Saved by the Beanbag

I can't believe it's been 1.5 months since I last wrote! There's been some drama with Baba G during that time, so I'll post about that today.

I'm gonna get you!

Shortly after my last entry in mid-April, Baba G started waking up in the middle of the night, screaming his head off and looking like he'd just seen a ghost. I mean, it was the freakiest thing ever. As soon as we'd hear him, we'd flip on the video monitor and see him bolt up in his crib and frantically run from side to side like he was desperate to escape. The good news was that within 5 minutes he'd drop back down onto the mattress and appeared to be sound asleep once more. I had been convinced it was "night terrors" (not the same thing as nightmares), but not everything fit that definition. He seemed too young, the episodes didn't last that long, they occurred later in his sleep cycle, and he WAS consolable. The first few times he did this, my husband rocked him for a bit, and that worked. With night terrors, he wouldn't have even recognized my husband, and nothing would've been able to calm him down.

We put three nightlights in his room, figuring that perhaps when he woke up and found himself in the pitch-blackness of his nursery, it was scary and he panicked. For one evening the soft lights seemed to distract him when he awoke and stood up. But after that night he went back to crying and crying.

This whole mysterious process went on every night like clockwork for a week or so, and then one evening I sensed something different about his wails. It just may have been the only moment in his 15 months with us so far that I truly felt some sort of "mother's intuition" kick in. So I told my husband to switch on the monitor again and after he did, he bolted out of the room without saying a word. Then I grabbed the monitor and saw that sure enough, BG had one leg over the railing and was about to flip out.

I could hear my husband running like hell through the condo to get to the nursery, and it was like I was watching BG in slow motion as he was dangling on the crib railing. I am not proud to admit that I let out a blood-curdling scream at that point ... but thankfully my husband got there in time. (The next morning I actually asked the neighbor two floors above us if I'd woken him up — that's how crazy my scream was. He claims he didn't hear a thing.)

The rest of that night none of us slept. My husband rocked BG for a few hours while my mind whirred about everything that could've gone wrong. Then I went to relieve my husband in the wee hours, and finally we put BG back in his crib and he decided to stay put. The next day we called the pediatrician.

Not Baba G, but I love this kid's face.

At his appointment it was revealed that he had a nasty ear infection in one ear, so of course my husband and I then felt terrible. We had just taken him in to get his ears checked less than a month prior, so I guess I didn't think that could've been the issue. He went on antibiotics for 10 days... and nothing got better. I mean, he didn't succeed in jumping out of his crib, but he did keep trying and he was still waking up screaming almost every night.

So we took him back to the pediatrician and now the infection was in both ears. WONDERFUL. They switched up his meds and we hoped for the best. By this time we'd also moved a big beanbag into the nursery and positioned it where we thought BG would fall, should that ever happen.

It's a BIG beanbag.

Fast-forward to a week ago. That night BG woke up screaming again, my husband turned on the monitor and bolted ... but this time he was too late. He found BG face-down on the beanbag. I didn't actually know this until about two hours later, because my husband had taken the video monitor with him (he didn't want to bust into the nursery if BG went quickly back to sleep on his own or was no longer trying to escape, and it's hard to know what's going on in there otherwise). When he had successfully put BG back down he told me what happened, and you can rest assured I didn't sleep at all the rest of that night. Again.

So last Saturday we went back to the pediatrician, assuming the ear infection was still raging in both ears. But it wasn't — everything had cleared up. I hope this doesn't sound awful, but in a way I'd almost wished that had been the answer. Now we just had to figure out why BG was trying to fling himself out of the crib.

That evening he slept through the night... but then on Sunday he did it again, this time landing on his back on the beanbag. This past week he's tried it one more time, and my husband used the microphone on the video monitor to holler "No-no! Go back to sleep!" while he was simultaneously running down the hall. It worked. BG snapped out of his hysteria, looked around his crib, found his stuffed monkey and snuggled down with him. Phew.

I feel like I need one of those signs factories have that say "We've gone X days without a safety incident!" We're at 5. Let's hope that number grows. I'd like to return to BG challenging us in other, less-injury-courting ways, like this:

Sure, I can feed myself.

Wish us luck, and have a great Memorial Day weekend!

- e

Baba G's Second Trip + More Travel Advice

I am pretty sure that every time we travel with Baba G, we're going to learn some lessons. But the thing with kids is that the lessons you learn can really only be used for a short period of time... or until/unless you have another kid.

What I mean is that I don't think many of the tricks that we used during our first and second trips with BG are going to be helpful for future vacations — as evidenced by the fact that his attitude toward traveling had already drastically changed on our most recent trip, even though he was only three months older.

In November and December, he was just learning to walk, and therefore was fairly content to chill in his car seat during the flight. He was still having bottles every four hours, and so it was easy enough to tweak his schedule so that we could give him a bottle to help pass the time and/or help his ears when it was time for takeoff. He was also easily entertained.

I'll be back with new and updated tips for flying with toddlers shortly, based on our trip to Arizona at the end of March. But for now I thought I'd share a few more lessons we learned during our second set of flights with BG in December. (Tips from our first flights with him are here.)

Once again, we had early-morning flights, and BG quickly fell back asleep once he was in the car to the airport. Both outside on the curb and in his car seat in the middle of the crowded terminal, he snoozed.


The ability to sleep in loud places is a skill I hope he maintains forever. Needless to say, he was a little groggy when we had to wake him up for the security line.

Not having it.

So... we flew on Christmas Day, because some friends told us it was a slow travel day.

WRONG.

It was perhaps the busiest I've seen the airport in a long time. Someone must have hired a Santa to go around and attempt to cheer people up, but Baba G let him know that he was NOT THE ONE.

What a face.

Nuh-uh.

We were on Southwest, and quickly cursed their "unassigned seat" system. Long story short, while other major airlines might have a "preboarding" option for families with small kids, Southwest attracts SO MANY FAMILIES that they reserve this particular cattle call until after a good chunk of passengers are already on board (families can board between groups A and B... but group A is pretty huge).

This STRESSED me and my husband out majorly, especially because we had bought a seat for Baba G and were hauling his heavy car seat around. I was worried we wouldn't find three seats together, and/or that we wouldn't find a window seat (car seats must be installed in window seats).

My worries were unfounded because we did find seats together and get settled in just fine, but the level of stress my husband and I experienced beforehand led us to pay additional charges during our trip last month in order to be guaranteed early boarding. It was worth it.

But back to the Christmas vacation. We once again brought some new toys, and hung one of them on his car seat bar. That kept him occupied for a little while. Lots of finger-food snacks were involved as well.

Hard to tell from this picture, but that thing is a little plane with spinny parts.

We had his soft yellow blanket on hand, and when he appeared to be getting sleepy, we just left him alone and then threaded an Aden & Anais swaddle blanket over his car seat bar to shield him a tad more from both light and noise. It worked!

We had a great trip and uneventful flights on the way back to Chicago, too. Probably because Baba G decided to forgo looking at the scenery in Phoenix and nap on the return ride to the airport instead.

Our trip back to Phoenix over Easter didn't go QUITE so smoothly.

Details on that — as well as thoughts on what I think we should've done differently — very soon!

Baba G's First Flights + Travel Advice

As we're currently gearing up for a trip to Arizona to visit Baba G's grandparents and other relatives — plus go to a Cubs spring training game — I thought I'd write about what worked for us when we traveled with BG last year.

You might remember that our very first trip with him ended in disaster, with all of us catching some sort of awful stomach virus in the Dominican Republic. The good news, however, was that the flights to and from the Caribbean went smoothly. We changed planes in Atlanta both times, so he went on four flights in total for that trip.

We carried all of BG's stuff on-board, with toys/food/formula I thought we'd need during the flight in a big duffel bag that I kept under the seat in front of me for easy access. The picture below shows just some of these "essentials." (Those of you who've read my other blogs through the years might remember that my poor kitchen table is never clean. This is what it looked like while I was working on my book.)

Not even 1/4 of all of his stuff

We had to wake BG up around 5 a.m. to leave (he normally gets up between 7 and 7:30 a.m.), so he was pretty out of it once we got to O'Hare.

Welcome to your first security line!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here in Chicago, people go pretty nuts about St. Patrick's Day. You know, dyeing the river green and whatnot.

Even though Ireland is one of my favorite countries, I've never been that into the holiday. We did, however, have a "First St. Patrick's Day" outfit for Baba G last year when he was less than two months old (before I started this blog). So here is a blast from the past to wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Even got the green pacifier -- how ya like me now?

Shamrock Shake Shake Shake Your Booty!

For those of you who are going to be downing some green beer or green eggs and ham or whatever other weird things you eat and drink in honor of St. Pat, have fun and be safe!

Kid O Sorting Primary Colors - Rings

When Baba G was a newborn, I remember how hard it was for me to imagine him ever being able to move on his own. It seemed impossible that he would one day walk, much less crawl ... much less roll over.

Same thing went for his toys. I just couldn't picture the day when he'd understand how to match up shapes, stack blocks, or put things into containers. So when he received the Kid O Sorting Primary Colors - Rings for his first birthday, I thought, "He is NEVER going to actually stack those things."

And for a month, I was right. He had a blast throwing the rings all over the place, but stacking them onto their designated pegs wasn't gonna happen.

Until one day, he did it.

Slow and steady...

No big deal.

And from that point on, he would both throw the rings around the condo AND take a few precious moments to re-stack them.

I can do it without even looking!

And, of course, he would carry them around in his mouth, like he does with almost everything. He is part boy, part doggy. Thankfully this toy is free of all the toxins that are usually in plastics.

I swear the red ones taste better.

Here's a short video of Baba G in all of his stacking glory:


So the moral of today's post is that your kid IS going to learn to do things you can't imagine them ever being able to do when they are teeny babies. And no, it's not like I had no faith that BG was going to figure out how to do anything besides throw stuff, but it really was hard to envision nonetheless. It's easy to think every phase of development is going to last forever when you're in the thick of it.

The bottom line: Kid O is a really, really cool company that makes a ton of awesome stuff. (You can rest assured I'll be buying Baba G this Fox Wobble when it hits stores later this year.)

The Primary Colors Stacker - Rings is a great product that will help test your kid's patience (a good thing), build his fine motor skills and — eventually — teach him how to match up colors. Baba G hasn't gotten to that last part just yet, but hey, he's already come a long way in just a few weeks since he got this toy.

I personally love how bright the colors are and how simple and clean the design is. And as I mentioned above, the rings and base are BPA, phthalate and toxin-free.

Amazon sells the Rings (with a different, wooden base) for $15.30. The all-plastic version I have seems to go for around $19. 

"Catching Up" Guilt

I have a pretty bad memory, so I have no idea why this particular moment has stuck with me so vividly: it was the summer of 2006, and I was in a sort of lobby/holding-area room at the Chicago Board of Trade, awaiting my first interview with HR. There was a stack of magazines on a coffee table, and the one on top had a cover that screamed "Mommy Guilt."

I didn't understand what that phrase meant at the time. I don't think I even read the article, but there must have been something else on the cover that clued me into the phenomenon of hard-working, loving and responsible mothers who believe they're failing on multiple fronts. Now all I can figure is that my mind stored that memory away on purpose, because it knew that one day I would want to remember that I'm not alone in feeling this way.  

"Hey, 2013 self! It's me, your 2006 self. Don't you remember that I saw a magazine article about this? A cover story, no less! It is real — you're not the only one!"

To say I've been overwhelmed by the different types of guilt I've experienced these past 13 months is putting it lightly. So yep, I think I'm going to have to make this topic a regular column. Today I'll start with a kind of guilt that doesn't even have anything to do with failing as a parent, but rather failing as a friend/relative/confidante/message-responder/what-have-you.

A few months ago a friend who I worked with at the Board of Trade, as it were, called me because she had two job offers and wanted my take on the pros and cons of each. If there's one thing I'll admit to being good at, it's giving advice. (Ha! Doesn't everyone think that, though?) But seriously, I could be a life coach ... to everyone but myself.

Or at least there was a day in the not-so-distant past that I could have been a life coach, but not anymore. I didn't return my friend's call. Not when she first left me a message, or a few weeks later when she called (and emailed) again. After she accepted one of the positions we were finally able to meet up for breakfast, and I apologized. But I was frustrated with myself, because this wasn't the first friend who's wondered if I've dropped off the face of the earth.

I'm not going to say "I just don't have time," because that's the most annoying phrase ever, and technically I do have time. So if I'm being honest, I'll say, "I have ALWAYS hated talking on the phone, but since I've had Baba G that hatred has reached new levels. Unless it is an emergency, something for work, or my Grandma calling, I would rather not catch up via phone. Oh, and if you email me, Facebook-message me, text me or write me through Twitter, it'll still probably be a good long while before I respond to you. Sorry."

Yet THE GUILT I feel about this realization. THE GUILT. It is always, always there. Every second I am not doing something for work, spending time with Baba G or crossing a task off of my To Do list, I'm thinking, "Should I call X back? Should I check in with A, B, or C? Should I go through emails and other messages and reply to those that fell through the cracks? Does X hate me?"

This summer I finally made a concerted effort to stop worrying about those things. It took a delayed postpartum depression to make me wake up. I think the depression had its roots in my feeling like I just couldn't keep up with everything anymore. This is a nearly impossible thing for a Type A person to admit — that you can't "handle" something, much less everything. I'm also the kind of person who worries extensively about letting other people down. But I just had to stop. I stopped because I have learned there are feelings way worse than the guilt of failing your friends and relatives. And those feelings are extreme bitterness and resentment that result from using your precious few spare moments of the day to do something you really don't want to do because you'd really rather just completely turn off your brain and watch last night's Smash. Or skim Entertainment Weekly. Or spend 5 minutes scrolling through Facebook or Twitter. Or make a huge bowl of ice cream with berries on top (you know, to be healthy) and just sit in bed and eat it in silence.

My true friends and the people who really care about me will understand. Months might go by, but we'll pick up just where we left off like no time had passed. The others who might get upset or can't deal with my new communication methods and timeframes? Those people will probably fade out of my life. But if they made me feel bad about myself in the first place, then so be it.

Around the time my friend from the Board of Trade was facing her career dilemma, someone posted the article below on Facebook. This person doesn't have kids, but her sister does, and I can only assume she shared it as a sign of support and understanding. It made me feel worlds better, so in case it helps someone else, I'm continuing the share-fest!

I am not a stay-at-home mom (I work from home and have a nanny) and still feel the type of mental and physical exhaustion described above. So I think ALL moms feel this way, no matter what their overall situation is. And rest assured I'll cover "working-mom guilt" and "stay-at-home-mom guilt" in the future, because I am cursed with having both!

In the meantime, don't call me and I won't call you. Hee hee.

Onesie Extenders

One of my friends has three boys and generously passed along bins and bins and bins of beautiful clothes for Baba G. When I was going through all of this loot a few months ago, I came across these little things and had NO IDEA what they were.

Now tell me truly, if you hadn't read the title of this post, would YOU know what these white squares with snaps were for?

My best guess was that they were some sort of toddler cufflinks. I'm not lying.

But then two days ago it hit me after I came across them again. They're onesie extenders. I should've immediately known this, because they're very similar to the bra extenders I bought while pregnant:

Why does this skinny chick need a bra extender, pray tell?

I wish I had realized I had extenders in the house when BG's dad brought him home this ill-fitting souvenir from the Big Apple back in April:

That's one deep V

The bottom line: If you're like me, basic oneies are a staple in your kid's wardrobe. And if your kid is like Baba G (tall for his age, or simply just growing like gangbusters), it's nice to have a way to lengthen the lifespan of those onesies. Enter onesie/garment extenders, which can be purchased in multi-packs and also seem to be made in different sizes.

How many people knew about these already? Or how did you come to learn they existed? If it wasn't for my friend's loot, I still wouldn't know.