With Sophia's 1 year birthday fast approaching on July 18th, I've been super emotional. Not because I'm going back to work, because I'm not. This was an easy decision for us. And I'm sure if I were returning to the teaching profession, I would be even more emotional. But, super emotional because my little baby whom I once blogged about being so tiny for her newborn clothes, or too fussy for the car rides, is now growing into a little lady. Don't believe me? Check out these then and now's...
Ay carumba. How do I get back those sweet moments? Our human condition is so interesting. I thought today, when we were bathing Sophia during our bedtime routine, "Oh, I'm so tired from our awesome adventurous day that I can't wait to just curl up on the couch with Gurshawn." And then I realized, well if I keep up this thinking, looking forward to the next best thing, the mindfulness and focus is completely off of the present moment, and THAT my reader, is how time goes by in the flash of an eye.
But I regress. Okay, so I have to blog about the incredible milestones that have come along with Sophia Penelope being ten months old.
TEETH and SEPARATION ANXIETY:
Sophia's lateral incisors came in on June 18th! These are the bottom fang like teeth besides the central bottom teeth. Those central incisors came in on April 4th and 8th. Here's a helpful chart, mommies, found on dentalcarematters.com
So those bottom central incisors are in, and the bottom lateral incisors are in, which leaves the top central incisors and the top lateral incisors to come in before she turns 13 months?! We seriously need a break from this teething business. Damn these incisors!
Teething is so not a walk in the park for us. Maybe it would be easier if we medicated, cause we may just be able to get some rest; but instead, daddy and I are just choosing to offer you frozen fruits to chew on, Camilia (a Homeopathic plant based remedy made by Boiron) and the occasional dab of whisky on your gums. Yes, whisky.
Along with teething pain in this 10th month came some major separation anxiety, probably because she was in so much pain she just wanted to be close to mommy and daddy. Always in our arms. Always within our reach. Boy, my arms look good. And my butt, from walking up and down the stairs with her in my arms. My butt is coming back with a vengeance. I had lost it unfortunately when Sophia was 7 months old, because I was nursing around the clock and as I learned from the Godly Google that during these particular months of nursing all of those DHAs (special fat around the hips and butt) go in the breastmilk, and with nursing on demand as I do, all the special fat around my hips and butt melted away. Funny what you google when you have a baby. I typed in "Breastfeeding is making my butt disappear" in the searchbar and actually came across this page. Anyways, not like I had a butt to begin with, but I did get a little rounder in maybeee the right areas during my pregnancy.
I got a little junk in the trunk.
Ahhh, I regress again!
Check out the highs and lows of teething...
This was not a fun day.
It led to a not-so-fun night.
Daddy was away on a business trip in Denver for three nights, and Sophia missed him so much!
I offered a frozen mashed banana on a wooden fork to ease the pain. Did it work? Not so much.
We learned that chewing the wooden fork helps the pain more so.
When you can't take it anymore, head out to the park to swing in the sunshine.
Mmmm...back to trying frozen coconut milk on her wooden fork.
Playing on our Dwinguler will distract her. It must! It must!
Rocking back and forth will release the tension. It must! It must!
Oh no. Back to crying! May Nay!
Yeah, so daddy's business trip was a wild ride for all of us. I'll speak about my experience. The first day and night I had things all under control. Baby took her regular naps, and was in bed by 7 p.m., which allowed me time to spotlessly clean the kitchen, make dinner, clean up the mess that comes along with making dinner, eat dinner and indulge in some wine, cheese, and strawberries. Mmmm. I thought to myself, "Well this is easy."
Ha! Day two came along and Sophia resisted all of her naps so we walked around a Garden Centre (as shown below). She was probably thinking, "Where is daddy!?" Then, our Skype session probably threw her off..."Why is daddy stuck inside the laptop?"
She didn't want to sleep at night. She was up from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. just crying and only wanting to wrap her chubby sausage arms around my neck (which is so super cool that she can do this now!) She doesn't like to sleep with us in our bed, because she prefers sleeping in her own crib, but she does like to cuddle up for a bit before she gets frustrated and wants to be moved back. So the cuddling and nursing lasted three hours, and then she got sleepy enough to be moved back to her crib.
Night three was better, but after 70 minutes of crying it out. I hate to have to leave her to cry, especially when she's teething, but it's a very fine line between knowing what exactly is wrong. Teething? Separation anxiety? See with teething, we wouldn't leave her to scream and cry herself to sleep in the crib. That's just cruel. But if they were separation anxiety cries and screams, our parenting style is that we would leave her to self-soothe to sleep. On this particular night, I realized she was just so confused with wondering where daddy was, since he is usually such a hands-on daddy after work, playing with her, feeding her dinner, bathing her, and getting her room ready for nighttime. She just seriously was missing him and the regular routine and had to unfortunately cry herself to sleep.
POTTY TRAINING:
We began potty training. And it's going amazing. This was totally not intentional.
When daddy and mommy do our morning business, Soph sits in her Bumbo across the bathroom and watches us. Yeah, we've got an open door policy 'round these parts. So, we noticed her pushing and going poo in her diaper of course, while on the Bumbo, each time we would push. Interesting, I thought. I went on a playdate, with a lovely mommy, who told me that she was potty training her 9 month old by simply placing the potty seat ON the toilet and putting her on there each morning.
A few days went by, and then I realized that Soph is pushing and going poo on purpose, in her Bumbo. She thinks the Bumbo is her toilet! So, I went out and bought a potty, but didn't want to train her to go on the potty on the ground. Instead I put the seat onto the toilet, and as of June 1st, we've been putting her on there first thing in the morning, before nap time, after nap time, and before bed, and we have success! She does her business, numero uno each time while on the toilet, and numero dos each morning! Of course, she still pees in her diaper, but it is significantly less wetter, which means less cloth diaper laundry. We are also working on teaching the Potty training sign so that Sophia can learn to communicate better with us when she feels that urge to go. This is a great site for teaching your baby how to sign (babysignlanguage.com), and the great thing about baby sign language is it is standard American Sign Language! Thank you Sil for inspiring this potty training endeavour!
Side note, we think Cloth Diapers helped her to feel the wetness and fabric and heavyness even more so than disposables. So, she may be catching on to the fact that she is supposed to use the toilet instead of her cloth. We are super proud of you Sophia, for learning how to use the Potty from the young age of 10 months old!
This is all for now. I have so much else to write about Sophia's other milestones, including her endeavours to crawl, being criticized for her not crawling because I'm so attachment parenting (ooooh), being criticized for not sucking it up and letting her cry it out, and how the move and settling into our new home is going. But that's another blog. Same Nat time. Same Nat channel.
