sleeping in

I used to be a morning person, able to wake up at 5:30 AM to get a workout in before my day started. I even had Elliot rising early during the final months of my pregnancy because it was too hot by 7 AM to go for a run, but the year of waking up several times during the night has broken me of that habit. Before Ada arrived I had all of these notions about how I wouldn't be afraid to let my baby "cry it out" (CIO) if they weren't one of the angelic babies who sleep through the night at 3 months all on their own. Funny how having the actual baby in your house can change things. Not to say that we didn't try, but Ada is what we like to call stubborn.

As we hit Ada's one year birthday without her sleeping through the night I figured we might have to pull out the CIO card. Elliot and I were zombies during the week, and it was obviously affecting Ada as well as she would sleep in until 8 or 9 AM if we let her. Which was a nice little treat for us on the weekends but sort of a pain on week days. I was anticipating horrible nights of long crying stretches and a bleary eyed family for a few weeks. So far we seem to be doing Ok. The first few nights she woke up once, cried for maybe 5 minutes and then gave up and went back to sleep. The last two nights she has actually slept through the night, waking at 6 AM. It is more like a popping awake. She will be sleeping soundly one minute and then POP her eyes open and she is ready to start her day. Up until this week Ada and I had a nice thing going, Elliot would get up to shower and we would sleep in. Those days are now distant memories. Ada, feeling refreshed does not want to waste one drop of a day by sleeping in. I try, but she pulls my hair, grabs my nose, forces her fingers in my mouth, anything she can think of to wake me up. I usually last about 5 minutes, but I'm taking note of all of her techniques. I plan on using each and every one of them when she hits her teen years and refuses to wake up in the morning.

what separation anxiety

I think Ada has moved past the whole separation anxiety thing. Yesterday when Elliot dropped off Ada she was a little clingy until she spotted her BFF Reese across the room. She dragged Elliot to the play area gate and anxiously waited for him to open the gate so she could get to Reese and PLAY. This morning was more of the same. Clingy until she spotted her BFF and then she was all about getting into the play area so she could start.having.fun. This makes the whole drop off process much easier, and for that I am extremely grateful. It does make me realize how fast she is growing up. I expect next week she'll start asking us to drop her off at the corner.

saturday night fever

I have always been a closet singer. I sing in my car, I sing in the shower, I sing in my head while I run; usually off key, and usually either my own made up song or made up words to popular songs. So it isn't really all that surprising that I now sing about and to Ada, a lot. What is surprising is that Ada seems to naturally know how to dance. Her currrent favorite is the tune B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name-o. If I start singing anything to that tune she will start to clap and move her little body. Even in the car. Yes, she is one year old and she is already a car dancer. Another current favorite is the Frère Jacques tune. I started singing my own version of this last night and Ada started shakin' her little booty, like she was born to dance. Super cute. She definitely has a future of night club dancing ahead of her. When she is 35.

hi

Ada doesn't do a whole lot of surprising things. Or maybe I'm so used to expecting the unexpected that nothing she does seems all that surprising any more. Today, that all changed.

Ada has been babbling up a storm, lots of bubububububs and dadadadads and tttttttttts, but to date, nothing that doesn't sound like it is coming out of the mouth of a one year old. This morning, we walked into her classroom, she took a quick look around and then out of her mouth popped, "Hi". Firm and crisp, and with a little bit of attitude.

I had to look back at her to make sure she hadn't turned 13 while I was signing her in.

p.s.

We decided to pop open Ada's tunnel at home now that she has shown love to the daycare tunnel. She seemed like she might be warming up to it until Elliot decided to put his head in one end and lift the tunnel up like an elephant's trunk. That sent Ada running for cover. I guess she figured the tunnel at home actually DOES eat people.

tunnels part deux

Each day at daycare, the teachers write some sort of short note letting us know how Ada's day went and any cute/funny things she did during the day. A lot of times these notes just let us know what color she fingerpainted with, or that they went outside. I usually glance at the note and think, note to self - that red on her shirt is from finger painting not copious amounts of blood. Today's note read, "Ada had lots of fun playing in the tunnel." That caught my attention, I had to have more details. Apparently, she was playing with the two boys in her class. They were running all around, in, and near the tunnel. Ada started out by hanging out near the end of the tunnel and laughing as they boys crawled through, then when she thought no one was looking she ventured inside. Cautious and careful. Once she made that break through she was ALL about playing in the tunnel. It only took one week. One week of watching the other kids, counting them to make sure that none of them were eaten up by the tunnel, and examining their fingers and toes to make sure everyone was Ok after playing near the tunnel. After this whole experience it won't surprise me in the least if Ada has a job where she has someone in charge of tasting her food before she eats it.

growing

Ada's bedtime routine always starts with play time in her room with both Mom and Dad right after she finishes her dinner. Last night I had to skip play time to get some work done, and Ada's Nonna Donna had called so Elliot decided to take Ada into her room, let her play, and call Donna on speaker phone so Ada could hear her. Ada had been a little more cranky than normal during dinner and was rubbing her eyes a lot so I figured it would only be a few minutes before Elliot called me in to nurse Ada before putting her down for the night. As I worked away I kept thinking - boy Ada sure is being well behaved, I wonder what she is playing with. Finally, I heard Elliot hang up the phone, open the door and then he called to me. I had to see something in Ada's room. Minutes into the call, Ada had curled up on her Daddy and after trying a few positions settled between his legs and was zonked out for the night. She didn't show any signs of waking up while Elliot put on her PJs and put her to bed. She was experiencing some deep, body building sleep. And this morning, after having her morning nursing session she kept wanting to slide off the bed to the floor. Trying to tell me, Look mama - I totally grew last night. Yeah, my best guess would be about two inches (!!).

tunnels

I often joke that there were many things about the labor process that Ada did not like and that is why she purposely dropped her heart rate, resulting in the fastest exit from the uterus as possible. Recently we have discovered one more thing to support this theory.

Ada has an extreme fear of tunnels. Her buddy Derek gave her a pop-up tunnel for her birthday and every time we open it up she screams and cries and runs away until we put it away. We thought maybe she didn't like the color, or the material, or the fact that it popped up. However, one of the mother's from her daycare donated a sturdy padded tunnel that had all of the kids going crazy climbing and crawling. All but one that is. Ada screamed, and cried, and ran away to the corner of the room to play with all of the other toys. Not even looking at the tunnel. Pretending that the tunnel didn't interest her. If she could talk she probably would have said something similar to, "Tunnels are so last year, I'm too cool for tunnels. I'll just be over here with all of the non-tunnel toys".

When I heard this story I instantly thought of all of the reasons why Ada purposely dropped her heart rate during labor. It wasn't the contractions, or the dark, or the water breaking, or the lack of oxygen. Nope, she took one long look down that tunnel and decided, "No way am I going through that thing. There HAS to be a different way out."

ring leader

Ada has been much happier at her daycare dropoffs this week. This morning I think I figured out why.

She was one of the last in her class to arrive and when she walked in all of the other little kids came over to the gate and gathered around her. She looked all of them over, squawked a little bit, knocked some blocks out of one little girls hands and then pushed through the crowd to explore the rest of the toys in the room. And wouldn't you know it... all of the other little kids followed along. She sat in a chair, each of them wanted to sit next to her. She got up and walked away - they all followed. I'm sure they rotate which kid is the coolest, but for this week Ada seems to be the ring leader. And that would make anyone a happy camper.

card shark

We have all sorts of toys for Ada. Small toys, big toys, loud toys, quiet toys, soft toys, and toys that hurt when smashed into mama's head. We also have all sorts of grown up toys. Toys that Elliot or I had before we even thought about bringing another life into this world. Most of those toys are electronic in nature and have been stashed up in places that Ada can't reach. However, some of our grown up toys are just grown up because they are associated with more adult activities. These we are less careful with.

For the most part Ada is more interested in her toys that clash and bang than any grown up toys, with one exception - Elliot's poker chips. These were a gift to Elliot many years ago and have sat in our living room on a side table, unused, ever since. Well unused until Ada discovered them. Apparently you have never known joy until you have flipped an entire round of poker chips on the floor. Ada will spend hours emptying the round of chips, putting them back, and emptying them again. Often accompanied by giggling and sometimes grunts of concentration. I expect Ada to have mastered the finger roll by Christmas.

buddies

From the very early days of daycare, Ada's teachers have told us that she has a buddy, Reese. When they were younger they would play side by side and now that they are older they play with the same toys and with each other more and more.

Today I had an early meeting and was actually able to get out of the house a few minutes early so when I dropped Ada off I took some time to sit and play with her. She has been clingy at drop-off these days and I thought this would help her out a little bit. Her initial reaction seemed to support this thought as she sat in my lap as I played with a toy. They have such cool toys at daycare.

This lasted a whole 10 seconds, until Ada noticed that Reese was toddling over to us. Reese stopped a couple of feet in front of us and Ada stood up and toddled over to Reese and they sort of looked each other over and then turned and walked away together... And then tripped over the same toy.

proper motivation

Elliot and I decided to fight the heat last night by getting smoothies from Jamba Juice. Ada had taken a really long (yay!) nap late in the day (boo!) so she was full of energy and we thought the trip out would be a good change of scenery. I order all fruit smoothies so that I can share with Ada. Usually she will put the straw in her mouth and bite off the smoothie that is near the top. Occasionally she will accidentally suck through the straw and get more of the delicious fruit concoction, but every time we put water in her sippy cup that has a straw she ignores it completely. Well last night Ada seemed to really grasp the straw sucking concept so I poured some of my Peach Perfection into her straw sippy cup and what do you think happened? Yup. Suckage. Turns out it wasn't a question of understanding the concept, but wanting the contents.