We don't need no stinkin' naps!

Snacking instead of sleeping

zzzzzz...

In general Dashiell is a FANTASTIC sleeper. Goes to bed at 8 pm, wakes up at 6 am, and takes 2 good naps during the day (9-ish and 1:30-ish). We realize the 2-nap thing isn't going to last much longer, but for now it seems to be what he needs so we're happy to oblige. Yesterday was one of those days when he just didn't want nap #2. He took a great 1st nap (2 hours!), had a fun playdate with his friend Crispin in the park, ate lunch, and read a few books, but when I put him down to sleep he just didn't feel like it. We have a video monitor so I could see him pacing in his crib, lying down for a bit with his eyes open, flinging his loveys around, etc. Then he dropped the pacifier out of the crib and it was all over. First he babbled to himself, then whined a bit, then started crying. He'd been up in his room for about 45 minutes at this point so I went up to see if we either needed a nap "do-over" or if he really just wasn't tired. Oh yeah, he was tired! You could see the little bags under his eyes. So we started the nap process again--fresh diaper, new pacifier, a little rocking and reading, and he was soooo close to falling asleep when I put him back in the crib. Two minutes later he realized that I left him there and cried like nobody's business. After what seemed like an hour but was really about 15 minutes, I gave up and got him out of the crib. I tried to get a good picture of him looking exhausted as he ate his snack but the boy likes the camera too much and just smiled instead (though you can kind of see the bags under the eyes...). So the two of us took a little trip to Target with the hope that he'd sleep for a little bit in the car (which doesn't happen often anymore but occasionally when he's super tired he'll conk out). On the way home we're driving along, listening to the radio, and I hear Dashiell babbling away to himself. I sneak a look back at him while we're at a stop light and witnessed the exact moment that he fell asleep--his eyes were closed, he's saying "de-de-de-de...", long pause, "de...de...", then it stops. It's funny to think that he talks himself to sleep. :)

Weaned!

Fun in the bath!

I'm happy to report that we have successfully weaned Dashiell! We nursed for a year, which was longer that I ever thought I'd last, especially in those first couple months of bad latching (ouch)! But once we got the hang of it it actually made feedings really easy. No "I forgot to bring a bottle" panic when we went out, less opening cans of formula (we supplemented, which also made things easier since I work part time), less waste. It worked out well. And weaning was not that bad! I think the things that made it easy for us were the fact that Dashiell is used to drinking out of a bottle, and we were on a fairly regular feeding schedule--we stopped nursing on demand long ago. So when we started the process we just replaced one nursing session a day with a bottle feeding, then upped that to two, then Dashiell got sick and didn't want to nurse before bed anymore so at that point we were down to just once a day, first thing in the morning. Then we got the okay from Dr. Dave to give Dashiell whole milk, so we eliminated that feeding too. Then it was done!

The most challenging part was finding new morning and bedtime rituals, since nursing played a big part in both. In the morning we used to get up, change the diaper, nurse, then Dash would hang out in his crib with a few toys while I got ready for work (or, um, slept another 30 minutes...). Now we get up, change the diaper, read a couple of books, then it's back to the crib with toys. The bonus of this new morning ritual is that Rick can do it all without me! More sleep for me! Bedtime now involves watching the fish in our aquarium instead of nursing, which works better on the nights when it's just me putting Dashiell to bed--he likes to run around more when Rick's around.

I have noticed that Dashiell's much more apt to snuggle now that he's weaned. I think he used to get his close-to-mom time while nursing and often didn't want to cuddle any other time of the day. Now he comes up and gloms onto me all the time! He'll even sit in my lap and not get fussy for a good 5 minutes! It's nice. :)

One of the drawbacks of no longer nursing is that I read much less these days. I swear I read more in the past year than I did during the prior two years combined! So I'm going to have to etch out some reading time for myself during the day (not just before bed, which always leads to falling asleep with a book on my face). I think I can figure that out somehow.

Monkey hear, monkey do

Thought I'd make a quick post today since I haven't done so in weeks and I know you're all on the edge of your seats waiting to hear what Dashiell's up to these day. ;) Don't have much time but I wanted to relay an incident that happened this weekend that was pretty funny. Dashiell's been imitating sounds a lot lately, to the point of almost saying words (saying "nanana" after I say "banana", or "buh" after we say "boo", etc.). So this weekend we were doing some work in our bathroom, and I was leaning over the tub trying to get it more clean (which is near hopeless, btw). Rick, on seeing me lean over, cat-call whistles at me. Dashiell hears this and repeats back "woo-woo" with the same inflection Rick used for his whistle. Hahahaha!! It was too funny, really. Gave me a good excuse to stop cleaning for a few minutes. :)

Today's picture selections are first, a picture of Dashiell in his car seat facing forward for the first time! We were very excited to turn the car seat around so we could see him better and so he could finally see where we're going, not just where we've been. It was a big day. Second we have a couple of pictures from last weekend, when Dashiell had a shock of hair that just would not stay down. Granted, we didn't try that hard to get it to lay flat since we figure it's pretty exciting that he has enough hair to stand up like that, after being bald for most of the year. Plus, it was dang cute.

One-year Doctor's Appointment

Dashiell and I eating strawberries

Our boy did very well at his doctor's appointment today! He's becoming much less noodly these days--at nearly 23 lbs he's now in the 45 percentile for weight! Dr. Dave was very pleased with this. He's now 30" tall, which is somewhere in the mid-range of percentiles as well (already I can't remember the exact percentile, and of course I didn't write it down--I think it was around 55%). So he went from being super long and skinny to being right around average. Average is good when it comes to heights and weights.

Dashiell felt the need to show off for Dr. Dave and was walking around the exam room, flipping through books, saying "dadadada" and "nananana" (he omitted "mamamama", unfortunately), and grabbing onto Dr. Dave's leg while smiling widely at him, to which Dr. Dave remarked "no stranger anxiety in this one, eh?". Nope! In fact Dashiell gets more upset when strangers leave than when they first show up. We have a *very* social child.

D got a couple of shots, which made him so sad. Actually more angry than sad--there were a lot of tears and a lot of yelling. Glad that was at the end of the appointment!

In other news, I took Dashiell to his first casting call yesterday. It was for a diaper/training pants ad. I went in knowing that Dashiell probably wouldn't get a call back since they stressed "ethnic" children in the call for talent and while Dashiell may be a smattering of many different nationalities, all of them happen to be white. So we went for the experience more than anything, just to see what a casting call is like. Well, it was kind of awful. For one thing the call was for any child under 100 lbs (what a 99 lb kid is doing in any sort of diaper product I just don't know...), so it was HUGE. There were soooo many people there! We showed up for the 12:30 time slot, but the way that it worked was that as soon as you showed up you filled out a form that had a big number on it, and that was your place in line. When we got there they were on #95. We were #131. Ugh. Thankfully the auditions moved pretty fast (they took a couple of photos), so we were only there for an hour before we got called in ("only" an hour?!). The woman taking the photos really didn't seem to understand the toddler set, as she insisted that Dashiell be seated and still for his photo. Really? Your fancy camera can't take a picture of a moving child? So you only want comatose children for this ad? It was kind of annoying. Thankfully I somehow got Dashiell seated and smiling and mostly still, but I'm not sure how I did it! Especially since it was already 1:30, which is nap time! Anyway, we survived the experience, and are much wiser for it. From now on I have to ask how big the casting call is going to be--I think if it was only babies and/or toddlers, it might be easier to handle. Regardless, I think I'll give this casting call thing one more chance, and if the experience is the same the next time we're giving modeling a rest. It's too stressful for both Dashiell and me.

Happy Birthday Dashiell!!

The cake I didn't make.

"Happy Birthday to you..."

Tasty cake!

Uhhhh...so much cake...

So this time last year I was in the midst of the marathon pushing session, being yelled at by a nurse ("you don't want a section!! PUSH!!!). Dr. Madrid kept popping his head in the room to see how things were going, conferring with the nurses about how much longer they were going to let me keep this up. An hour later, little Dash was born!

We had a great birthday weekend the past couple of days. A big party yesterday, and dinner at the grandparents' house tonight. D worked the crowd well yesterday and loved hanging out with his Aunt Elizabeth this whole weekend. Yes he had a cold but it didn't seem to bother him much.

Keeping this short because I'm completely EXHAUSTED but I wanted to wish my big guy a happy day and post some pictures for all of you! Thanks for sharing this wonderful year with us!

Busy busy busy...

The above photos are an example of my attempt to take pictures of Dashiell these days. He's always on the move and it's impossible to get a good, head-on, smiling at the camera photo! Seriously, I took about 30 pictures and these five are the best I could come up with. So I squished them all together so you could get an idea what life with Dashiell is like these days!

Sorry it's been so long since I posted but we've been super busy around here getting ready for Dashiell's big day! And work's been busy too so I don't even have time to do a quick post while I'm there, either. Not that I condone blogging while working but some days it gets kind of dull there and if I'm blogging it at least looks like I'm working, right?

So the big party is tomorrow, and as mentioned we've been all a-flutter trying to get the house ready, buying supplies, ordering balloons, etc. Then early this week Rick got hit with a nasty cold, which means that now I have this nasty cold. It's been hard motivating to do anything (hence blogging instead of cleaning). I'm just hoping Dashiell won't get it, or if he does the worst of it won't hit until after his party. But don't worry, party-goers, we'll have plenty of hand sanitizer and wipes and whatnot to try to keep the germs at bay. And I will be wiping down every surface of our house tomorrow before everyone gets here to lessen the germ quotient. I'd do it today but it'd be counter-productive, given my current germy state.

Dashiell's aunt Elizabeth is arriving from LA this afternoon, and we're so excited to see her! She's pretty excited to see our little guy, too. She hasn't seen him since Thanksgiving, and he's changed so much since then! He wasn't even crawling at that point, now he RUNS. Constantly!

Our other news is that we finally finished our dining room (which was started only 3 years ago), and now it's lovely and like new! And since it's now done, we set up our aquarium again! Dash and Rick bought 3 new fishies yesterday. Since the aquarium is rather large these 3 fish have plenty of room to swim. Dash loves them--he looks into the aquarium and giggles. It's very cute.

Wish us luck with the party (and the colds)! The next time I post our little guy will be ONE YEAR OLD!!! Wow!!!