Toddler, I mean, baby swing

 

Uma helps out.

 

Kieran's not so sure about it.

 

Now he's getting it.

The best seat in the house

 

Uma's toy is Kieran's toy

 

Sunglasses! Awesome

 

Daddy never lets me have his.

Group shot

 

That's Uma's friend Dominic.

Scary Halloween giraffe

 

Might look familiar.

I'm gonna eat it!

 

Hitting the bottle

 

Rise and shine

 

The exersaucer is serious business

 

Stability issues

 

They have better smiles than I do

 

After a hot bath

 

Tada! It's a ring!

 

He didn't really vote

 

Flexibility

 

He's not going to let anything stand in the way of a good toe suck.

Baby in a basket

A recurring motif

 

Wary.

 

Suspicious.

Sideways

 

He's been doing that a lot lately.

Pre-teeth

 

Teeth Sighting!

After taunting us for months, Kieran's two bottom teeth have finally made an appearance. I felt them today as I was cleaning his gums after feeding him lunch. They are just visible if you look closely. Uma saw them, too. She was very excited for him.

Solids update: Kieran has really taken to solids. He gets a little squirmy if he has to sit in his high chair too long, but otherwise seems to enjoy eating. He now eats banana, rice cereal, sweet potato, yogurt, and oatmeal. Pear sauce has been granted provisional status. (We're following the 4-day wait rule from "Super Babyfoods.") The biggest challenge feeding him now is getting my spoon around his. He likes to hold onto a spoon while he's eating, and as with everything Kieran holds, it finds its way to his mouth, so I have to maneuver my spoon around his. Meals often end up using a half dozen spoons.

Hanging on for dear life

 

Uma's a bit of a wild driver.

No seat belt!?!?

 

Diverted from the gravel

 

Unfortunately, he later absconded with the keys.

A calm moment before he discovered the gravel

 

Mmmm.... rocks. Talk about solid food.

Kieran pounces, too

1.57

Uma makes Kieran laugh

4.12

Whoa, I'm waaaay too high

 

Is DWST legal in Texas?

 

Kieran enjoys driving through the neighborhood

 

Gas prices schmas prices.

Trying to eat a ball

 

 

"Bummer, can't unhinge my jaw..."

Bwah bwah bwah

2.28

400 posts

Actually, 402, but close enough, right? 7½ months old, and he's already got more posts than most blogs ever see. I won't twist my arm patting myself on my back (I've got lots of practice).

Don't leave me here!

 

Do you really need that picture now?

Considering it was 5 minutes ago, yes, yes I did.

Watching cars go by

 

Uma wasn't doing anything interesting enough to get his attention.

There are airplane books...

 

And there are stroller books. Take that, Grisham.

Better living through child abuse

Our system for Kieran's sleep was not working. He was waking up frequently, not only at night, but in the middle of his daytime names. He always needed help to fall asleep, and he just seemed tired a lot. We did a little more directed research and reading, and reached three conclusions:

1) He needed more nap time
2) What we thought were signs of tiredness were really signs of over-tiredness; he was getting tired after having been awake only an hour or so in the morning, but we had been keeping him up for 2-3 hours
3) It was getting harder to help him to sleep, not easier

Each of these dysfunctions fed into each other. Those conclusions dictated a new strategy. We decided to be more diligent about making his nap time, accepting the sacrifice to our schedule and household needs that would require. We aimed to whisk him off to sleep at the first sign of any kind of tiredness, rather than waiting for it to become obvious. Finally, and most importantly, we went cold turkey on helping Kieran fall asleep.

It's this last that was the hardest but seemed to have been the most necessary. We attributed at least part of the nighttime waking to him being unable to fall back asleep. We all wake up in the night and fall back asleep, not even remembering having woken the next morning. He had no capacity to fall asleep on his own, so when he had one of those regular wakings, he stayed up.

What was cold turkey? When it was bed time, we put Kieran down, walked away, and closed the door. And then tried to resist the urge to run back in when he wailed. It wasn't easy. I think I lasted 4 minutes the first time. I went in and tried to help him calm down, albeit in a more restrained fashion. Eventually, he fell asleep. After a few nights, I realized that I wasn't actually helping him when I went in, because all I did was make it take longer for him to settle. So I stopped. We'd been using the kitchen fan for white noise to help him sleep; very quickly, it became white noise to help us when he cried.

We started about 10 days ago. The first night, he only woke up two times in the night. That's compared to his then normal 4-5 wakings. Most nights it has been once. Last night, Kieran didn't wake up at all after going to bed at 7pm, though he woke up a little earlier than usual at 6:20am, but there were some loud noises at the time that were likely the cause. He takes full naps during the day, instead of waking up when he obviously needs more. When we're in the room with him, he'll shift and move, but usually doesn't wake up and get upset. The best part of all, is that he usually complains (not cries) for only about a minute or so at nap time. Then he settles.

This has made a huge difference. Kieran is just so much happier when he's awake. He's always been a happy boy, but he'd been getting increasingly moody (by his standards); usually, it only took about 45 minutes to an hour after waking for him to get a little grumpy. Now he's happy and all smiles for nearly the whole time he's awake. That's a lot more like the way he was before things went off the rails a few months ago.

It's obviously better for us grown-ups, because we get to sleep. Our schedule is more predictable, and we have a lot less anxiety. There are less obvious benefits for Uma. She doesn't have to go solo so often while Jessica is trying to coax Kieran down for a nap. She's only 3, so it's not reasonable to expect her to play by herself quietly for 20 or 30 minutes. Plus she gets some exclusive Mommy time during the day, time that Jessica now has more energy for. This was an unpleasant period, but it was brief. We're all better off for it.

Oh yeah, and we also turned off the nightlight in the bedroom. My toes have suffered, but it seems to have helped otherwise.

Attention, yay!

 

This sounds hollow...

 

Typical deer-in-the-headlights face

 

More or less his default look.

Mmm.... strappy

 

Mommy is (just) out of view

 

What, you think he just smiles for no reason?

In the saddle

 

Food would just get in his way

 

She got my bottle

 

Kieran learns about sharing.

Actually, he knows all about sharing. Uma shares all his things.

Macro-boy-ology

 

 

 

 

The ones with his mouth open were when he was trying to eat the camera. I may need to get a waterproof case for it.

Gotta have hats to be a hipster

 

 

What could he be laughing at?

 

I guess we'll never know.

Too exhausted to play

 

The outdoors are great

 

Contemplating a simple life in nature

 

The next Henry David Thoreau?

Doing his Godzilla impression

 

That leaf is Tokyo.

Happy play

 

Rings are fantastic.

Hitting the bottle

 

Shampoo

 

Solid sessions

 

I got a spoon!

 

What was that?!??!

 

He rubs getting cleaned up.

Tabletop baby

 

Short hair is a must

 

How I feel right now

 

Except I don't get a nifty swing like that.

Sometimes he sleeps

 

Things haven't been going so well at night here at the homestead.

Key break

 

Whacking the play equipment

 

Kieran plays with his feet

3.55



With a surprise guest star.

He sits in the cart now

 

A gummy smile

 

Won't be long before that's gone.

There's a lot going on here

 

Happy finger grab

 

Happy face grab

 

Get her when she's not paying attention.

Oh yeah, that's some good strap

 

We've set up the seat belt with one short so we can have one long strap end precisely for this reason.

Not as impressed as I had hoped

 

It's a front row seat!