the two big advantages that we have seen for Lydia have been:

• we always know when she is still hungry (we are a bit amazed at how much food this little girl can eat in one sitting!).
• there is little to no whining at the dinner table (it is such a peaceful time now!)

Size Three Diapers

I am sure that these will be blackmail pictures one day. BUT for now, Lydia is in size three diapers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Post Not About Lydia!

I feel like since Lydia came into our lives our world has stopped and now life is all about Lydia. Which Lydia is a big part of our lives. BUT we really do do activities outside of Lydia. I am into baking bread (this is Hungarian cinnamon bread and it is fantastic!). James is mowing the grass - not a fun hobby but most of his hobbies happen in the woods and I am not chasing him for a picture. So pretend that James is hiking through the woods in this picture!

The Power of a Spoon

The child has all these super cool toys and do you know what her new favorite is? (She can roll around to get what toy she wants now. She is done playing with the toys I hand her she can just get her own toy!)

The favorite toy is a mixing bowl and spoon. I give her some random kitchen goodie while I fix dinner – keeps her entertained AND I get to fix dinner. It is a winning situation. This week I got tired of washing this random kitchen goodie every evening so I figured I would just leave the kitchen goodie in the corner and I could give it to her when I cook. Lydia has spent her week rolling past all the cool toys, past her favorite play partners (i.e. mom and dad), and clear across the living room to get to the BOWL and SPOON.

I think this must mean she is going to be a chef. Or maybe a drummer.

One word: Dentures

Are teeth really necessary? I think not. Soup is tasty and affordable. Icecream is delicious. We would all get used to eating pureed fruits and veggies. Our gums would probally toughen up enough that we could chew some foods. No need to go to the dentist – no teeth. I am really only seeing advantages to this. And after being awake for hours every night calming a screaming baby I really think think dentures are the way to go.

The only fly in my ointment is there is no evidence of a tooth. Lydia’s gums are white and she does not want them touched. She is chewing on everything in sight (but don’t all babies do that???). BUT there is no tooth. For all this night time screaming, I really want to see a tooth!

Swaddle

My six month old is a little bit weird. She still loves to be swaddled. Love may not be a strong enough word to describe her pure delight when I lay her down in her crib and swaddle her. When she was a newborn I spent my days re-creating the womb for her. As she grew past the newborn stage and the swaddle blanket was a tight fit I discovered the sleep sack. I quickly discovered that my child can not sleep with arms. So I tucked her arms into the sleep sack BUT her arms could escape into the arm holes and then this sweet little angel would wake up screaming. After many sleepless days and nights (you would think eventually the child would learn to sleep with arms – but no!), I just put safety pins in the sleep sack and closed up the arm holes.

Well, she is six months old now. Summer is coming (and the sleep sack is warm). Not to mention she is outgrowing this contraption. So I found several days when I was going to be home with nothing pressing going on and we were going to break the sleep sack habit. Wrote on the calendar, “Sleeping with Arms” for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday morning dawns. We have a little ceremony of taking out of the safety pins of just one arm (we are going to ease into this entire “no arm” thing!). We proceed to have our nap time routine. Lay the drowsy baby down. Walk out of the room. Close the door. No screaming. Do a little “sleeping with an arm dance”. And go take a shower. As I am stepping out of the shower (all of ten minutes later) I hear a frantic baby screaming – obviously scared or hurt. So I run into her room thinking the child is bleeding or there is an intruder in her room only to find this dear little one with her one arm infront of her face, eyes wide open, face of extreme terror, and screaming. Ok, she is scared of her arm – encouraged that yes this is the right thing to do (scared of your arm, really the time has come to sleep with your arm!). So I lay her arm down and give her the pacifier. The child does not sleep for this nap. UGH! Afternoon nap – no sleep. By bedtime she is overly tired but I lay my one armed bandit down anyway. She lays in her bed for an entire 10 seconds before screaming. At 12:30 that night, I Google and discover that there are sleep sacks available through size 4T. Armed with that piece of information my one armed bandit is now properly swaddled.

She is so peaceful when swaddled. Huge smile on her face. Drowsy eyelids. Cuddly. I know she will never be cold. She is happy AND sleeping (which means we are all happy).

The lesson I learned on this particular Tuesday: Sleeping with arms is just too complicated. No arms = happiness!

(I would include a picture but am NOT taking the chance to wake up this child with the flash of a camera!)