Gardening and bread making

9/30/08: We are having a great day so far today- so much so that I felt compelled to sit down and make a note of it.

I tore out my tomato plants this morning before the sun peeked out over the roof of our house. I was able to shove most of them in the composter. After tearing out the tomato plants I found my forgotten bell pepper plant, which is finally beginning to produce. I’m hoping it will thrive now without having to compete for sun and water and we’ll have a late bell pepper harvest. For our winter garden we are going to plant beans, spinach and onions. I bought organic seeds from Henry’s yesterday. I’m going to start them in a biodegradable egg carton so I wont have to transplant them. I kinda feel like I need another raised bed, but where would I put it? Ah well, one season at a time. Miles helped mix the worm castings and bloodmeal into the soil and got good and filthy. I had to squirt him down with the hose. Despite the chilly morning air, he loved it and we ran around the yard screeching and laughing.

Then we went inside and began the bread making. I have a recipe for Tassajara Yeasted Bread from last months Yoga Journal Magazine. Miles stood on his kitchen stool and helped spoon flour into the measuring cups and would sprinkle the flour in the bowl as I stirred. He slept through the initial kneading but when he wakes it’ll be time to knead and separate and get ready to bake. I’m bringing this bread along with a carrot butternut squash soup over to a friend’s house for an early supper. I hope it all turns out since I’ve never made either before!

I’m still crocheting my “Punk Bunny” for Miles, It’s a pretty slow going thing. I think he’ll love it when it’s done though. And I managed to get a painting finished for my friends birthday. So all in all things are good on the creative front.

More Baby Sign

Signing with Miles has helped us tremendously. He can only speak a few words, but can sign a great many! He started by signing “more” as “I want that” and “milk” meaning nursing then we were stuck- until we took Sign 4 Baby class. Then we had a sign explosion! It really helped me get in tune to what interested him. His first signs were helicopter, airplane and motorcycle. Then he moved on to some more useful signs like cookie, cracker, cheese, down, eat, finished, pear, mom, dad, butterfly, spider, dog, duck, hug, please, and thank you. I’m sure there’s a bunch I’m forgetting. Before we took the class he clapped by hitting his arm instead of hand to hand. Then with the added hand eye coordination that I believe he received from this class, he finally got it and learned to clap like his peers. All these signs help us get some insight into what he is thinking as at 20 months old he only says a few words clearly. We’re at the point now where he can focus on me when I show him a sign and try to copy it. Now we can avoid tantrums by asking him to use his hands to tell us what he wants/needs. Also he understands much more signs than he can actually do so I can talk to him without voicing- like if we are in the library I can tell him we’re going to change his diaper soon without letting the whole place know about it and he shows he understands by running away!

We mostly use sign for mealtimes where he can tell me if he’s finished or if he wants more and what he wants more of. That’s super helpful and avoids a lot of food tossing. We also use sign to help him express his interests in locomotives and animals/insects. He loves telling me when he spots a spider web by signing spider and pointing. Or can tell me when he hears a helicopter flying by. You can see the excitement on his face that he can say words he would have difficulty pronouncing at this age- and I love knowing what he’s thinking. I also love knowing that he’s learning another language that we can expand upon as he grows and he can be bilingual to a certain degree. And of course it’s super cute to watch him sign thank you to his grandma when she’s offered him something! Now that is priceless!

Pumpkin Decorating

9/23/08: We had a busy week full of fun stuff. We finally cut some of the pumpkins off the vine and had a decorating party with a couple friends, Lauren and Dylan. It was a ton of fun. I think the kids really had a good time getting all messy.
Then we hosed them down and went out for Pizza at San Fillipos in La Mesa. That place is cool ‘cause they give the kids pizza dough to play with- and the food is consistently great!


Keith, Miles and I went wandering OB over the weekend. We packed a lunch to eat on the pier and then went for ice cream after hitting up all the shops.

We stopped in at the Children’s museum too. Can’t go wrong there. Miles favorite is the bubble installation. Always a hit!

Co-sleeping Changes

9/12/08: I put Miles crib back together in our room and we are helping him learn to sleep in there. He is taking to it well- the hard part is getting him to go back down in the middle of the night. That's been a bit of a battle. But I think with some persistence and consistency he will start to like it more. I think he's sleeping better since not being next to the boob all night. He's almost 20 months! I think it's time to start to wean at night at least. It's a hard sell to him, but he'll get used to it. Can't wait to sleep all night! The other night he did sleep for a full 10 hours! Last night for 9 hours! But he goes to sleep so early that it doesn't help me much. If I put him to bed later he still gets up early so he just gets less sleep. I tried that.

Last night he woke at 2am and I nursed him in the rocking chair for 15 minutes and put him back in the crib. He was okay for a minute or two and then started to cry and stood up. So I woke up Keith and when he saw his Daddy coming for him he started to screech and wail. Keith took him in the other room and changed his diaper and got him some water at my request. The whole time I could hear the screaming (the neighbors probably could too) Finally after hearing a few loud bangs and more screeching I went out to the kitchen to see the problem. Miles would throw any cup Keith gave him so the floor was all wet and Miles was on the ground crying while Keith was mopping up the floor. He took it like a pro and was very calm. I picked up Miles and he went quiet except for little gasps and choking sobs. Keith looked at him and was astonished how calm he was. I took him into the bedroom and gave him a fresh sippy cup and put him in his crib. He started to cry and thrash so I leaned over the crib rail and sang our song really loud so he could hear it over the crying and rubbed his back. He clutched his sippy and his elephant and calmed down. He turned on his back so he could see me and I sang more softly and stroked his hair and forehead. He calmed after just a few minutes of this and I was able to go to bed (next to him). I could hear him kicking the mattress for a while but he was able to know he was safe, mommy is always there and put himself back to sleep. I don’t think he would have been ready for this at any younger of an age. But I do think he’s ready now and I think it’s important. If he wakes at 5am or later I bring him in to bed with me for some cuddle/nursing time.

So that’s a little peek into our new co-sleeping arrangement. I think it’s worth the work. It’s always hard to make a change. But without change it’s hard to grow. Miles is learning that I’m always nearby and even if he’s feels like he’s alone, he’s with me. I am still meeting his needs- especially the need for a good night’s sleep. He’s old enough to understand when I say “Mommy goes night night, Daddy goes night night, Andy goes night night, Num Nums go night night and Miles goes Night Night.” I’m happy with the change. And I’m happy Keith is willing to try to help, even with disastrous results. Last night he asked why he even tries and I told him he does it because I appreciate his effort. How would we know that it wouldn’t work if he didn’t try? I can’t be a sleep time martyr. I’m no hero! Just a Mom. The picture you see in this post is a totally random but oh so cute picture of Miles with a swim diaper on his head, we needed a good use for them, right?

One more thing, Miles signs "ball", and "ceiling fan" too- He can say ball. But when he says ceiling fan it sounds like "Kung Pow!" So a sign is helpful! ha! He's learning a new sign every day or so- hard to keep up! Oh and he said "cheese" today- the actual word. Yay!

Pumpkin update and spider friends

Here are a few new pictures of our amazing pumpkins- and our friend that lives with the tomato plants.

Baby sign language explosion.

9/10/08: The other day Miles "said" his first sign sentence, “Eat food please, yum.” I was pretty excited because he’d never done the sign for eat before. Today at breakfast he would copy just about any sign I would give him, He signed cracker, more (properly), cheese, and fish, all in one setting. Wow! That’s quite a language explosion for breakfast! He would point to something and look at me and I would give him the sign and he would copy most of them. That’s pretty cool!
By the way- we take Baby Sign classes at Java Mama with Signs 4 Baby. Joann Wooley is great! http://www.sign4baby.com

New Co-sleeping Arrangements

9/6/08: Ack what happened to summer! I can’t even believe it’s already September.

Miles is 19 months and 4 weeks. He is talking up a storm! Most of it is fairly unintelligible, but he’ll have a whole conversation with you if you can decipher the general topic by his signing and gesturing. He still can sign much more than he is vocalizing. All this makes him really fun to have around. He’s also a little bit better at independent play.

We had to put the crib back together, but we are compromising and we put it in our room next to our bed. We did this because Miles was waking at 3:30am every morning and wanting to get out of bed. I think I was waking him with my movement and then nursing him doesn’t really get him back to sleep. So after many sleep disrupted nights and sore boobs from nursing for hours, we decided this was best for our family. Miles has taken to it very well. But I think he’ll probably be able to crawl out of it soon. I already have a plan for that. I’m going to take of the front rail and put a bed rail on the crib so he can get in and out by himself. Hopefully this won't lead to more midnight roaming. But so far I don’t ever leave him in there awake anyway- it’s really just so my movement won’t wake him. So, Yay! He slept all the way trough ‘til 5am this morning, then was in our bed until 6 when we finally got up. I think this will be a good transition into his own room eventually. Just a little independence.