Elias' Favorite: Music Time

Elias is almost 20 months old and LOVES to sing songs and dance. At daycare, his providers J and K say he LOVES music time. Some favorites moments, songs and dances include:

• Before age 1, he loved to listen to us sing or play: Baby Beluga and Wheels on the Bus
• Today, Elias' number one request is "E-I-E-I-O" (which for the longest time he called "EEYahYo"). This request has many meanings and interpretations such as:
• Show me videos of nursery rhymes/songs on YouTube on your phone (he asks anyone he knows has a phone, especially Grandpa!)
• Play kids music (Raffi, etc)
• Play the song "Old McDonald"
• Sing "Old McDonald"
• He requests "Row Row" AKA Row, Row, Row your boat. He especially loves the second verse: "when you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream" which is when he likes to let out a scream. Though sometimes he screams after the first verse too. It varies.
• He can sing the WHOLE happy birthday song by himself and often sings it in the car or when he's falling asleep
• He can sing all of "Twinkle Twinkle" in key. He gets that from his dad! 
• He can sing the whole alphabet song!!! This was his FIRST favorite song. When he started at daycare, he loved having me or J&K point to the letters on a banner as we sang the song multiple times in a row. We immediately purchased an alphabet banner that we hung in the playroom.
• Loves to dance to "Let it Go" (with a twirl with hands above his head) from the Disney movie Frozen. He learned this from the older girls at daycare and is too young to think this is girly.
• Loves "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" but mostly touches his toes. 
• Has been requesting "Rosey, Ashes" AKA "Ring Around the Rosey" all weekend recently (did you know: this song is about the Black Plague!)
• Has specific dances for his musical toys:
• Loves to flip the "light" on his table toy to play a song "turn the light on and off, and the switch goes up and down ...." as he does a specific stomping dance
• Loves to sway dance to the alphabet song on his table toy
• Loves to play his piano and xylophone
• Loves the "Cocomelon" (ABCKidsTV) and "SuperSimpleSongs" channels on YouTube

 Elias and his piano at 15 months

Elias with his Great-Grandmother, Grammy, playing piano at 17 months

Elias' favorite books, birth to 20 months

Elias LOVES books! When he was less than one year old, he loved to carry his books around between his room and the living room, and chew the pages and spines. We gave him access to board books only because he was too rough with the pages of other books. You can tell which books were his favorites based on the wear of the pages and spine.

At around age 1, he was interested in reading only his favorite books:

• Pom Pom Panda Get the Grumps (he is still obsessed with this book a year later! He loves the page that says "GO AWAY!")
• Pout Pout Fish
• Dear Zoo
• Five Little Monkeys
• B is for Bear
• Touch and Feel Pets
• Touch and Feel Farm

Since he started daycare at age 13 months, his focus on books improved, and he was more willing to branch out to new books. Credit to story time at daycare! Then at around 18 months he started to LOVE listening to stories, especially at bedtime. It was around this time that we allowed him to read/play with some non-board books too. He still loves to play with his books, pretend read them upside down, and carry them between his room and the living room. The living room always winds up with a huge pile of books that I bring back to his room. He now begs for us to read him more books (probably because he doesn't want to go to bed). There are few books he doesn't like. His favorites include:

• all the above
• Good Night Moon (he was obsessed with this book for a while and it became a nightly staple)
• Touch and Feel Halloween (he loves the "sticky" page)
• Where is Baby's Belly Button 
• Baby Faces
• Growl Growl
• Good Morning, Good Night
• Bedtime Peekaboo
• Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings (he LOVES ducks and animals in general)
• The Little Engine that Could
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear
• The Hungry Caterpillar
• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom 
• Hello World! Weather
• Doggies 
• Moo Baa Lalala 
• The Busy Spider
• Animal Tales

Elias at 17 months with his favorite book

Was it a stomach bug?

Elias threw up for the first time last night. He's had a cough and no fever for the last 2 weeks. For young kids like him (almost 18 months) you are not allowed to give cough medicine, so we were just hoping and waiting for the cough to go away. But it didn't. Instead, it was getting worse because it bothered him more and more at night. So much that's he'd wake and cry, and yesterday he even had trouble falling asleep.

Instead of traditional cough syrup there is a natural children's brand called Zarbees. It's made with agave for babies under 1 and honey for children over age 1 (kids under age 1 cannot have honey because of a risk of botulism), and other herbs. We ran out for his stuff at bedtime and he only got half a serving. We didn't go to get any right away thinking we'd be fine if my husband got it during lunch the next day.

But Elias had a different plan. He couldn't fall asleep and kept coughing and stirring and crying on and off. We didn't know what to do. We went into his room and gave him warm water with honey, but he didn't want it. Then I tried mixing breastmilk with regular milk. He also didn't want it. At that point it was 10:30pm. My husband left for CVS and I cuddled with Elias in his rocking chair, the whole time thinking how are we going to manage to give him this herbal "medicine" he hates! He hates all medicine, actually, and it's quite a feat to get him to take any. I ordered a sippy cup that allows you to add medicine to a hidden compartment and squeeze packets of the Zarbees anticipating this, but those weren't set to arrive until Friday evening, two nights away!

We gave him his medicine in a huge bout of resistance where I held down his arms and legs with him on my lap and my husband holding the syringe. Then we held him down on the changing table while we worked as a team to saline and nose frida him. I went to bed just as Zoe was waking likely because of all the commotion (crying). We felt so bad. He had coughed so hard after the medicine and barely drank any of his milk or warm water.

Then things got interesting around 2am when he let out a cry and my husband discovered he had thrown up. He changed him and asked for my help cleaning up the sheets. I changed them and scrubbed the bed and surrounding floor, all the while thinking "OMG how gross..." And "should I be using bleach? Is this the stomach bug norovirus I had just read about?". I knew I needed to help, but I was worried I'd get Zoe sick because of how contagious the stomach bug is. And by that time it was too late to grab gloves so I resorted to washing my hands with all types of soap probably a million times, changed my clothes and washed my face before going back to our bedroom, not sure if any of this would even work to combat a stomach bug.

Elias was a much happier boy come the morning, and even had an appetite. He hadn't throw up since 3am. He and my husband barely slept throughout the night.

Today the doctor said it was likely a mucus throw up because the mucus had no where to go other than up and food came up with it. But of course they said it could also be a 24 hour stomach bug! So far, my husband nor I have had any symptoms. We hope it stays that way! We really don't want Zoe to get it!!

Adding to the chaos, Elias had to stay home from daycare and my husband had a crazy busy day working from home, so we had no choice but to have me and Zoe out in the main area while Elias played.

This all got me thinking, how do you manage to be so sterile with a stomach bug in your house when there are two kids to attend to, clean up after and ensure they don't breathe the smell of Clorox wipes? Ahh... We were so disorganized and I made so many mistakes not even thinking at first, just reacting. How will we deal with the real stomach bug in the future?

Back at work

Last Monday was my first day back at work since having Zoe. I decided to go back 4 weeks early because the co-worker who filled-in for my role left the company. I didn't have to go back. In fact, I contacted my supervisor. I was offered a work from home all week option until the new year (then I would continue my 2 day/week work from home schedule), and we could use the money because I was not getting paid and we wanted to buy a new car.

I pulled the trigger by calling my supervisor the week before when I was half sure I even wanted to clog up my already busy and comfortable day. But I knew starting Thanksgiving week would be the most ideal. After all, I'd get a paid holiday and a pretty easy week.

The first day back wasn't bad. Except that I found out all the October things weren't done! I needed to produce a few reports and update lots of documentation. There was no real deadline, but I knew our client wouldn't be happy the longer it lapsed.

Working at home with a baby is tough. It's one big juggling act! Though I have some help, largely I am taking every precious minute of her 15 minute naps to make a quick call or update something. When I am feeding her, I am emailing using voice typing. Even that feature, though very convenient, gets annoying when Google doesn't understand you or you get cut off because you've reached the character limit!

And the crying is the worst. When you're rocking her in her carrier while trying to respond to an urgent email saying "Give mama just one more minute." Or during ill-timed conference calls when it's your turn to speak and you're running back and forth between two rooms because you don't want anyone to hear your baby crying. Ackkkk! It's during these times that I feel like the worst mother ever.

And then there are the successes. Of feeding her while on a call and her not making any noise. Or the success of finishing something just as she wakes from a nap or right before she melts down in her chair, mat, or carrier. Or seeing her smiley face as you work, and getting to smile and talk to her. It's these moments that make working from home worth it!

I experienced a lot of these moments over the last week. But many of these moments are also reminiscent of the work from home days when I took care of Elias before he started daycare at 13 months.

My Non-Nappers

The one thing I remember, though vaguely, about Elias' early months is that he did not nap. Yes, you read that right, my son did not nap between 2 and 4 months. Yes, he fell asleep while eating and I'd let him lay there (after burping him), or he'd fall asleep in the carrier as I was doing something, but neither of these types of naps lasted more than 30 minutes. When I tried to feed him and then lay him in the crib, he'd wake just as I laid him down, or 5 minutes later when I got to the kitchen for breakfast/lunch/snack. I went back and rocked him again. And then again. And then again. And then it was time for him to eat because it had been 3 hours since he last started eating.

At about 4 months, I worked really hard to get him to sleep after his lunch feeding. He'd sleep for 45 minutes which turned into an hour then 1.5 hours and eventually he was sleeping 2 or more hours. When I was pregnant with Zoe, I counted down the minutes to this nap because I also wanted to nap. If he woke early, I'd say "sleepy for Mama" through the monitor. If I said it after his first few cries, before he fully woke, he'd go back to sleep and I got more sleep!

Well, Zoe is the same way. As soon as she learned to differentiate day from night, she took the sleeping at night thing too seriously, only sleeping at night. Sometimes I'd spend most of the day rocking her, and she'd fail to sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time. Yes, I prefer her sleeping at night because this means I get sleep during normal sleep hours, but it does make the day so draining. Especially those days after nights when I had trouble falling asleep after laying her down, or when she's woken up multiple times instead of her one wake between 2 and 3am.

Now that she's two months old, my routine is:

First I see when she wakes in the morning. If it's before 7am, I have a CHANCE at getting her to go back to sleep for another solid hour.

If she doesn't go back to sleep, I usually hang out with her, pump, have breakfast, then feed her when she's sleepy and lay her down. Sometimes she falls asleep, and if she does it's only for 30 minutes. At this time I eat lunch, or shower.

The next available time for a nap is after she eats at 12pm. Usually she'll sleep 30 minutes, but by the time I rock her enough times to do this, it's usually 2pm.

From that point, I put her in the carrier and she naps maybe once more between 3 and 4pm, or if the weather is nice and not cold, we go for a walk. During a walk she will nap for one or more hours. This is the best scenario!

Her last breast feeding is at 5pm. She's usually cranky from 5:30pm to 6pm and falling asleep on our shoulders as I get her milk ready. We feed her a 6oz bottle of breast milk at her 6pm bedtime so that my husband and I can alternate which child we put to bed. She's usually sleeping by 8pm.