Update on words and signs

Riley has added drink, cereal, wash hands and bird to her signing repertoire. She’s learning so fast these days, it’s amazing. Words are a little trickier, but she’s picking some up. “Park” is becoming more clear (Pah follwed by kah, but no r sound in between), “papa” for pasta, “booba” for blueberry. And she loves to say “bye bye” and wave.

Riley also has favorite books that we read every day. One is Hop on Pop, which we wrote about before. The other is her Colors book that Becca gave her. Each page is a different color with a few objects of that color labeled with the english and spanish name. She LOVES this book, i’d almost say she’s obsessed with it. These days she won’t let us hold it and turn the pages, she has to do it herself. The first page has a big ball on it and that’s obviously her favorite. When she see the cat on the grey page she says “Ka!” or “kii ka!” When she sees the glass of milk on the white page she does the milk sign. Each page has a baby on it which she finds very interesting. Other favorites are the blueberry and grape pictures. Sometimes while reading Hop on Pop she likes to just hold onto the Colors book.

Play structure

This is one of Riley’s favorite place to play (after the shower of course)…

You’ve probably seen it in previous pictures, but I don’t think we ever wrote about it. It’s a bunch of soft shapes that are supposed to go together to make a train. We bought it from a guy on Craigslist who used to own a toddler gym or something. Anyway. Sage figured out she prefers the tunnel to be upside down so she can sit in it, and she’ll spend hours crawling all around and over it… especially if you constantly change the configuration. Just don’t stack the shapes too tall–then you’re just asking for it to be knocked over.

Drawing in the bathtub

About a month ago it was freezing in Palo Alto (remember that whole frost period… citrus crops decimated, etc). Anyway, it was too cold to go to the park, but Riley just can’t stand to spend the whole weekend in our apartment. So one day we went to hang out in a fun toy store near our house. And the next day we went to play in Pottery Barn Kids at the mall… they have tons of fun stuff there to play with, and toddler sized furniture which Riley seems to really like.

Anyway, this is basically a long explanation to say that while there we came across soap crayons for drawing in the bath tub, which i think is a fantastic idea. Riley’s gotten really into it, and often we let her play/draw in the bathtub without actually taking a bath. It’s perfect because she’s not so good at drawing on paper (she trys to hold the paper up with one hand, while drawing with the other, doesn’t work so well). In the tub she can draw while walking all around the edge, it’s perfect! I guess the only downside is there’s no masterpiece to hang on the refrigerator when she’s done…

Today it rained all day long, so apparently Riley and Maricella spent a lot of time with the crayons in the bathtub… a new rainy day diversion!

Early morning walk

Riley’s still waking up early in the morning… 6am we can handle, but 5am is a little painful (yes I know it will soon be my job to wake up even earlier then that, but still). Anyway. One Saturday I decided to take Riley on a walk to get coffee around 7am. You’d be amazed how many people are awake then, especially at Starbucks which was packed (we didn’t stop there). You’d also be amazed by how many compliments Riley got on her matching hat and sweater (made by my mother of course, need you even ask?). We went to Coupa cafe, which has beautiful flower pots outside that Riley is a big fan of…

Pretty pink pajamas

Once a month Riley’s class has Pajama Day, which I think is mostly an excuse for the teachers to wear their pajamas to school, but the kids do look pretty cute in their pjs too. Anyway, this month I decided to finally break out the pretty silk pajamas that Brad and George gave Riley. They’ve been sitting in her closet for over a year and they finally fit… needless to say they were a big hit with the teachers. They were very concerned about getting them messy though because they look kind of fancy, so they took them off for snack and lunch. probably a good idea actually as it was the day after Valentine’s day and someone had the bright idea to dye all the kids food red with food dye (think corn, apple sauce, cheerios etc). When I went to pick up Riley she was sitting at the table with some other kids, all of them (and the table) completely covered in red. I tried to quickly take a picture with my phone because it was quite a sight, but Riley was impatient to be picked up. Anyway, the red luckily washed out easily (her teacher was starting to panic a bit about that). Apparently the other kids were a little wary about eating bright red corn, but they came around as soon as they saw Riley cramming it into her mouth. That girl will eat almost anything, it’s amazing…

News

Riley is just a delight to be around these days (as if she ever wasn’t). She’s very interactive and creative, and seems to learn something new everyday. She’s adding words to her vocabulary… now she waves and says “bye!” whenever we leave anywhere (including the park, which she likes to wave goodbye to). Her favorite word is “Bah” (ball) which she says over and over excitedly while pointing at a ball, or even a picture of a ball in a book. Whatelse… “pah” for pacifier. She’s even got a spanish word! Agua. Maricella, who takes care of her on Monday and Friday, is pregnant and always carries around a big bottle of water. Now, whenever Riley sees a bottle of water she points and says “ahwah.” She’s learning some signs too, which is REALLY great, because it helps her communicate what she wants, rather then just yelling (which she still does a lot of). She can sign eat, more, and milk really well. And she’s learning book, sleep, change (as in diaper. her teachers at school think she knows this one, but we haven’t seen it yet) and wash hands.

Lately Riley is really into stacking things. We have these great sturdy blocks from Andy and Kendra that on a good day she can stack 5-6 high. At school the other day she apparently stole a friends sippy cap and balenced it on top of hers. The teachers said she was so pleased with herself they felt bad taking it away. We’ll have to put up a video of her theading her wooden beads, it’s pretty amazing (well i think anyway). She’s still very into climbing around on her squishy play structure. The funny thing is she mostly like to just sit on the blocks. We have plenty of pictures and videos of her playing/sitting… they’ll be up soon. Her other favorite place to play is in our shower (without the water on). She’d play there all day if we let her. i think it’s a combination of the glass walls and door which she likes to press up against, and the step and seat which she can climb up and down, and all the shampoo bottles to play with.

Riley recently decided she wanted to start eating with a spoon, and she prefers her food to be in a bowl. We’re thinking maybe it’s because she sees us eating with utensils? She won’t let us feed her with the spoon, but she does like to try and feed us (well, only the food items she’s already rejected). Sometimes she’ll offer the food and when you go to take it she’ll snatch it back in the last second and jam it into her mouth with a big grin on her face. pretty tricky. When i say she likes to eat with a spoon I really mean try to eat with a spoon… I’d say about 50% of the food makes it to her mouth, and she definitly supplements quite a bit with her hands.

She’s still not walking. She’s taken a few steps occasionally when we distract her and take our hands away, and she can stand on her own for a long time (well, 10-15 secs), but she just doesn’t seem interested in walking. I guess she’s satisfied with crawling for now.

People keep asking for pictures and I swear we’ve taken some and they’ll be up soon!

Riley’s words

If you listen closely you can now pick out some words amidst Riley’s baby babbling. She’s of course got “mama” and “dada,” and I think we’ve posted before about “cat” (although it’s not really “cat” so much as it’s just a hard “Caa” sound). Now she’s added picture (“pic-shh”) and book (bah) and ball (bah, but somehow slightly different then book). She also says “baay-bee” a lot and it sounds just like “baby,” but it doesn’t seem to be in reference to anything in particular…

I’d also like to say again that, as is often said, parenting really is the hardest and yet most rewarding job you’ll ever do (i guess some cliches are true). Riley is awesome and I love her more then anything, but sometimes she’s really difficult, and sometime she breaks my heart, and she’s only one! This week she was teething and had a bit of fever from her vaccines so she couldn’t go to daycare, and mostly wanted to just be near us and sleep in our arms, and eat on our laps instead of in her high chair. It’s a nice feeling to be the protector, who can make her feel safe and comfortable. But then we went to the park one day and she only wanted to play with our nanny Maricella’s sister-in-law, and wanted nothing to do with her parents! Felt like a preview of the teenage years…

So everyone be nice to your parents.

Update on changes…

So a mere 3 days after I wrote that last post, Riley nursed for the last time. And as of yesterday she is happily drinking milk from her sippy cup (we did water + a drop of milk, then increased to 50:50 mix, then finally no water at all. pretty smooth). And bottles are only a distant, and maybe forgotten, memory. And she’s sleeping beautifully at night. All this just goes to show the experienced parents out there, like Peg, David and Brigitte, and Becky’s mother Anne, are all correct in advising that babies go through phases and you just have to relax and know they’ll be fine…

The sleep thing is really very sweet actually. In the evening we put on Norah Jones and get her changed into her pajamas, then turn the lights down low and read a few books (she likes “Hop on Pop” by Dr. Seuss which my dad gave her, because there are so many things to point at. her favorite page is the one with all the balls flying everywhere). Then the lights go out and the door closes… at which point she used to immediatly cry, knowing that it meant bedtime. Now she just lays her head on your shoulder and plays with your hair (or for Sage, strokes his cheek) with her free hand, and we just rock slowly or walk around the room… it’s kind of like slow dancing. After about one song, you can lay her in her crib, not quite fully asleep, and she just curls up with the lion and goes to sleep. occasionally with a little protest that’s over by the time you’re out the door. amazing.

Naps are still a battle, especially at daycare, but hey, you can’t win them all at once…

The best thing is she’s just been so happy all weekend. Super smily and talkative and playful.

This morning she had her 1-year check-up with Dr. Drucker, who says no peanuts for another year (apparently she sees a kid with a new peanut allergy every week). Otherwise pretty uneventful. 3 shots (including the chickenpox vaccine). Riley is 30 inches tall (74%) and weighs 20 lbs 2.25 oz (30%). Apprently it’s perfectly normal to have mismatching height and weight percentiles…

Changes

Now that Riley is one, there are some Big Life Changes coming her way. According to the “experts,” now is the time to wean from nursing, transition from bottles to cups, and take away the pacifier. Honestly, part of me has been looking forward to stopping nursing for long time, and what really kept me going was knowing that traveling with Riley would be SO much easier if i was still nursing her (especially on the long plane flights). Now that the time has come though it’s not as easy as I thought it would be, and I’m starting to understand why some mothers defy social convention and go on nursing their kids well beyond one year.

Riley’s had a rough time adjusting back to life in california. With all the time zone changes and travel she got very tired and had trouble sleeping through the night. Add to that feeling crummy with a bit of a cold and you get a baby who just wants to be held by mommy and daddy all the time, and definitly does not want to stop nursing. It’s kind of sweet. She rests her head on you chest and holds on tightly with her arms, and occasionally points her little finger in the direction she’d like you to walk for some new scenery. I kind of love when she’s in these cuddly moods, but I know we need to help her get back to her giddy, independent, explorer ways. So the plan is:

1) get Riley back on a solid sleeping schedule and give her life some stability and consistency.

2) Since she doesn’t seem interested in the bottle anyway, we’re just going to stop giving it to her. This step is easy.

3) Slowly reduce the amount of nursing she does and try to convince her to drink milk from the sippy cup, which she is currently vigorously resisting — even though she likes drinking water from the sippy cup. She definitly does not like the taste of cow’s milk or formula and will actually spit it out if you manage to get it into her mouth. But she won’t even drink my milk out of the cup. kind of interesting. So we’re mixing small amounts of milk into the water, which she will drink, and plan to slowly increase the milk:water ratio.

4) Once she is sleeping well and fully transitioned to the sippy cup and not nursing, then we’ll start to think about phasing out the pacifier (though we are always trying to reduce how much she needs it).

I write this post not because I think it will be particularly interesting to anyone, but more because I think recently we’ve tended toward projecting a very glowing view of Riley’s life and our experience as parents, and it’s not actually always like that. As she gets older she’s become much more interactive and fun and we have a great time playing with her, but parenting her also becomes more complicated. How do you balence good nutrition with your baby’s constantly changing likes and dislikes? if she doesn’t drink milk, will she get enough calcium? How do you balence the desire to hold her and sooth her and nurse her and never let her cry, with the knowledge that she needs to learn to how to put herself to sleep and become more independent? How do you deal with temper tantrums? It’s just hard. Definitly worth it, but definitly hard.

Anyway. I know this time of transition will be followed by another period of transition and then another and another and I know we’ll eventually figure it all out. and the good times definitly out weigh the bad. Which is, I guess, what makes it all worth it.

One

Tuesday was Riley’s first birthday (January 9). I’m not sure she was really that excited about it, but everyone else sure was!! She got tons of birthday phone calls, emails and even packages. Lucky girl!

We were still in Cambridge, which means Riley had her first bithday in the same house where I celebrated my first birthday. We had a little birthday dinner of pasta with some of her favorite veggies (squash, zucchinni), followed by Riley’s first taste of chocolate in the form of a cupcake with chocolate frosting. She didn’t seem super impressed by the chocolate, but did really enjoy the little flower sprinkles on top.

It looks like her favorite part of us singing “Happy Birthday” was the flame on her cupcake (three candles made the flame extra big). Her birthday loot also included an Elmo balloon and a red flowery stick thingy. Not too shabby!

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So I guess it’s been a year now that we’ve been writing in this blog. Not bad considering neither of us really consider ourselves to be “bloggers.” I have no idea if anyone is even still following the blog these days, but it’s nice to have it as a sort of journal of Riley’s life. Looking back through those early posts it’s amazing how quickly memories blur and fade…