Noah at 7 months

Noah turned 7 months as of last week, so I thought I'd post a little update on him. He just this week started sitting up independently (for the most part, I still have to stay close in case he topples over backwards). on Saturday, he started rocking from side to side on his belly as if he wants to crawl, but he is getting VERY frustrated because all he can do is spin or roll. I try to show him how to get up on his knees but he'll have none of it.

A lot of the frustration comes from his new-found sense of self-determination; he now knows EXACTLY what he wants and he gets so mad when he can't reach it. I know this because he's also very communicative about what he's trying to get. He will fuss until he gets my attention, then look directly at what he wants, and then look back at me as if to say "get that for me! I want it!" I oblige, but I'm trying to hold off a bit because if I just give him everything, he'll never learn how to go get things for himself.

What he wants most in the world, the majority of the time, are Nathan's toys. I can see that this is going to be a problem, so I'm teaching Nathan to pick up his toys that he doesn't want to share, and also to remove everything small from the family room. A couple of times, Nathan has yanked things away from Noah, though luckily didn't hurt him.

Overall though, Nathan still loves Noah dearly. Yesterday he took it a little too far- I walked out of the room for just a moment while Noah was in his bouncy seat, and returned to find Nathan lifting Noah's head. I was so shocked that I yelled at him, which I don't often do. When I got to the bottom of it, Nathan had been lifting Noah because he wanted to snuggle him. Hard to be mad at that. The adoration is mutual, too; Noah loves to just watch Nathan play and often laughs at Nathan's "funny noises" that he loves to make.

One more thing: Noah is still not sleeping through the night. On the better nights, I only have to get up to feed him once, but on other nights he might be up 3 or 4 times. My goal has been to have him sleeping through the nigh by May, which is rapidly approaching, so it's looking more and more like I will have to figure out some sort of strategic plan to systematically work towards this. His number of feedings per day has really dipped, so I'm kind of thinking it's a matter of recalibrating him to eat more during the daytime hours. He has plenty of days where he goes 8 hours without milk, it's just unfortunately during the nighttime.

Nathanism of the week

At my parents' house this past weekend, after Nathan insisted on wearing his socks outside:
N: my socks are dirty!
Me: Yup, because you wanted to wear them outside. That's the trade-off.
N: No, mommy, that's the consequence.

He had my whole family cracking up :)

Cruise, Part 2

 Tuesday (San Juan, PR): Our camera sucks. As I'm looking at our pictures, they just don't do justice to the real thing. The colors are all off and they aren't crisp at all. Sorry about that :( We spent the morning sailing and then arrived midday into the port of San Juan. The port itself is guarded by two very old forts, so it's a scenic ride in. They open up the front bow of the ship so that you can enjoy the view. We tried to watch it from the forward observation lounge, where there was a narrator explaining the sights, but SOMEONE (no names) wouldn't stay quiet. Oh well.

view of one of the forts (don't ask which one) from the ship

watching the sail-in

 When we arrived onshore, we decided to walk up to the first fort. With both strollers. It's uphill. On 400 year old cobblestones. We deserve a medal. :) We were duly rewarded, however, by the views both on the way up and at the top. The cobblestones are actually made from ballast stones from the first ships that sailed over to colonize PR, and they are a beautiful blue. Also the architecture is really neat and there are plazas dotted throughout. At the top, up one more steep hill, was the entrance to fort San Cristobal, which is actually a National Park. We paid $3 per adult and were granted access to the huge complex.

atop the first fort, San Cristobal

in the dungeon

 We explored the fort, which also has period clothing, informational displays, and more. Very cool stuff. The weather was nice in the open areas and absolutely stifling in the places with sun and no breeze. I could only imagine what it had been like hundreds of years ago for the people who lived and worked there, with all of their clothes, wigs, and no indoor plumbing. No thank you.

We walked across the wall which extends along the tip of the island from one fort to the other, and then headed downhill back to the ship.

our ship from atop the fort

La Perla, for Stephanie

 The ship was docked until 10:30 p.m., but when you travel with kids you really need to go by that schedule rather than your port times. So we went back onboard, showered, rested, and found another towel animal!

Wednesday (St. Thomas): I had done a bit of research on this port and decided that the safest thing to do was to take an excursion. The taxis are open air (read: big pickup trucks with benches in the back) and the island has mixed reviews as far as tourist safety goes. Jason disagreed with me and refused to look at excursion, so we ended up doing nothing. The island of St. Thomas is very steep and rocky, which I was surprised by even though I read about it, because I'm used to the pancake flatness of the Bahamas and Florida. It really wouldn't have been navigable with the strollers. So, we hung around onboard, Nathan went to the kids' club for a bit.

remembering how to swim

towel animals in the cabana, too!

one of our many diversions

refusing to take his eyes off the "chocolate pirate money"

Thursday (sea day again): Let me be honest for a moment. At this point in the vacation, I was seriously 50/50 as to whether I'd rather be on land or on a cruise. The boys had been rather "trying" and I was tired. I knew I had signed up for a different vacation that just the two of us going, but we were still at times pulling our hair out. I was getting, quite literally, cabin fever.

Since getting off the ship and going home was not an option, we soldiered on. :)
And were thusly rewarded with another towel animal.

On this night (I think), we actually made it to a restaurant that's on the buffet level, so it's more casual, but still has table service. We had dropped Nathan off at the club. Noah was awake but happy. Until we sat down. He wasn't crying, just fussing, but we were getting LOOKS from people. So back into the stroller he went, as I proceeded to do laps around the buffet for thirty minutes, stopping to whisper to Jason through the partition each time I would pass by: "I think he's about to fall asleep! One more lap and I'll come sit down. Go ahead and order for me." It was so bad that the head of the lido area told me that he'd make a special accommodation and have the food sent to my room if needed. LOL. Noah finally dozed off and we had a hurried meal together.

Friday (Half Moon Cay): HMC is supposedly the highest rated private island of all the cruise lines. We've been to Coco Cay, Castaway Cay, and have seen Great Stirrup Cay from the ship, so we are no stranger to private islands. I have to agree with the experts that this is the nicest island. It's spacious, with tons of infrastructure and a beach that is just breathtaking. It's the kind of beach that sears its beauty on your memory forever. Lucky for us, since it looks like any old regular beach on our crappy camera. Ugh.

We had to tender to the island (for you non-cruisers, this means you take a boat rather than have the ship dock at the pier). I successfully managed to get ashore WITHOUT having a heart attack- for some reason having the boys, especially Noah, on a small boat makes me nervous.

The plaza at the entrance

 We did a bit of everything- explored, ate at the BBQ, sat on the beach, and went in the crystal clear ocean. I have a thing about going in the water when I can't see the bottom, so this was the perfect beach for me. Surprisingly, the water was really chilly. The sand was like sugar- hard to walk in but super soft and fine. Great for sandcastles :)

ready for beach day!

great playground on the island

a bar that's in the shape of a shipwrecked boat

the beach- imagine it bluer, clearer, and brighter

going back to the ship on the tender- do I have a death grip on the stroller???

happy boy

Back aboard the ship, I packed up our stuff and we settled in for our final night of cruising for many years to come. Even though it was fun (and not fun, in alternating spurts), we've decided that until the boys are older we are hanging up our lifejackets and sticking to land vacations. 

Cruise

We're back, and I'm here with the post-cruise update!
Friday: We pack up and leave for South Florida. Noah begins to cough, a fake sounding little cough. By the time we arrive in SFL I am debating whether I should take him to a walk-in clinic, but worry that he'll be exposed to even more germs at the clinic. For those who remember, the last time we cruised, Nathan got sick the day before we left, we took him to the doctor the morning we were to board the ship, she cleared him, and then he proceeded to spike a 105.1 fever at 2 a.m. onboard the ship, which resulted in a panicked trip to the ship's medical facilities. So we might be a little paranoid in this area. I called our ped and they recommended taking him in just to have his lungs listened to. My mom found us a walk-in clinic and they determined that he had bronchiolitis, but no way to tell whether it was viral or bacterial. Either way, the PA said that it was mild, prescribed antibiotics just in case it was bacterial, and sent us on our way.

Saturday (boarding day): Noah is coughing more, and I'm seriously questioning whether we should go. He spits up his entire breakfast, which doesn't make me feel any better. Nevertheless, we decide that if the doctor said it was okay, we can go safely.

We arrived at the pier around noon and were able to board pretty quickly. On Holland America, you can go directly to your stateroom, so we went there first to drop off the big box of diapers and wipes, Noah's medicine, toys, etc. I had meticulously researched cabins and had secured one of the largest available, but I was still skeptical of how big it would actually be. As it turned out, the cabin was super roomy, probably over 200 sf, with a sizable bathroom/shower and plenty of room for the pack n play. I was happy.

Next we went upstairs, where under the guise of "checking out the pool," I had a surprise waiting. The ship we were on (Eurodam) has private "cabanas" poolside that can be rented by the week. They include lots of amenities as well as a shady, private, and secure space. I thought that this would be a nice way to have an outdoor space for the boys to lounge so that we weren't stuck in our room as much. I think I succeeded in surprising Jason- he must have been happy, because he immediately took a picture and emailed it to all of his friends :).

the cabana

The outfit matching the pillows was totally coincidental :)

We hung out in the cabana until well after sailaway and enjoyed our champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. Unfortunately, by this time it was too late for naps for the boys, so we ended up in the room, ordering room service for dinner. Somehow it got screwed up and we waited nearly two hours, so the first night was basically a wash. Oh well.

Sunday (sea day): Noah was still coughing, but was his usual happy self more or less, so I was happy about that. Honestly I don't remember too much of what we did this day. I think we hung out in the cabana, mostly.

sea day

they deliver ice cream to the cabanas

Unfortunately, we couldn't get the boys to nap in there, so we had to take a several hour time out in our room.

naptime

We did tag team that so that I got my gym time and Jason had some time to explore. The one particularly memorable thing that happened is that when Jason left the cabana to get some lunch, Nathan had to go pee. Of course, for some reason neither stroller was in the cabana, so I couldn't take him to one of the public restrooms (he needed to be lifted and I couldn't do that and hold Noah at the same time. So we rode the elevator nine flights down to our room with him holding himself, because he thinks that's what I mean when I tell him to "hold your peepee." We got a lot of comments in the elevator (none mean, just amused). That night, we went to the buffet and then explored the ship in search of live music.

buffet dinner

relaxing

raptly watching a string quartet

what cruise is complete without towel animals??

Monday (Grand Turk): All of the ports of call during this cruise were new to us, and we were not disappointed. We were greeted in the morning by an unbelievable turquoise sea, sparkling white beaches, clear blue sky, and a cool light breeze. This turned out to be a great port because you can just walk off the pier into an open air shopping plaza that leads right onto the beach. We secured a spot on the beach (they have free lounge chairs out there too) and hung out there for a while.

Jason says I look like a bag lady

classic Noah pose

As J was taking Nathan to the bathroom, he discovered "Margaritaville" just 100 yards or so from where we were. Margaritaville is kind of a resort area minus the hotel part- pool, chairs, shade, swim-up bar, music, etc. All free. So we stayed there for the rest of our time on the island.

We didn't want to keep Noah outside for too long, so we went back onboard for a late lunch/nap. I believe this is the first day we dropped Nathan off at the kids club,just to see if he would like it. He didn't like it. He LOVED it. They did art, went on pirate treasure hunts, ate snacks, and generally just goofed off. I think he might have enjoyed his time there more than his time on the ship with us, which is okay because honestly we needed a little break.

I had been concerned about how Nathan would respond to the lack of structure and our inability to deliver real consequences, and sure enough I was right. He just couldn't quite handle it all, which is totally understandable for a three year old. Even though he is smiling in all of the pictures, I can assure you that there were numerous tantrums and power struggles each day. We didn't eat in the dining room once because we couldn't get him to behave well enough to risk it. Luckily for us, the buffet was fantastic, so we never were underfed, but still, we'd have liked to go the dining room. We did in fact try to go on Grand Turk day, just with Noah after dropping Nathan off at the club. But the only table available was up two stairs in a back corner where we'd barely be able to squeeze the stroller. Neither of us felt comfortable risking a meltdown, so we left and went up to the buffet.

To be continued...

You are getting sleepy...

I decided to do a post on our new naptime routine in case there's anyone else out there reading this blog who might benefit. Over the past 9 months or so, naptime had been hit or miss with Nathan. On some days, he'd be out like a light, while on other days it was constant requests to get up to pee, poop, get a drink, snuggle, etc. It was quite maddening. Of course, with no nap he would be exhausted, wild, and basically unruly the rest of the day. Then I started using a timer (I have a "timer" sound on my phone and would just make it go off when I thought he'd rested long enough. This worked until he starting asking every 2 minutes if the timer was going to go off. Then we instituted no talking while resting, and it would go something like this:
Nathan: Mommy, I'm sleeping, see my eyes are closed?
Me: No, you are not sleeping, because you're talking.
N: No talking?
Me: That's right, no talking, just resting.
N: Oh. *pause 30 seconds*
N: Mommy?
Me: Yes?
N: I all done talking, okay? I not talk anymore.
Me: Sigh :)


THEN I had a wild idea to try some progressive relaxation and visualization in bed right at the beginning of naptime. Overnight, I reached a nap success rate of about 90%! I assumed the two were related (because correlation doesn't equal causation, people!), but yesterday when I picked him up from school, he told me something really interesting. I asked if he napped, because he often doesn't at school, and he told me "yes I did my squeezing and rainbow exercises and then I took my nap." Here is our routine for those who are interested in trying:


- Of course darken the room and have your kid lie down in their bed comfortably. I ask Nathan to close his eyes, but I don't force it if he opens them. Sometimes he even laughs, but it doesn't seem to affect the outcome.
- We start with a progressive relaxation where I have him tighten and release his muscle groups from bottom to top, ending with his face. He's supposed to squeeze "tight, tight, tight" and then release with an "ahhhhhh." 
- Next we imagine a beautiful rainbow. I tell him to imagine that he's reaching out to touch it (he usually actually does reach his arm out) and first I describe the red, yellow, and orange feeling warm and the warmth spreading through his body like the warm sunshine. Then we do cool colors and I tell him to imagine the feeling washing over him like the ocean.
- Lastly, I count backwards from 10 slowly and attempting to get him to take one deep breath in and out on each number. The last breath is supposed to be the biggest and deepest. 
- After that, he doesn't just magically drop off to sleep. He still usually asks for a hug, or where his stegosaurus is, etc. And he usually takes a little while after that to continue winding down, but he does usually fall asleep after a  while. If you're having trouble getting your kids to nap, I strongly encourage you to try this! It's about a five minute investment of your time, and worst case scenario, it doesn't work but maybe YOU feel a bit more relaxed :)

Noah @ 6 months

Noah had his 6 month checkup last week and everything looked great! He weighed in at 15 lbs. 14 oz., which is 25th (!!!) percentile for weight and 26 inches which is 50th percentile for height. His head circumference is 10th percentile :) He got his shots and in typical Noah fashion cried for exactly four seconds, then got on with his life. We had been doing well with sleep until two days ago when, like clockwork, he hit his 6 month growth spurt and started up with the nighttime fussiness and waking every two hours. Last time this lasted about a week, so I am hoping he will be past it by the time we leave for our cruise one week from today. I'm ESPECIALLY hoping (I hope this every time there's a growth spurt) that when he comes out on the other side of the growth spurt, he'll sleep through the night. Crossing my fingers on that one.

I've been feeding him lunch and dinner daily, and just today started with breakfast. I had been holding off on breakfast because it will be tough to manage giving him breakfast on Nathan's school days, but he was putting his fist in his mouth this morning (which is what he does when he's hungry for a "meal" as opposed to hungry for milk). He is actually a pretty picky eater, so I have not invested the time in making food for him. Also, lots of the organics I would want to make (peaches, squash, etc.) are not in season so I think it would probably be more expensive to make food at this point. 

Developmentally I think he's right on track. Nathan, in his typical type A way, did everything early so it's not fair to compare the two. Noah has not gotten up on his hands and knees, and can't go from lying down to sitting up on his own, but he can stay in a seated position for a little while. He has just this past week started to reach out into his world to engage with things. As a newborn, there was no interaction. Then from 4-6 months, he would interact with things only when they were put into his "bubble." Now, he seeks out things that he wants and actively goes after them. I had hoped that this would encourage him to crawl after things, but he seems to just get frustrated instead. Oh well, in time, right?

Here's a 6 month picture:

Happy 3rd birthday, Nathan

Dear Nathan,

Happy 3rd birthday! Another year has flown by and you have blossomed from a toddler into a little boy. How can I begin to describe you?

You are very sensitive and cry easily. That can make disciplining you difficult, since you are unreachable with reason when you begin to cry. Sometimes, you have epic crying jags that can last an hour or more if we can't somehow cajole you out of them. 

You are sentimental- you remember who gave you every single thing that you own (and when/why they gave it to you). This includes toys, food, clothing, you name it. You also want to know "who made this?" about everything. You ask who made your house, the car, the shopping cart at Publix, and even who made you. You ask many incisive and inquisitive questions. That, combined with eyes like a hawk and a memory like an elephant means that nothing gets by you. Ever.

You ask "what" and "huh" a whole lot. It drives daddy and me nuts. You hear what we say, but you don't pay attention a lot of the time. We hope you will grow out of this soon. 

You love your little brother dearly; I sure hope it stays that way! You are always singing to him, bringing him toys, or telling me something funny that Noah did. You delight in watching him smile and in making him laugh. You tell me all the time the things you plan to do with him ("when Noah gets bigger THEN he can play blocks with me"). 

Your imagination is unmatched, so you find joy in playing with just about any toy. You love school and music class and the zoo. School is new, you just started at the beginning of January, and I already can tell that you've learned a ton. You have been talking about continents and tell us all the time that you want to take an airplane to South America to see volcanoes.  Oh yeah, you love volcanoes and tornadoes. And Angry Birds. And dinosaurs.

You love books of all kinds, but especially the pop-up ones from Uncle Jesse and anything by Dr. Seuss. You can recite by heart The Very Hungry Caterpillar (you've known this one for a while) and almost all of Fox in Socks. 

We look forward to watching you grow and learn even more this year. Happy birthday, baby, we love you so very much.