OMG Not Teething!

Sasha's been in a great mood the past few days. For the first time in a long time she is not teething!
I may have mentioned this before, but my two girls have had two completely different teething styles. Pardon me if I express a preference for the way Cassie went through her teething process.
Cassie dear had not a single tooth in her mouth for the first 13 months of her life. I know this is very strange. She was my little toothless wonder, walking and talking before she even got a tooth. I loved that gummy little baby grin. But then she went through an OMGWTFBBQ mother-of-all teething period where she suddenly erupted 8 teeth at once. Poor baby. She was feverish and miserable but at least she got it all over with in one shot.
Sasha, on the other hand, seems to have been non-stop teething since she's been 3 months old. That's a bit of an exageration but it really feels true. Once the teething process for one tooth ends, another one begins and it feels like we're not getting any break. Sasha has a very pleasant disposition...when she isn't teething. But she is so irritable and crabby when she is teething. It feels like we've had an irritable baby for so long that we were worried that her personality was actually an irritable baby. So now that she is finally not teething, I am glad to see her old cheerful self back.
Whew!
I know it won't last long. She's got 7 teeth. That 8th tooth has to come in soon. I don't feel any bump in the spot where it should be coming in yet so nature has decided to give us a break to remember what our little girl's true personality is like.

Meanwhile, Sasha learned a new trick today. She figured out how to crawl off the bed. No easy task I can assure you as it seems so high up for a baby. I saw that she wanted to get off the bed today. I wanted to just pick her up and put her on the floor. It took a lot of effort to stand by and let her do it. I kept myself at the ready, prepared to grab her if she should fall or encounter any problems and let her figure things out. She crawled to the corner of the bed, put her hands on the bedframe at each side of the corner, then swung her legs over the side and landed on her feet. The whole process took about three minutes, very very slowly. I was so surprised that she did it but once it was done she didn't think it was a big deal. I really expected to have to grab her to save her from a fall.

Welcome Baby Madison

Sasha has a new baby cousin.
Baby Madison was born on August 16th at 2:45am at 4lbs5oz and 17 inches long. She is such a tiny tiny little girl but very healthy. She got an 8 and a 9 on her APGAR score. Her mommy got a bit of food poisoning which threw her into early labor but otherwise mommy and baby are fine.
So we went up north to go visit my family and see the new baby. Sasha was mostly disinterested but did stare at the baby with mild interest for a minute or two. Cassie and I got to hold the new baby. As I held her, it reminded me of what it was like to hold a newborn Sasha. My how she has grown in the past year and it is sort of bittersweet that it is all just a memory now.
While we were up there visiting family, we stayed at a hotel. Sasha and I slept very well as the bed was comfortable. I had wanted to take Sasha to the hotel swimming pool but we just didn't have the time or energy.

Despite the 11 month age difference, Sasha and her new cousin should be classmates as Sasha missed the birthday cut off for most schools, and Madison's birthday should put her in the same school year. Basically Sasha will be one of the oldest of her class one day and Madison will be one of the youngest. It would be so neat to see the two girls off together to kindergarten one day. But we shall see what the future has in store for us. 5 years seems so far away anyways.

Growling, biting, and clawing

From the title, I guess you'd think I was talking about a kitten. Despite the fact that I sometimes wonder if Sasha is a kitten, she is a human baby girl with some strange habits lately.
Growling
Ok she's been growling lot for the last few months. The way she runs around the house constantly growling really does remind me of an animal. Thank goodness she started babbling and trying to talk again a few weeks ago or I'd be very worried. But since I'm pretty sure it's probably just a phase, I think it's kind of cute. I suppose I might be accidentally encouraging it as it makes me laugh and sometimes I growl back at her. Sure it might be cute now but eventually she'll reach an age where it's no longer cute and I hope she stops before then.
Biting
A new kind of biting problem. It's gradually grown on us but it is not really a serious issue. She gives us occasional explorative bites once in a while and my goodness does she have some sharp teeth. There's this one fun thing she likes to do. I take my finger and wiggle it up and down across her lips and she makes a funny noise. She loves it. But sometimes she'll just bite my finger instead. Again, it seems more like she's curious and wondering what will happen.
I'll chalk this one up to teething for now. I do not remember what it feels like to have teeth force their way through jaw and gums but it doesn't sound pleasant. And plus it must be a novelty to suddenly have all these new teeth in her mouth so I'm sure she's just exploring and being curious, trying them out and seeing what they can do.
Clawing
Ok, now this one is really frustrating me.
Sasha has always had a habit of rubbing my arm or neck as she drifted off to sleep. I have a mole on my chest. For the past week, whenever she nurses or dozes off to sleep, she started scratching and picking at it. It is driving me nuts. I know this sounds gross but now it's always bleeding and sort of hanging there and I wish there was a way I could just remove it. Any ideas for how to remove a mole would be appreciated. But even if I did remove it, I doubt she'd ever let it heal. Sasha now knows it's there and looks for it. Now even when I'm holding her, she occasionally tries to move my shirt to scratch at it. She looks for it when she's trying to go to sleep. And if she can't get to it then she'll just start clawing and scratching at my chest.

EDITED 9/13/07- Do you know that apparently this is one of the most popular pages on my blog? People from all over the world are doing google searches for "baby growling", "baby demon" or something similar and coming to this page or my other post about my growling baby. Maybe you just did it too? So it heartens me to know that a lot of other mothers out there are sitting there at their computers thinking to themselves, "Gosh my baby is weird. Why is he/she growling?". Cheer up, mothers of growling babies! I guess it must be normal if there are so many of us :)

Little sister

"Mom", Cassie said to me today. "You know what Sasha did to me today?"
I had just woken up. I asked her what Sasha did to her.
"You know that nose sucker thing? Well she was playing with it and she put it in her mouth. She used it to suck up all her spit. Then she came over to me and squeezed it all over my leg."
I had to laugh. I thought it was pretty funny. I have no idea if it was intentional but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. I know I wouldn't find this nearly as funny if Sasha was older, but she's an innocent and curious baby and probably found it very curious.

Oops, more tantrums. (AKA zucchini, green peppers, and carrots are a NO GO)

Oh yeah, I forgot to add. Sasha had a HUGE temper tantrum this weekend.
I was out of peaches, which seems to be her favorite food. So I thought to myself in one of my not-so-bright moments, "Oh I wonder what she'll think of zucchini". So I cooked up some zucchini and pureed it up for her. But I didn't just stop there. It looked so bland. So I thought to myself "hmm it needs more flavor, maybe I could add some pureed green pepper. After all, green pepper is a great source of vitamin c". So I pureed a little green pepper, I swear it wasn't very much at all, and added it. Two little slices. But the zucchini didn't really taste like anything so the green pepper sort of overpowered it. Then I thought, "darn, now I need to dilute out that green pepper taste. Maybe she'll like some carrot". I steamed and pureed up some carrot and added it.
I personally think it all turned out very tasty. I could imagine using it as some sort of sauce or in a stew or something. Too bad I didn't make it for myself.
Sasha didn't think it was tasty at all. She took one taste and gagged. I've never seen anything like it. It was a tiny taste, barely any in her mouth. She just held the food in her mouth (there wasn't any food in her mouth but she didn't care), refused to swallow, stuck her fingers in her mouth to wipe the taste off her tongue, and gagged and cried until she threw up. And not a little throw up. She emptied the whole contents of her belly out onto the high chair. Poor thing.
So when she doesn't like a food, she can be quite dramatic.

Tooth ponderings

Sasha's 7th tooth popped through on August 5th. This is her bottom right tooth. I feel bad as I didn't even notice it was coming in. I swear this baby has been constantly teething since her first tooth started coming in. She hasn't had a break. Once one finally finishes coming through another one begins. I think we all could use a teething break but I don't think that is going to happen. Common sense tells me that 8th tooth, her bottom left, is next and should be along soon since it isn't here yet. Have I checked to see if there is a bump on her gums yet? No, but I should do that.

I have been bad about keeping Sasha's baby book updated. Thank goodness for this blog. Now when I finally sit myself down to update her baby book, I will have to have this blog pulled up to reference all the correct dates and measurements and shots. Does it matter? Well it sort of does. Now that I have a baby again, I keep comparing Sasha to when Cassie was a baby. I just can't help it. It sort of gives me an idea of what I could expect. Now these two girls are obviously very very different so comparing them sort of seems rediculous. Cassie didn't get her first tooth until she was 13 months old, and Sasha has 7 teeth already at 10.5 months. Cassie first sat up at 7 months (same for Sasha), first walked at 13 months, first really started talking at 11 months. Sasha has been back to babbling and saying dada (in reference to Jon even, she doesn't say dada about anyone else) and a few words I swear are words but I don't really count her among the talking babies quite yet.
But anyways, back to the baby book thing, Jon's parents kept a meticulous baby book for him and gave it to him at our wedding along with a photo album of 23748923742389 pictures of him. I thought that was really neat. I wish that I had a baby book for me. Then it would be neat to be able to say "Oh Sasha is a late crawler like her mother" or "Sasha got her teeth at the same age as her dad" or whatever. I am a statistical geek sometimes, and I really get a kick out forcibly comparing apples to oranges via nonsense trivia like that. And who knows, maybe some day 30 years from now she'll have a baby and she'll say to me "Mom, when did I get my 7th tooth?" and I will be like "AHA! I KNOW THAT ANSWER CHILD".

First Tantrums!

Not exactly what we'd put in the baby book now is it?
But today, Sasha just seemed different. Something in her personality seems to have changed.
I got home from work and my poor overworked husband needed a nap. He hasn't been sleeping well so I had her all to myself for about two hours. Sasha and I had fun. I took her to the laundry room and let her bang on the washers and dryers for a bit, hehe. Then after a Korean couple came in and started the washing machine up, Sasha became scared of the washing machines so she started crying. We went down to the lobby. I let her run amok down there for a while as I sat in a comfy sofa. At first Sasha stayed RIGHT next to me but she got more and more brave until she was happily climbing all over the place. It was refreshing not to have to yell "Sasha NO!" every few seconds.
After about an hour of that, I got a chocolate craving. I took Sasha for a walk over to the local 7-eleven. I got a Milky Way candy bar and a buffalo chicken taquito. I was carrying Sasha so it was easier for me to hand her the candy bar to hold on to while we walked back home. She happily nibbled on it with it still in the wrapper and caused no damage to it at all. When we got home I went back to the lobby and tried to take my candy bar away from her. Well, she didn't want to hand over the candy bar so after I wrestled it away from her she threw a temper tantrum.
Now Sasha has cried many many times before. She cries when she's hungry or tired or has a dirty diaper. She sometimes cries when I lay her on her back, she gets easily scared by strangers. But crying for a candy bar? That's the first time for me that she's ever cried for a specific item that she wanted. Cried for a want, not a need, is I guess the best way to describe it. She threw herself on the floor and had a royal hissy fit.
Well if there was any chance of me handing the candy bar back to her, it ended with the tantrum. I don't want to give her the idea that her tantrums will make me change my mind so I had to stand firm and took her back home.

Sasha has started talking again! She had been talking a few months back, saying mama and dada, etc, but she had completely stopped. Well, there was a dog in the lobby, and I pointed it out to her and repeatedly said "Dog". She started saying Dog Dog Dog Dog and for the next few hours she was constantly saying dog. Then a few hours later when my husband walked out of the living room, she started a barrage of "DADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADAADA!". That lasted quite a while. My husband aptly put it when he said that she seemed as though she was making up for the last month or so of not saying Dada anymore.

Standing

This weekend, Sasha hit another milestone with her big sister Cassie. Cassie is just racking up the cool points lately. Cassie was taking Sasha walking...everyone who has or had a baby knows what I mean, where you hold the baby's hands and let them walk around. Well Cassie noticed that Sasha was pretty well balanced and Sasha slowly let go of Cassie's hands. Cassie started squealing and yelling "MOM! MOM! LOOK! SASHA'S STANDING BY HERSELF". And she was! Sasha stood there by herself in the middle of the living room for a good 5 seconds. Sasha only plopped herself down because she was looking around trying to figure out what Cassie was yelling about.

She's done it a few more times but not nearly as long. She is very mobile and impressively agile, crawling around all over, cruising around from furniture item to furniture item, pulling herself up to stand and looking like she wants to crawl on stuff. I was laying on the living room floor the other day, right next to the coffee table. She held onto me to pull herself to a stand, climbed up on top of me, then used me to stand on to climb on top of the coffee table. She got up there too and proudly sat on it while looking at the books that were on it. So I can imagine climbing is not very far off now, as well as more standing.
I don't know how much longer after standing it takes for babies to start walking but we shall see. Maybe I'll go look in Cassie's baby book and see how long it took between when she was standing and walking and maybe that will give me a good idea.

6th tooth

Sasha's 6th tooth has erupted today! Despite the new tooth, she has been in amazingly good spirits and especially charming and cute today and the last few days. She has been a pleasure to play with.
For example, today she stirred for a feeding. She was laying next to me, feeding in the dark bedroom, and normally at that time she would just nurse back to sleep. However the blue glow of the alarm clock caught her eye. I saw her eyes widen at the alarm clock and she broke into the BIGGEST grin and started to crawl. She just LOVES that alarm clock and we normally have it facing the wall so it doesn't distract her in her sleep. Well today it did distract her from her sleep and she went from mostly asleep to wide awake in a matter of seconds. I was disappointed that she woke up so early but that huge smile on her face made it impossible for me to stay disappointed for long.

Which reminds me of another topic:
Toys that aren't really toys.
There are many objects that Sasha LOVES to play with that really aren't toys at all. For example those little door stopper thingies that keep doors from slamming into walls. She likes kitchen utensils. If she fusses in her high chair I merely have to hand her a potato masher, a meat tenderizer, and a ladle and she is a happy baby again. She likes to crawl around the house with one of my large plastic cooking spoons (looks like a wooden spoon except plastic). Then there's her squeegie. Yeah, HER squeegie. I do use it to wipe the condensation off the mirrors in the bathroom but for the most part it is her squeegie. She picked it out at Ikea and held it the whole time we were at the store. Real toys didn't interest her but she held firmly to that squeegie.


We did buy her a cool new toy this week:
It's a Fisher Price Intelli-table, which I guess was a collaboration with Fisher Price and Microsoft. Regardless, it is a really neat table toy. I looked at all the table toys at our local Babies-R-Us and nothing struck me as nearly as interesting as this. Besides, babies LOVE led lights...sort of like that glowing alarm clock that woke Sasha this morning. This table has lots of them that dance and make all sorts of neat patterns. She does seem to love the table. I'm glad to finally find something of interest to tempt her into standing. She is now a pro at pulling herself up to a stand.

Brief update

For several days, Sasha has been by far the least crabby as she's ever been. It was wonderful. She was such a joy. She is crawling great now, so she would crawl around the house and explore.
Then yesterday the crabbiness started again. She's got her 6th tooth coming in and she completely altered her sleep schedule drastically. This is not a good week for us to have her switch to a day shift schedule as there is a lot of loud construction noises in our building this week. I have been feeling so very exhausted. Jon's back has still been painful for him. He had to have an MRI on Sunday morning and we are awaiting the results from that.
Cassie has been wonderful, and very pleasant to have around. She's been playing her Warcraft game, drawing pictures, and teaching herself how to photoshop from online tutorials. She is very talented.

Signed POTTY!

Today when Sasha (10 months old) woke up, she seemed really crabby. She was crying and seemed to be making a strange gesture with her hand, sort of like waving but more deliberate. I figured she was hungry so I started to feed her. Halfway through the feeding she stopped eating and started crying. She did the strange hand gesture again. Then she started grunting, turning red and started pooping. I said to her "Oooh Sasha are you going potty?" and she started making the gesture again very deliberately at me. Then it hit me. She was signing POTTY! (sign looks like you're shaking your hand with it positioned in the 'letter t' position, see link for sign video). Holy cow! I totally didn't expect her to ever sign that to me until she was like 2 or 3 years old. She didn't put her hand in the letter T position but it was definitely her version of potty.

I read a baby sign language book by Dr. Garcia and it suggested to do the potty sign with your baby even though you don't expect them to understand for a while because it would help with potty training later. So whenever I saw her grunting or obviously going potty I would sign potty at her. Also whenever I went potty, I usually have to take her into the bathroom with me and sit her down on the floor next to me. I know, no privacy for me but it's the only way I can go and still keep an eye on her. I always sign POTTY to her whenever I am going too. So she's seen the sign. I just didn't realize that she actually understood what it meant.

So this evening after she signed to me, I took her out to dh and told him what happened. I asked her to show her daddy how to sign POTTY and she did it for him. So she definitely meant to sign potty! Yay!

This makes me happy as I haven't seen a sign out of her in at least a month, and I've been very good about signing to her :)

Surprise!

Surprise!

Hide and seek! Sasha's big sister Cassie would run and hide, and Sasha would go nuts looking for her. Cassie decided to go hide with the camera and take a pic the moment Sasha 'found' her. And that is what resulted. Surprise!
Two more Hide & Seek pictures:


Feeding her Dolly
Next we have Sasha feeding her baby doll. A good sign of pretend play already. She likes to take the toy baby bottle, shove it in the baby's mouth or perhaps beat the baby doll upside the face with it a few times. She makes these cute smacking sounds to simulate the baby eating. Then she gets curious about the bottle and tries to take a few swigs herself :)


Glasses
Sasha tries on my old army "BCG" glasses.

Pardon me. I'm going to have to ask you to keep it quiet in the library.

Pictures from the Playdate

I decided to do a separate post with the pictures from the playdate. Any of the pics can be clicked on to view in larger size.

Sasha plays with and cries at the babies.


Cute baby Nora crawls over to Sasha. Nora tells Sasha how much she likes her shoes. Aww a girl bonding moment.


Sasha cries at Nora. Doh!
Sasha is okay with the babies so long as her mommy holds her.


Sasha cries at the babies. Babies are confused at the crying Sasha.


Baby Zayden tries to comfort Sasha by petting her leg, which makes her cry more. Then Nora pokes crying Sasha with a stick! Ohno!


Sasha's first time in a swing

Playdate

Since I found out I was pregnant with Sasha, I frequented a message board online. The women on the message board were all pregnant with due dates in September 2006. We all had our babies, and continue to post to the message board. It is so helpful to get advice from other mothers who are going through the same baby phases at the same time.
One of the mother's on the board hosted a big midwest playdate and since it was near the house of one of Jon's friend's, we decided to go. Jon got to visit his friend, Sasha got to see other babies her age, and I got to finally meet some of the mothers that have been so helpful to me the past year and a half.
The drive itself was about four hours each way. My goal was to make the trip with as little disruption to Sasha's sleep schedule as possible, which meant keeping her on a night shift schedule. I think we accomplished that! Yay!
The babies were absolutely adorable, and I was not disappointed meeting the mother's I've only talked to online. All in all, I had a lot of fun.
Sasha was very high-strung. She cried every time a baby came near her. Actually, she cried a lot. Normally I wouldn't have thought anything of her anxious behavior, but none of the other babies were as anxious as Sasha was. As a matter of fact, they were all so easy going that I nearly jawdropped. Let me clarify a bit. Sasha acted the same way she always acts. I just thought it was a phase or normal baby behavior. It wasn't until I saw the other babies that I realized that her behavior is not normal. Now I start to worry if Sasha isn't a little too over-anxious. It wouldn't surprise me. Cassie and I have very anxious personalities as well. I was just HOPING that she would skip that trait from me and take her personality from her father. I can still hope I guess. I do think I'm starting to see pieces of her true personality and I suspect that she will probably be a little more anxious than most kids.
But like I said, Sasha and I did have fun. Sasha got to go on a swing for the first time. She loved that. She got to play with lots of nifty toys and got to see some babies. Even if she would only watch them from a distance she did seem to enjoy it immensely.
Cassie came along with me to the baby playdate. She was mostly bored as there were only babies and adults, not that kids her age would have made a difference. She sat in a chair and drew pictures. She was tired and took a nap. Poor kid, I know she didn't want to go. I'm glad she at least behaved herself.

Another tooth

Oops, I shouldn't let so much time go between posts. Now I have way too much catching up to do.

New Tooth-
July 1st I think her 4th tooth, the top right broke through. There seems to be quite a bit of space between her two front teeth, and I hope that gap closes. Sasha has what appears to be another bump on her gums so I think she's got another tooth coming in on top next to her left front tooth.
While those teeth were coming in, Sasha was SO VERY crabby. For at least two weeks straight my fun baby girl was replaced by a very crabby girl. Fortunately this week, she seems to be back to almost her old self.

Last week was one of the best sleep schedules we've ever had for such a long time. It was perfect. Years from now, when I look back on the sleep situation, last week is what I will have in mind. Basically, the moment I got of work and walked in the door, Sasha was ready to go to sleep immediately. She and I would crawl into bed, nurse her to sleep, and we would fall asleep together. Jon would lay on the other side of her and she would alternate cuddling with each of us. We got a good 8-10 hours of sleep a day, and woke up in the mid-afternoon with plenty of day left to actually go and do something if we wanted to.