Month: February 2015

Ruby girl is 13 months old. She is the sweetest thing and her kisses are the best. We watch her learn so many new things each day. Here are 13 wonderful things about her today.

1. If you ask her where her head is, she will point to it.

2. When I say “nosey!”, she gives eskimo kisses.

3. She uses sign language for “more” and “all done”.

4. Ruby is walking, but not quite walking around. She still prefers her 3-limb scoot for her quick getting-around-the-house transportation.

5. Ruby adores her big brother.

6. She is quick to lay her head on your shoulder when you pick her up.

7. Ruby is exploratory with most toys and objects around our house. Favorites are: plastic easter eggs, socks, puzzle pieces, musical toys.

8. She loves to flop on pillows and beds. She will flop, or lay on her belly with head cozy on the bed, and just light up the most delightful smile and giggle.

9. Her favorite thing to do is rummage, especially the miscellaneous toy drawer, recycling bin and her dresser drawers.

10. If you give her clothes, or a headband, or a hat, she will put in on her head or around her neck and smile.

11. She can put a hat on correctly.

12. Ruby has a fun wide-mouthed laugh/shriek when she’s excited about something, namely playing some sort of game with Theo.

13. She absolutely loves her daddy.

We are just coming off of a week-long break from school. Instead of having playdates and enjoying the sub-freezing temperatures on his week off from school, Theo came down with a fever on Monday last week. He complained of a sore throat, as well, so we wound up housebound the entire week with his fever hovering in the 101.5 range without meds. Other than a brief trip with Daddy for a throat culture at the pediatrician, Theo didn’t leave the house for exactly one week (no strep, just some other random virus!). He finally felt better, regained his appetite and registered no temperature on Friday. This got him a much needed trip to his karate class that day. Then ice skating lessons on Saturday, and we closed out the weekend with some fun-filled sledding in Prospect Park on Sunday.

Theo has actually grown so much that he went up and down the hill on his own and was very brave. He went down on his belly head first and alternated between the longer sled and the circular sled that makes you spin around like crazy! He wiped out a couple times and just dusted himself off.

Anyhow, we kicked off the mid-winter break last weekend with “the great bedroom switcheroo”, so we spent the entire weekend before Theo got sick inside swapping bedrooms and moving the kids into the bigger room in the front of the apartment. We had a friend over to help and enjoyed pizza and a lot of hard work. Jay painted one wall grey, and put up some great space decals that Theo picked out.

Jay and his friend built the bunk bed and rearranged furniture, and we spent the rest of Sunday putting up pictures and finishing other minor details. So far the shared room is going decently. Theo loves to play on the bunk with Ruby, and Ruby has been doing quite well sleeping at night. She typically wakes two times. The first around 12 or 1, and Jay goes in and soothes her back to sleep. Then again around 4 or 5, and I go in and nurse her and she will sleep until 7 – 7:30am. A couple nights Ruby skipped the first wake up altogether and I just nursed her back to sleep in the early morning. This is a huge improvement from me waking at least 3 – 4 times per night to nurse her back to sleep! And she doesn’t wake Theo at all during the night. Theo on the other hand has been slow to warm up to sleeping on his own in there. It’s a new bed, a new room and another transition from pretty much co-sleeping with Daddy for the past year. He was mostly in our bed the whole week, and that was fine because he was sick so we eased the transition for him. Then this past weekend he slept in his bunk both Saturday and Sunday nights without a peep. It’s incredibly cozy in there and he seems to be enjoying it. I will post more photos of the room soon. We are in the process of hooking up below the loft for a cozy little reading area, but at the moment Theo’s old full bed is still under there as we are figuring out what to do with it.

Luckily Theo wasn’t too laid out and miserable for us to at least enjoy being home over the break, although there were cranky moments and many fusses put up about taking medicine. Honestly I welcomed the calm from running back and forth everywhere, and from being in the freezing cold everyday. Coincidentally Jay was home the entire week, too, and a lot of time was spent playing Uno, Go Fish and many other games. There was movie watching, sports watching and a couple of much needed Theo naps (which normally are non-existent) and a little bit of work for this Mama.

And today? Back to the grind…

We love the new karate Sensei! Theo is still going strong with karate each week. It’s been tougher for me to handle it with Ruby, too, but he really enjoys it. Hoping things will be easier as weather improves. Isn’t that how it works? 😉

I couldn’t take the time to focus but she’s getting there!

Ruby had her first serious illness this week. Last Wednesday night she threw up a couple times during the night. She seemed decently okay the next day. No fever and was in decent spirits, with a decreased appetite. I mostly just nursed her and gave her small bits of foods, like toast and banana, although she didn’t want much. Later that day she started to have some diarrhea, which wound up continuing through Sunday, accompanied with a fever. Her fever was pretty low initially, but Saturday during the night it spiked up to 103.6. I felt pretty much like the worst mother in the world when I made the decision in the morning to still make my Sun – Mon trip to Baltimore. It had been planned for months, and it was to see a dear friend who lives in Raleigh I hadn’t seen in many years. I knew she was in very good hands with Jay, and Grandpa Joe was on his way to help for the next couple of days since I had the trip planned anyhow. They were all absolutely fine without me. After speaking to her pediatrician they pretty much kept her medicated to keep the fever down and just kept up with lots of liquids for her, keeping an eye on her wet diapers. I mostly felt terrible not to be able to nurse her for comfort and for the breastmilk. Fortunately we did have some frozen milk for her from my 24-hour trip last month. Anyhow, by the time I returned on Monday evening she was asleep, but awoke a few hours later and was no longer feverish. We discontinued the meds at this point and she was much more herself on Tuesday. Today I would say she is 100% back to a healthy Ruby.

I hate seeing our babies sick 🙁

Ruby had her 12-month well visit today. She had the first round of the MMR and chicken pox vaccines, and also had a finger prick to test her blood for lead. All was clear and perfect. Ruby is 17lbs, 8oz (19%) and 28.8in (33%).

She tries most foods we give her, but she particularly loves feta cheese, and cheese in general, chicken sausage, salmon, lentils, black beans, pickles, strawberries, bananas, watermelon, squash, sweet potato, eggs (surprise, surprise! our family eats so many eggs every week we should be raising chickens). There’s more, I’m sure.

Ruby turned one and all of a sudden she started to do many new things. She is taking a step or two here and there, she LOVES walking with her activity walker now (thanks, Amma!). She smiles and laughs and just whips that thing around whenever she bumps into a roadblock or hits the wall. She is signing “more” and “all done” and it’s the cutest. Her wave is killing me, too. When she sees herself in the mirror after bath, she gets so giddy and waves furiously at herself.

Ruby loves to play on our bed. She flops herself on the pillows face first and giggles. She can roll around on there with Theo and it’s something they can do together and gets Theo happy and silly. She comes up and lays her head on my shoulder, which melts my heart. She does that with Daddy most chances she gets and always gives him many, many kisses.

She loves socks, putting clothes/monkey/blankets/jewelry on her head, rummaging, getting belly zerberts, playing in the fridge every chance she can get, eating keys and just plain trying to do whatever Theo is doing.

Ruby is having two naps a day (these have fallen back into place to a solid 1+ hour nap at 9am and 1pm, typically). She is up for the day around 7am and goes to bed around 6:15/6:30. She nurses during the night still, but we are planning to move her in with Theo very soon and I will night wean. Still planning to continue nursing for her main milk intake each day.

She is the best, best thing in the world and I can’t believe a year has gone by. I don’t know what in the world we would do without her. I’m beyond thrilled that she is mine and that she was added to round out our family. The explosion of love that I feel for both of those kids is absurd, frustrating moments and all. I can’t wait to see what the next year holds for Ruby.

We love you sweet girl!!!