Sunday, October 31, 2010

Quiet Mornings


You will NEVER hear us complain about how Kaylani sleeps at night. EVER. In fact, we don't complain so much that it bothers some people. For as far back as I can remember, Kaylani has slept around 12 hours a night, and that's a GREAT thing. Well, at least we thought she was sleeping for 12 hours.

Most nights, Kaylani is in bed by 7:30pm, and asleep by 7:45pm. And most mornings when I wake up at 6:45am, she's still asleep. Then finally, around 7:15am, she's awake in her crib, which according to Mommy, is because I woke her up while I was showering. On days when I go to the gym much earlier, she sleeps in a little bit until 7:30am or so before she wakes Mommy up. And on weekends, when we're fortunate enough to not have anything to wake up for, we've slept in until 8am or even 8:30am. But somedays, like today, she wakes up at 6:15am, but is back down at 7am, awake again at 7:15am, but back down again at 7:30am. So the question is, what time does Kaylani wake up, and what does she do?

During the week, its easy to say that Kaylani seems to wake up between 6:45am and 7:15am. Since that's 5 days of the week, you'd think that she wakes up at that time on Saturday and Sunday too since I don't think she has concept of weekdays vs weekends yet. Some days, I've seen her asleep still at 7:30 or later (especially on days I have to leave for work early), so its not consistently the same time. But one thing we have noticed is that there are definitely days when she wakes up and sits there. Quietly. By herself. The scary thing is that we have no idea for how long.

We have a video monitor and a sound activated audio monitor in her room. In the mornings, the audio monitor rarely goes off, which means either she's not talking, or its not picking things up. Since it works fine when we test it, its not the latter, so we can fairly confidently say she's just not talking. So that leaves the video monitor. On the mornings we wake up on our own, looking at the video monitor always surprises us because she doesn't move much, at least not enough to be picked up by the camera.

When we look closely, she's typically laying there playing with her belly button, or sitting there staring out into her room. A few days ago, she was laying there and said "I see green light" to me when I finally went to get her (which means she was staring at the camera which has a green light on it). Other days, I'll walk in and she'll just stare through her crib at me and smile until I come closer. And then other days she'll proclaim that she's still sleeping, or that Grover/Telly/other animals in her bed are still sleeping. And on some days, she'll stand up and start clapping and proudly announce (and show) that her socks are on her hands (which is pretty impressive when I think back to the struggles of trying to put mittens on by myself as a child).

What's all of this mean? It means that our little girl is quite easily self entertained, but that doesn't stop us from feeling guilty for leaving her to her own devices for who knows how long. It also means she may not be sleeping for 12 hours since she could be doing all of this in the middle of the night too. Most importantly, it means that we're used to Kaylani being in her crib for 12 hours a night which allows us to watch TV, sleep, etc. And its that last part that might come back to bite us some day. But for now, we'll take what we can get because the way it is now means we're all happy, and we've got no guilt about that.

Speaking of happy, check out new pictures I posted in Kaylani's album. They're from the past month, and include a sneak peak at her Halloween costume. More to come from that! Happy Halloween!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Our Little Munchkin


The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Completely true in my case. The way to a little baby's heart? Not entirely that far off, at least not for Kaylani.

Our little munchkin has been eating solid food for a long time now (which means more than half her life). And while there are some foods she likes (pasta, mac and cheese, french fries), there's only one that gets you straight to her heart: Munchkins. Maybe its the fact that she only gets one every now and then (or more likely the fact that they're made of pure sugar), but every time she has one, she's happy as can be.

The good thing about munchkins are that they're free...if you have a cute little girl with you at least. And if that same cute girl says "munchkin please" (albeit quietly most of the time because she's "so shy"), you sometimes get 2 munchkins. Actually, maybe that's the bad thing about them, or at least part of the bad thing. They're so addicting/good that Kaylani has learned that morning stops with Papa are usually to a place that carries munchkins. Ok, so its more like she knows first stop is always to Dunkin Donuts, so much so that she even recognizes the logo and/or the location (either that or she can read). So who am I to say no to her when she screams from the car "Dunkin Donuts! Papa coffee. Munchkin please!"

Since Kaylani is still teetering between single and double digit weight percentiles, a munchkin here or there is probably a good thing. A little extra weight couldn't hurt, and really, how bad could a lot of extra sugar really be for you anyways? For right now, I don't mind it so much. If it keeps her happy, then it keeps me happy. Plus, its damn cute to watch her ask for and then eat it too. And as an added bonus, any time she gets 2, one is always "for Papa." So for now, its munchkins for both of us, and at the same time, its going straight to our hearts.

Friday, October 15, 2010

School is Cool!

Obviously Kaylani is going to go in and out of a ton of phases in her life. In fact, just last week, she was in an "eat everything" phase, and as quickly as yesterday, she was back to her "all done no mama/papa" eating phase. Well one phase we hope she never gets out of is her "I like school" phase.

Monday will mark Kaylani's first day at a new school. For those of you following, you're probably confused since Kaylani was supposed to start school almost a month ago, but that's a story for another day (sidenote: for those living in the Mercer County area, do NOT send your child to The Learning Experience in Pennington). Anyways, Kaylani will go to school on Monday, which means we'll finally stop feeling bad every time she says "Kaylani go to school and see friends" or "Kaylani say hi friends!"

Its amazing how much Kaylani has learned from school. We're convinced she wouldn't be as social as she is right now had she never gone, and she might not even be talking as much as she is now if not for school. But regardless of how much she's learning, or how social she's becoming, or how often she might get sick (since schools are like "giant petri dishes of bacteria" according to Bat Bat), the most important thing is she likes it and she has fun.

Her new school is only a few minutes from home, and with my new longer commute to work, I probably won't get to take her there (or pick her up) very often. But the times I do, I'm looking forward to singing our school song together again! It goes something like this (and was stolen directly from Sid the Science Kid):

Me: I love my...
K: Papa!
Me: He is so...
K: Cool!
Me: But now its...
K: Time...
Me: To have fun at...
K: School!

Now that its Mama's turn to take her to school, we'll see how quickly the song gets turned back into the actual version from Sid with Mama in there instead of Papa. I've got a feeling that Kaylani won't give in too easily, but even if she does, school will still be cool which is all that matters!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Home Away From Home

I used to get yelled at when I would call my hotel "home" when I was traveling, and I never really understood why. To me, "home" was where I was staying that night. "Home" was where I was when I wasn't at work. "Home" was where my stuff was and where I could catch a few hours of sleep. But now that I'm not a single traveling consultant anymore, my outlook on "home" has definitely changed.

Last week, Mommy and I went to Dallas for Jay and Ashley's wedding. When they first got engaged, our original plan was to bring Kaylani with us. But as things developed, that plan changed. For one, the wedding was at 7pm, which is right around her bedtime. Then, add in the small hotel room, the fact that there was a pool that Kaylani would have constantly wanted to be in, and of course the plane rides, and you get enough to make us sway on that decision. Throw in the part where we haven't had a weeked alone in 2 years, and then you understand why. But what was the real deciding factor was having Yin Yin and Yea Yea move 20 minutes away from us.

3 months ago, when Yin Yin and Yea Yea first decided to move down to central NJ, we were ecstatic because it meant we would have family nearby. We would have someone that we knew we could count on no matter what (in addition to our friends). We would be able to spend more time with them than just the hectic, packed visits to Boston 2 to 3 times/year (plus visits to NJ). But most importantly, Kaylani would get to spend more time with them on a regular basis, and have another place she could call "home."

Sure Mommy and I have loved having them here so we can sneak away for dinner, or for the night, or just have them help out during the day so we can take a break every now and then (or not cook dinner), but Kaylani is the one who really loves it. Its rare that a day goes by without her saying "I'm going Yin Yin Yea Yea house!" or "I play with Yin Yin Yea Yea" or "I see Emma" (which is the name of a doll we leave at their house). And if you didn't want to believe just what she says (which is a good idea since she makes stuff up a lot), you'd believe it just by seeing how happy she is when she's with them.

When we left her there Wednesday night (we flew out early Thursday morning), she said "Bye mama! Bye Papa! Mama Papa go to Dallas! Kaylani stay at Yin Yin Yea Yea home. Yes." There was no crying. No screaming. No protest. Maybe a little crying from Mommy since it was only the second time she was leaving her for more than 48 hours (and the first time was just to NYC), but for the most part, all was okay. And for the next 3 days, we talked to her on the phone to say hi and again to say good night (as best we could with "hi mama, hi papa" being mixed in with "its raining," "I play with Emma" and "I jumping").

And if the updates that she went to sleep fine, and that she said "mama papa in Dallas" after she asked for us, and that she got to see Sesame Street Live with her cousins, and her general happy tone of voice wasn't enough, we knew Kaylani was at her home away from home when we picked her up and got ready to leave on Sunday. We asked her if she was ready to go home, and she said "I want to stay at Yin Yin Yea Yea home!" Sure she finally came around and came with us, but from now on, she might as well just call both places "home," because in my book, "home" is now where you're surrounded by people you love and people who love you. And that's definitely both our home, and Yin Yin and Yea Yea's home.