brigid | Entries tagged with month 22

Last night was basically hell, and by hell I mean it was like having an infant again. A combination of many factors (shitty cold with choking gasping cough and nasal congestion, up too late at Baba and Djedo’s and over stimulated, missing the Very Important Favorite Pacifier which was never the Very Important Favorite Pacifier until that night, etc) led to him waking up screaming and howling at 2:20 am and then staying up for over an hour screaming and howling. Fun times! And by “fun” I mean “terrible!”

He woke up before 7:00 am and was much more cheerful, possibly because he had pooped. In fact, when I reported the goings on to an experienced friend of mine, her first question was “Is it gas? When’s the last time he pooped?” Butts! They are powerful things!

The rest of the day went much better. Niko was incredibly charming and adorable all day, lavish with hugs and MWAH style kisses. He took a good long nap, a little earlier in the day than he usually does, and then lay down quietly with me but didn’t sleep for about 45 minutes later on. Stories were read. Toddlers were cuddled. At one point he dug his sharp pointy elbow into the small of my back and when I said ow he patted me gently. D’AWWWW.

I actually wrote half of the first paragraph this morning, while he was still napping, and then he woke up. I forget where I originally intended to go with it. Probably someplace complain-y. Today was pretty good, though. Except for the time that he was tantrumming and I knew he was hungry and was working on getting a meal ready, but he wanted the MEAL not the crap ass SNACK I was offering him, and I told him to just put the snack in his mouth, he liked it, just try it, put it in his mouth, and he took the offered snack (it was a freeze-dried dollop of yoghurt, he loves those), rested it on a molar, and howled at me furiously. Then took it out of his mouth and handed it to me, still yelling. HE SURE SHOWED ME. When his meal was ready, he ate the fuck out of it, asking for seconds on the peaches. After eating his meal, he grabbed the bowl of snack, marched it into the living room, and munched on it while playing.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

I have, hand to God, the most passive aggressive baby in existence, I’m sure of it. Take tonight, for instance. He’s gotten into an utterly terrible habit (and note how I say “he’s gotten into” like this is entirely him, and not slackass parenting on our part) of staying up far too late (like, 10pm late) and just basically running around like a wild thing. So that’s one of the things we’ve been working on, getting him to bed earlier. And he is wiley! So very wiley. I’ll start rounding him up for bed and he puts on his cutest face and asks for food. A hungry baby! Who can deny a hungry baby? I can! Usually. Because I’m mean! But last night he asked for food both verbally AND by signing AND tried to climb into his high chair. I couldn’t resist! He ate half a pudding cup and pointed to an apple and asked for “mnyom mnom ball” so I gave it to him and he started biting into the apple like a tiny person! HOW CUTE IS THAT! But Brigid, you’re saying, where is the passive aggressive? His food delays resulted in him not getting to bed until 8:40pm, and some tantrumming upon hitting the mattress means he actually got to sleep even later than that.

But tonight?

I got him fed! Cleaned up! Jammied! (well, I never changed him OUT of his jammies this morning… but that was on purpose! It’s frigging cold, and his jammies have feet!) and in bed by 7:15! We read two stories and I managed to circumvent a tantrum and get him into the bed and not screaming. I lay down next to him, head on pillow. He thrashed around a bit, trying to get comfy… and then laid sideways along the top of the bed, on top of all the pillows, and started jamming his skull into my cheek. So I’m lying in bed, feigning sleep, and Niko is having NONE OF IT. NONE! And he wants me to know how bored and not sleepy he is. So skull grinding into face. Got it. Silky toddler hair that smells only slightly like pudding up my nose. Got it. Hard skull mashing my lips into my teeth. Right. Message achieved, toddler. Then he started pushing, as though I were the one in his way.

Then he sat up, looked at me, and giggled.

“Shh!” I said. “Put your head down!”

He did.

Then I sang to him and he eventually fell asleep.

The end.

If you are curious, Niko has 2 songs that are entirely his own, and are based on “twinkle twinkle little black sheep, hijklmnop.”

Chug Chug Puff Puff, Little Train
Steaming over Rough Terrain
Over Rivers, Through the Woods,
On Time Like An Engine Should
Chug Chug Puff Puff, Little Train
Steaming over Rough Terrain

and

Niko Sleeping In The Bed
Laying Down His Sleepy Head
Closed His Eyes and Fell Asleep
Then He Dreamed A Dream So Deep
Niko Sleeping In The Bed
Laying Down His Sleepy Head

Although, of course, there are other songs just for him.

IN OTHER NEWS, in news that could have been super exciting but wound up just kind of “what the hell baby whatever,” it was nap time the other day and I told Niko to find his bed and jump into it “scoot scoot!” which is what I tell him when it’s time for bed. And usually he runs into our bed room and scrambles into our bed and rubs his butt over all the pillows and then tosses them on the floor and then gradually settles down. But not this time! Oh no. THIS TIME he ran into HIS room and scrambled into HIS BED and turned his crib music box on and curled up on his mattress so sweetly I almost conceived another child right then and there simply from how cute he was. COULD THIS BE IT???? I wondered, capslock thoughts and extra exclamation marks jostling about in my brain. ARE WE FINALLY FREE OF A TINY NIGHT TIME VISITOR? WILL HE SLEEP IN HIS OWN BED FROM NOW ON???!!!???

Answer: no. About a minute and a half later (just long enough for me to shoot an excited IM to a friend of mine) he started screaming to be let out of his room.

We sacked out in the family bed for 3 1/2 hours. Together. Oh, so together.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Niko does this thing–Nesko taught him– where he slaps his chest and says ME! and looks all thrilled with himself. It’s really utterly hilarious, like most things Niko does. He’s also started saying “ma too too (my train)” when holding his trains, then handing one to me and saying “mama too too” or handing one to Nesko and saying “tata too too.” He already was labeling clothing (picking dirty stuff out of the baskets I was sorting them into and saying “mama” or “tata!” depending on whose article of clothing it was… then running away with the article of dirty clothing, rubbing his face in it. CHARMING!) and shoes so I guess he’s working out ownership.

(He’s also started signing “train”… sort of. The ASL sign for it is to stroke two fingers of one hand along two fingers of the other hand… like a train going down tracks. He went from tapping two fingers together to making an O with the fingers of one hand and sticking a finger from his other hand in there, which is… pretty rude, actually.)

(ALSO: it’s barely the middle of January and Niko’s birthday is in March and I’m already planning it. Is that wrong? I think I might need to… let this go. I’m worried this is going to be become an obsession. I TEND TO OBSESS ABOUT THINGS. And I don’t mean that in a coy “lol OCD is a hilarious hip reference to make!” way, I mean… obsessed. Like for real. In an unhealthy way. THE THEME IS BLUE OK THERE WILL BE PENNANTS MADE OF FANCY PAPER AND TRAIN SHAPED COOKIES….!Ugh. I need to walk away from this.)

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

From 2010-12-24

(there’s no sound, my camera doesn’t record sound.)

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

My friend El dropped by the other day, which as always allowed me to dither about learning to knit (actual concern: that it will cause too much pain to my hands which have arthritis and carpal tunnel. Will this happen instantly, crippling me permanently the first time I pick up a knitting needle? PROBABLY NOT. So what’s preventing me from learning, other than my complete ability to follow a pattern, map, or instructions? Fear, I guess.) and then he taught me how to walk like a lady, a skill which I have never learned. I walk mostly like a dude and while I can maneuver in heels, I certainly don’t slink about like, say, Marilyn Monroe or Fran Drescher. He is a man of many and diverse talents.

He also has a daughter a few weeks older than Niko who isn’t as verbal as N is.

OBVIOUSLY this means I win ALL the parenting points forever. Where is my trophy? SURE she can sign more, SURE she can undress/dress herself, SURE she knows when she needs to potty and is probably just like two steps away from potty training, SURE she cleans up the living room by herself. WHATEVER. I win. Totally.

That’s how it works, right? It’s a competition, right?

In less ridiculous news, Niko added “cheese,” both word and sign, to his repertoire. I need to stop putting cheese on his plate at mealtimes and just wait for him to request it, because it seems to be something he only wants when he requests it, in the evening, after dinner, while I’m tidying up. Perhaps I should offer him some cognac as well. Some after dinner mints. I don’t even know.

Nesko removed the chairs from the sunroom entryway because he claimed he’d taught Niko not to touch the tree. Immediately after saying that he had to remind Niko that no, the Christmas balls are not toys. Later that day I investigated a quiet rustle and found that Niko had managed to strip garland off the tree without disturbing the ornaments. I put the chairs back. It looks less than classy, but at least the tree is safe from further predation.

We’re going berry picking at the first possible opportunity.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

We picked up a book on baby sign language when I was still pregnant because OMG of COURSE we were going to sign with our baby! And he’d be communicating by the time he was 5 months old and potty trained by 9 months and we would totally win all the parenting awards! On further inspection, a lot of the signs were not ASL but were kind of random (proprietary?) and we both lost interest. And then! I got Baby Signing Time and started watching it with Niko.

He loves this show. He calls babies (photos of babies, other small children, baby dolls) “beebee” or “beebees.” He refers to the show as “beebeesh” and makes the sign for baby when requesting it. So there was that going on, but for weeks and weeks that was the only sign he made (other than pointing) and honestly, he did that before starting the videos. Nesko demonstrated it to him while holding Niko’s baby doll and he just picked it up. So other than that, Niko made no signs. He watched the videos, he requested them, but he didn’t interact with them or try to make the signs.

Until he did start making the signs.

He’s got the “baby” sign down, and also makes the sign for “eat,” “airplane,” “more,” “please,” and “cheese.” He spent a large part of today signing “more cheese please” and receiving the asked for cheese, which was pretty nice because he’s been on a cheese/dairy strike lately. Of those signs, he has verbal words for “baby,” “more,” and “please.” And I guess for “eat.” He makes “myom nyom mnyom” noises and smacks his lips WHICH YES IS ADORABLE. He also made a sign that looked like the sign for milk but when I asked him if he wanted milk he said no.

Sometimes he just likes saying no, though.

Do you sign with your kids?

Niko is 21 months old, not Deaf or hearing impaired, seemingly neurotypical, and with a pretty large verbal vocabulary. We’ve only been doing this a few weeks (accompanied by me signing whenever I remember to sign and also remember the sign) but the results have been pretty cool so far. I wish we’d started earlier.

The only thing Niko likes more than beebeesh is trains, which maybe gives you a clue about just how much he likes the signing videos.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Most people who celebrate Christmas have specific traditions and customs surrounding the holiday. The same can be said of any holiday, but Christmas (at least in the USA) can have really variable traditions. Do you open presents on the 24th, or the 25th? If it’s the 24th, is it just one present or all of them? Do you do Santa? Does he bring a lot, or a little? Are his gifts wrapped, or unwrapped? And then there’s the decor, the food, the parties, the music.

When I was five, my parents bought a house after years and years of renting. One of the first things my mom did was put in a garden, a garden of her very own, one she wouldn’t have to leave behind. She planted some plants she got from her mom’s garden, Lillies of the Valley. And either that year or soon after, I forget when, we started a new Christmas Tradition. Instead of a cut tree (we had a small collection of various tree stands) or a fake tree (we never had one) we started picking out a fir tree with a root ball still attached; a living tree. The adults would troop out after Thanksgiving dinner with a pick axe and shovels and break up the possibly frozen definitely clay-y soil and dig a hole, then cover it with boards. The tree wouldn’t actually be delivered until just before Christmas. We often didn’t get it into the house and set up until the 23rd or 24th. They were pretty ugly trees, too. They were younger than the trees you get when you buy a cut tree (the root ball could add a foot or two of height) and had naked bits and gaps and crooked leaders. And there was the wet, muddy, burlap-sack-covered and sheathed in plastic sheeting root ball to contend with. One had to be careful of present placement, even when plastic and cloth had been put down, swathing the root ball. But oh, the trees smelled so incredibly good. And now my parents have the most beautiful line of giant healthy pine trees along their house.

I miss the smell of a fresh live pine tree. I hate our fake tree. My husband, how grew up with fake trees, wants to upgrade our tree to a better quality fake tree next year. He points out that a cut tree would be hard to get in and out of the apartment, they shed needles, the city picks them up for “recycling” (shunts them into a wood chipper for mulch) before Eastern Orthodox Christmas which means we’d either need to take the tree down early or else dispose of it ourselves (and a tree sat in the alley for a good six months at our last apartment, set out too late or possibly covered by snow and overlooked and then ignored), and we’d wind up spending money every single year on a new tree, and blah blah hassle blah blah blah. And he’s right. But fake trees are so incredibly awful for the environment. Most of them are made in China, which means their carbon footprint just for shipping is immense. They’re made essentially in sweatshops, of PVC, can have high levels of lead, and you can’t (easily) recycle them which means almost every single artificial tree (and swag!) ever made is going to last forever. Cut trees are shipped as well, but a much shorter distance, and the ones that are cut are planted specifically for that purpose and then a new sapling is planted.

So we’re currently at a Christmas Tree Impasse and will probably just keep using our fake tree until it falls apart or something. I guess it’s becoming a tradition in its own right… more so now that Niko has reached the helpful stage.

So, you know, there’s that. (Nesko was the one doing the actual tree assembly. This was early on a lazy weekend morning so he hadn’t showered yet, so I’m not putting pictures of him with dirty hair up on the web. he is, however, wearing a “bumble” t-shirt from “Rudolph.” He still has his teeth on the shirt, the only reason I permitted purchasing it OH MY GOD WHAT A FUCKED UP MOVIE.)

Nesko likes colored lights on the tree and lights that blink or chase or glow or fade in and out or otherwise act in ways that distract me or give me a migraine. So we have white lights that don’t twinkle or fade or dance or sing or do anything ridiculous or tacky (YES YES I AM JUDGMENTAL, UNREASONABLY SO, ABOUT CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTS ITS JUST WHO I AM, OK?) except for some giant blue bubble lights that just kick all kinds of ass.

(pretend that plastic bag under the tree isn’t there, ok? it held garland earlier and I forgot to pick it up.)

We intend to 1) get more bubble lights (THEY ARE SO COOL) 2) upgrade to LED lights 3) get strands of both clear/white and red because I find red an acceptable compromise color wise and this way we can unplug the red lights and just have white when I’m feeling ornery and have merry berry-like lights the rest of the time.

You may also have noted the mismatched garland and the desperate use of ribbon to fill garland-less space. Also the gaping holes in the tree because it’s a shitty tree. I HATE YOU TREE OK. We have three strands of one garland I love, two strands of another garland I love that totally clashes with the first style, and two strands of a super cheap garland we got at Walgreens the first year we put the tree up and that looks like crap. ALL OF THEM TOGETHER ARE NOT ENOUGH. But that’s ok. You may also have noticed that the ornaments look a little sparse. I have FIVE MILLION ORNAMENTS, most of them incredibly breakable. I have a 21 month old who came running up to me the other morning, arms full of ornaments he’d harvested from the tree. “Ball,” he exclaimed delightedly. “BALL!” and then threw them at me and ran off to get more. I am so incredibly glad I didn’t hang any of the fragile, breakable, some of them antique almost all of them heavy with meaning (or else cheap but very breakable) ornaments. What you see there is all our unbreakable stuff, some of it incredibly creepy and from the 1950s. I should take close up photos of some of the creepier ornaments, which include a ladder of santas with inhuman faces, and a small teddy bear whose eyes are dripping down his face.

Speaking of ornaments, one of our traditions (started when I was a kid) involves buying everyone a new ornament every year. Before we had Niko, Nesko and I used to hit Marshall Field’s (before it was Macy’s) every year AFTER Christmas so the ornaments we got were on sale. Now we try to hit a local small business and shunt our money there (FUCK YOU MACY’s oh god my Christmas traditions involve a lot of hate). When Niko’s old enough to really be aware and take part in selecting ornaments we’ll go back to the pre-Christmas tradition. We’ll also resurrect the tradition of checking out the window displays downtown. But he is just a BAAAAAAAAAABY right now and I’m not taking him out in sub-zero weather unless he’s going to enjoy it and remember it.

The nativity scene is a big deal at Christmas, and the Baby Jesus (HE IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!eleventy) is in the 25th day of the perpetual wooden advent calendar we have. You may also notice the candles with spinning angel thingy and the jars of candy ALL TRADITIONAL. Them being on top of the tv is not traditional, but our mantle is filled with books so there’s no room over there (OH GOD NO ROOM FOR JESUS ON THE MANTLE history is repeating itself :C :C :C).

You can totally tell when this photo was taken by counting the doors. I do the advent calendar for Nesko (he’s used to the cardboard ones with really crappy chocolate inside. One year I got him one from Fannie May and he was over. the. moon.) and put little candies inside that he’ll like. One of these days I’ll have my act together enough (and will have money enough) to put tiny gifts in there as well. One of our plans is to construct an Advent Calendar with 14 extra doors, for Eastern Orthodox kids/families who are into Advent Calendars, so they can start Dec 1st and go all the way to Jan 7th/Christmas.

See the little porcelain Santa next to the calendar? I was an overly precocious child and every. single. year. my Christmas List was topped by “actually seeing Santa.” So every single year my overly clever parents frustrated me with Santa ornaments and stuff. This guy’s one of my favorites.

Oh man, look at those stockings! They’ve got our (correctly spelled) names on ‘em and everything. How classy is that? For the first time IN MY ENTIRE LIFE there’s a fireplace I can hang stockings by. How awesome is that? This particular fireplace has been blocked off but I think we’re going to install a gas fireplace insert (my father in law and I both had the idea at roughly the same time, without talking to each other, WE SHARE ONE MIND APPARENTLY) next year. And then we’ll have a fireplace. I was kind of bummed by the fact that a gas insert doesn’t let you open the doors and burn actual wood for that wood smoke smell, nor can you pop popcorn or roast marshmallows or whatever. And then I was all DURR WHEN WOULD YOU ACTUALLY DO THAT PS WOOD SMOKE MAKES YOUR ASTHMA WORSE IDIOT. Anyway, stocking contents have to include a candy cane, a Terry’s Chocolate Orange in the toe, some loose chocolates and hard candy and nuts, and small toys/presents. These stockings were a gift from my in-laws and I adore the fact that we all match. LOOK I AM A MATCHY PERSON. I have a condition. (I am not joking about that.)

I worked at Fannie May right before they declared bankruptcy. It was a pretty awesome job in general, and I loved my co-workers, although we had some terrible scams that we foiled (or laughed over, in the case of the tiny old lady with an Irish accent who would try to dump whole sample trays in her purse and then scold us for not having samples out for her to try) and I lost my taste for sweet things for awhile (between that and the bakery, oh my LORD, I just wanted to curl up with a salt lick). That Christmas season I collected all the FM stuffed animals and here they are. Ultimately they’ll be down lower, but I don’t want Niko sucking on their eyes and shoving them under the couch and generally LOVING them, so up they are and up they’ll stay for awhile.

These little angels were always one of the big harbingers of Christmas, for me. So I got my own set. The original ones were owned by my grandma and on her death passed to my mom. I’ve missed these little musical angels for years, and a quick eBay search brought some home to me. Aren’t they cute?

That’s actually all the decorating we’ve done for Christmas, in large part because we have a very active toddler who gets into everything. We currently have two chairs wedged in the doorway between the living and the sunroom (which is where the tree is) to keep him from harvesting more ornaments from it. We’ll do more when he’s older (assuming there isn’t another tiny child getting into things).

Some of our other traditions include Certain Special Movies– “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” for me and those claymation classics like “Rudolph” and “Frosty the Snowman” for Nesko, movies I’d never seen until after we’d moved in together. “The Nutcracker Suite” is a big one for me, and when Niko gets older I want to start going to a production every year. Until then we watch it on PBS and listen to a CD with the music. A glut of cookies, lots of baking, my mom makes rich deep moist boozey fruitcake most years. One present on Christmas Eve and a midnight Mass with candlelight vigil, some kind of catch as catch can breakfast of rolls and milk (coffee for the adults) and candy Christmas morning, presents from Santa and stockings torn into, all other gifts opened carefully in turn. Thank you cards written right after. Christmas cards written and posted within the week after Thanksgiving (I’m late this year due to dashed hopes of getting a family photo taken and printed in time; I haven’t sent out a Christmas card in a few years, though).

One unusual thing this Christmas is snow.

We live in the Midwest (Chicago! woo! Chicago!) which means that every winter we get hit with huge amounts of snow, but usually we get flurries around Thanksgiving and then no actual snow until January. I’ve been seeing a lot of melt recently, but I think we’ll actually have a White Christmas this year.

Vote For Us @ TopBaby Blogs! The Best Baby Blog Directory

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Niko sacked out really quickly last night which was an absolute blessing because I’m 1) lactose intolerant and 2) an idiot. This is a very bad combination which resulted, last night, in me snuggling in with my baby and two minutes later my stomach making sure I knew I’d made a very bad decision earlier when I drank a big glass of eggnog without taking a lactaid or five. There was a rumbly, if you will, in my tumbly. I managed to hold on a while longer, about five minutes or so, and when I slipped out of bed to dash to the bathroom Niko stayed asleep. Which is a relief because it’s not fun having desperate potty time with a toddler on the other side of the door screaming to be let in, scratching at the door, generally acting like zombies are after him. It’s also no fun when he’s IN the bathroom throwing stuff around, trying to play with razorblades, and flushing the toilet.

After finishing putting my poop in the potty LIKE A BIG GIRL I slipped into the office to work on my computer a bit. It’s been having problems for awhile now (it’s over five years old) but I think I found the solution. I waited up for Nesko to get home and then we went to bed together. Niko was sprawled across the bed so I reached down to shift him. “Vrrr,” he said. At first I thought he was saying that because he was very warm and my hands were cold. But he followed that up with “Car. Car!” and then he shook his head and sobbed “Oh no! CAAAAAAAAAAAAR! vrr vrrr. Caaaaaaaaar.” I mean, he sounded really broken up. Nesko shook him a little and soothed him (shoved a pacifier in his mouth) and we all settled in for a good night’s sleep.

Niko talks in his sleep.

He has for months now.

Usually it’s just an adorably muttered “too…. TOOOO” as he dreams about trains (too toos). This is the first time that I’m aware of that he’s talked about cars in his sleep.

Basically, if it has wheels he loves it. He has other loves, of course. The slide (or the “updown” as he calls it, because you go up and then you go down. He also calls step stools and ladders Updowns.), cats, babies, blocks, empty boxes. But cars and trains are where its at, to the point that he’ll push empty boxes, blocks, and his baby doll around on the floor/table while making car and/or train noises. Is there anything cuter than a toddler grasping a baby doll by the head and shoving it around on the floor while saying “vrrrrr VRRRR eeeee! ah nah! CAR! ha ha ha! vrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”? Well… yes. There is, actually. But he’s pretty cute while he does it.