Swimming lessons

Melina began swimming lessons last week at the Salvation Army pool. The first class was a bit harrowing; apparently at age (almost) 1.5, Melina is already behind the curve when it comes to swimming underwater. There were only a few other babies in the class, but they were already zooming around under the surface like pudgy little penguins. The class involved several dunkings, which did not amuse Miss M. She didn't cry, but sort of stared at me with an outraged "you must be joking!" expression. Then the instructor tucked her under one arm and dove under water for a good three or four seconds, which seems interminable when your BABY is under WATER. Jeff was standing on the sidelines watching (Melina kept trying to crawl out of the pool to go to him) and he said I looked really stressed out.

The second class was a little more enjoyable. Melina seemed to mind the dunking less (though I did get the "you must be joking" look - a faint smile, combined with a shrinking away from mommy). We successfully performed the underwater hokey pokey (push your baby down to the floor of the pool, turn her around, and pull her back up). I think I cheated. Melina was still the only one who had not taken the earlier aqua babies class, but she seems to be catching on. Now I just have to memorize the words to the Wheels on the Bus...

Various musings

I realize I haven't been writing much here lately. Since we haven't had any vacations or other outstanding moments, there have been no obvious reasons to write. But meanwhile Melina continues to grow, and develop a personality, and learn words, and form preferences, and assert her will.

"No" is now one of her favorite words. I really do try not to say "no" too often, but it's hard. Melina says "no" now whenever something isn't going her way. She also says "uh-uh" and shakes her head. This is handy when I'm trying to feed her and she doesn't want something, or when I'm reading her books before naps. She seems to be tired of all her books (as am I). Time to go to the bookstore.

I am still experimenting with ways to get her to nap. (Jeff puts her to bed at night, and his system seems to work pretty well). For naps, it's a little harder. Usually I read to her, rock her until she seems sleepy, then put her down in the crib awake and go lie on the bed. She used to cry for a few minutes and then go lay down, but now she stays up and plays (and even laughs). She kicks the side of the crib, drops her binky, jumps on the mattress, stands on her head (sort of) and does all kinds of other distracting things to keep herself awake. Meanwhile I'm nodding off on the bed reading Lord of the Rings while my stomach growls. Usually I get fed up and either pick her up and rock her some more (she often falls asleep after that) or go downstairs for a few minutes, at which point she screams bloody murder and tires herself out. Then I go back up, lay her down, and she often falls asleep.

Her hair is getting longer, and I've managed to put it in little pigtails a few times. I'm not really sure what else to do with it. If I let it grow without cutting it, I'm afraid it will turn into a mullet. If I cut the back, I won't be able to put it in pigtails. I could let the bangs grow out a little more, or not. It's a dilemma.

Olallie is proving himself to be one of the most patient cats in the world. Melina loves to lie on him, and Norah pulls his tail and covers him up with our sheepskin rug. Still, he hangs around - I think he likes the attention. I've never seen him do more than complain a little and walk away.

My stomach is growling again and I don't know how long it will be before Miss M wakes up, so I better go take care of it.

Sleep update

Melina's sleeping habits have gotten much, much better since we implemented our version of the Sleep Lady Shuffle. Now Jeff puts her to bed every night (which I like!). He reads to her and gets her calmed down, then puts her in the crib awake. He lays on the bed so she knows he's there, and usually she goes off to sleep without a cry. Lately, she has been sleeping from around 8:30 (or whenever Jeff gets her to sleep) to 6:45 or 7:00 a.m., when she wakes up for a snack and then (sometimes) goes back to sleep. She rarely wakes up at night now, though last night was an exception - she woke up several times, I think because she didn't get her regular naps in yesterday.

Last night I tried doing the Jeff routine for the first time by myself, since Jeff went out to dinner with a friend. I tried putting M. down the way I usually do (by rocking her and getting her to go to sleep on my lap) but it was taking forever and she was playing games with me, pinching me and pulling my hair and asking for the bottle and tossing down her binkie. Finally I got fed up and put her in the crib and lay down on the bed. She cried for a while (maybe three minutes), so I started singing a lullaby. She stopped abruptly and flopped down in the crib, stuck a binkie in her mouth, and lay there silently. After about 10 minutes she got up and cried again, but only for another two minutes or so. This pattern repeated several times (she was fine as long as I kept singing) and I was up there for quite a while, reading a book about a bunch of hostages, including an opera singer, being detained in a south American country. I was feeling a little like a hostage, constantly being forced to sing, but finally she fell asleep and I crept out.

Today for her second nap I tried putting her down as usual. (She usually goes down easily for her first nap). After a while I got fed up with her games and plopped her down in the crib. This time she cried for less than a minute, lay down, stared at me through the bars for a good 15 minutes (kind of unsettling) and went to sleep. I'm amazed that this worked for a nap - I never thought it would. I'll try again tomorrow.

Melina's Vocabulary

Here are Melina's current words (though I'm sure I'm forgetting some. She seems to pick up new words every day!)

Mama
Dadda
Doggy
Kitty
Hi
Bye
Shoe
Ice
Baby
No!
Birdy ("beebee" plus sign for bird)
Key
Gaga (this is a Korean baby word that means "snack," picked up from her sitter)
Berry (buoy)
Banana (naynay)
Book (boop)
Peek-a-boo (bee-boo)
Airplane ("aaaiii" plus pointing up in the air)
E I E I O (from "Old MacDonald") - sometimes just E I O
How I won... (from "Twinkle twinkle little star")
Uh-oh
Cool
Hot (ha)
Cracker (kacka)
Mine (apparently she said this to Youngsoon yesterday, but I haven't heard her)
Car (ka)
Water (Awa - sounds strangely like "agua" - maybe she was Spanish in a past life)
Bottle (bobble)

That's all I can remember at the moment, though I'm sure there are others. I like how her vocabulary reflects what's important to her in life. Notice the lack of words for "Iraq," "work," and "responsiblity."

Jennifer's projects

Melina is having her now-usual two-hour morning nap and I have had a huge cup of coffee (after spilling coffee and grounds all over the kitchen counter) and am buzzing with caffeine. Caffeine usually gives me a creative boost, and since Science Friday is on the radio talking about grafting fruit trees, I'm thinking it's time to graft some apples onto the pear tree out back. This pear tree is in the prime of life and produces copious fruit most years - the only problem is that I don't really like pears, though Melina does. (She has started picking pears off up the ground and biting into them, with varying results. The other day I found a big worm crawling across her hand that I think had been living inside the pear she was eating).

I've looked up grafting on the web (here's a nice blog entry about grafting) and it appears that I will need to start this project in November or December, when I will have to order "scions" (cuttings) from a reputable scion dealer. Looks like I should start with quite a few because it's not guaranteed that they'll all succeed. Then I have to figure out how to actually graft the cuttings onto the tree - fortunately there's plenty of advice out there on the web. Eventually I should end up with a tree that bears both fruit and apples - maybe several kinds! Sounds like a good early spring project.

Other projects I'm contemplating: printing onesies and small children's teeshirts with various designs. I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but have been discouraged by the flood of printed onesies I've seen since I got the idea. Does the world really need more onesies printed with cute sayings? I need a more original idea. I'm working on it. It would be fun to develop something to sell at Last Thursday, the local monthly art festival.

Another project: Landscaping the planting strip (also known as the hell strip) between the sidewalk and the street. I've found some good landscaping ideas and Jeff is behind the idea, but I need to find out what plants would survive our hot summers and rainy winters. Next step: trip to the nursery.

Another project: Holding a Northwest Earth Institute course at my house this fall. They have courses on raising environmentally aware children and on bioregionalism. Several of my friends are interested. Next step: Call them and find out if I can hold the classes less than once a week (the schedule they recommend).

Another project: Sign Melina up for swimming classes. They start September 5, but are held on Saturday mornings at 10:00, and I'm not a morning person. Still, the baby needs to learn to swim.

See what caffeine does to me?