Becoming A Dad

Today Juliette turned two!

She woke up around 7 :30 this morning and our first task was to get her breakfast and dressed as we knew that once she got her presents it would be game-over for trying to pry her away from them. So she had her usual meal of Cheerios with milk and a bit of porridge before she got to open her first card from Grandma and Grandpa in Canada.

This card held a packet of balloons, so I blew two of them up (she actually was in a bit of a grumpy mood this morning as she’s been sick for the past week. She started crying, so the balloons did the trick of calming her down). She was very pleased with these two balloons.

We had intended on surprising her with the big present, but she decided on her own to run into the extra bedroom where we’d hidden it – ESP or what? Where of course she discovered the surprise.

For her birthday present, we gave her a nice Peppa Pig tricycle – more of a push-ride than a tricycle really. It’s got pedals on the front wheel but also footrests below the seat, and comes with a removable handle that Becoming-A-Mom or I can use to push it along.

Juliette loves it. She’s not quite clear on the whole concept of steering, so we have to help her which makes the whole handle thing a bit moot as we still have to bend over to hold the handlebars and steer. But she seems to be getting the idea, at least this evening when I was pushing her around the apartment.

At first she was happier to see her mylar helium balloon that she’d got yesterday, but then she looked and saw the Peppa Pig stickers on the tricycle and started to get excited about the tricycle. We sat her on it and took many photos – her legs are a bit short to reach the pedals fully, so after the photo session I adjusted the seat a bit lower to see if that would help. It did a bit, but she still needs to grown another inch or so.

Juliette's Second Birthday present

I then headed off to work, with Juliette and Becoming-A-Mom going for an early morning walk/ride on the new tricycle.

This evening when I got home we opened more of her birthday cards and presents, then gave her a couple more presents from us (a book and a wooden puzzle toy). After Becoming-A-Mom walked over to the pile of letters and gave one to her to open, she realized right away that the pile was for her. She tore open the first letter and glanced at the card (unimpressed!), then got up and helped herself to the next one. She brought that over to us and sat down to open it – looked at the contents, handed it to us and then went to get the next present! This continued until all the letters and parcels were done. The funniest part about this is that she seemed much more interested in tearing open the letters and packets than what they contained. Once it was opened she seemed disappointed (“What? Only this?”) and she hurried off to get the next.

After all the letters were opened she wanted to be pushed around on her tricycle some more and had to have her balloons nearby.

For dinner she didn’t want to eat and was again in a bad mood, crying and fussing. She eventually drank some hot chocolate before Becoming-A-Mom pulled out the birthday cake with the Peppa Pig decoration and lit the candles. A short candle-blowing session ensued, followed by eating a bunch of the Smarties surrounding the cake but not the cake itself. We endured another grumpy session before I had the brainwave of giving her a plastic container and asking her to take the Smarties from around the cake and put them in it.

Blowing out the candles on her Peppa Pig cake

She is still getting over a fever and flu that she got on the weekend and it showed… she continued to be grumpy and fussy with periods of crying and screaming when we tried to get her ready for bed. But finally she was ready to go to sleep and she went to bed relatively quickly and easily.

So that was her second birthday. Looking back I have to say she’s changed a lot in just a year… and I’m sure she’s got more surprises in store for us this next year too.

Okay, after weeks (probably months) of trying to get Juliette to say “down please” when she wants out of her chair when she’s finished eating, she did it this morning!

Up until now she starts squirming and then screaming or crying as her signal she wants out. Every time before I had to ask her “do you want out?” and when she replied with either nods or “oui” then I’d explain to her, “you just need to say ‘down please!’ and we will know you want down.”

So this morning was a significant breakthrough – without squirming, screaming or any prodding from either of us parents, she stated very clearly “down please” and waited for me to set her free.

One small victory!

While I’m in the writing mood I should tell you that Juliette is now almost speaking. Well, she’s kind of been at that stage for a couple of weeks or more. She’s now repeating every word I say, more or less. Not always correctly, but surprisingly well.

She shocked me the other night when she was playing with her little plastic animals and she produced her lion and exclaimed “LI-ON!” proudly waving it in the air. Then she did the same for the cow, “COW!”

And then there’s other things, such as when she wants something to eat. She used to just start crying, but now she’s starting to ask. One of her common requests is “or-djew!” for orange juice. There are others but of course I can’t remember them right now.

She understands that she needs to use her words when she wants us to understand, and she’s good at using French with Mom and English with me. One of our games is her pulling out her toys or animals and saying them in French and then repeating what I say in English. I wish my French was as good as hers.

It’s been an enlightening and amazing experience being part of Juliette’s progression… I guess this is why people become parents.

The good news: Juliette slept through the night, from 8:30 pm right until 8:15 this morning. No crying or breakdowns wanting Becoming-A-Mom.

The bad news: I slept terribly, still feeling completely wired though I haven’t had any coffee or tea for 2 days. I woke every 2 hours and couldn’t fall back asleep for at least 30 minutes. Finally at 4:00 am I got up and read email and surfed the web trying to relax. It helped a bit, and I slept from about 5 to 7 am.

The worst news: I have realized that Becoming-A-Dad is a bit of a basket-case. Definitely not the self-sufficient tough-guy he had envisioned himself to be. I blame it all on having kids

Our day started well. I got up and had a shower while Juliette was still sleeping. At 8:15 I went in to her room to find her lying on her side looking at me, talking quietly to her toys. I got her dressed and fed her breakfast (porridge with raisins and some milk). Then we got ready to go out to a place called Imaginosity, a big indoor play facility with a variety of activities like shopping, working in a diner, big toy train track, cars to drive and roll down ramps, costumes and systems that allow you to see yourself on TV in various situations (reading the news, playing in a bad and so on) and more.

The drive normally takes 45-60 minutes during the week, so I left an hour before our appointment. Of course early Sunday morning there was zero traffic (a first for Dublin!) and we got there in 20 minutes. Lucky for me – there is a Starbucks right next door, so in there we went for a cup of coffee and a raisin danish while we waited.

Juliette had a wonderful time – we played shopping, sat in a Smart car and drove, played house, played in the kitchen of the diner, and she learned how to run little wooden trains along a track. Actually, she got quite upset with the little trains as they hold together by magnets, but of course if the magnets aren’t facing the right way they repel and won’t stick. That angered her immensely until I helped her. Then another little girl came along and this child’s parents took 2 of Juliette’s train cars away from her! She immediately started crying and screaming, and the other Mom reluctantly gave them back. I calmed Juliette down but was kind of pissed off. Who steals toys from toddlers?

After that Juliette started to get cranky, so we stopped in the cafe for a bit of fruit smoothie, then it was upstairs to the construction area. We played with balls dropping down a rain spout for a while, furnished a miniature house, then found this long plastic tube about 3″ in diameter which we talked back and forth to each other through.

She started to get tired and a bit impatient, so I took her to some of the other exhibits like the TV station and costumes, but she wasn’t interested. We went into a couple of little sets that were made up like a submarine and a rocketship and she enjoyed those. Then we went to the very top to see what was up there – a little outside patio that was closed until the spring. She got quite annoyed with me for some reason so I took her back down and we played for another 15 minutes before she collapsed into a heap of crying.

It was a bit of a show for the next 10 minutes, trying to get her into her jacket. I bought her a helium balloon which calmed her, and then we went outside into gale-force winds. The balloon survived, though Juliette was very upset with the wind blowing her balloon around. Into the car with a moderate amount of crying, then a treat to calm her down. About this time I was longing for another huge coffee…

We got home (she almost fell asleep during the trip but didn’t…) and had lunch. She was clearly tired but didn’t want to be put into her bed, and even after that she kept talking to her animals. I finally went in after 30 minutes and saw her sitting up. She looked really guilty and lay down and closed her eyes, making fake snoring noises.

An hour later she was still talking to her toys, but now calling for “Maman!” and “Kaka!”  I went in to her room to check and she hadn’t pooped, but wanted a hug. She then started asking for Becoming-A-Mom and started crying. We went to the other bedroom and got Becoming-A-Mom’s pajamas so Juliette could have them with her, but it still took another 25 minutes before she calmed down and stopped crying. I did the best I could (which wasn’t much) and in the end let her cry it out. She arranged her pillow between her tears then lay down with her sippy cup, stuffed rabbit and Becoming-A-Mom’s night shirt all in her arms, still sobbing a bit. I left her like that, nearly in tears myself.

She woke an hour later, still upset and crying. At a loss of what to do, I did what any good parent does: distract her from what was causing her pain. So we watched TV – Baby Einstein and then a few Peppa Pig episodes for good measure. I also made her some hot chocolate and we had a nice snack together.

Then it was time for her bath. She spent almost 45 minutes playing in the bath and another 15 pretending to sleep in our bed (we put her on our bed after bath to dress her, and the routine is pretty much the same…) before I was able to get her in her diaper and body suit. Dinner was a few minutes later – rice with peas cooked together, pork chop and broccoli – but she didn’t really eat much other than the peas she picked out of the rice.

She was pretty much back to normal after that and spent a lot of time running around in circles with a helium balloon that we got at Imaginosity. We sat and played a bit, then I let her watch a couple more Baby Einstein and Peppa Pig shows. Becoming-A-Mom phoned to say she was through immigration and on the way to get her baggage at the airport, so Juliette and I played a bit more. We made a welcome home picture for Mommy and then, just as I was thinking I heard a taxi, Becoming-A-Mom made her entrance.

Juliette ran to the door and gave her a big hug. For the next hour she ran about with her balloon and was quite excited before we managed to calm her down and get her to bed. Before letting Becoming-A-Mom put her in her bed she gave her kisses on each cheek over and over and over, something I haven’t seen her do before. I have to say I felt a bit jealous as I’ve never had that sort of welcoming after being away for a couple of days

Whew! We (or rather, I) survived!

Well, this past weekend has been a first. Becoming-A-Dad has been left alone with little Juliette for the full weekend for the first time.

Becoming-A-Mom left bright and early Saturday morning to visit a friend in London for a couple of days. Juliette didn’t really sleep well Friday night – probably because we’d been warning her for a couple of weeks that Becoming-A-Mom was going to be away for two days and she’d be with Becoming-A-Dad. And Becoming-A-Dad didn’t sleep very well either.

Juliette woke around 12:00 crying “Kaka! Kaka!” which usually means she’s pooped and wants a clean diaper. This time it was because she’d given herself a bleeding nose. She has this bad habit of picking her nose when she’s congested and this resulted in a bloody nose. We cleaned her up, gave her a little drink of water and she went back to sleep. Around 6:00 she heard Becoming-A-Mom get up and shower, so she woke up and didn’t want to go back to sleep. I fed her a muffin and orange juice and put her back to bed around 7:15. She slept until 8:30 when she woke me up talking to her stuffed toys.

So far so good. We got up, had breakfast and then went out for a trip to the Dublin Museum of Natural History. We spent about an hour looking at the stuffed animals on the first floor. She was particularly impressed by the skeletons of fossilized Irish Elk calling “Dinosaur! Dinosaur!” and also this enormous stuffed Basking Shark hanging from the ceiling, “Fish! Fish!”

There were a couple of little cabinets with doors for the little kids to open, so she loved that and spent at least 15 minutes running back to look at them again and again. She pushed one little girl who was trying to jump in front of her out of the way – not a great situation but I managed to stop her and told her to share, which she reluctantly did.

After that it was home for lunch and then a nap (for Becoming-A-Dad too!). When we got up at 4 pm it was raining lightly but I wanted to go out, so I dressed her up in her rainsuit, got into my Gore-tex pants and we headed out to jump in muddy puddles, just like Peppa Pig. This lasted about an hour and I was amazed how quickly she walked and how far we went without her getting tired.

A bit of playing with toys while I prepared dinner (can’t remember what we ate now… hmmmm… she didn’t eat much anyhow). Then it was some play-dough creation time along with a bit of Baby Einstein video before we did her bedtime routine. And she went quietly to sleep at 8:30 pm without a fuss.

In fact, she only asked once about Becoming-A-Mom in the evening, and I explained that Becoming-A-Mom was away until Monday. She looked at me and accepted it without further comment.

I was surprised about two things:

• That Juliette didn’t make a big fuss about it and seemed to be okay with the whole deal, and
• That I was way more anxious and a bit panicky than I expected to be… I felt and still feel like I’m hopped up on too many coffees. Time for some deep breaths.

And I need to buy flowers for Becoming-A-Mom when she comes home. We had fun but really missed you.

It all started one day when Celine turned on the TV to Nickelodeon and let Juliette watch an episode of Peppa Pig. A few days later she saw another kid with a Peppa Pig backpack, and from there the mania was spawned.

Everywhere we went, Juliette would somehow spy Peppa Pig somewhere – on the shelf in stores, on kid magazine covers, on other kid’s clothing, as one of dozens of characters covering a poster. She was amazing in her ability to see Peppa amongst the noise of all the other things in the area. “Peppa Pee!” became her constant cry.

Just before Christmas she was given a couple of Peppa Pig puzzles from friends. These immediately have become her favorite items in the Whole Wide World. Literally, from the moment she wakes up she’s calling for “Peppa Pee! Peppa Pee!” which means she wants to do the puzzles with us.

She initially needed help putting together the 12-piece puzzle, but within a dozen attempts she remembered the sequence and has been doing it herself. She always starts with the same pieces – Daddy Pig – then moves on from there. She now is able to do the harder 24 piece puzzle by herself, including the difficult portion that’s just pine tree branches that is not obvious what goes where. She’s doing the puzzles at least 4 times a day.

Strangely enough she’s unable to do the puzzle designed for the youngest kids – but we agree that the shape, size and pattern on the puzzle actually makes it more difficult to do than the other ones. It’s in the shape of Peppa holding her teddy, but the pieces are at least 3″x3″ and the drawing not detailed enough so it’s hard to know what piece goes where. Juliette will put together perhaps 5 or 6 pieces before getting irritated and leaving.

Along with the puzzles, Juliette loves watching the animated Peppa Pig series. So the iPad (see the previous post) comes to our rescue here – Becoming-A-Mom gives the iPad to Juliette to watch her videos when she wants to take a shower or needs some time to do something without Juliette underfoot.

Between the iPad and Peppa Pig parenting has become quite easy.

A few months back, in a minor fit of impulse buying I picked up an iPad. I’d been wanting to get an iPod Touch for at least 3 years but never could quite convince myself that I really needed it, nor that the latest and greatest model wasn’t just a couple months away. So the iPod Touch stayed as a distant “need”.

Becoming-A-Mom mentioned at some point we should buy an iPad for Juliette – and I think my response was “Buy Juliette an iPad?? I’m buying one for me!” No way was I going to spend the better part of $700 for a baby toy!

On my last trip back to the office I was once again idly looking at the iPod Touch as well as the iPad. A quick mental calculation convinced me that the price difference between the two made the iPad a much better deal, and since I wanted the iPod Touch to do some development (and watch videos on while traveling) the iPad made sense. So, pretty much on a whim I bought one.

First thing I did was download a bunch of free stuff – news readers, some games, and of course some things for Juliette to play with. Talking Tom, Bubble Shooter, Bubble Popper, Cat Piano to name a few. I picked out things that played music or were animations or had some educational value because I needed to justify my impulse buy

Once home I copied a bunch of Juliette’s favorite videos (Peppa Pig, Pocoyo and Noddy) to the iPad so when we were on road trips or away she could watch them.

Juliette caught on to using the iPad interface almost instantly. Within a couple of sessions she learned to press the Home button if she didn’t like what was on the screen, and a few more sessions later she was able to start up the Video Player by herself, and choose what video she wanted to watch! She even figured out how to find Talking Tom, Bubble Popper and Bubble Shooter on her own, and taught her self how to play Bubble Shooter! I was astounded as she just started doing this one day when I gave her the iPad – I hadn’t realized she was doing this for Becoming-A-Mom for a while.

So, some 4 months later, what’s the verdict? The iPad interface is perfect for little kids. There’s a very simple and obvious way to choose and start things, it’s pretty much sealed off so she can’t screw things up (as she could our netbook, by hitting keys randomly), and it’s form-factor is absolutely perfect for her little hands.

I’ve managed to download the Apple SDK and even installed it on the Mac, and that’s as far as my programming has gone. And my usage of the iPad is mostly using it for the news readers (the Economist is amazing on the iPad) or playing FreeHand or Angry Birds. Yep, high-value work being done on this thing!

In the end Juliette uses it the most, and yes, it’s possibly the most expensive (and useful) baby toy we’ve got.

Well, after all the fuss and bother about Juliette wanting to have “Booo!” (boobs) before going to bed and naps, she’s done the unthinkable. She’s stopped wanting to nurse.

This came as a complete surprise to both Becoming-A-Mom and I – a few days ago she still was yelling “Booo! Boooo!” and tapping Becoming-A-Mom’s breasts before naps and bedtime. She still did her demand for “Booo!” but then didn’t suckle – she instead stared at them and tried to touch the nipple with her fingers. Then she went back to drinking water from her sippy cup.

After 3 or so days of this new bedtime routine, she’s stopped even asking for this. She wants her sippy cup by calling “L’eau! L’eau!” (water! water!) and then she wants to be put in her crib. Once in a while there’s a bit of drama if she isn’t quite yet ready to go to bed, but most of the time it’s a matter of saying “Goodnight!” and zipping her into her sleeping bag, giving her the sippy cup if she doesn’t have it already, and handing her the Dou-dou (her little stuffed rabbit). And then she’s content and quietly goes to bed.

Both Becoming-A-Mom and I were completely surprised by this. After all, this is the child who wouldn’t go to bed without nursing if Mom was around. She’d be fine without it if she knew Mom was out of the apartment, but otherwise intense screaming fits of how we were torturing her would ensue. It was easier just for Becoming-A-Mom to give her the Boobs and be done with it.

Now I suspect Becoming-A-Mom is feeling a bit disjointed… after all these months of that special time with Juliette, it’s come to a very quick and sudden end.

I wonder if boys wean so easily?

Okay, I’m exhausted. Not physically, not fatigued sleep-wise… I’m just plain exhausted.

What happened to put me in this condition? About 45 minutes of post-dinner playtime, followed by another 15 minutes of hysterical crying, calling for Mom and panic over feeling abandoned. And that was just me.

Well, not quite. Anyhow, here’s the story. Like most of them, there’s a lot more going on and a bit of a back story to put it all in perspective.

Go back months. Many months. Hell, go back to the beginning, just after Juliette was born. (gentle tinkly harp music here while the picture fades to the past)

Juliette has almost never gone to bed without being nursed. At first she wouldn’t fall asleep without nursing, and then it became a habit. There was a brief period around her 1 year birthday when Becoming-A-Mom went back to work after her maternity leave was over when she was weaned from this habit – with the shift work and Becoming-A-Dad’s lack of appropriate apparatus Becoming-A-Mom couldn’t be there. So it was Becoming-A-Dad putting Juliette down with a sippy-cup of water, which actually went very well and was largely non-traumatic. We lead up to it, getting Juliette accustomed to the idea for a couple of weeks before the big event so that helped.

Fast forward to moving to Dublin – and all rush, stress, changing routines, new hotels and accomodations. Becoming-A-Mom slipped back into the habit of nursing Juliette to sleep again. And when she woke at night. What started as a sanity-saver for both of us has turned back into a well-entrenched habit. And Becoming-A-Mom has said many times that she doesn’t think Juliette is getting much milk, more wanting boobs for comfort than anything.

Fast forward to yesterday night. Becoming-A-Mom has tired of being the midnight nurse, so last night we decided that if Juliette woke up I’d go settle her back to bed with her sippy cup of water again. So, around 2 am the inevitable wake-up happened and I went to talk Juliette back to sleep.

Only it wasn’t a talking session. Juliette was crying “Mi! Mi!” and pointing towards the door, which I only figured out 20 minutes ago meant “MOMMY BOOBS!”. So I ended up picking her up and trying to comfort her back to sleep. Fat chance. It turned into 20 minutes of screams of anger and betrayal, only broken by frantic crying with the accusing tone of “how can you do this to me?” It was all I could do to hang on to her as she squirmed, kicked, arched her back and flailed about in her fury.

Finally, after one extremely powerful shriek and kick she let out an enormous string of brain-damaging farts and immediately calmed down. Both of us thought she’d pooped herself, so I told her I was going to change her diaper and set her down on her back. She stopped struggling and crying and sobbed silently. (she hadn’t pooped, by the way, but I changed her diaper anyhow)

I picked her back up and gave her a big slow hug, then gave her the sippy cup. She took a few deep pulls from it as I put her back in bed. I covered her with her quilt and handed her this little stuffed rabbit that’s her comfort thingy, or dou-dou in French. When I gave her the dou-dou she cried for a few seconds as she realized that she wasn’t getting boobs and this was it, then gave it a big hug and rolled on her side. I went back to bed and tossed and turned for the next 2 hours.

Fast forward to 25 minutes ago – this time Becoming-A-Mom left in the late afternoon before Juliette got up from her afternoon nap. So Juliette and I had a grand time (sorta) with snacks, an abortive finger-painting session, then a bath and some dinner before the grand finale just a short few minutes ago. This time as we were playing in her bedroom in preparation for bed-time, Juliette started calling “Mi! Mi!” and pointing towards the door. She repeated this several times, getting more and more frantic each time, with me looking at her blankly. Suddenly the light bulb went on in my head and I realized she was calling for Becoming-A-Mom.

Juliette got up and starting crying and calling “Mi1 Mi! Mi!”. She ran to the door and screamed, pulling on the handle trying to get out to find Becoming-A-Mom. No amount of my talking to her, cuddling or picking her up would settle her, so I spent another 20 minutes as per the night before holding a writhing, screaming, kicking, twisting unhappy little girl. I think I’m deaf in my left ear. Finally she calmed down and I managed to put her to bed.

*sigh*

I’m saved. Just 2 minutes ago Becoming-A-Mom just arrived home. So if Juliette wakes up I’m passing the torch to her.

The latest new toy?

Beans. Lentils, to be precise.

Along with a couple of cheap plastic bowls, funnels and a plastic sheet.

This brainwave is Becoming-A-Mom’s – she takes Juliette to a play activity every week and they have a sort of sandbox filled with different beans and lentils along with kitchen and digging stuff for the kids to play with. It’s a very clever idea – all of the items are quite inexpensive (even the beans and lentils were clearance-priced at the store) and it’s all very clean and easy to clean up.

Juliette loves it – she scoops up the beans with the funnels and spoons, pours them back and forth between the bowls and only occasionally scatters them beyond the edges of the plastic. Even they it’s a game we have sweeping them up with her little toy broom and brush set.

The best part of this? It’s a perfect replacement for a sandbox! Same activities and fun, but a much cleaner and easier setup. You can have it in your living room (like we do) without the fear of getting sand everywhere.

Becoming-A-Mom is brilliant.