A friend posted a picture of her son on Facebook. Sophia saw the picture, “baby” she said.
“Do you know who that is?” Sophia didn’t say anything so I continued, “That is Treavor. Do you remember his two older sisters?”
Then Sophia interrupted with, “That is Treavor. He touched my toys. Don’t touch my toys!”
Picture taken 5/21/2011 camping at the cabin. Sophia is giving Lukas his pacifier.
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man.
I’ll start with a preemptive apology for and worse than normal grammatical errors and any worse than normal rambling and overall incoherence. I haven’t had a whole lot of sleep in the last few months. It began in the middle of pregnancy, though in those days I could still catch the occasional nap. Lukas started out as a very strong sleeper at birth, but the majority of his sleep took place during the day. It took us about two to two and a half months to switch him from sleeping those nice four hour stretches during the day to night time and even then there were a few nights where he quite literally woke up every thirty minutes needing the pacifier to plug the screaming hole in his face.
After two particularly crappy weeks of sleepless nights, I threw in the towel. After one midnight feeding, the next time he cried out, I simply closed the door to his room and then ours and I crashed for four hours. Kurt remarked how well I slept through the crying. I thought Lukas had eventually given in and that I had woken up to the sound of him starting up again. I had no idea the baby cried the entire time. This surely must be a sign of the stubbornness to come.
In the days leading up to Lukas’ four month birthday we were on a routine of him falling asleep at about ten at night, waking up three to four times a night, waking up for the day at about eight to eight thirty in the morning, and then only taking about three naps which lasted fifteen to thirty minutes. I didn’t feed him every time he woke up during the night, but still at four months old he should be able to sleep “through the night” without a feeding at all.
Lukas’ four-month baby wellness appointment was on Friday. The Boy weighs in at sixteen pounds. He is twenty-five and half inches tall/long, and his head circumference is sixteen and a half inches. He’s in the seventy fifth percentile across the board. He is currently wearing nine-month clothes because I can’t fit his melon head in six month clothes. He has reached all the milestones except the ability to roll over. He can recognize Kurt and I, which he has been able to do since he was two and half months old, he coos, smiles and laughs, and reaches for things. He can also self soothe. We can and do put him down for naps while he’s still awake. The boy just doesn’t sleep for very long, and will sometimes simply refuse to take a nap.
The doctor said it was absolutely fine to add some rice cereal to The Boy’s diet and that giving it to him just before bedtime should help reduce the number of times he interrupts my sleep with his nagging. That night we did just that and we put The Boy to bed at the same time Sophia goes to bed, eight. He didn’t like the cereal much and liked the bedtime even less. He only cried for half an hour but then started up again at nine or nine thirty. That lasted another hour before he finally got the hint. The next night he was quiet until nine but only cried for about fifteen minutes. Both nights he still woke three to four times. On the third night he went to bed without a fuss and only woke once. I wasn’t so lucky the fourth night. Putting him to bed isn’t an issue. Keeping him asleep for more than two hours is. I’m going to need tea that is a lot more caffeinated if this continues.
I started putting Lukas in the Walk-Around Stationary Walker (AKA The Not-a-Walker) when he was two months old so that he would have some different scenery while went off to do things for Sophia. Unlike his sister, he actually likes the not-a-walker. Lukas was exactly three months and one week old when he began reaching out for things, and already in his first attempts, he’s showing that he’s all boy. The first thing he reached out to was the sparkly blue cloth waterspout of the whale on his not-a-walker and tore some of the blue sparkly off.
He still doesn’t have full control of his hands. He’ll stare at them as if they’re separate entities from himself, and occasionally they actually become sentient and reach up and pull his pacifier out of his mouth. One time he actually became mad about this and was frustrated that the mean hands wouldn’t put the pacifier back in his mouth.
Picture taken 1/31/2011
We recently celebrated our twelfth anniversary. A couple of friends volunteered to watch our munchkins, but even with childcare arraignments, we weren’t sure if it would be much of an outing. We haven’t been able to get Lukas to drink from a bottle. When Kurt tries to offer the bottle Lukas does nothing. When I attempt to offer it to him he looks at me as if to say, “Don’t give me that silicone crap! I know you have the real deal under that sweater.” Actually, that was more of a Sophia attitude. Lukas is much more laidback. He’ll accept the silicone boob-replacement, but he requires that the formula be squirted into his mouth. He’ll suck on silicone pacifier all day long, but he won’t suck on a bottle nipple. That’s just asking too much.
Before leaving I tried to nurse the boy as much as he would take so that we could have at least two to three hours of adult conversation without Sophia, hands held up on either side of her chin with her palms up, yelling at the top of her three-year-old lungs, “I don’t say! I don’t say! I don’t say!” Anytime she speaks gibberish Kurt will just look at her and say, “Ya don’t say?” So she turned it around and that is what she yells until one of us inevitably gives her attention by bursting into laughter.
Dinner began with a crab cake appetizer. My main course was some awesomely buttery tasting scallops and Kurt ordered steak and prawns. For dessert, we split a blackberry cobbler with ice cream. It looked sloppy with the berry juice spilling over the ramekin, but tasted fantastic. And that was the point when I realized I needed to change my TV watching preferences. When part of a meal critique is how it is plated…I watch way too much of the food network. As I cook, I also find myself paying attention to my knife cuts. Another thing to occupy my mind…No good can come of this.
After dinner, we called our sitters to see how Lukas was doing and decide if we wish to risk subjecting our babysitting victims volunteers to a fussy hungry infant by going to a movie. They informed us that he actually drank about an ounce of formula. Great success! It wasn’t enough to constitute a full infant meal, but it was enough to bide more time. We continued our date to include viewing the movie, “True Grit”. Great movie. The only thing that bothered me about it was that twice characters in the movie alluded to the main character being ugly and she was not. Either throw those lines out, cast an ugly girl, or use a little make-up to make her ugly. I have no visual imagination. I need some props over here! *smacking the back of one hand into the palm of the other three times in rapid succession* I need the girl to look ugly! M’kay?
We arrived back home, yawning, at eleven. Yeah we really know how to paint the town red don’t we? It was perfect timing because Lukas was just beginning to get fussy. He smiled when he saw me. I realize that’s a great milestone, but the smiling boy sometimes weirds me out a little. His smiles are often huge when he knows it’s about time to eat that my mind sometimes run through Oedipus scenarios. You see, I have enough to occupy my mind. I don’t need to add knife cuts to that mix.
Monday last week at Sophia’s doctor appointment he checked her ears and throat and all is well. Friday and Saturday were actually her worse two days although she was a little grumpy on Sunday. By Monday, all she had left of her cold was a runny nose. The doctor said that we could always give her some baby Tylenol because she can get the same achy pains adults do with their colds.
While we were in the office, we told the nurse about Sophia’s napping habits or lack thereof. There have been times the child has stayed up for 12 to 14 hours straight, or only had a couple ten-minute naps during the day. She might fall asleep when nursing but as soon as I set her down she’s wide-awake, and I’m not about to hold her ALL DAY LONG. Car rides usually work but we didn’t invest in one of those detachable infant carriers so she wakes up when the ride is over and we actually have to go in the store or back in the house.
Picture taken 12/30/2007. The non-sleeping little bastard. 
I use a front pack when I go grocery shopping that she’ll sometimes fall asleep then too, but getting back into the car wakes her up again. I know those detachable infant car seat carriers make things easier when at a restaurant and just going in and out of the car to run errand all over town without disturbing the baby, but then you have to carry the weight of the seat and the child and that gets HEAVY! I’d rather carry a 15-pound baby against my body than a 15-pound baby with a 10-pound seat by hand. Those seats can be expensive and aren’t used for very long anyway. Sophia will be able to sit up on her own in about three months (probably less) so she’ll be able to sit in restaurant highchairs and shopping carts soon besides, her lack of napping is more of a problem on the days that I stay home. – I haven’t figured that one out either.
I would wear the front pack around the house but about the only chore I can do with it on is vacuum the house and we don’t have much carpet. I’ve tried hauling laundry up and down the stairs with her in the front pack and I do ok, but I don’t think bending down to put clothes into the drier is good for my back, and folding laundry would require much longer arms. The same goes for doing dishes and loading the dishwasher with her attached to my front.
So the doctor gave us a printout that was meant to help parents get their baby to bed at night, but he said we might be able to get some tips from it for napping. Because that day Sophia had not slept at all during the day we took the opportunity to use the suggested techniques to switch her usual bedtime from 10pm to 8pm. This special technique was basically – put the kid to bed and let her cry herself to sleep. Oh GOD was it hard!
It said to develop a bedtime routine that starts about thirty minutes before bedtime and that the baby needs to associate the crib with falling sleep instead of falling asleep in my arms. She also needs to learn to calm herself to sleep without me holding her, swaying, driving, using “white noise”, standing on my head, or juggling axes lest she later learns to wake up in the middle of the night without needing to be fed and require me to juggle the axes some more.
The routine I started was to change her diaper, put her in nightclothes, close the curtains, put some of her baby things away for the night, turn on the nightlight, and offer to nurse her even if she just ate thirty minutes ago. I nursed her until she showed her usual sign of not being hungry which is to attach and detach A LOT and look up and smile at me. The looking up and smiling at me is what made the next step so incredible difficult because she was being all cute and sweet and here I am about to do something that I know she’ll hate. I put her in her crib still awake like the magic doctor sheet said to do. I kissed her and told her goodnight. She smiled and cooed. Oh why do you have to make it so difficult? I made the “goodnight” brief just like the magic doctor paper said and I left the room. She quietly entertained herself for a few minutes and then the crying, screaming and crocodile tears began. According to our directions, we were to check on the baby every five to fifteen minutes and talk softly to her without any harshness in our voices. Visits should be brief and boring. We could give her kisses, hold her hands, etc. But under no circumstances were we to pick her up (well ok maybe if there’s a fire we can pick her up). We were to only be in the room for a minute and you know that Kurt was very precise following each guideline to the letter. I pointed out that our directions gave no time limit for the whole process. I mean at what point each night do you just give in and start over the next night? Because she eats about every two hours during the day we decided if she isn’t asleep in that time I could pick her up to feed and change her. Every ten minutes we took turns to go check on her. On my turns, Kurt came with me because he didn’t trust that I wouldn’t pick her up and only stay a minute. The torture ended after an hour and a half when Sophia threw in the towel.
I didn’t follow this technique with naps because to try it four times a day would just drive me insane and I think it would just be too much. Despite me not changing anything during the day, Tuesday was a breeze. She took three good naps (each lasting about an hour) and fell asleep within thirty minutes that night. Wednesday she took three ok naps (each only lasting about 30 minutes) and took an hour and a half to fall asleep that night. Thursday was a no nap day and it took an hour and a half to get her to sleep that night. I blame Kurt for falling for the old, “I need a drink of water” routine. On one of his turns to check on Sophia, he checked to see if she was hungry by letting her use his pinky as a pacifier. He didn’t realize that’s all she was doing was using it to calm herself. I tried to nurse her and knew right away that she wasn’t actually hungry but I sat with her anyway just as much for her comfort as my own. Friday and Saturday night we only had to check on her once on each night. Sunday night she actually prompted me to check the time when she started to fall asleep while nursing – it was 7:30! Not only was she right on cue but that night she slept right through the night for NINE AND A HALF HOURS STRAIGHT!! Monday night and tonight she fell right to sleep on her own. Each night the screaming a wailing became more fussing than calling out to save her life which was nice, and with exception to Saturday she did pretty well with naps too.
Kurt and I are tired of being the human pacifiers and Sophia absolutely will not take an actual pacifier. So I’m happy to announce that Sophia discovered her fingers come apart and she doesn’t have to shove her whole fist in her mouth. She started sucking her thumb about eight days ago, but today was the first time she popped it in her mouth to keep herself calm after nursing. Yay! I might get to keep my pinkies to myself from now on. By the way – she’s a lefty just like mom