One ... two ... three?

This morning we were at a playground that has a giant abacus. After Isaac pushed the beads around for a while, he stood back and watched a three-year-old boy play with it. The boy's mother slowly counted from one to ten as he methodically pushed each bead from one side of the abacus to the other. I noticed that a tiny voice accompanied her each time she said two, and I assumed her son was counting along. The third time it happened, however, I realized it was Isaac.

I turned him to face me so I could see his lips moving, and I said, "One..." He said, "Two." For an amazed moment I thought he knew how to count, and I tried to figure out where he could have learned it. Then the mists cleared, and I realized he must have simply memorized the word sequence -- two always follows one, just like the donkey always says hee-haw. It can't mean anything to him -- but then a lot of language is abstract, like the magic of the word please.

Craig said later that counting is memorization of a sequence of words, and I guess he has a point.

- - - -

P.S.
In the park I thought Isaac was also saying three, but I wasn't able to verify it. Until I can duplicate the results, we won't make any claims.

Sit, please

When our dog Walt was a puppy, we trained him to sit each time he was about to walk out the door. It didn't last, but the result was that sitting is often how he lets us know he wants to go out (or come back in) -- he sits facing the door and waits silently for someone to notice him. When we're occupied with Isaac, it can take a while. Sometimes Walt decides it isn't worth the wait and goes back to the couch. Otherwise, after about five minutes he'll tap the door with his paw or whine quietly.

When we began using baby gates in our house, we decided to have the same rule -- if Walt wants to go through a closed gate, he's supposed to sit. He doesn't always sit on his own, however. Sometimes he stands on the other side of the gate, staring at me, as many minutes pass, and I'm not sure if he really wants to come through or if he's just checking out the scene. I don't want to be his doggie butler unnecessarily, so I often ask him, "Walt, if you want to come in, what are you supposed to do?" I ask him obliquely because I don't want to just command him to sit -- then he will, and the question of whether he actually wanted to come through the gate remains unanswered. If he didn't actually want to, then I'm just going to have to open the gate again in 30 seconds to let him back to the other side. As I said, doggie butler.

So a few days ago I asked Walt, "If you want to come in, what do you do?" He sat. And at the same time, Isaac said, "Please!"

Of course. Isaac just learned please this week, and when I prompt him to say it, I've been asking him a very similar-sounding question: "If you want xyz, what do you say?" So I told Isaac that he was right, and I also explained that Walt says please by sitting.

- - - -

Please sounds like peees, with a drawn-out E and a barely audible S. It's often prefaced by the word more, which sounds like mo. "Mo peee! Mo peee!" has become a common refrain around our house, because Isaac loves to say it. And why not? He still thinks it's a great game, a truly magic word, as it makes Mama very excited and usually garners him rich rewards -- like raisins, milk, and tickles. But he'll soon learn that it doesn't always work, as there are a few things that it hasn't delivered -- like the pepper grinder, peanut butter on toast, and an extra dose of that delicious cherry-flavored Tylenol.

Three cats

Isaac hasn't met many cats, but he is intrigued by them. He really likes to meow.

We recently read a short poem in Babybug magazine about a cat -- a little girl pats her kitten; in return, the kitten nuzzles her. As we read it, I patted and nuzzled Isaac. Then I told him that a happy cat will often purr, and I demonstrated how purring sounds. He was fascinated.

Now patting, nuzzling, and purring have joined meowing as our cat-related imaginings. He even says, "Pat, pat, pat." It is so cute, I almost can't handle it.

Actually, animal role-play can be useful as well as fun. For example, Isaac enjoys a book called Close Your Eyes in which a mother tiger gets her cub ready to sleep. Now Isaac doesn't protest when I come at his dirty face with a damp cloth, because I pointed out that the mother tiger uses her tongue to lick her baby clean. All I have to do is say, "Lick! Lick!" and he allows me to wipe his face.

But there can be drawbacks, too. We just read Babies on the Go, about the various ways animal mothers carry their young, and as he seemed interested in how the mother lion carries her cub by the scruff of its neck, I made the mistake of pretending to carry his arm in my mouth. He thought this was hilarious. But soon I got tired of him cramming his hand in my mouth, and he cried when I made him stop.

Thankzzz

Craig gave me the nicest gift this morning: another hour of sleep. It was especially touching because he really could have used it himself.

For the last few days he's been part of a team working 16-hour days at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley. They split the shift in half, thankfully, so he only has to work from 1:00 am to 9:00 am. (It's voluntary, so you might wonder why he does it, but as it was the ALS work that got him on the cover of Science, I guess it's worth it.) He tries to sleep enough during the day (he napped five hours yesterday, and slept four hours last night before going to work), but he's still tired all the time. It's simply difficult to be up all night.

Unfortunately, Isaac was also up last night. He was basically awake from 1:00 am until 4:15 am. (Do you think he put himself on the graveyard shift in solidarity with his father?) I rather foolishly went to bed late, and then had a hard time sleeping once I got there, so when Isaac woke up at 1:00 I hadn't had very much sleep. As the hours wore on and I couldn't get him back to sleep, I began to feel desperate. Nursing, rocking, crying (him), and yelling (me) didn't work. Finally he fell asleep in my bed after nearly an hour of tossing and turning.

Then he woke up at 7:45 am. He had slept a total of eight and a half hours; I had slept less than five. When Craig got home at 9:30 am, he already knew how my night had gone (thanks to checking Trixie Tracker) and was sympathetic. That's when he offered to let me go back to sleep. I felt a little guilty, but I accepted.

So thanks, honey! Not only did I appreciate getting the extra sleep, I think Isaac did too -- neither of us like it when I'm exhausted and short-tempered.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a nap, just like every other member of my household is doing at this moment.

A long boring list of stuff for baby, part I

To take care of a new baby, what items do you really need to have? Not much. So then what items are nice to have? I think it varies dramatically depending on the family.

One of my cousins is expecting a baby in a couple of months, and I offered to loan her some stuff. This got me thinking about preparing for Isaac, and how hard it was to know what to buy. I remember being stressed out the week he was born because we didn't have baby washcloths yet. I wonder how I thought baby washcloths were different from regular washcloths? Craig, to his credit, stopped at a Babies R Us on his way home from work one evening and picked up a bunch of them, so at least I could cross that particular worry off my list.

Besides the baby washcloths (which I actually still use; Isaac likes the ones with a dog embroidered on them), I don't think we ended up with too many unnecessary items. But it's hard to say -- if you already have something, you're likely to use it, and then perhaps you'll wonder how you would have gotten by without it.

The mechanics of those early weeks and months are already growing dim -- not the emotions, but the nuts-and-bolts -- so, for posterity's sake, and for the sake of anyone shopping along at home, I'd better make a list of the baby items we used (or are still using) while I can still remember:

On the Go

infant car seat (Baby Trend Latch Loc)

• from birth to 4 months old
• borrowed from friends
  
• it was quite a relief to not have to do the research on this, because we trusted our friends to have bought a good one!

stroller frame to hold infant car seat (Snap N Go type)

• from birth to 4 months old
  
• borrowed from friends
• I think we used this less than ten times; Isaac didn't like it, so we almost always carried him in a sling
  

convertible car seat (Britax Boulevard)

• from 4 months old to the present
• this was kind of expensive, but there was a good sale online
• since Isaac is such a tall child, we wanted a car seat that he won't outgrow too soon, and this one has the tallest height limit available
  

utility stroller (BOB Revolution)

• from 4 months old to the present
• this was kind of expensive, but we got it on sale because it was "last year's model"
• it has a lockable swiveling front wheel which allows it to go anywhere, from off-road at my parents' house to inside stores at the mall

umbrella stroller (Maclaren Volo)

• from 15 months old to the present
• for over a year I insisted I only needed one stroller, but in the end we got this one for travel -- it's ultra-light and you can sling it over your shoulder -- just as Isaac decided he dislikes being strapped into any stroller
• well, we can always use it as a luggage cart

slings (Hotslings stretch cotton for me, New Native for Craig)

• from birth to 4 months old* for napping; from birth to 6 months old for transportation; I still use mine sometimes
• the New Native was a hand-me-down
  
• if I had to pick, this might be my can't-live-without item -- in the sling we could get Isaac to sleep anywhere; without the sling we couldn't get him to sleep anywhere!

mei tai baby carrier (Babyhawk)

• from 4 months old to the present
• since this goes over both shoulders, this was handy when Isaac got too heavy to carry for a long time in the sling
• see our profile photo at the top of this blog
  

Sleeping

bassinet (Arm's Reach mini co-sleeper)

• from birth to 7 months old for night-time sleep
• we really liked how this kept Isaac right next to our bed but gave him his own separate space; I missed him when he began to pull up on the edges and we had to move him into his crib and thus out of our room
  

crib (Child Craft Easy Use No Dropside)

• from 6 months old* to the present for naps; from 7 months old to the present for night-time sleep
• at one point I believed Isaac would never be able to sleep in the crib, since when we set him down he always woke up and screamed -- but practice made perfect (well, almost perfect)
• we got a fixed-side crib because it seemed more sturdy, and it hasn't been a problem leaning over the edge, but then I'm 5' 7" and Craig is 5' 11"
  

swaddling blanket (Miracle Blanket)

• from birth to 7 months old
• yes, we swaddled him for much longer than most babies will tolerate; he seemed to like it, and it was possible due to the true miraculousness of this straitjacket blanket
• see photo at the beginning of this post
  

wearable blankets (mostly Halo sleep sacks)

• from 7 months old to the present
• Isaac still hates being covered by blankets, even when he sleeps in our bed, so this is the only way to keep him warm

baby monitor (Sony BabyCall)

• from 6 months old to the present
• just like I thought we'd never use the crib, the monitor seemed like a cruel joke, but now I use it every day

- - - -

* And where did Isaac nap between 4 and 6 months of age, if not in the sling and not in the crib? In my lap.

- - - - -

Edited 10/25/08 to add:

We also have a nightlight that we all really like, a MOBI Tykelight Buddy in yellow. We just call him Light Bulb Man.

Edited 9/8/09 to add:

Here's Part II of this list.

Today's milestone

... baby's first haircut!

Actually, Isaac's hair has grown disturbingly little. I'm tempted to ask his doctor about it at his 18-month check-up. Yes, it's a lovely pale blond color, and it's so soft and silky, but shouldn't there be more of it by now?

He was born with a small amount of hair before he became mostly bald at about three months of age, but that was over a year ago and it hasn't gotten much longer or thicker compared to that of his peers. His front hairline hasn't grown at all. The only reason he looks like he has a tiny fringe of bangs is that hair from further back on his head has finally grown enough to touch his forehead.

The part I cut tonight was a tuft of longer hair that grew out of the center of the back of his head -- not even as stylish as a mullet. The patch was less than the size of a quarter, and the hair was easily twice as long as the hair that surrounded it. It was longer because it was the only hair that pre-dated his bald spell.

- - - -

Isaac can say hair, although he says it with what sounds like a strong Scots accent -- something like hee-ehr. He still runs his fingers through my hair as he nurses, which of course dislodges a few loose strands. If a hair ends up in his mouth, he immediately stops nursing. He doesn't have the dexterity to remove it himself, so he says "Hair" to alert me to the problem and I extract it for him. It's still exciting when he puts his language skills to use.

Little pitchers have big ears

A few questions to ponder:

• Do you slurp when you eat soup? No? Are you sure? I didn't think I did either, until Isaac began eating soup too. He learned that slurp from someone, and Craig doesn't eat much soup. He even does it when he pretends to eat soup.
  

• Are there any vocalizations you make all the time, probably without even thinking about it? You can't know until you've been copied by a toddler. I never noticed myself doing it before now, but I say "Hm!" a lot, mostly when I'm looking for something (or when I don't agree with something but am too polite to say so). So now if you ask Isaac where something is, he says, "Hm!" and pretends to look around.

• What do you do when you want someone to open his mouth? If you're like me, you open your own mouth in demonstration, then say something like, "Open wide and say aaah!" Last night Isaac wanted me to open my mouth (so he could stick his hand in it), so he opened his own mouth and said, "Aaah!" It was so cute and appropriate that I obliged.
  

Anagrams

After reading this post about baby name anagrams at the Baby Name Wizard Blog, I then spent too much time at the anagram generator trying to make the letters of Izzy's name spell something significant. Then I just hoped to find something interesting. In the end, even something grammatical would have been okay with me. I didn't have much luck.

Here are three anagrams using the letters of his first and last names:

ERADICATES AJAR SEAT
JESTER ACES DATA ARIA
JADE ARTIST ACES AREA

and here are three using his middle name as well:

ESCALATE AJAR DESIDERATA
EJECT SALSA RADIATED AREA
JADE RADIATES CASTLE AREA

None of them are any good, right? I guess we should have given him a name with fewer As. Or maybe with fewer letters overall.

On the other hand, here are two gems derived from the letters of my first and last names:

ADORE RECLINE
ORACLE DENIER

Do these anagrams reveal anything about my character?

Sleep update

Originally, back in November, I posted about Isaac's remarkable consistency in sleep habit -- for four months straight, when he was between ten and 13 months of age, he was asleep an average of 12 out of every 24 hours. Everything seemed very predictable, and I felt like I had it all figured out.

Then three weeks later I posted about a dramatic change -- in his 14th month, Izzy was now sleeping an average of 13 hours per 24 hour period! The big spike on the graph looked impressive, and seemed statistically significant. Things were changing, which was bad, but at least it was for the better, which was good.

Now let's take a look at his current monthly sleep average chart, courtesy of Trixie Tracker:



Now that the 14th month is complete, its sleep average has come down somewhat and it doesn't look that impressive anymore. Yes, Isaac on average slept more than his typical 12 hours, but certainly less than the 13 hours I had originally found so exciting.

But what happened during the 15th month? My regular readers may recall some dark days involving separation anxiety, travel, and illness. I knew at the time that things were bad, but it took the sleep average chart to reveal that Isaac hadn't slept so little since he was six months old.

Actually, here's a more revealing way to look at the average sleep chart -- by weeks, rather than by months:

So it turns out that it wasn't the entire 15th month that was so bad -- it was just the 68th week.

New pictures

I've posted quite a few new pictures to the album -- it has been a while.

And yes, Isaac finally decided to crawl through the tunnel at Kindergym. It happened last week, about ten minutes after I told another mother that Izzy was a cautious child and had never crawled through a tunnel before -- that'll teach me to pigeonhole the kid.

And although it may seem suspicious that I was ready with the camera, I swear I didn't have anything to do with it -- he went over to the tunnel of his own accord, and before I could even encourage him, he was on his way through it. As you can tell from the photo, he didn't seem especially exhilarated by the experience, and he didn't repeat it.

Affirmative

After months of shaking his head from side to side, saying "Nnnn," saying "No," and even grunting "Uh-uh" (which sounds so casually mature), Isaac has finally added an affirmative to his vocabulary.

It is Yeah!

He already knew what it meant, but he never said it. Remembering the luck I had teaching him to say please, I trained him to say yeah in about ten minutes. (It seemed easier to say than yes.)

Earlier this week we were reading a book about a semi-truck on a cross-country haul (Donald Crews's Truck). In the course of its journey the truck occasionally drives past a bus, which always attracted Isaac's attention. So as we read the book, on each page I asked, "Is there a bus?" When the answer was "No," he answered readily. When there was a bus, however, he was silent, so I answered "Yeah!" with great enthusiasm. He started saying it with me the second time through the book, and now he can use it appropriately in conversation.

He still prefers the negative, however. Ask him any question with a not in it (such as "You're not supposed to throw food on the floor, are you?"), and he'll respond "No. Uh-uh."

Vacationesque

This past week Craig had a short conference in Pacific Grove, a charming beach town about two and a half hours south of us, so our whole family (and the dog) drove down for a pseudo-vacation. It wasn't really a vacation for Craig, because he had to be at the conference most of the time, and it wasn't really a vacation for me, because I had to take care of Isaac (and the dog) while Craig was at the conference. Maybe it was a vacation for Isaac? (Or for the dog?)

Taking care of a child away from the comforts and structure of home seems especially challenging, making vacations problematic (or at least not restful) for parents in a way I never realized before. Part of the problem is strategic -- how are we going to eat, play, nap, soothe, bathe, sleep? Routines that were second nature now have to be rethought; this makes everything just a little bit harder. (As far as that goes, we had it pretty easy -- we stayed in a two-room cabin, so I didn't have to tiptoe around while Isaac was asleep since we set up the Pack N Play in the kitchen. Also, we had our meals in the dining hall on the conference grounds, and although the food wasn't exactly delicious, at least we didn't have to shop, cook, or clean up.)

But another part of the problem is philosophical. While we're at home, I don't mind not getting many breaks from my job of taking care of Isaac, but going on vacation makes me expect a certain amount of relaxation. I've been tagging along to this conference for about eight years now, so perhaps that's an additional factor -- I remember too clearly how relaxing it was without a toddler (or a dog). In the old days, I would sleep in as late as I wanted. Then I would find a picturesque place to sit and read, like the balcony of our room or a bench on a cliff overlooking the beach. Or I would rent a bike and ride along the ocean, stopping to look at tide pools or visit the historic lighthouse. And sometimes in the evening I would drink beer at the conference poster sessions, where scientific work is presented in an informal setting not unlike a big cocktail party, before walking back through the pine trees to sit in front of the fireplace of our Julia Morgan-designed lodge.

This year I didn't do a single one of these things. But even if it wasn't a real vacation, it was fun. I took Isaac (and the dog) down to the beach every day, where Isaac sat in the sand and dug while Walt played with other dogs and sniffed at a dead seagull. One afternoon I met up with my mom and sister, and along with Craig we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium -- I've been there many times before, but just as they say, I was thrilled to see it all over again through Isaac's eyes. I even saw exhibits I'd never noticed before.

Plus, one morning Craig got up early with Isaac and let me sleep in.

"Hi, baby"

Sometime in January, Isaac started saying "hi." (Why does "bye-bye" come so much earlier?) About a week ago he began addressing his greeting to specific people -- we heard "Hi, Mama" and "Hi, Dada," and he even said "Hi, Oma" when my mom called. But yesterday he decided he was instead going to greet me by saying "Hi, baby!"

He says it like a demented French playboy: "Hah, beh-bee." This is especially funny when he romances me as he says it -- he snuggles up close, looks me deep in the eye, and presents his lips to be kissed. I half-expect him to ask me to come with him to the Casbah.

Is Izzy copying what he has heard me say? Could I have said "Hi, baby" to him one too many times? But he said it correctly just a few days ago. Also, he knows very well that I'm mama and he's baby -- that's still what he calls himself. So could he be making a joke? Craig and I did laugh ourselves silly the first time Isaac said it, so we might have encouraged it. I suppose I'm still encouraging it, because it still makes me smile even as I protest, "No, you say 'Hi, mama'!"

The whole thing reminds me of the tollbooth worker a few years back who, when I stopped to hand him five bucks, asked me, "How you doin'?" When I said I was fine, he purred, "I can see that." Then he made me wait a little too long before he handed back my two dollars in change. Yikes. Is that Isaac's future -- calling out "Hey, baby" to unsuspecting passersby?

17-month milestones

Do you feel like I mostly write about two topics: sleep and language development? Yes, I am tired and therefore understandably obsessed with sleep, and I find Isaac's constant acquisition of new words particularly fascinating (today he said ladder for the first time), but perhaps I should make more of an effort to write about his many other facets. Here, then, to celebrate his 17-month birthday, are some of Izzy's recent milestones unrelated to my most common themes:

• Today he got his first cut. He was digging in a flower bed in our garden, and he scratched the back of his hand on some pointy object (probably a stick or a rose thorn). He's had a few minor scrapes before, but this one bled enough that it required antibiotic cream and a bandage. (It's his first bandage, too, besides the ones he's gotten after his vaccinations.) He showed the cut to me right away, not exactly crying but whimpering a little bit. Later, whenever he remembered the injury, he'd frown and point to the back of his hand with his index finger -- except most of the time he pointed to the wrong hand, so I think any lingering trauma is emotional rather than physical.

• Today Isaac successfully stepped off the edge of our raised patio. Just yesterday he still dropped to his knees (usually a good 18 inches shy of the edge -- his motto must be safety first), swung his feet around, and crawled down backwards. (He also crawled back up again afterwards.) Today he began to experiment with stepping on and off the edge -- he would squat, then put out one hand to support himself as he cautiously took one foot off the ground, then lowered it over the edge. After he'd done that about 15 times, he tried it without putting his hand down first, and it worked! I congratulated him, and I could tell that he was pleased with himself.
  

• Yesterday we had an errand to run at the vet's office, and I had Izzy stand on the big scale in the waiting room. With his shoes and clothes on, he weighs 24.6 pounds. I'm too lazy to convert that 0.6 pound into ounces, but if I round it off to eight ounces that means he's gained at least 13 ounces in the seven weeks since his last doctor's visit on December 19. No wonder he feels heavier.
  

P.S. Did you notice that I snuck language acquisition into this post anyway?

New pictures

Lots of new pictures in the album -- you can see Izzy working in the yard, going to the beach, visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and going for a walk with his Oma & Opa.

It's kind of hard to believe those jellyfish are real, isn't it? Isaac, who was already tired by that point in our visit, was mesmerized by them -- note his slack mouth and staring eyes. Or maybe he was soothed by the New Age music they were playing in the jellyfish room -- I myself found it irritating as well as totally unnecessary. Isn't nature strange and majestic enough without a piped-in soundtrack?

Another milestone

I'd like to add another of Isaac's accomplishments to my recent list of his 17-month milestones: he can feed the dog.

I started helping Izzy feed the dog as soon as he could walk well enough, but it wasn't always a success. Most of the problems involved the scattering of generous amounts of kibble -- both accidentally and deliberately -- but there was also the problem of the wrong recipient putting said kibble in his mouth. (I told Isaac that dog food was yucky, but as this made no difference Craig suggested that perhaps it wasn't.)

Isaac wasn't ready yet, of course -- it was hard to use the handle on the measuring cup to scoop out the food, hard to carry the full scoop steadily across the room, hard to pour it neatly into the correct bowl, and especially hard to resist the temptation of shaking the scoop and watching the kibble bounce out. Anyway, when it stopped being fun I eventually settled for feeding the dog myself, then letting Isaac carry the empty scoop back to the bucket where the dog food is stored and helping him snap on the lid.

But last night I realized that Isaac's recent enthusiasm for digging might have prepared him for feeding the dog -- he's gotten quite good at scooping sand up in a little trowel, keeping the trowel level, then pouring the sand into a mixing bowl. (Also, he mostly manages to avoid eating the sand.) Were these transferable skills?

Yes! He's fed the dog twice so far -- and he is bursting with pride. Both times I've guided his hand as he reached into the bucket to scoop up the food, and the first time I also provided a steadying hand as he carried the full scoop across the room to the dog's bowl. But the second time he carried the scoop entirely by himself. He started out holding the scoop's handle in one hand, but he quickly realized it would be easier to balance it if he used both hands. Even as he walked, he never took his eyes off the scoop -- it tipped a little precariously at one point, but he didn't spill a single piece, not even when he poured it into the bowl.

I applauded, but he had already taken the empty scoop and was hurrying back to the pantry to put it away in the dog food bucket. I told him, "Great job! Walt will be very happy!" And Isaac echoed, "Happy!"

New shoes, again

Here's a picture of Isaac's new shoes, just purchased today! They're so new that he hasn't even worn them yet. His last shoes were size six, and these are sevens; the official word on his size is that he is "at the top end of six," so these give him some room to grow.

These are really cute, I think, although they aren't as flashy or colorful as his last shoes -- but as I told Craig, if we're going to buy Isaac new shoes every four months, we will have plenty of chances to try out a variety of styles. He can be a little less of a hipster for a few months.

Craig and Isaac went to the shoe store all by themselves (while I was up the block trying on sports bras as a crucial first step to meeting my New Year's resolution to exercise). This was a first -- although Craig and I successfully share nearly all of our parenting responsibilities, up to this point I have done nearly all of the clothes shopping. (I also do nearly all of the nail clipping; I wonder why that is?) Craig bought a few adorable items for Isaac (including a tiny red t-shirt with a cowboy on it!) when he was a few days old, but he left Isaac at home with me. Anyway, the two of them tried on and picked out these shoes together, and all I had to do was give the final approval. Approval granted!

Tidbits

A few new things:

• Asking "Isaac, do you want some milk?" might still get you an enthusiastically polite "Plee!" On the other hand, you might hear a more reserved "Okay." He pronounces the letters separately and distinctly: oh kay. Now he has two affirmatives: yeah and okay.
  

• I know Isaac still likes his milk, because when I was nursing him recently and I asked if he wanted to switch sides, he said, "Yummy!" He puts the accent on the second syllable: yum-MEE. It's nice to be ranked up there with the other things he deems yummy, including cookies, bananas, bread, and pretend soup.
  

• He's known how to say up and down for a while, but this morning he spontaneously stretched his arms to the ceiling for up, and squatted to the ground for down. I had just been bouncing him up and down on the bed as I sung the action rhyme "The Grand Old Duke of York," so that's where he got the idea, but it was still exciting to see him do it by himself.

• Unfortunately, Isaac has been rising earlier lately. He used to regularly sleep until 7:30 a.m., but on most mornings of the last two weeks he's woken up between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m., and I've only succeeded in getting him back to sleep five times. I think one contributing factor may be teeth -- his final one-year molar has just peeped through the gum (nearly two months behind the others), and his first canine (top left) is looking to follow suit. Over the last two weeks his night-time sleep has been mostly fine (including three nights where he technically slept through the night, two 10-hour and one nine-hour stretches), so I can't complain too much.

Literal baby blogging

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Why I'm tired

Is there a Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child book for adults? Because I could use some help.

As I mentioned in passing yesterday, Isaac has been sleeping longer stretches. Last night was another one -- he slept from 9:45 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. without waking up, just over nine hours. Unfortunately that was the extent of his night. So although it was unbroken sleep, it wasn't enough for him -- it was at least an hour short -- but it could have been enough for me.

First let me explain his late bedtime. Isaac usually falls asleep between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m., but last night I went out to dinner with five other playgroup mothers, and Isaac wasn't interested in going to sleep without me. Meanwhile, I lingered over my chocolate soufflé and sparkling wine and didn't get home until nearly 9:30. (It was the first time since Isaac's birth that I had gone out alone -- except to go to work, the grocery store, the doctor, or the hairdresser -- and I had fun, thanks for asking.)

Then let me explain why Isaac's uninterrupted nine-hour stretch of sleep and a relatively humane 7:00 a.m. waking weren't enough for me. It's the same reason I'm tired after an ordinary night when he sleeps for five or six hours, wakes me up to nurse for 20 minutes, then sleeps for another five hours, an arrangement that in theory should also give me enough sleep.

The problem is that once I'm awake in the middle of the night, I can't fall back asleep. This has been happening for the last month or six weeks, and it totally sucks. It means that I'm the reason I'm tired, not Isaac. My child doesn't need sleep training, I do.

Last night Isaac didn't wake me up, but I got up to go to the bathroom -- and it took me two hours to fall back asleep. How unfair is that?

My Perfect Day

"My Perfect Day" by Isaac

No, even though he's pretty verbal, he's not writing essays quite yet. But if somehow we could assign a toddler such an essay, we might just discover that today was that perfect day. Isaac got to experience many of the things he loves, all before his 1:30 p.m. nap:

• Kindergym class -- tunnel, balls, slide, and the mini-trampoline
• the park -- sand, swings, slide, and other kids' parked bikes
• walk to the library (on the sidewalk along the street) -- cars, mail trucks, buses, and a backhoe
• the library -- books, change machine, little chairs, and giant pillows shaped like alligators
• walk back to the park (across a plaza) -- elevator, reflecting pool with waterfall, and lots of steps to climb up and down
• walk to the fire station -- fire trucks!
  

Isaac has only recently gotten interested in fire trucks, which he calls ha-has. It took us a little while to figure out what he was talking about, but then we concluded that fire = hot = ha. I think this may be his only "personal word" -- otherwise he does his best to pronounce the real thing. He also claims that fire trucks go "beep beep," like the Roadrunner. He beeps his nose as he says it. He's going to be shocked when he finally hears a siren close up.

It was a gorgeous day, which is one reason why we did so much walking -- Isaac walks like a toddler, which is to say slowly and inconsistently, stopping to pick up random things, and often taking off in the wrong direction, but I didn't mind dawdling outside in the 65-degree sunshine.

Speaking of which, I had high hopes for his nap. Naturally, as is often the case with high hopes, they were dashed. This is my favorite time of year to garden (at least when it isn't raining), and I was looking forward to getting some work done. (Soon it will be too late to prune the roses and apple trees!) Lately Isaac's naps have lasted at least one and a half hours, and sometimes as much as three hours, so my hopes were reasonable -- however, today he only napped one hour and 12 minutes. Phooey. I did get two roses finished, but I also spent a lot of time puzzling over the right shape to prune a Japanese maple.

Oh, well. I never said that it was my perfect day.

Baby names, popular and otherwise

Welcome to the world, Olivia (#5), just born yesterday! She joins big sister Sofia (#52), a member of Isaac's (#50) playgroup. We have another Sophia (#11) in our playgroup, too, and soon to be born is my cousin's daughter Sophie (#134).

The numbers are, of course, the ranking of the names' popularity for children born in the United States in 2005. If you spend any time researching baby names, you discover that modern parents often say they don't want to give their children names that will be too common. How common is too common? Let's put it this way -- of the five women who regularly bring their kids to our playgroup, three of us are named Nicole (currently #56). (Thankfully newborn Olivia's mother goes by Niki.) That's too popular. My parents didn't know anyone named Nicole when I was born, but they thought the name had a certain something -- and, it turned out, so did many other parents. The name was ranked #108 in 1968, but rose to #47 in 1969, the year I was born -- oh, that darn zeitgeist. (The name went on to be in the top 15 for 24 years starting in 1972.)

These days, however, those who care about over-use have no excuse -- it's easy to find out what baby names are currently popular, and you can even gauge which are rising or falling in popularity. While we were agonizing over Isaac's name I was positively addicted to the Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager as well as to the Social Security Administration's Popular Baby Names page.

I knew what I wanted in a name -- something classic and dignified that sounded intelligent, but with fun nickname possibilities, and that wasn't going to sound outdated or trendy in ten years. I kept saying that I wanted a name that would fit a future Supreme Court Justice (although this is more important for a girl -- Justice Tiffani-Amber just doesn't sound right to me). Although I didn't want a name that was too popular, I wasn't concerned with uniqueness -- I wanted a recognizable name with history rather than a one-of-a-kind creation. Isaac has been ranked about #50 in the U.S. for the past six years, which seemed about the right level of popularity.

The name Isaac is slightly more popular in California, however -- it has been ranked about #30 for the past six years. I wondered if this was too popular. However, although I knew hundreds of small children through my work as a children's librarian, I only knew one Isaac. Where were all the other Isaacs? Perhaps, I thought, the name just isn't popular in the Bay Area where we live, so we're safe. It gave me quite a start, therefore, when a couple we had met in our Berkeley childbirth education class also named their son Isaac -- that's two out of ten couples! And recently I read an article in a parenting magazine written by a San Francisco man in search of the perfect name for his son -- you can guess the punchline. Yep, they named him Isaac.

Please don't tell me it's the zeitgeist.

Edited 2/17/07 to add:

I'm reading Neal Pollack's parenting memoir, Alternadad, and just today I got to the part where his wife suggested they name their son Isaac! Luckily they went for Elijah instead -- somehow I feel that if our kids had the same name, I might also be typecast as a hipster parent. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Edited 2/25/07 to add:

And yesterday I skimmed Peggy Orenstein's infertility memoir, Waiting for Daisy, and it turns out that if she'd had a son instead of a daughter, they would have named him Isaac! She lives in the Bay Area, too.

"Pee-boh!"

Izzy has one favorite hiding place -- in the master bedroom, in the foot-wide gap between the side of the bed and the sliding glass door, usually behind the drape. Throughout the day he will make a run for the bedroom, and by the time I reach its doorway he is across the room, behind the bed, and completely out of sight. This was alarming at first, especially as he holds very still and you have to look closely to see the drape twitching.

He is happy to stand or crouch back there for many minutes on end, which makes it a lot easier for me to get dressed or put away the laundry. Sometimes he laughs quietly to himself, perhaps congratulating himself on his excellent hiding place. Sometimes he forgets he's hiding and when I pull back the drape he is just sitting on the floor, looking out the window. It does make a great toddler-sized fort.

His understanding of what it means to "hide" still seems developmentally babyish, although not quite as extreme as the infant who thinks you can't see her because she's covered her face with a blanket. Actually, Isaac still thinks that's hilarious, although I'm pretty sure he knows it's just a game. I've fallen behind in reading those development charts that tell you what your kid should be doing by now -- when will he really be able to hide? In the meantime, I like to play this little game with him as he hides behind the bed:

Mama: Where's Isaac?

Isaac: Hmm.

Mama: I can't see him anywhere. Is he in the bathroom?

Isaac: No.

Mama: Is he in the dresser drawer?

Isaac: No.

Mama: Is he in the laundry basket?

Isaac: No.

Mama: Is he behind the bed?

Isaac: [silence]

Then, when I finally discover him and pretend to be surprised, he cries out, "Peek-a-boo!" (Or pee-boh, to be exact.)

We got us some words

I've tried to write about topics other than language development lately, but I can't resist any longer. Here are some of the latest tidbits:

• If one syllable is good, then more syllables must be even better. For please, recently Isaac has said something resembling pleedeedle-deedle instead of just plain plee. I suspect this is the beginning of his learning the classic whine, "Maaaa, pleeeease can I have it?" so we're trying to discourage it.
  

• Me has me first pronoun. When asked, "Who's the baby?" Isaac not only pointed a finger at his own chest as usual, he also answered "Me!" But then when I asked who the mama was, he pointed his finger at me -- and again answered, "Me!" I imagine this will take a while to straighten out.

• Isaac continues his development as a budding California naturalist. In our yard this weekend I found three buckeye nuts that had just begun to sprout, thick white worm-like shoots making their way out of the big shiny brown seeds. Isaac was fascinated by them, and learned the word buckeye just as soon as he heard it. He pronounces it BUCKah. He has had a great time playing with them -- they're slightly larger than his closed fist, so they are a good size for him to throw. Unfortunately he keeps throwing them into the flower beds, so I have to retrieve them or we'll have even more trees sprouting up.

• Opposites are popular around here. You'll hear down follow up, yucky paired with yummy, on linked with off, stop with go, and a very strange conversation where Isaac says to himself, "No. Okay. No. Okay," over and over.

• Have I mentioned that Isaac is really into cooking? He started pretending to cook just before Christmas, and now it is nearly his favorite game -- I think it may even have bypassed vehicle play. Anyway, he is learning all about kitchen utensils, and for sure he says plate, bowl, ladle, spatula, pot, and lid. (Craig, any others I missed?) We went to a big indoor play-place yesterday, full of every kind of toy and activity, and Isaac wanted to spend most of his time in the play kitchen. (He also liked the dollhouse toilets and the miniature school buses.)
  

Sick again?

How often can a toddler catch a cold? Seriously.

Isaac is sick again, and it seems like it's going to be a bad one. He began sneezing overnight, and his nose started running today -- but already his snot is thick and discolored. We also have poor sleep and crankiness, on both our parts.

Man, he just had a cold two weeks ago, around February 4! It was pretty minor, though. The cold he had six weeks prior to that was much worse, and it lasted from Christmas into early January. He also had colds around November 5, October 11, and September 21. I could go back further, but I think you get the point. (As far as non-cold illnesses, in early December he had an extremely mild case of hand, foot, and mouth disease, but it didn't seem to bother him at all.)

I know we're extremely fortunate that he's never had any serious illness. And as far as annoying garden-variety illnesses, he's never even vomited or had diarrhea. His colds have just been plain old colds -- never ear infections, bronchitis, strep throat, flu, or croup. But still -- should he really be catching a cold every five or six weeks?! I thought breast-fed children were supposed to have strong immune systems.

A Blogger question

A question for my blogging readers: has anyone switched to the new version of Blogger? How did the transition go? Anything I should consider before making the leap? The librarian in me is looking forward to assigning subjects to my posts (so you can search my blog on the subject of, say, Sleep, lack of or Language development and end up retrieving nearly all of my posts) but I'm scared of messing up my template or losing my archives.

My parents keep encouraging me to print out the whole blog anyway, and I think they might have a point.

Preschool musings

Recently the mother of one of Isaac's playgroup pals asked me if we had signed Isaac up for preschool yet. I said no, because we aren't planning to send him to preschool for at least a year -- not until he's at least two and a half, and probably more like three. That's why it's time to apply now, she said -- the waiting list for good schools is at least a year long.

Part of me doesn't believe that the preschool arms race exists out here in the suburbs -- this isn't Manhattan, or even San Francisco. On the other hand, if enough aggressively competitive parents believe it exists, then it does. I can imagine that a certain type of affluent suburban parent may even want it to exist, because then they've got another way to compete with one another. So I guess I could do a reality check -- call a few schools that we like just to see what the waiting list is like. The trouble is, what schools do we like? I haven't given a whole lot of thought to my Preschool Philosophy yet.

My first thought is that I'd prefer a play-based rather than an academic preschool. I don't think that Isaac needs to be formally educated yet, so school should mostly be for fun. I do think I'd like an environment that encourages learning and curiosity, though, so there should be some structure -- I'm not interested in sticking him in front of the TV down at the neighborhood home-based daycare.

Am I contradicting myself? I don't want him educated, but I want him to learn? I mean that he shouldn't be drilled on the names of the months in Spanish (or English, for that matter), but it would be okay if they demonstrated to him that the moon has phases. Please don't try to make him learn the names of the great artists, but it's great to have art prints on the classroom wall. They shouldn't teach him "reading readiness," but they should read to him. At the very least, school shouldn't destroy the love of learning that he already has. Is that too much to expect? For some reason, I'm beginning to feel worried about it.

Dear reader, what's your child's preschool like?

R.I.P. Mama & Dad

(Don't worry; I don't mean anything dire by my title.)

As I mentioned a long time ago, Craig and I decided we wanted Isaac to call us Dad and Mama. Isn't it every parent's prerogative to choose their own moniker? Anyway, it worked very well -- Izzy said "Mama" perfectly, and although he still said "Da-da" most of the time, he was beginning to drop the second syllable. Then sometime in the last two weeks he started saying "Mommy" and "Daddy." He calls me "Mommy" at least half the time now, especially when he's thinking about it, and I can tell by the way he says it that he really likes it (although his primal cry for me in the dark of night is usually still "Mama"). Craig is "Daddy" about a third of the time.

We were very surprised! And, we wondered, where on earth did it come from? At first I thought it was from exposure through books -- most of the stories we read together use the terms "Mommy" and "Daddy." But it turns out that although I almost always read the books as written, Craig almost always re-words them to say "Mama" and "Dad," so that cancels out. Plus we always refer to ourselves as "Mama" and "Dad," even to the extent where we seldom use personal pronouns, and that should be more powerful than the written word.

My next theory is that it's developmental. Don't babies often create easier-to-say words by repeating the first syllable of the word twice? For example, Isaac used to call a ball a "ba-ba," but now he actually says "ball." Maybe he feels like Mama and Da-da are too babyish, and he's ready to move on to the next level -- the one where instead of saying "dag-dag" for dog, he would say "doggie." (Although he hasn't done that yet.)

My final theory is that Isaac is seeking parallel construction in our names. He calls himself "Baby," and Mommy and Daddy end in the same ee sound. Now our family is a matched set.

The more important question is, however, what do we do about it? We could do nothing -- it could be just another passing linguistic fad, over within a few weeks like Izzy greeting me by saying "Hi, baby!" I think it might take a while longer than that -- Craig just told me that when he said, "Let's go find Mama," Isaac corrected him -- but we would eventually get our way.

But I have to admit that I kind of like being called Mommy. Why is that? For one, it's thrilling that Isaac has chosen it on his own, in contradiction of what he has been taught. It may be a parent's prerogative to choose what they'd like to be called, but the baby's veto power lies in their cuteness. But also "Mommy" is what I called my mom, which turns out to hold a certain archetypical strength. Even though I thought "Mama" would be more modern and cool, "Mommy" has a appealingly familiar ring; although I thought I disliked the diminutive ee, it actually sounds loving and sweet. (I feel the same way about "Daddy" -- but that isn't my word to dictate.)

So I don't know what I'll do!

The irrelevance of bedtime, part II

I have posted several times about Isaac's tendency to sleep 12 hours per 24-hour period. Specifically, I once wrote about the difficulty of putting Isaac to bed before he has been awake for those 12 hours -- basically, it doesn't work, and it's frustrating for all of us.

Today started out as great day for sleep -- a little too great. Counting from midnight onward, Isaac was awake only 16 minutes overnight. He slept until 8:00 a.m. He napped for two and a half hours in the afternoon -- in fact, he slept so long that I woke him up!

Do the math -- by the time dinner was over, he had only been awake nine hours. I joked that in order for Isaac to be awake his average daily amount, he would have to fall asleep just after 10:00 p.m. "Ha, ha, ha," I thought. "That's a crazy-late bedtime -- no way a sick little boy will want to stay up that late." I started trying to get him to sleep at 8:30 p.m. instead.

Result? Several wasted hours, two frustrated parents, and a child who alternated between playfulness and misery seemingly dependent on what one would find most irritating at any given moment.

Actual time Isaac fell asleep? 10:20 p.m. Total time awake? 12 hours, 16 minutes.

Three updates

Life with a toddler is ever-changing. Here are three updates to recent posts:

• I had suggested that Isaac saying "Mommy" and "Daddy" instead of the "Mama" and "Dad" we had taught him was a developmental stage akin to saying "doggie" -- except he didn't say "doggie," which sort of undercut my theory. Well, now he does.

• I had reported that despite the frequency with which Isaac has suffered colds, he had never had a serious illness or even an annoying minor illness -- he had, for example, never thrown up. Well, now he has.

• I had hoped that even though Isaac is the #30-ranked boy's name in California perhaps it wasn't going to be part of the zeitgeist, despite the other baby Isaac from our childbirth class, and even though I had just read two references to the name in recent national publications. Well, yesterday I read yet another reference -- at the end of Peggy Orenstein's new infertility memoir Waiting for Daisy, after her daughter is finally born, she says that they would have named a son Isaac.
  

Two smells

Picture this tender scene unfolding as mother nurses child:

Mother: Your hands smell like black bean sauce.

Child: Yum-my!

Or this, as mother and child sit cuddled up with Pat the Bunny:

Mother [reading from book]: "Judy can smell the pretty flowers. Now YOU smell the pretty flowers."

Child [leans over to sniff book]: P.U.!

He knows what he's talking about -- black bean sauce smells way better than the revoltingly scented pages of Pat the Bunny.

Surprising words

Every day Isaac learns how to say more words. Many of them are to be expected, either because they are words he hears every day or because they are words that we have purposefully taught him. For example, it was cute but not unexpected when he said pineapple and backhoe, since he really likes both of those things and we talked about them frequently. In another case, it's a little strange that he says buckle, but because it is a funny-sounding word we repeated it after him a lot, so he learned it as a sort of joke. Either way, he usually starts off by echoing a word he likes, then practicing until he gets it right, thereby keeping us somewhat aware of his ever-increasing vocabulary.

Some words, however, come as surprises. They spring from his lips complete and fully grown (like Athena), without prompting or practice, leaving one to wonder exactly how he learned them -- and, sometimes, why did he care enough to learn them in the first place?

Recent words in this category include:

Hook -- As we got our coats after Kindergym today, Isaac pointed the hooks out to me. Who knew he was interested in hanging things up? According to him it is also, however, the thing that cranes use to pick stuff up, so maybe that increased its prestige.

Blue -- I heard him say this to himself the other day as he turned the DVD player on and off, and sure enough, when I took a closer look I saw that the little light on it is blue. Who told him that? He also knows how to say yellow, although if you ask him what color something is, he always answers either blue or yellow, so I don't think he actually knows what the colors are.

Peel -- It's not the important part of a banana or an orange, but it seems to have made an impression on Isaac anyway. Although he's never personally peeled any fruit, we've told him many times, "No, you can't eat that yet! It has the peel on it!"

L -- We haven't tried to teach Isaac his letters (or his colors, for that matter), but he does seem to recognize this one. Why? Who knows. Over the last month or two he has increasingly noticed words in his books, so maybe he's ready to talk about letters.

Hurry up! -- This is the phrase we use to tell the dog it's time to relieve himself, and although no one has ever taught it to Isaac, he must have heard us say it a hundred times. Today he said it for the first time, and he used it in context, as we let the dog out, with perfect enunciation (unlike several of the other more useful commands he tries to give the dog, like "Drop it").

I think there will be more frequent surprises as his ability to correctly pronounce words grows -- if he doesn't need a lengthy practice period, he can just bust out new words left and right. Also, he's beginning to fill in the ends of words he already knew, fleshing out the one-syllable vowel stems with careful consonant blends. Although sometimes he completes his words so elaborately that he adds extra sounds -- ball is pronounced bowel, on is onna, owl is owl-ell.

Second-hand

I was eight or nine years old before I realized that clothes for children could be purchased new, and that there were stores specifically designed for the purpose. My mother was an avid garage sale and thrift store shopper, and I guess that's where I thought children's clothes came from -- if I thought about clothes at all, which didn't happen often.

By the time I was in high school, I thought about clothes a lot more -- and I could finally choose for myself where to shop for them. As you might imagine, I was influenced by the years of enforced second-hand shopping. I could easily have resented wearing old clothes, especially as my family could have afforded to buy new ones, but that's not what happened. While I did begin buying some of my clothes at the mall, mostly I embraced thrift store fashion with renewed fervor. I had the following reasons:

• I wanted to look cool, like someone in a New Wave band (well, it was 1983)
• I enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, finding something terrific buried among the junk
  
• I liked how every item was unique, knowing that I would be the only one wearing it
  
• I was unwilling to spend much money, and so was my source of funding (that is, my mother)

Speaking of my mother, she grew to regret the fashion lesson she had inadvertently taught me and my sister. She hoped to teach us economy, and we learned about uniqueness. As time passed, our outfits became less and less mainstream, and our mother at one point bemoaned our crazy clothes and wished out loud that she had taken us back-to-school shopping at the Gap instead of the Goodwill. For many years my sister and I continued to buy second-hand clothes, even as they evolved into "vintage" and became nearly as expensive as new clothes. Now I mostly buy my clothes new from the Gap because I am lazy, and because there's not much chance of my looking cool no matter what I wear.

However, I buy nearly all of Isaac's clothes second-hand. My reasons remain the same as they were in 1983, minus the New Wave part and with the addition of his rapidly outgrowing everything. I think I could count the number of brand-new clothing purchases we've ever made for Isaac on two hands, maybe three. In fact, I think the only new items that he currently wears are socks, shoes, and one pair of pajamas I bought at T.J. Maxx. (This doesn't include the gifts of new clothes we are occasionally given. Thanks, everybody!)

Unlike my high school days, however, I don't want to waste a lot of time shopping, so I try to find quick and easy sources for second-hand clothes. Between the ages of three to 12 months Isaac mostly wore clothes I bought from one woman I found through a parenting email newsletter, but of course he has long since outgrown those. My main clothing source these days is a children's consignment store in the town next to ours -- they have two five-foot racks devoted to boys' size 18-24 months, and I always find something good. (We've also gotten some toys there -- remember the Jumperoo?)

Isaac doesn't have a big wardrobe -- would all this be different if he were a girl? -- and certainly he's much too young to be affected by my shopping choices. But what will happen when he starts school? Will I start to see his second-hand clothes as embarrassing and shabby instead of cool and economical -- or if I don't, will he? Will he embrace his roots and become some kind of thrift-store radical -- or will he turn away and want to do all his shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch (or its 2020 equivalent)?

Chances are, he'll want to wear whatever will most horrify his parents.

First untruth?

Isaac knows he is only allowed to throw two things: balls of any sort, and the dog toy known as the moo-hah-hah. That doesn't mean he never throws anything else, though. I like to correct misbehavior by reminding him of what he is allowed to do, so when this happens I say something like, "No, we don't throw spoons. You can throw a ball, or you can throw the moo-hah-hah, but you can't throw a spoon."

Lately, though, all I have to do is say, "No. We don't throw spoons. What do we throw?" and he immediately answers, "Ball." Then, after a moment, "Moo-hah-hah." Sometimes I don't even have to ask -- right after I say "No," he'll say "Ball."

Last night, though, after Isaac had thrown his plastic shape-sorting toy, Craig tried phrasing his corrective questions a little differently:

Dad: No, we don't throw that toy. Is that the ball?

Isaac: No.

Dad: Is that the moo-hah-hah?

Isaac: [mischeviously] Yep.

Dad, Isaac, and Mama: [laughter]

Dad: No, it isn't the moo-hah-hah -- it's your toy. Now, do we throw it?

Isaac: Yeah!

Dad, Isaac, and Mama: [laughter]

Dad: Okay, yes, you did throw it ... but should you throw it?

Isaac: No.

Could calling his shape-sorting toy the moo-hah-hah have been Isaac's first intentional untruth? (I wouldn't call it a lie, exactly.) Was it at least an intentional joke? Or was most of this humorous (well, to us, anyway) exchange just a misunderstanding on Isaac's part? The difference between "Do we throw" and "Did you throw" is pretty fine, especially to someone who sometimes gets his elbow and his neck mixed up.

Trixie Tracker anniversary

Today marks our one-year anniversary of using Trixie Tracker to chart our baby-related data. We started when Isaac was six months old, and tomorrow he will be 18 months old.

Have you seen our Trixie Tracker site, Izzy Info? Man, we love it. We started out tracking baby data in five categories: sleep, nursing, poopy diapers, medicine, and solid food. We stopped recording his meals in January this year, since we weren't adding many new foods and didn't need to track potential allergic reactions, but we've kept up the other four categories. However, only the sleep records are available for public viewing -- some things are a little too personal for the Internet. (If you must know, we've changed 495 poopy diapers over the past year.)

Craig and and I both thought Trixie Tracker was awesome from the moment we first saw it, but I know some people don't get the point. At its most simple, making a note of a piece of data frees one from having to remember it. Having a written record makes these kinds of questions easy to answer: how long did he sleep last night? When did this nap start? How long ago did you give him that Tylenol? Did he poop yet today? On what side did he nurse last? When was the last time he had a yellow vegetable?

And because it is so quick and easy to enter information into the computer, the data points accumulate, and fascinating patterns emerge. Then it becomes possible to answer these kinds of questions: does an earlier bedtime make for a longer night's sleep? What time has he been going down for his nap lately? If he nurses longer during the day, is he less likely to wake up at night? Should we move from having two naps to a single nap? Are we less tired now than we were a year ago?*

On a personal note, using Trixie Tracker gave me a sense of control and order that would have otherwise been missing. We never imposed a by-the-clock schedule on Isaac -- he was allowed to pretty much nurse on demand, sleep on demand, wake on demand -- so although I had no control over Isaac's schedule, I could at least keep a detailed account of what was happening, and make predictions about the future. It was only the illusion of order, but it made me feel better. (Recently we have begun manipulating his schedule, but that's a topic for another post.)

Another good thing about Trixie Tracker is that checking the site is a way to stay connected to your kid when you're away from home. And finally, it is a detailed permanent record, a real archive of information that would otherwise be lost -- even if it's a record of dark days (and nights) that you'd rather forget.

On that note, let's end by taking a glance at two of Isaac's sleep probability charts, nearly a year apart, to see how things have improved:

Legend:





6 months old:







17 months old:







*Yes, as the charts reveal -- we are a lot less tired.

- - - - -

Edited 3/7/07 to add:

Welcome, Trixie Update readers! Thanks for stopping by. In case you're interested, I thought I'd provide you with links to a sequence of four recent sleep-related posts featuring Trixie Tracker data. (There are a lot more TT stories in the archives, which you can find if you search the blog!)

The irrelevance of bedtime -- 11/11/06
in which the concept of a fixed bedtime is a joke, as Isaac needs to be awake 12 out of every 24 hours before he will go to sleep

Or at least every month is different -- 12/2/06
in which Isaac suddenly begins sleeping 13 out of every 24 hours, shaking my faith in a predictable world but making me a little less tired

Sleep update -- 1/27/07
in which the world (or at least Isaac's sleep pattern) returns to basically normal

The irrelevance of bedtime, part II -- 2/23/07
in which the world returns to completely normal

Tenting?

Today I set Isaac in his crib for a few moments to keep him safely out of the way while I had to do something complicated (I was trying to fix the DSL). When I was done (or, more accurately, when I had given up) I returned to his room. He was still sitting peacefully in his crib, looking at a book. When he saw me, however, he stood up, said "Down," and casually swung one leg over the top of the crib.

What?

It wasn't like he had to jump up to hoist his hips over the edge. He barely had to stand on his toes to get enough height. It was nearly effortless. For a second or two I stared at him -- one leg hanging over the rail, the other off the mattress but still dangling inside -- then I immediately overreacted, grabbing him with a shocked exclamation. Of course this got his attention and ensured that he immediately repeated the maneuver.

Thoughts raced through my head. The crib mattress is already on the lowest setting. Thank goodness he didn't try this while I was out of the room. He just turned 18 months old on Tuesday. The crib converts to a toddler bed, but he's still too young for it. I don't want to make a sudden transition to a "big boy bed." He is always cautious about climbing down from things, so he might not purposefully jump down. But if he got himself in an awkwardly balanced position straddling the edge, he might not have a choice. It's already 2:00 p.m. and his nap is supposed to start now.

So for his nap today I removed the metal platform that supports the mattress, setting the mattress on the floor within the frame of the crib. Although that makes the mattress low enough that he can't climb out, it's not safe. The crib frame is light and the mattress can slip beneath the frame -- he could easily shift one or the other, thereby making a gap between the two. I don't want him to go over the top and dash his brains out on the concrete floor, but I also don't want him to go under the bottom and strangle himself between the crib frame and the mattress.

So on his way home from work tonight, Craig stopped to buy a crib tent. Do these things really work? Any other suggestions?

Solution?

Welcome to the toddler bed, Isaac!

Climbing down takes a little concentration (note tongue between lips), but the couch cushions on the floor help make it easier.

So far he's slept two nights and one nap in his "new" bed without problem -- I think I'm finding it a more difficult transition than he is.

"Opa!"

My son has a crush on my dad. I realized this for sure last week when I pulled the car into my parents' driveway. "Here we are at Oma and Opa's house," I announced. From the back seat, I heard a quiet voice saying, "Opa. Opa. Opa."

Opa is also a favorite topic of conversation -- or rather, any topic that comes up, Isaac manages to bring it around to Opa. Sometimes it makes perfect sense -- for example, if I ask Isaac whom he's calling when he plays with the phone, he answers "Opa." (Then if I ask, "Oh, are you calling Opa?" he always counters with "Oma," so don't feel left out, Mom.)

Sometimes the connection between the topic and my father takes me a moment to understand, but it exists. Today as Isaac and I were sitting in the garden discussing the holes we had just dug, he said, "Opa!"

I thought about it, and then said, "Yeah, last week you watched Opa dig holes with a shovel." Then I asked, "Do you like Opa?"

"Yeah!" Isaac exclaimed. Then, "Guitar!" (You'll have to imagine the R pronounced like a W. And my dad does play guitar with him -- I guess it made a big impression.)

Sometimes I doubt that there is a connection, however -- in the last hour, Isaac has said "Opa" in regard to a cat, a wrench, and moles. Honestly, I think he just wants to talk about his grandfather. Here's how it happens:

Isaac: [pointing at a mole on my cheek] Mole.

Mama: Yep, that's a mole.

Isaac: Daddy.

Mama: Yeah, your dad has a mole too.

Isaac: Baby.

Mama: Does Isaac have any moles?

Isaac: No. [pause] Opa!

Mama: Yes, I guess Opa has moles too.

Now that I've written out this dialog, I realize that what I've been thinking of as rich two-sided conversation is often just Isaac listing the people he cares about. It doesn't matter. I think that Isaac mostly understands our conversations, and we both enjoy them, even if I do fill in most of the details myself.

It turns out I'm not having much trouble with those 32 million extra words.

New pictures

As you may have noticed over there on the sidebar, Isaac's online photo albums are divided into six-month increments. I recently added a few pictures to the Pictures from the third 6 months album, but they'll be the last. We've moved into Pictures from the fourth 6 months!

That's where you'll find this photo, which was taken a week ago, on Isaac's 18-month birthday, while we were visiting my parents (poor packing is why he's wearing a dishtowel as a bib). My sister is feeding Isaac some pie and ice cream, and she seems to be earnestly awaiting his reaction. Do you think he'll turn up his nose and send it back to the kitchen?

No way. Here's what he usually has to say about pie:

Mama: Do you like pie?

Isaac: Yeah!

Mama: What kind of pie do you like?

Isaac: Apple! [pause] Oma!

Mama: Yes, that's right, your Oma bakes good apple pies.

Isaac: Opa!

Mama: I doubt that Opa has ever baked a pie in his entire life. He does like to eat pie, though.

Newsworthy

I try to keep this blog narrowly focused -- all Izzy, all the time -- so I don't usually write about stories in the news or current events, but I can't resist this story for several reasons.

As the headline reads, "Coach at Game Hours After Giving Birth." About five hours after delivering her first child, the head coach of a collegiate women's basketball team showed up at their regional championship game. The assistant coach did most of the work, as one might expect, while the head coach sat on the bench for the duration of the game (which they lost); she then returned to the hospital. This is apparently remarkable enough to make the national news, and I sort of agree -- I didn't leave the house until I was two weeks postpartum. The coach must have left her newborn back at the hospital, which also seems remarkable, in a bad way -- there is no way I would have voluntarily separated from Isaac at that point. Maybe I just don't understand sports.

But after I read the story a few times, I noticed an even more remarkable angle -- the coach had traveled out-of-state for the game. The baby was due, so this wasn't a surprise early birth -- in fact, she even carried her medical records with her just in case. Every other woman I've known has prepared to give birth by nesting at home as well as familiarizing herself with the birth site and her caregivers. For instance, we hired a doula who would remain at my side throughout labor, we took a tour of the hospital's maternity ward, and my OB's office made sure I had met all their doctors. Two women I know have chosen voluntary inductions in order to schedule their own OB to deliver the baby, and many women give birth at home for the same reason -- there is comfort and strength in the familiar. The coach ended up giving birth far away from home, in a strange hospital, with strange doctors. Again, maybe I just don't understand sports.

By the way, did you click the link to the original story? If you did, then you saw it -- yep, another baby named Isaac.

Diapers and dancing

Brand new words, brand new concepts, brand new ways to communicate:

- - - - -

This morning, minutes after I'd come into his room, Isaac turned to me and said, "Poopy diaper."

I wasn't sure I had heard him right. He doesn't make many adjective-noun pairings on his own. Also, I don't think he had ever said the word "poopy" before. In fact, he seldom says anything about his diaper, except with prompting. (For example, when asked, "Where does Mama put the dirty diaper?" he'll answer, "Garbage." Or if you ask, "Where does Isaac pee?" he'll say, "Diaper.")

"Do you have a poopy diaper?" I asked. I expected him to deny it, as he always does when we have a suspicion and inquire as to the state of his diaper.

"Yeah," he said. And he was right!

- - - - -

Later in the day, while he was on the changing table (really, there's a lot more to our day than diaper changes), he pointed at the shelf behind him and said something that started with M.

"Did you say monkey?" I asked, knowing that wasn't correct but hoping to start a dialog.

"No," he said, somewhat scornfully.

Usually he asks to hold a CD case while his diaper is being changed (especially one he calls peek-a-boo, which has a picture of a baby that pulls out), but although he was pointing toward the CDs, he obviously wasn't saying CD. Then I remembered I had in fact played a CD during the previous diaper change.

"Are you saying music?" I asked.

"Yeah!" he said.

He really likes to listen to music, but I'd never heard him say the word before. So I played a little "Wabash Cannonball" courtesy of Dan Zanes, and after Isaac was dressed I helped him stand on the changing table, I held his hands (firmly!), and we danced. I'd never seen him dance before, either. It was sweet.

Reckless?

And to think I was once worried about Isaac's excessive physical caution! The past week has been a series of lessons in appreciating what you've got -- or maybe in how you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

Thursday 3/8 -- he tried to climb out of his crib, violating my previous assessments of his easy-going character and low tolerance for risk

Sunday 3/11 -- he pitched forward while playing peek-a-boo behind the shower curtain, hitting his temple on the floor and raising a lump whose bruising took all week to fade

Wednesday 3/14 -- he toppled off an ottoman he was crawling on, hitting the center of his forehead on the floor; unusual crankiness and a 99-degree temperature that evening inspired an after-hours telephone call to the doctor (tip: don't Google head injury fever)

Thursday 3/15 -- he fell backwards in the bathroom while I was taking a shower, landing flat on his back and just lying there until I got out of the shower to pick him up

Friday 3/16 -- he tripped while trying to climb onto our concrete patio, hitting his head on the ground

Friday 3/16, a little later -- he tripped while walking on a sloped brick path in our yard, hitting his face in several places and causing abrasions of his temple and chin, cutting the inside of his lip, and chipping away about a third of one of his front teeth; this also inspired an after-hours call to the doctor, who recommended we call a pediatric dentist on Monday to discuss filing down the sharp edges of the tooth

I was at work today, so I missed all the trauma. There was a lot of blood, I hear, which was over quickly, and a lot of crying out for Mama, which lasted until I came home about two hours later. He calmed down a lot when he saw me, but he's still shaken -- he cries disproportionately every time he has a minor fall, or even loses his balance for a moment. After a week like this, I can understand. As it hurts him to eat, he got to have ice cream for dinner, so at least there's a positive result for him (we'll need that pediatric dentist).

So what's going on? He hardly ever hurt himself before. We know he's becoming braver (or more reckless) -- for example, a week ago he insisted we hold his hand before he stepped down from the height of a single rung on our stepladder, and today he climbed up two steps by himself and proceeded to balance there hands-free. Perhaps now his physical goals outstrip his physical ability (and his common sense)? Overall he's growing more physically adept, so I'm not worried that his development is regressing. Also, he's been overtired lately, so that makes him clumsy. (To his credit, on Sunday he fell because he was tangled in a shower curtain, and on Wednesday a pillow slipped off the ottoman, and today he did put out his hands to try to break his fall.)

None of these injuries are that serious, I know, and I'm grateful. I guess I'm mostly worried about their sudden appearance, and whether this signals a change in temperament, and whether that means even more injuries to come.