My, how things have changed…

Here’s a few quick shots of me being a terrible parent, I mean, Lily being a wonderful reindeer. It’s amazing how much things have changed in year. Auld Lang Syne!

Camping

“But the place which you have selected for your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization to you: "Home is home, be it never so homely." 

~Henry David Thoreau

Little Bear and her papa in her new tent. One of my favorite (Photoshopped) images from Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all of us at “The Life of a Little Bear!” Thanks for reading, whoever you are!

Just some updates…

Little Bear has been growing and changing so much every day that sometimes it’s hard to keep up. It’s also hard to document everything, so I’m going to post a few updates here in hopes that I can catch everyone up.

- She has tons of words now: mama, papa, night-night, hi, bye, yeah (most of the time it comes out “da.” though), no-no, wow (“wawh”), more, book, cook, banana, bath, shoes, button (belly button), baby, Boppa (her name for my dad), sometimes Apa (other grandpa), Yo Gabba Gabba (“Badabadabajai”), bubbles, woof, quack, bus, moo, oink (except she snorts), burger, mine, her name, bear, blanket (“black”), brush teeth, bread, fish, milk, that, water, poop, toot… I think that’s all. Oh, and tonight she came up with “oops,” “house,” and “choo choo.” while we were playing trains. That’s about 40, I think.

- Little Bear is great at pointing things out in books now. She only has to hear things once or twice to pick them up, and while she can’t always repeat the word back to us, she remembers the things.  One of her favorite books, “yuck,” has a salamander in it that she can find every time!

- Lately, it seems that she’s been hitting her terrible twos early. She gets so mad when she can’t do something herself but heaven help you if you try to assist her. She’s been especially grumpy when I get home from work but warms up again within a half an hour so it doesn’t totally rip my heart to shreds.

I had more to write, but as usual, I’m too tired to think straight. So I’ll leave you with this, and with a picture from a year ago, and one from this week. Look how much she’s grown!

Little Bear ate her chicken!

Little Bear is not, and has never been, a picky eater. The only thing she consistently shies away from is meat (go figure) but she likes veggies, kim chi, rice, eggs, tofu, curry, salsa, fruit, everything else. Anyway, she’s had a cold for a few days and was being especially picky at dinner tonight. Finally, on a whim, I got her to put a bite of chicken in her mouth. Immediately Papa and I started singing,

“Little Bear ate her chicken,

Little Bear ate her chicken,

Little Bear ate her chicken,

Woo! Woo! Woo!”

Well she just loves being the center of attention so she swallowed and took another bite. And another, and another. I took this series of pictures and am posting them all because it captures so many of her cute expressions that she uses now days.

I’m going to try and be better about posting, too, but it seems like life (and computer problems) always get in the way. Anyway, without further ado:

Next, driving.

Little Bear’s grandpa retired this week from a long life of police service. Little Bear celebrated by hanging out at the bar.

With special thanks to Jewel…

Tonight, for the first time EVER (at least that I can remember), Little Bear fell asleep on her own. As you know, it’s been a long road and I am sure, had we let her “cry it out,” we would have gotten here faster. Since my last sleep post, we put the side back on the crib. We started following a fairly strict bedtime routine beginning at 6:30 pm and ending with one of us sitting in her dark room as she fell asleep in the crib. To be sure, there was a little crying here, but it was angry crying, we were never out of her sight, and it didn’t ever last long. Sometimes, we would only have to sit for ten minutes, other times, an hour.

And then tonight, I went and stood by the door for awhile (channeling Supernanny again). She didn’t seem to mind, so I opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Still no fussing. I walked out and closed the door and… fifteen minutes later, she was out. Granted, she did take her pants off somewhere in there but you can’t have everything.

 

So there she is. Our sweet sleeper. It’s bittersweet, but it makes me proud for all of us. Proud that she is able to fall asleep on her own, and proud that we didn’t ever have to resort to letting her CIO. It only took 16 months.

Chatterbox

Little Bear has been talking a lot more lately. Often, she’ll mix signs and words like she does in the following video with “cook” and “bed.”

And an older one, because I think I forgot to post it earlier….

Enjoy!

Night time prayers

 

“God made the sun and God made the trees.

God made the mountains and God made me.

Thank you, God, for the sun and the trees,

For making the mountains, and making me.

Amen.”

Can you find a match?

Inspired by a “Memory” game at an overpriced toy store, I came up with this craft idea for Little Bear. I took 3x2 inch balsa wood squares from a craft store, 3x2 inch wallet prints of our close friends and family, and 3x2 inch scrapbook paper that I cut, Modge Podged them all together, and got these:

She is just at the age where she loves finding matches and identifying her favorite people:

I just feel like I have trading cards of my parents, etc. It’s pretty fun!

New family member

Remember me? I’m still here… sort of. This 365 thing is hard. Like working out but at least I don’t get fatter not doing it. Anyway, we welcomed a new member to our family tonight. We’ll call him “Other Dog” since I wasn’t very creative in giving Dog a pseudonym to begin with-hah! He came to us from a family out in the country who couldn’t afford him anymore. Despite being nervous to be in a new home, he seems sweet and everyone in our house likes him, even Shy Cat.

Dog is on the left, Other Dog on the right. Dog is a boxer-hound mix and Other Dog is a border collie-chocolate lab. Don’t they look cute together?

The pictures are blurry and on 1600 ISO but you get the point. Welcome home!

Sleep, little one.

We’ve been struggling with sleep on and off since Little Bear was born. It’s never been horrible, but we have chosen not to use “Cry it Out” techniques so our progress has been slow. At first, she was a great sleeper. She had jaundice and we had to wake her up all the time to eat. A few times, I remember I didn’t wake up to my alarm in the middle of the night and I awoke the next morning to find that she had slept 6 or 7 hours straight.

That ended soon enough, though. At some point we purchased “Happiest Baby on the Block” and used the “5 S’s” to calm Little Bear down regularly. It worked great, except that it got us to the point where she HAD to be swaddled, swung, shhh’d, etc. Again, fine for awhile but every time she woke up, she needed to be lulled back to sleep and Papa and I were getting tired.

We decided after awhile to bed-share with Little Bear and went through a period of putting her crib in a side-car arrangement. I liked that because it gave her space (in theory) but in reality she just wormed her way over to my side every night.

So we bought a bed rail (Smart, right?). That solved the problem of the bedsharing aspect, as far as safety, but not her falling asleep by herself. Often times, she would drift off while drinking a bottle or nursing, but rarely on her own.

At some point, we took the side off the crib (it made her mad) and hoped that the transition to a “big girl bed” would help. We tried first with the mattress directly on the floor and that helped, but only because one of us could cuddle her to sleep. And don’t get me wrong, I love that, but this was taking 1-2 hours per night.

We raised the bed (put the mattress back onto the crib frame) and I tried sitting with her and telling her, over and over, to lie down. But this little one is stubborn and it was turning into a power struggle. She’s only 14 months, mind you, so imagine what would happen if I get in to power struggles this early on! Anyway, I finally referred back to the wisdom of none other than Super Nanny and tried her bedtime technique. Basically I sat by the bed and did nothing except put her back when she climbed out. No talking, no singing, just back in the bed. Well it took 59 times out (no crying, though) in about that many minutes to get her to lie down and go to sleep. That was last night. Today for morning nap, it took 14 times out in about a half an hour before she was down and just now, for afternoon nap, she was asleep in 15 minutes, 0 times out of bed.

I hate to put it on “paper” because Heaven knows I’ll jinx something but it appears that we may have finally solved our problem. Don’t think it wasn’t without anguish, though. I’m just leaving out all the gruesome parts for the sake of brevity. Believe me, during last night’s escapade, I was just picturing that little counter on the night-cam that the use on the show… anyway. Here is a picture I just took of her sleeping soundly. It’s not great, as far as artistic merit, but to mark a milestone, it’s perfect.

Post Script: As a parent, especially a first time one, you feel so much more comfortable with “A plan.” I think the reason plans appeal to me, at least, is that it allows me to try new ideas but not have to feel the weight of responsibility if it doesn’t work. Instead of my idea failing, it’s the “No Cry Sleep Solution” that is failing. Also, if used right, the plan should exhibit consistency where, in my experience, lots of parents fall short. It doesn’t matter what plan you’re using, but if your child can’t be sure that the same things will happen in the same order, almost every time, of course they won’t feel secure enough to fall asleep.

That said, here’s an interesting article someone brought to my attention recently. Basically, the author outlines a plan to get bedsharing kids to put themselves to sleep. He makes a few good points, though, that I think are applicable when you’re trying any plan. Number one:

“I don’t recommend any forced sleep changes during the first year of life. Probably the only exception to this would be an emergency involving a nursing mom’s health. There are many suggestions in books and magazines for pushing “sleeping through the night” during a baby’s early months or during the first year. I don’t think this is the best thing to do and I am quite sure that the earlier a baby gets “non-response” from parents, the more likely he is to close down at least a little.”

I absolutely agree with this but, then, you could probably figure that out since I posted it. Anyway, the second is this:

“If, at any point this is feeling “wrong” to you, stop, wait some months and start over. Don’t go against your “gut instincts” which tell you that this is the wrong time to get longer sleep intervals from your baby. Your instincts are better than any sleep-modification program ever written.”

That is so, so important. Believe me, there were times (many times) when I thought that whatever stage of sleep issues we were in would never pass. But they all did, and soon you’re on to worrying about something else. It goes by so fast. Cherish the moments when your baby is awake and for goodness sake, cherish the ones when he or she is asleep. Go get that pedicure. Read that book. You deserve it!

Happy 4th of July!

We went to the beach for the fourth today and had a great time. The weather was much better than last year and Little Bear was a lot more fun to be around. She loved watching all the people around us and, despite hating the sand, seemed to enjoy the beach. Unlike last year, she managed to stay awake through about 3/4 of the fireworks and only woke up during the finale. All in all, a great trip!

 

She also had her first bite of S’more and was not too impressed with the consistency of the marshmellow (can you say sensory issues?"). She did, however, love the Nutella and Graham Cracker we gave her later, though by that time of night, she was fading fast.

Such concentration…

We pulled out Little Bear’s (second hand) Calico Critters town house, creatures, and furniture the other day. I wasn’t sure how they would go over but she was immediately impressed and spent at least a half an hour playing with the little pieces. Sure, she tried to step on all the furniture, but stopped pretty quickly after I told her “no.”

Bicycle ride

Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to let us borrow their brand new bike trailer today so we could go for a bike ride. I say “go for a bike ride” like it was no big deal, but really it turned into a half-day excursion. Papa couldn’t find a piece to the bike rack for his car so we decided to take mine, which meant we had to move the car seat and put some of the seats down. Oh yeah, and find all our bike stuff after the long winter. Then, we had to get my bike and the trailer from their house, so we drove over there and let Little Bear sleep in the car while we assembled and packed everything. I had the car half way on, you know, where you can listen to the radio but not drive? When we left to leave, the car was dead. So we got a jump from a friendly neighbor (who actually ended up giving us a cargo cover for free that was made for my car type, so it worked out). Then we had to get gas. Then get Little Bear a bike helmet which caused a major meltdown in Babies R Us. Then, we had to go get lunch food and finally show up at the park.

But after that, it was a great ride. Little Bear’s helmet didn’t fit that well so she only wore it half the time. Yeah, I know, I’m a horrible mother. But we rode slow and stayed off the streets. Anyway, now that we’ve got everything together, future bike rides will be easier to take. And since the weather is finally nice, I fully plan to.

Notice how she’s not wearing her helmet in ANY of these pictures? Yeah, it’s because she hates it. Also, we may have snapped her chin in it once. Oops.