Weasel Of Doom

Squeeker got a bonus birthday party – Rachel stopped by with her two boys today, and much fun was had. DemonChild and Brycen ran around like the two almost-three-year-old maniacs they are, and Squeeker alternated between joining the big boys and taking advantage of Caden’s not-yet-ambulatory stage to steal his toys. And of course, nobody wanted to take a nap, so by the end of the festivities we had some pretty tired babies. Squeeker finally fell asleep on our way to Target around 5:30 p.m. DemonChild took an hour long nap as soon as we were gone.

Unfortunately, we noticed that one of Squeeker’s eyes was getting a little gunky just as as the impromptu party started. It was just a little bit of gunk at first. However, then the gunk production ramped up. By the time we left for Target, the eye was a lot gunky. By the time I stopped at Office Max on the way home, both eyes were gunky. Poor little guy.

So now we have a one-year-old with two gunky eyes who has been sleeping on and off since 5:30 pm, which quite possibly spells a very sucky night for us, and a two-and-three-fourths year old who stayed up until 1 am on Friday, 10 pm or so on Saturday, and is now lazying around in the swing watching BelovedSpouse play Sly Cooper on the PS2.

And I have to drive back to the laundromat and check how the kids clothes are drying. One of these days, we need to either fix our broken dryer, or buy a new one. The dryer has been broken for a couple of months now. *sigh* I miss drying clothes in the privacy of my home.

Oh, and if any of the kids who came to Squeeker’s party are going to come down with gunky eyes, I am going to feel so guilty. And they will know exactly whom to blame, too.

S. got cranky around 8:15 pm. And when he gets cranky, he starts to cry, more so than usual, and over every little thing. A toy fell down? Time to dissolve into hysterics. Parents dared to step away to another room? Cue heartbroken screaming. Things are not going according to S.’s plan, and he makes his screaming displeasure known.

I took him upstairs, got him into jammies, offered boob, asked B. to take the opportunity to trim little claws (we find that the happy hour at The Bra Bar is the best time for that kind of personal space violation). For two minutes, happiness reigned. Then I made the mistake of transferring S. to the other boob. Unbeknownst to me, while the left boob is S.’s friend, the right one is a dastardly evil that needs to be destroyed at all costs. By lots and lots of screaming, apparently. I tried to offer the left boob again, as a gesture of reconciliation. S. was not interested. I tried holding, snuggling, bouncing, playing – ditto. He had worked himself up into a screaming fit, and did not want to be cajoled out of it.

Unfortunately for S., crying when things don’t go his way has been his modus operandi for months now, and we learned to ignore it to a degree – it was either that or going insane. So I kissed him, and put into the crib, and left for a while. The screaming continued unabated for ten minutes: loud, heart-breaking shrieks. Then, without any transition period, silence.

I went back into the bedroom. S. was stretched on the mattress, half-asleep, but started to whimper as soon as I rubbed his back, as if to remind me that he was still unhappy, and would complain more if he had the energy. I took him out and he snuggled into my shoulder, content. I held him while his whimpers turned into snores, and put him back to bed, where he promptly rolled onto his tummy and pushed his butt up in the air, without waking up, as if the nuclear meltdown of ten minutes prior happened to some other child.

S. is learning how to walk. Our last week in Russia, he would occasionally let go of whatever he was holding on to, stand unsupported for a couple seconds, and then plop down with a surprised expression on his face. We tried to show him how to walk, but all he was interested in was going limp and just hanging there whenever somebody would hold him by both hands.

First week back in the States, S. started to stand unsupported a lot more (very likely due to lack of people able to hold him all the time *grins*). He would stand up from a sitting position, disdaining using props to get vertical. Then he decided that standing up would be more of a challenge if he was holding a toy or two as he did it. Then he would make a hesitant step, lose his balance, hit the floor diaper end first, and try again.

This weekend, S. walked the length of a hallway behind a tricycle – it was rolling forward because he was leaning on it, and he was happily following. He can stand unsupported for ten seconds or longer, waving a sippy cup. On a good attempt, he can make three or four little steps before getting back down on all fours and covering the distance in his patented “spider-man crawl” (knees and elbows not touching the ground).

Will S. be able to walk before his first birthday? It seems a safe bet that he will.

Will S. be able to climb down the stairs the normal way (not head-first and hoping for a soft landing)? Doubtfull. So far, even going upstairs gets iffy when he decides to stand up on a step, or sit up and lean backwards. D. was considerably more adept at the stairs when he was S.’s age.

Will S. sleep through the night? Judging by the last month, also doubtful. Between midnight and six am, he was waking up every two hours to nurse up until two days ago, when he started to wake up every hour. I am not sure I can survive another night of that. I do not remember D. going through a similar spell, but that might be a defense mechanism.

Will S. have more than four teeth? Doubtful, as well. It took the upper two three months to finally come out, I am not holding my breath for the rest of them to show up in a hurry.

Will S. wean himself? D. did – around 10 months, he just lost interest in the boob. S. still considers boobs his best friends. Things can change quickly on that front, though, so who knows. I will very likely cut down to one pumping a day at work if he is still nursing by the end of September. Medela and I need to take a break from each other.

Will S. suddenly discover he is a lone ranger at heart? Very doubtful. He and D. are very different in that respect. At a little over a year old, D. once climbed up the stairs to his room and started looking through a book, instead of hanging out with B. and I. S. wants to be with people; if we leave the room, he scoots after us, screaming his displeasure. He is a snuggler. His signature move is a modified hug where he grabs my hair and snuggles to my face first on one side, then on the other. Very very cute, if rather painful from the hair grab. He is also drooling like a fiend, so the hug serves a second purpose – S.’s face is dry when he is done demonstrating affection :)

Squeeker crawled up the stairs all the way to the second floor today. Parental house has the living room and kitchen downstairs, master bedroom and guest bedroom on the second floor, and a craft/relaxation/place-to-hang-clothes-to-dry-out-after-washing room on the third floor. Both boys are beginning to get bored with the downstairs, I suspect.

DemonChild now routinely goes into my room on the pretense of looking for Mommy, and then proceeds to play under the bed, unique little snowflake that he is. Whole colonies of innocent dust bunnies have been wiped out. Attempts to put stickers on floors, TV, and windowsills have been made. Furniture that ought not to be climbed upon was scaled. Things were used for purposes they were not meant for. Plants were endangered, and mattresses trampled. Downstairs, DemonChild managed to get almost all the way into the fireplace. Parental units shoo-ed him out before I could take a picture, alas. I am hoping to convince them to give him another opportunity for a photo moment.

Squeeker makes a beeline for the fireplace any chance he has. If thwarted, he heads to the opposite wall and uses the glass shelves for the dvd player and vcr to pull up, another thing he is not supposed to do, mainly because we worry he will slip and hurt himself on the glass. He not so much crawls as runs around on all fours, very quickly, and takes every opportunity to skitter towards places he should avoid as soon as our attention wanders for a few seconds.

The other day at the park, DemonChild walked quite a ways away from Dad. When captured, he had a fat juicy worm in his hand. “I checked, and it did not look like DemonChild had a chance to take a bite out of it,” reports my father. Some things, I just don’t want to know :-)

On Tuesday, Dad drove me and the boys to the Gulf of Finland. We did not have an auspicious start to our adventure – DemonChild fell asleep in the car, and upon being transferred into the stroller said, “спать!” (Russian for “sleep!”) and proceeded to nap for another half an hour. Squeeker started crying as soon as we got to the beach. Then we woke up DemonChild, and neither of them wanted to enjoy the nice sunshine and sand. I finally dragged DemonChild into the surf, which he loved and had a great time with. Half an hour later, he was “All done.” Back under the beach umbrella, Squeeker found a rock he could love, and finally stopped fussing. DemonChild ran around for a while, picked up and discarded unholy amounts of garbage, then crawled into the front seat of the stroller and informed us that it was “time to go home.” I had no idea he knew the sentence!

Sleep continues to be a problem. It took over an hour to get DemonChild to fall asleep tonight. From 9:30 to 11 pm, my work was punctuated by ear-piercing shrieks at random intervals. Hopefully, he will at least sleep in, instead of waking up at 5:30 like the last time. My poor parents are going to be in a zombie-like state by the time we have to leave, if this keeps up.

St. Petersburg is 9 hrs ahead of Milwaukee. Often, adjusting to the time change is the hardest thing about the trip. S., though, seems unfazed – he fell asleep about 10 pm and was up around 5:30, with a couple nursing sessions thrown in between, which is par for the course for him. D. had somewhat more trouble – the first night he was up until 2 am (because some parents who shall remain nameless let him sleep until 8 pm; I was asleep myself, or I would have said something). Next morning, he slept until 9:30, had an hour long nap, and was asleep by 10 pm. Today he got up around 10 am – where is all that sleeping in when B. and I need it during the weekend? S. slept until 8:30 am, too – it’s like the kids are mocking me. He is taking pretty nice naps, too, and rarely squeekers. Nobody believes me that it is so NOT how things normally are *smiles* Update: It is now Thursday, and the kids got up at 7 am (D.) and 8 am (S.). D. is throwing tantrums like there is no tomorrow. S. is finding opportunities for squeekering. Looks like things are back to normal, LOL.

On Monday D. went for a walk with Dad and found a puddle to play in. Such was his joy at making himself one with the puddle that even random passerby cheered him on. He came home dripping wet and covered in mud. On Tuesday, Mom took him to the pond to see the ducks. D. waded right in. It became very obvious that having only two pairs of shoes was not going to cut it. So we took a family trip to the store, and D. now has 4 new pairs of shoes. Can you tell the ones he has already worn?

On Wednesday, my parents dragged a tub outside and filled it with water. Much water play commenced. S. splashed. D. tried to lap the water like a dog. S. led the way into the tub. D. gamely followed, almost squashing Squeektar in the process. Clothes got soaked. Diapers swelled to disturbing size. Eventually, protesting players were carried off to get a bath.

Little buggers do NOT want to go to sleep. Writing this paragraph is accompanied by a rhythmic “thump thump” from DemonChild’s room as he rocks himself in the chair, and ear-piercing shrieks from Squeeker’s as he attempts to cry himself hoarse. These are the same children who would fall asleep on their own just a few short weeks ago. I have a distinct feeling the universe is screwing with us :-)

On an unrelated note, all our passports are back with appropriate visas and stamps for the trip to Russia. If the kids are not going to learn how to fall asleep gracefully, annoyed SAS passengers are going to toss me out of the plane without a parachute.

Squeeker, at almost 9 months, has only two teeth (bottom center), but they are sharp little buggers, and he would like nothing better than to chew on my fingers for hours at a time. My fingers are not amused.

He finally figured out how to crawl forward Memorial Day weekend. I tried putting him down for a nap two weeks ago, and the squeekers he was making were so, for lack of better word, self-satisfied, that I went to look if everything was alright. There was Squeek, standing in the crib, holding onto the railing, and grinning. He has since proceeded to attempting to pull himself up using anything available — parental leg, long-suffering dog, activity table, high chair that moves, and furniture that doesn’t. Chairs in scarily close vicinity of metal table legs are a particular favorite. Once upright, he cruises (often in circles).The other night he pulled up on me and then stood, unassisted, for a second or two, before plopping down on his butt. His teachers at daycare think he’ll take his first steps before we go to Russia in two weeks, and they might be right.

He does not have separation anxiety as much as he has a strong dislike of being left alone. If he is left alone in the great room, he will crawl to wherever the action is, squeekering his annoyance at being abandoned at the top of his lungs. Ignored, the annoyed squeekering will become full-blown shrieking, which is impossible to ignore, and Squeek knows it full well.

He gets up around 6 am, and nurses. Eats a serving of cereal and fruit/veggie at daycare, and drinks two 5oz+ bottles of milk. At home, he eats another serving of veggie or fruit, and nurses before bed. Goes down around 8 pm (though it was more like 9:30pm the last couple of days), and wakes up twice a night to nurse. We’ll see on the 20th how he is measuring up.

In the mornings, I change and dress both boys in DemonChild’s room. Often, DemonChild would bring a book to read. Immediately, Squeeker would abandon whatever object he is chewing on, and attempt to crawl onto the book. DemonChild is not always thrilled about that.

Squeeker’s newfound mobility has made him a much happier baby. Also, apparently, a baby who once again wants to eat every two hours or so during the night. Take last night as an example. He was tired, so I nursed him around 7:30, and put him in the crib. Then he wanted to revisit the boob at 10:30. And at 12:00. And at 1:45. And at 3:15. Then he snoozed until 6:15, had his breakfast suckle, and by 8:15 or so felt an urgent need to make sure the boob was still there.

And then there is a matter of naps. There are those mythical “totally awesome naps” he occasionally takes at daycare – kid clonks out for three hours at a time. On the weekends, however, Squeek prefers to catnap as he nurses – two fun activities for the price of one, not to mention for the time of one. Last Sunday he did nap for over three hours, but that’s because he had managed to squeeker himself into total exhaustion, what with finally figuring out how to crawl forward.

I put him in the crib today, hoping against hope that he’ll nap. Happy little squeekerings coming from the room. When I went in to check on him, Squeektar was standing up in the crib, grinning. Methinks he wants to skip the whole crawling thing and go straight to walking upright.

Squeeker crawled forward today, while I was talking to my Dad on the phone. He saw a xylophone stick that DemonChild left just out of reach, got on all fours, and ambulated to it. He must have made at least 7 “steps” – previous record was 2. Squeek is pretty good at going backwards (wedging himself under various things in the process, and then having fits because he is stuck), but forwards has been a challenge – he is SO ready for it, but most of the time the right hand does not know what the left foot is doing, so at best he goes in circles.

Also today Squeektar is sticking out his tongue a lot, drooling all the while. I wonder if more teeth are getting ready to appear and provide company for the two at the bottom. He also babbles a lot – DemonChild was the silent type, ahead of the game physically, but verbally, not so much. Squeeker is showing signs of being more verbal of the two.

List of things to remember when things are dark:

• DemonChild going “Mommy, mommy, mommy” in the mornings, and when I come in, saying “Diapertime” and laying down on the changing pad in the “change me” position

• Sequeeker smiling at us when we come into his field of vision

• DemonChild holding my hand to his cheek and snuggling to it during our walks

• Squeeker launching himself at the boob when he is hungry, and being so happy once he eats his fill

• DemonChild saying “Ice Ice Ice Ice Pweeze” when he wants to eat some ice. Then looking at me and saying “Lyod,” which is Russian for “ice.”

• Squeeker happily chewing everything within reach

• DemonChild and Squeeker snuggling, which to untutored eyes would appear more like smothering

This morning, I noticed that Squeeker’s first tooth has peeked through. Bottom left (or possibly bottom right – depends on your perspective). Let the biting of the boob that feeds you commence!

At the end of December, Squeekers rolled from tummy to back for the first time. And haven’t done it since. He prefers to flap around like a stranded fish and scream, in hopes that somebody else would do the rolling over thing for him.

Last night, I woke up at 2 am to the Squeekery one’s muffled hungry squeeks. The reason for muffled became clear once I realized he was on his tummy. He must have done it again after the 6 am feeding – when I left this morning, he was snoozing contentedly on his tummy, smelling rather strongly of a loaded diaper.

(of course, since my camera is en route to a Nikon repair facility in NY, I have no pictorial proof. Which totally sucks, because if the pattern holds true, it is going to be months before Squeek decides to roll over again)

Squeeker was 4 months old yesterday. I tried to take pictures, but he was not in a very cooperative mood. My parents sent an email congratulating him. Was cute.

He can smile, and distinguishes me and BelovedSpouse from other people. He loves DemonChild, and always has a smile for him (even when DemonChild shows his brotherly love by trying to sit on his head). He knows the ladies at daycare, and smiles at them, too.

He can roll on his side from his tummy, and we have caught him rolling from tummy to back a few times. I think rolling from back to tummy is not far in the future, assuming he decides it is actually worth it.

He is still a lap baby, but at least we have been able to put him under Mr. Star in the mornings, where he kicks and plays under it while we get ready for the day. In the evenings, he mostly wants to be held.

He coos and purrs like a little kitten. He likes to suck and chew on his hands. He picks up objects within reach (bibs, toys) and chews on them, too. He drools like a fiend.

He decided he does not like sleeping in the pack’n'play anymore. As I write this, he is asleep on the bed next to BelovedSpouse – and that’s not where he started the night. Not sure what the pack’n'play has done to go out of favor like that, but something will have to be done.

He does not take long naps (at least, not for us). We are lucky if he sleeps for an hour at a stretch. And then he wakes up and squeeks. Or screams, if he is hungry. Not one to politely wait to be fed, is our Squeektar.

His 4-months checkup is on the 26th (and DemonChild will get his 2-year checkup then), so I will post vital stats then.

When you leave the baby on his tummy, and come back a few minutes later to find him on his back, and you are the only two people in the house, the only logical conclusion is that somebody figured out how to avoid tummy time :-)

Squeeker can now roll from his tummy onto his back. He did it for me three times, and I attempted to take pictures of the process. Of course, he has not done it again since.

11 lb 7 oz (5 kg 188 g). Looks like he is gaining weight even with the irregular feeding patterns. Makes me feel better.