The Importance of Having Fun

We decided to drive up to Nipomo last weekend to visit some of our best friends, the Kellers. I was a little hesitant because Axel hadn't been sleeping well recently and the Kellers have a 1-1/2 year old and a 3 month old, so I didn't want to add to their sleep deprivity. But we decided it was this weekend or never, so we packed up the car on Friday afternoon and were off. When we travel by car, we usually leave at Axel's bedtime. He sleeps so well in his carseat, that driving is a breeze this way because we don't have to stop. However, since he hadn't been sleeping well lately, neither had we, and I didn't want us driving at 11:00 at night in an exhausted state. So instead, we left at 12:30 pm and crossed our fingers for a good drive.
Axel actually did pretty well, he took about a 1-1/2 hour long nap and woke up wanting to get out and about just as we were approaching Westwood, our old home at UCLA. We stop here whenever we can and reminisce about all of the good college memories we had there together. Of course, there were a lot of bad memories, like, having no fun at all and studying 90% of the time, but we really only remember the good memories. Like our first date on Sunset Boulevard at Barfly with my sorority where we had to dress up as Hugh Hefner and his Playboy Playmate, or of when we met in Powell Library during midterms and I introduced myself to Johan....and asked him to walk me home....and asked for his number....and asked him out on a date. Or of taking road trips to Mexico and the Grand Canyon, or of sitting on the lawn in the sun in front of Powell Library, or drinking a boba tea (me) or black coffee (Johan) at Ackerman Union, or of just being the dorks on the Engineering/Science side of campus with the boring gray communist-esque buildings instead of the "artsy" side of campus where the History and English majors got to sit in beautiful old brick buildings that are used in all the movies because they look like Harvard. Seeing all of the students doing exactly what we did 10 years ago (yes, it's been 10 years, so sad) makes us so nostalgic. We don't want to go back, we just love to remember.

We always drive down Landfair and look at the awesome old converted house my roommates and I lived in at 471, and we always wince as we look at the grungy Co-op housing for international students where Johan lived across the street. He always talks about how he had to work in the kitchen as part of his cheap rent, and how he got fat because they had all you can eat ice cream and free refills on soda, and he'd fill his ginormous big gulp cup to the brim with Pepsi every day. We were both our chubbiest in those days. We always joke that if we fell in love when we looked our worst, then it must be true love.

We let Axel crawl on the lawn on the UCLA campus to burn off some energy, then put him in his PJ's since it was getting to be around bedtime, and he fell asleep some time around Thousand Oaks. He still sleeps from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. and takes 3 naps. As a side note, we went to his 9 month checkup last week and he was exactly the same weight and length as he was at his 7 month appointment! He still weighs 21 lbs 4 oz, is 29 inches long, and his head is 18.5 inches diameter. I thinks it's because he's been crawling like crazy, he burns off all those calories.

We finally got to meet baby Gavin! He looks a lot like Brielle did when she was a baby, so precious. On Saturday morning, we all woke up exhausted. We were sharing a room with Axel, who was sleeping in his travel tent, and he was tossing and turning the whole night. And baby Gavin is a baby, and as we all know, babies wake up a lot! I think the only well rested one was Brielle. That's awesome that the person with the most energy out of everyone got the most sleep (sarcasm hinted).

So out of sheer willpower, the Kellers suggested that we try and do something fun on Saturday. It just so happened that Justin Winery (where we are all wine club members, yes, yes (my nose is up in the air right now)) was having their Isoceles (their most popular wine) release party that afternoon. So we bit the bullet and took all three kids on the 1 1/2 hour (one way) drive to the vineyard. But our God was merciful that day, and all three babies woke up from their naps at the same time, so we threw all three carseats in the back of the Tundra, while Brit, me, and Johan sat in the front, Garrett drove the Harley, and Brittney's parents followed us in their Cadillac. It was an incredibly nice, smooth drive....until we turned onto the country roads toward Justin and I realized that the gas light had gone off. Uh oh, brain fart, we're almost out of gas, what to do??? We decided that fun must be a priority and had to go for it, we came all this way, let's at least make it to the winery and then deal with the consequences of having no gas. So I tried to coast and not put the brakes on through most of the curvy small roads, and we were almost there, one more curve around the corner and we could see the winery when...."BLECH!" Brittney was like "Tina, stop, stop, she's choking!" I could smell carrot vomit and heard choking coming from Brielle's side of the car. "But I'm on a blind curve with everyone behind me! Let me at least drive past the curve!", "But she's choking, STOP!!!" Oh the drama. I stopped and Brittney jumped out and pulled Brielle out of the car. I looked at her, and she had orange carrot vomit all over her face, dress, and car seat. I told Brit later that she looked like that little vomiting girl from the movie the Sixth Sense with the vomit just oozing out of her mouth. It turned out that she wasn't choking, she was car sick from my driving.

So much for the cute little girl in the pretty dress Brit was hoping for during the fancy wine tour. Instead, she got to wear Axel's dirty farmer overalls that I put on him when he wants to crawl on some dirty surface, heck, she didn't care!

On a positive note, our God was merciful yet again! Brit and Gare Bear had a AAA service that brings you free gas when you run out. So they came to the winery and filled us up. And all the people said "Praise the Lord-ah!"  (I stole that from Johan).

But for all of that, it was so worth it to walk through the wine caves, get fabulous free wine tasting with various cheeses and crackers, hors d'oeuvres, and best of all, to feel like a fancy grown up for a couple of hours.

As we were putting the babies back in the truck for the drive home, Brielle and Axel started holding hands while sitting in their carseats. We knew they were destined to get married. So we decided to get some blackmail photos for the future and take bath photos of them together.

Heck, why not throw Gavin in there too??

It's funny to look at us now, with kids and different priorities. Although, I have to say, I love having friends who still want to try to have fun even when doing so with kids is probably more tiring than the alternative of staying home. We have a tradition with the Kellers and (several other of their friends) of camping every 4th of July at Shaver Lake. I love it that even though we've started having kids, no one has backed out (yet!), even through the births of all the babies. That's what I admire.....a committment to having fun, even if it kills you.

As we were driving home on Sunday afternoon with a gorgeous view of the Ocean as we drove through Santa Barbara, I told Johan how thankful I was to have a husband who liked to do fun things with me. I love that we like to be outdoors together, surf together, and now we're planning on going on several camping trips to "practice" with Axel for Shaver. It might not help, but I love trying to be adventurous with a baby. Because the only alternative, as I see it, is staying home and doing nothing, and that sounds infinitely worse to me than an exciting sleep-deprived trip with fun stories to go with it.

9 Month Old Toddler?

I remember when Axel was a newborn, he was so easy. He used to do this thing that Kristine and Moriah Magee named "Guitar Hands". When he slept, he'd hold his hands up like he was playing the guitar. He was doing it once when I went shopping at Anthropologie. I was waiting in line and all the girls behind me were so entertained by him, they were laughing and talking about the air guitar playing baby.

He would just sleep, or lay there quietly in his car seat. I'd go meet girlfriends who had toddlers and they'd be running after them, disciplining them, just constantly working. I was so ignorant, I thought that my newborn was so quiet and gentle, he was obviously going to stay that way. Or, at least, if he didn't he wouldn't turn into a crazy little boy until he was at least 2, right? The terrible 2's? Well, no one prepared me for that sweet little immobile peanut to be chasing after the dog, pulling on chords, trying to get out the front door, and wanting to be everywhere I was already at 8 months. Why were we not warned!!! Oh wait, I do vaguely remember the "just wait until they start moving" warnings. I think I pushed those words aside, they obviously only related to other people's babies, not my own.

About two months ago, Axel started what I have read some moms call a "nursing strike". He was just fussy and didn't want to nurse at times. He still is on the strike. He usually nurses for a couple of seconds, then tries to sit up and look around the room, then goes back to nursing. But in the worst cases, he just wants to get down and crawl around. Last night it was a battle to get him to nurse at all and he was just crying wanting to be let down. I usually just stick with it, and after a couple of minutes he ends up nursing, but it is so hard sometimes! I have also tried making him go longer stretches without nursing, to make sure he is hungry, but that hasn't seemed to make a difference. I'd love to know if any moms have encountered this, and how they got through it.

This weekend will be the 2nd time I will be away from him over night. Johan is an amazing husband to let me go on a weekend retreat to Lake Arrowhead with the girls from church. We do this every January. The first time I was away from Axel was back in the Fall for Nikki Ledford's bachelorette party in Palm Springs. This will be a huge treat, to sleep in and have days where I can do WHATEVER I WANT! Thank you Johan. In return, I tried to make sure to have Axel's food ready, lots of snacks for him at home, and food for all the dinners.

Axel and I met an old friend on Wednesday for coffee at Cafe Calabria. She has fostered two young children and I was telling her that I have been wondering lately when discipline begins. Do you need to start having rules with a 9 month old? For example, Axel can throw a pretty good fit if you take something away from him, ESPECIALLY food. And as soon as he sits in his high chair, it's "FOOD, FOOD! GIVE ME FOOD NOW!" I never knew that babies could already start being so opinionated! He started having opinions at around 7 months. He can't talk, but he makes it clear to you what he likes and doesn't like. I wonder if this is an individual baby thing, or a baby boy or girl thing?

He STILL takes 3 naps per day. I thought he was transitioning to 2 per day, but I was fooled. I do like having breaks every 2 hours, but it would be nice to go meet up with friends and not have to figure out where he should sleep after an hour and a half. Since we got rid of our infant car seat, I thought it might be a good idea to get him used to his travel bed. Since our house is small and lacking storage, and since we do not like big baby items, we got a KidCo Pea Pod instead of a Pack N Play. It has turned out to be an amazing thing. It's basically a baby tent that pops up instantly, and folds down to a small little disc that travels in a bag. I started putting it in his crib to get him used to it, and he loved it. We put it to the test when we visited Geoff and Nikki last weekend for another wonderful day of surfing and lunch. I put the Pea Pod in the guest room, laid him in it, and he was out within a couple of minutes! It was magical.

Last night Johan and I were talking about weaning Axel from nursing. In the U.S., babies are given either breast milk or formula until they're 1 year old. At that time they can have regular milk. Johan said that in Sweden, at 1 year old babies are given another type of formula. I'm not sure what the difference is or why we do things differently, but as far as I know, both babies in both countries seem to be fine. That got me to thinking about other differences in raising babies that I've noticed. The main one we encountered was in swaddling. In Sweden (and maybe Europe?) swaddling is considered to be very old fashioned. We even read a Swedish website where they considered swaddling to be almost inhumane and mean to the baby. The author wrote something like "how would you like to be swaddled before going to bed?" That seemed kind of silly to me. First of all, we adults have been out of the womb for decades, a baby is just barely out of the womb. The purpose of swaddling is to mimic the tightness of the womb for the baby to make them feel secure in this big new world. So obviously, we have no need to feel swaddled up tightly because we don't need to feel like we're in the womb. But again, after talking about it with Johan and thinking about it, it seems like babies in both countries are fine the way they are....swaddled or not. But I always wondered how in the world do Swedish people get their babies to sleep??? Axel wouldn't sleep very well as a newborn unless he was swaddled. And as all parents know, a baby sleeping well is the most precious and relaxing feeling in the entire world.

Surfing, dogs, crawling, food!

Last Saturday we met Geoff and Nikki Ledford at the beach in Encinitas to surf at boneyards. For some reason, I was in a bad, bad mood that morning. Johan had had enough of me and said "Get out in the water and come back happy". What a good husband I have, it worked like magic. Geoff and I surfed while Johan watched Axel, then Johan and I switched off after I was done. Afterwards, Nikki and I let the guys keep surfing while we drove back with Axel to the amazing condo that they're staying at. Lucky for us, Axel fell asleep in his new carseat. We had recently returned his borrowed infant car seat and bought a convertible seat, the Britax Boulevard 70 CS. I was a little worried that the days of him falling asleep in the carseat were over, but the thing is like a lazyboy. When we got back to the condo we rolled the windows down and, opened the garage so we could keep an eye on him while Nikki proceeded in making us an amazing paleo lunch. It was definitely the best day this year (when compared with the other 9). So obviously, we're planning on repeating it again this Saturday.

I was thinking to myself the other day of all the things that I've realized about having a baby that no one every told me, and wanted to make a list. This is most likely going to expose my ignorance. Here it is:

1. Nursing can actually make you gain weight because you're so stinking hungry all the time.
2. Your hips get wider during pregnancy and don't always go back into place right away (It took me 7 months to fit back into my jeans!).
3. Your stomach doesn't shrink right back into place the second you have the baby (If yours did, I don't want to hear about it).
4. What to do when your water breaks and you don't go into labor? That was never covered in the birth class, and of course, it happened to us.
5. Having a well-rested baby on a schedule makes having a baby less of a guessing game.
6. Having a helpful husband will keep you well rested and make having a baby seem much easier than you could ever hope.

Axel is now 8 1/2 months old. He has learned to pull down his crib bumpers after he wakes up. He just looks through the bars waiting for one of us to come and get him out! Sometimes he spits his pacifier out through the bars as well. He can feed himself finger foods and just started holding his own sippy cup to drink. He's been sitting up for a while, but now he's more stable and doesn't fall backward.

Every single day I am so amazed to be witnessing a little baby becoming a person. I feel like every week there is something new happening. For example, last week (Jan 5th), he pulled his knee up under his body to begin crawling. He hadn't even started to crawl but I was so excited that I started taking photos and videos of him putting his knee under his body. My parents and Johan were probably thinking "ummm knee under body, that's great". Throughout the day he did start to inch his way forward. He looks like a centipede, he scrunches one leg under his belly, then sticks his butt up in the air and pushes the front of his body forward. It's pretty incredible to see him learning all of these new things. The funny part is that all of these new things he's been doing, like rolling over for the first time and crawling, have all occurred when I haven't been in the room. I remember when I walked into the room and he was all of a sudden on his belly and had rolled over for the first time. I was amazed because he had always hated tummy time. The picture below is of his first attempt to crawl.

For some reason, our rottweiler, Leia, has been ravenous lately. She is very trim for a rottweiler, even though she usually eats 5 cups of food per day. That's right, 5 cups. She's like a garbage disposal. We don't know why lately she's been acting as if we don't feed her at all. Maybe it has something to do with the baby who throws his food scraps on the floor? All day long she sniffs around the house looking for crumbs. We never feed her people food or from the table so the recent begging is pretty annoying. But nowadays, when we're cooking in the kitchen, she comes in and stares at us, begging for us to drop something for her, and when Axel is sitting in his high chair at the kitchen table, she lays below his feet waiting for droppings. She's pretty smart, so if she sees I'm not looking she'll go as far as to lick Axel's toes or any food that has dropped on his footrest. Axel thinks Leia is the funniest creature on the planet. He could watch and laugh at her all day, she is highly entertaining even though she's usually just laying on her belly staring at him. The funny thing is that he is terrified of my neighbor Suzannes tiny little French Bulldog, Chu-i. He cries and cries when he sees him, but he's not afraid of the big black rottweiler. Then after Axel finishes eating and leaves his seat, Leia goes up to his high chair and assesses the leftovers. She licks up every bit of cheese or cracker left behind, then she moves on to his walker, where he usually leaves behind a piece or two of puffed rice. I actually don't mind the help cleaning up....gross, but true.

After about a week he is now full on crawling. He does look pretty funny, it's kind of like an army crawl with a knee push every once in a while. Yesterday (Jan. 9th) he finally figured out how to crawl out of his room and just went crazy. He crawled through the living room, the dining room, into the kitchen, into our bedroom, then to the laundry area. Granted, our house is only 950 sq ft, so all of those rooms are probably the size of most modern homes' living rooms. That is one good thing I've realized about having a tiny house, that I can be in almost any room and still keep an eye on him.

I mentioned that Axel is infatuated with Leia. This morning, he spent about 45 minutes just crawling after her. It was actually pretty nice for me, because I just sat on the couch drinking my coffee and let him crawl. When he got close to Leia, I'd just tell her to move to the opposite side of the room and lay down, then Axel would turn around and go after her again, and on and on it went. We took a Dogs and Babies class before Axel was born to prepare ourselves for how to train the dog to be around a baby. The main thing we learned from that class is to teach the dog and baby to ignore eachother for the baby's first 5 years of life. That's because babies and toddlers don't really understand the meaning of "gentle". They might pet a dog gently when you're standing there, but they can still pull on its tail, its ears, lay on the dog, etc and think that they're being nice. But more importantly, it teaches your kid to respect a dogs' boundaries. Your dog might be fine with being around your baby because it learns to tolerate that baby, but if your kid goes over to someone else's house where they haven't taught their dog to be around babies, that's where dog bites usually occur. The teacher said that something like 95% of all dogs that are put down are domestic, family dogs. They're not wild street dogs. And it's almost always a neighbor kid who pushes the dog too far and the dog snaps because they want to be left alone.

Anyways, we thought that dogs and babies class was really great. But I asked Johan last night if we are totally failing at following the rules, since now our baby is definitely not leaving the dog alone! I think our plan is to still continue to not make Leia a big deal to Axel, and vice versa so that, hopefully, soon enough she wll just become another thing in the house that ignores him (which she is learning to do pretty well), and is not interesting to him. In the meantime, she is a pretty good distraction for him so that I get a break to sit and drink my coffee!


I am still blown away at how much the kid can eat. In the morning we make him super porridge from the Super Baby Foods book. This is what's in it: A grain (barley, brown rice, or oatmeal), a green vegetable (peas, green beans, etc), an orange vegetable (carrots), an egg yellow, and enhancers (brewers yeast, dessicated liver, kelp, and ground flax seed). I usually throw in some mashed banana to make it a little sweet. Axel loves it. The good thing about it is that it has almost all the vitamins and nutrients that they need for the entire day, so if they don't get a complete lunch or dinner, at least they've had their super porridge. I also have a snazzy song that goes along with preparing the super porridge that Johan and I sing. Super Porridge, Super Porridge, it's the best thing for you! Super Porridge, Super Porridge!  I didn't say it was a cool or clever song....

Yesterday we went to Henrys to get our weekly groceries. After entering the door to the market, Axel started getting REALLY cranky. Crying, didn't want to sit in the cart, just plain mad. I hurried over to the baby food section, got a box of teething crackers, ripped it open and gave him one....Angels singing...He was completely happy. So I guess it's time to carry snacks around with me. However, by the time he was done with the cracker he had brown sticky cracker residue all over his face, his hands, his belly, and his thighs. It was really embarrassing. I was one of those moms with the dirty, grubby kid who everyone winces at. I tried to wipe him down with a wet wipe, but those crackers stick to clothes like glue. So note to self for next grocery shopping trip: Bring clean snacks!

Teefs

Our friend, Ryan Krauter, took these amazing photos of our family, some of which we used for our Christmas card. I love the photo of Axel in his little Peruvian beanie! Ryan is so talented. Everyone should hire him! His website is http://www.krauterphoto.com/. And no, he didn't ask me to advertise for him. If you knew him, you'd know he'd be embarrassed by that sort of thing.

So our suspicions were right, baby is getting some teeth! The day of my last post (7 1/2 months) I saw an itty bitty little prick of a tooth sticking out of Axel's gums. He got a fever that night, and he's had a cold that lasted over a week and infected me, Johan, and Grandpa Lennart.

So I also need to eat my words. In my previous post, I was so proud and well-rested that Axel had been sleeping 12 hours straight without waking. The same night that I wrote that post, Axel's first tooth came in and the night wakings began. It was like having a newborn again. Everyone warned me about teething, and people even told me that once your baby gets a routine down, they'll change on you. But for some reason I was in well-rested mom heaven, which brought complete denial along with it. The night his tooth came in, Axel went to bed fine at around 6:00 p.m., but at around 2:00 a.m. he started crying and wouldn't go back to sleep. When he cries at night, we usually wait around 15 minutes because he will almost always go back to sleep. When this didn't happen, I got up and went into his room and tried to comfort him. I picked him up and he fell asleep in my arms. It was the sweetest thing ever. I loved him falling asleep in my arms so much that I didn't mind getting up to comfort him. I even started taking him to the rocking chair because I loved sitting there, rocking, with him in my arms. But then the night wakings continued, night after night. And it got to the point where he would wake up every 1/2 hour and wasn't even consoled by either Johan or me holding him. I even tried nursing him again, but that did no good.

I ended up calling my doctor to ask if maybe something was wrong that we were overlooking. She asked if I was picking Axel up every time I went into his room at night. When I said yes, I realized that she was going to tell me exactly what I had already read in my Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child book; that we were conditioning Axel to wake up and expect us to pick him up. Duh, how could I forget the rules we had set earlier that had made Axel sleep so well? It's just so hard to not pick your baby up when they're crying. She said it didn't matter if he was teething or not, it's still not a good habit to continue to pick them up out of their crib.

So last night we went to Geoff and Nikki Ledford's amazingly fun wedding. We danced the night away and came home happy that we'd had a chance to go out. Johan slept like a log all night, and I woke up at around 3:00 a.m. when I heard Axel crying. So I stuck to my plan....I waited a little....when he didn't go back to sleep, I got up and went to him and just stroked his head and patted his back. I stayed there for about 10 minutes until he calmed down, then I left the room without picking him up. He cried even harder when I left, but after about 15 seconds....silence! Amazing! He woke up again about an hour later, and I did the same thing, patted the head but didn't pick him up and he fell back asleep again. Now he's back to his 12-hour a night sleeping schedule. Of course, it went back to normal just as our guests left...typical.


We've gotten a lot of grief from our moms about using the cry it out method on Axel. Their generation held and nursed the baby when they cried. And I understand that a lot of people from our generation do too. But I've tried that, and it just does not work for us or for Axel. In fact, every time I've fallen back into the pattern of holding him and nursing him at night, his sleeping gets worse and the wakings come more often. The cry it out method has been the best thing for all of us. And just to set the record straight, we don't leave Axel in his crib crying no matter what. By now, we can tell what his cries mean, he has a "come pick me up" cry, and a painful cry, among others. When he screams bloody murder, then we definitely go to him. But if he's giving us his "I don't want to sleep, I want someone to pick me up so we can play" cry, then we have to say no. I've learned from the Healthy Sleep book that healthy sleeping habits are just as important as healthy eating, or any other discipline because their brains are developing when they sleep. It's really important for their health. I like that perspective.

So on December 26th Axel turned 8 months old. He is still taking 3 naps per day, he stays awake about 2 hours at a time in between naps, nurses 5 times per day, and eats 3 meals per day. Axel also just finished his first month of baby swim classes. He really loves the water! He kicks and has started being okay with having his mouth underwater. He's not ready for his full face underwater though.

He absolutely loves his dad. No one can make Axel smile and laugh like Johan can. It melts my heart to see how much they love eachother. About 2 weeks ago he started saying "Da da da da". We thought he was going to say his first word "Dada", but then we remembered, we don't speak English to him! So we concluded that it's just baby babble.

Last Saturday while Johan's family was here, we got to play 9 holes of golf with Johan's sister and dad while his mom took care of Axel. It was so much fun, and a beautiful day. Afterward, we went with Johan's entire family to lunch in La Jolla. I was a little nervous because Axel has been getting more and more difficult to keep stimulated so I wasn't sure how he would do sitting at the table for an hour. Once we sat at our table, he started getting cranky. We got a high chair and put him in it, and I started to slowly feed him his lunch. To my surprise, the kid never stopped eating! He went through sweet potatoes, peas, and apples. Once I ran out of those, he started crying, so I started giving him some of my bread (which he LOVED), and bits of cucumber. He ate the entire time we were at the restaurant. The funnier part was that he would eat a bite of food, then chew on the edge of the table, eat a bite of food, chew on the table. That was a first for us....keeping him entertained by food. We were all laughing because Axel would throw a fit when you took his food away. Johan's mom said Johan was exactly the same way. After seeing how much he loved eating at the table with everyone, we graduated him from his Prince Lionheart baby seat to his high chair. Now he has his own seat at the table!

I finally talked to my boss about going back to work. We found a nanny who will work 2 days per week, and Johan wants to take his paternity leave one day per week. So I asked my boss if I could come back part time and work 3 days per week and maybe take work home with me and work nights or weekends if I need to work 40 hours. He is an amazing boss, he said yes, and is being so accomodating. I start at the end of January. There is no doubt in my mind that this was all the work of our extremely creative and generous God. Johan and I were so worried about how we would afford for me to stay home as long as I wanted, pay our mortgage, and how the whole job situation would work out for me. So far, it's worked out amazingly well, better than I could have ever planned. This has been absolutely perfect...staying home for 9 months has been exactly what I needed, and now I feel perfectly ready and wanting to go back to work (granted, part time). This is what God is best at...blowing our minds with his creativity and wonderful surprises.

Lastly, I joined a mom surf playgroup! Axel and I have our first outing next Wednesday where we'll meet a bunch of moms to surf at Ocean Beach. I'm so excited I can hardly wait!!!!