Daylight Savings Time and its effect on the sleeping child

Most adults hate the "spring forward" part of DST, right? You lose that one precious hour of sleep and it throws your day off since outside it looks like it's 11AM, but it's actually noon. Since the "fall back" part of DST was AWFUL for Johnny, I had expected the spring forward to be just as miserable. I was fully prepared to adjust bedtime over the span of a week so he could get back to a normal nighttime sleeping pattern. I had readied myself to deal with a toddler who would not go down for a nap because we missed his napping window. I had prepared for war... and did not need any of the preparations I had made.

He slept for 13 hours at night from Sunday to Friday. Yeah, THIRTEEN HOURS of glorious sleep! Plus, he even took a three hour nap most days. For those who haven't done the math yet, that is 16 hours of sleep a day. I'm not expecting this to become a pattern, but it was pretty awesome to actually sleep past 6:15AM and to have a child who was ridiculously happy about life every day.

Thank you, Daylight Savings Time, you have redeemed yourself this spring. Please consider staying this way and just bypassing the "fall back" portion of the cycle.

P.S. As I write this, Johnny is happily hanging out in his crib talking to himself. Yes, it is 9:36AM and he woke up fifteen minutes ago and has not made any fuss. WHO IS THIS KID?!

Zoo trip with Daddy

Daddy, Mommy and Johnny ventured to the zoo together for the first time last weekend and we had a blast! There's a little playground that is for kids aged 2 and up, but that didn't stop Johnny from enjoying a little time on the slide.

Things did get a little ugly, though, when Johnny was taking forever to get in position at the top of the slide and an older kid pushed him over... the kid's dad apologized, but hey, Johnny deserved it. You can't be the youngest person on the playground and keep everyone else waiting. We also hit the petting zoo, which really only contains goats, but Johnny enjoyed it anyway.

And then we walked over to the elephant exhibit, which is my favorite. By that point Johnny was over the stroller, so he was hanging out on Daddy's shoulders. Then Daddy got tired of holding him there, so we played in the dinosaur bones before we took off for the day.

Yay for weekends and zoo memberships!!

Toddlerhood rules

I just put Johnny down for his afternoon nap and he actually fell asleep on me. While he curled up in "stink bug" position on my chest and stomach, I just rocked with him and thought about how far we have come in the last 15 months.

I don't think it's a secret that I'm not a baby person. Or if it is... surprise! I'm not a baby person. Do I think they are adorable? Yes. Do I love holding a freshly baked newborn? Totally. But being the mother of an infant was/is not my thing.

I started out as a mother very short on both patience and experience; I had never even held a baby before (well, I guess I held my brothers, but I was way too young to learn from that) and didn't have any close friends or relatives with children. I thought that being a teacher would help me in the patience arena and it may have, but it certainly wasn't enough to keep me sane and level-headed most of the time. The times that Johnny was fussy, I would get frustrated pretty quickly if I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then I didn't appreciate the times when he was "quiet alert" because I was bored out of my mind with a newborn who just wanted to look at colors and patterns. I'm not trying to be hard on myself for how I acted when Johnny was new, I'm just looking back on what I remember and most of what I remember is being either frustrated, tired, or bored... and guilty for feeling any of that.

Now? A complete 180. I LOVE being the mom of a toddler. Do I have to chase Johnny around a lot? Yes. Do I have to protect him from himself and then endure the ensuing tantrum? Of course. But I love it. Most of it is that I have finally gotten to know my child and figure out what he wants most of the time. Many times that means having to be the "mean mommy" and keep that glass bottle/sharp knife/dog poop away from him. I like being able to take him to the zoo or the park and have him explore new places by himself (supervised, of course). I like watching him interact with other kids and adults. I like watching his mind work when he's trying to figure something out.

Granted, it's not all warm and fuzzy all the time. When he fights a nap or when he throws a tantrum because I won't let him bring his prized mop upstairs, it gets a little rough, but now I can handle it. He's finally instilled me with lots of patience and given me many experiences to make me the mom I am now. I'm more able to go with the flow and not resent the fact that my life has been taken over by a 25-lb human. I'm not jealous of John "getting" to go to work every day and escape the house. I feel like I can (usually) fill our days with meaningful and somewhat productive activities and not just kill time until I get to go to bed. There are still days when I long for a classroom, to teach a subject that I love, and to eat lunch in peace, but I think that's part of being a stay-at-home-mom.

For the first time ever, while I rocked my sleeping toddler, I came to terms with being a full-time mom  and was actually happy about it.

10 Things for a Toddler Mom

I guess Johnny's only officially been a toddler for, what? Two months? Despite the short time frame, I already have a list of items that I find invaluable as the mother of a mobile child. They are (in order from least to most important):

10. An easy-to-lug-around diaper bag - I use a backpack. When you're carrying a screaming toddler away from the park, the last thing you want to do is juggle him and your diaper bag. My backpack stays in place on my back with little effort. LOVE.

9. Leap Frog's Scout toy - Johnny freaking loves this thing. It goes in his crib now and plays ten minutes of bedtime music when he gets ready to go to bed. If he's not quite tired enough to fall asleep or if he wakes up early in the morning, he'll sit and play with Scout until he gets sleepy and passes out. This was a gift from Grandpa and Grams Mitchell and it has been AWESOME.

8. Super Baby Foods book - This book became my bible when Johnny started on solids. It was great because it had a list of foods to try at each month of age (should be approved by your pediatrician, of course), an index of how to cook various foods, snack and recipe ideas. Now that Johnny's getting a little picky about foods, I can just open up this book, find a recipe to try and see how it goes. Everything in here is natural and pretty easy to make and I could not live without it.

7. Vita-Mix blender - I use it twice a day. That's how much I enjoy it. Seriously, getting Johnny his necessary servings of fruits and veggies has been made so much easier by this fabulous invention.

6. Munchkin snack catchers - Johnny figured out how to use his before he was one year old and it made traveling in the car and walking around the grocery store so much easier.

5. A car seat with cup holders - This is not something I was looking for in a car seat until my mom pointed one out at Babies R' Us and mentioned that it would be great for a toddler. At the time I didn't understand the value of cup holders since I had a 7-month-old who couldn't hold much in one hand or the other. Now, however, I find them exceedingly convenient. Sippy cups, snack holders, toys, etc all go in the cup holders and they turn a trip to the grocery store into a delightful 10 minutes of solace since Johnny has something to do.

4. Magnetic tot locks - After Johnny figured out our original locking mechanisms, we had to find an alternative for the cupboards in our bathroom. We keep things like medicine, mouthwash, hydrogen peroxide, and nail polish in there and have no (convenient) way to store these things out of Johnny's reach. Enter the Tot Lock by Safety 1st. Now, no one can get into our bathroom cabinets unless you have the magnetic Tot Lock key in your possession. Granted, they were a little difficult to install, but totally worth it.

3. Playtex sippy cups with straws - When we started the whole sippy cup thing, Johnny could not get the hang of the ones with the spouts. I kept having to tip them up for him so that the liquid would flow into the spout and he could suck it out. Plus, he would get frustrated because the flow was really slow through the spout. These ones with the straw AND the handles? Are perfect. Except when he turns them upside down and shakes them to empty the contents on the floor. But that's not the sippy cup's fault.

2. Ziploc storage containers - I have a zillion of the small cup-sized ones because they are *perfect* for packing a toddler-sized serving of a snack. Plus, since they are so small, several of them can fit easily into my backpack (I mentioned that Johnny's getting a little picky, right?) and take up very little room in my pantry/refrigerator.  

1. Baby gates - And I mean the kind with a gate in the barrier. We have three (one at the top of the stairs, one at the bottom of the stairs, and one between the kitchen and the formal dining room) and I go through them a million times a day. If I had to step over each one (especially since I'm pregnant) I think I would have broken my neck by now.

Just the things I get a lot of use out of on a daily basis... even though I've only had a walking child for a few months.

Spring Break

Aunt Julie came to San Diego for her spring break and got to spend a little time with Johnny while she was here. Unfortunately I didn't take a lot of pictures even though there were many opportunities... I'm such a bad photographer. However, I got some really adorable ones of them reading and playing peek-a-boo through the sliding glass door. We miss you Auntie Julie!