Category: Updates about Sylvia

Feb. 3: I was grocery shopping at Woodman’s yesterday.  Sylvia identified something she wanted and was trying determinedly to catapult herself out of the grocery cart.  A kind, elderly woman standing nearby commented, “My goodness, it seems like she really knows what she wants.  You wouldn’t think she’d be old enough to know what she wanted!”  Then the nice woman walked away, leaving me speechless.  I think my jaw may have dropped.  Because, quite truthfully, Sylvia has known what she wanted since the moment she came into this world.  And really, woe be it to she who tries to convince her otherwise!

As I was putting Sylvie to bed tonight, I was reminded of two areas that she continues to feel adamantly about.  The girl has an abiding opposition to books.  She also really can’t stand it when I try to soothe her with lullabies.

Since she was old enough to focus her eyes, she has arched her back and turned away when I hold a book in front of her.  She has no interest.  Zero.  I’ve tried reading her the same two pages of the same book for several weeks, and she stopped crying, but she is much happier when I don’t try it.  Occasionally, she’ll glance at the page, but she then tries to shut the book.  It’s, well, interesting.  The big exception is Pat the Bunny.  She really enjoys that book and does all the activities.  It’s so cute to see her smell the flowers, play peek-a-boo with Paul, and put her finger through Mummy’s ring!  So we’ll keep trying.

As for lullabies, even when we were in the hospital after her birth, she would wiggle uncomfortably when I would sing to her.  We sang to Andrew all the time.  I grew hoarse singing him to sleep.  For Sylvie, however, the best way to calm her when she was tiny was to hold her tight against my body and leap exuberantly up and down while kinda shouting “SHHHHHHH SSSSHHHHHHHHH!!!”  Then we learned about the effectiveness of the oven exhaust fan.  And I found myself buying her a $50 machine whose sole purpose is to make white noise.

I’ve since read several of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka‘s books, and I’m finding that Sylvia’s temperament can be (currently) characterized as “energetic” “persistent” and at least for sound “sensitive.”  She notes right in her book that kids with these personality traits can have a hard time sleeping because they are easily stimulated (even by things like lullabies) and often find things like white noise machines helpful.

This reminds me that I loved The Happiest Baby on the Block and recommend it to new parents.  And Mary Sheedy Kurcina’s book Raising Your Spirited Child is a wonderful read for parents of children with all personality types.  Her book Sleepless in America recently encouraged me to try putting Andrew to bed earlier.  He’s now getting about an extra hour of sleep a day, and that’s been a good thing all around.

I’m interested to find where Sylvie’s determination will take her in life.  She’s quite the girl!

Jan. 28: Sylvia is doing so many new things these days. She’s walking with assistance, she’s clapping and signing “more” and just started blowing kisses. We got some of these party tricks on the following video.

Jan. 14: Here is my 11 month old demonstrating her new-found skill (thanks Uncle Bubba for teaching her!)

In case you can’t see the video, she’s clapping. She started on on Monday!

Jan. 11: It’s hard for me to believe that Sylvia will be one-year-old in a month!  This morning during breakfast (popovers…mmmmm), we noticed that it is the 11th.  Andrew is really fascinated with looking at calendars and talking about the month and date.  We noted that now when people ask us how old she is, we’ll say, “11 months!”  He’s so in love with his sister:)
Sylvia is on the go these days.  Her daytime naps have gotten really consistent.  Usually about an hour and 15 minutes at 9am and 1pm, but sometimes she’s napping for longer.  The late afternoon/early evening times have become dramatically more enjoyable.  She’s screeching again, and it’s rather terrible, but it’s not constant.  Plus, she can communicate in other ways now, so she reserves screeching for when she’s not getting her way.
Sylvia has lots of new tricks:

• She’s imitating.  In the last couple weeks, she’s started doing things like blowing when I blow.  It’s so fun to play!  She’ll shake her head when I shake my head, and she’ll do other silly moments and gestures when she’s in the mood.
• Sylvia is pushing her little stroller/walker all over the house.  She looks so happy and eager and rambunctious when she’s on the go!
• She wakes up from her naps pointing at the lambs who live on the top of her shelves.  “Mmmmaaa!” she says, “Mmmmmmmmaaaa!”  I thought originally that “mmmmaaa” meant me, but it turns out it means, “I want.”  She often wants me.  But she also wants Dad, big brother’s toys, the remote control, the sink, Dad’s beer, a candle, or Poodle Nose (her lovey).  She reaches her arm out (often palm up) and announces “Mmmmaa!”  Better act fast, or a screech might be close behind!  She’s also able to direct the adult who is carrying her by pointing where she wants to go and giving negative feedback when you go the wrong way.  It’s amazing to watch her become more and more able to interact with the world.
• Sylvia loves water.  Tubby time is one of her favorite parts of the day.  And I’ve discovered an activity that will occupy her for a long time.  I prop her up on one knee and let her play in the sink.  Leave a little water running out of the tap, give her something to splash in the water, and she is set.  The only problem is that if I want to stop (even after say 30 minutes), she is NOT OK with that. Much screeching ensues.  Also, everytime we pass the sink without playing in it, she feels thwarted and verbally punishes her carrier.
• My 11-month Sylvia is a social butterfly.  On our hardest days, all that it takes is a new face to make her light up, calm down, and watch with wonder.  I think our biggest challenges occur when she gets bored with me.  This kid may need some group activities!
• Sylvia still loves going outdoors even though she’s bundled head-to-toe.  She crawls around in the snow, faceplants in the snow, laughs while I pull her on her sled.  Last night I took Andrew and Sylvia each on their sleds for a ride down the street.  It was after 5pm, and the sky was dark.  The kids were interacting with each other and enjoying watching the glistening white snow as we trekked down to “the Court” and back.
• Nights are going alright.  Not fabulous.  She wakes up at 10ish, 1ish and 5ish to nurse.  I’m glad that the 4am nurse is out.  Sometimes the 5am nurse is late enough that I just go the gym afterwards.  One night last week, she skipped the 1am nurse.  It was wonderful:)

So that’s a little snippet of Sylvia’s world these days.  Happy birthday, sweet impish girl!

Dec. 28: Almost every morning, when Andrew wakes up, he stumbles blearily into the room where Sylvia and I are playing, curls up on my lap, and mumbles, “How many teeth does she have today?”  When I tell him I haven’t checked, he brightens up, bends down to Sylvia, and asks me to feel to see if she still has seven or if she now has eight.  “Still seven teeth,” I tell him.
But today, I checked that top left gum, and I felt a sharp edge coming through.  “Eight!” I told my boy.  “Today, Sylvia has eight teeth!”

Dec. 21: It’s hard for me to believe that Sylvie is a full 10-months old.  She’s become such a fully-developed little person.  Here are a few thoughts about my girl at this point in time.

• Sylvia is gearing up to walk.  She just started walking behind a walker.  Yesterday she needed me to slow it with my foot so she didn’t fall on her face. Today, she’s already gotten the hang of it, and she drops to her knees when the walker starts to get ahead of her.  Amazing!  She can’t turn it yet, but she can walk all the way down the hall.
• Sylvia loves food and eats just about anything we put in front of her.  I actually can’t think of anything that she doesn’t like to eat.  She’s figured out what the word “cracker” means, and she’ll eat lots of those!  In addition to fruit, dried fruit, crackers, and cereal, she likes hamburger, spicy things like enchiladas, tomato-y things like lasagna, mushrooms, pizza…etc!
• Daytime sleep is somewhat better than it has been in the past.  She’s napping for an hour to an hour-and-a-half twice a day.  Once at 9am, and once at 1pm.  I’m down to nursing her just before her two naps, before bed, and then two to three times at night.
• Nighttime sleep hasn’t been great.  She had been waking up once or twice, but these days it’s more like three times.  She’s also recently been doing a lot of back-arching and screaming at night.  The last several nights have been particularly frustrating.  Bryan and I take turns trying to soothe her, but she often starts crying again a few moments after the soother gets back in bed.   Last night after trying to get her back to sleep for what seemed like an hour and a half, we let her cry for a half hour or so until she fell asleep on her own.  THANK HEAVENS that Andrew is a sound sleeper.
• A couple days ago, Sylvia learned how to put a toy back in a container.  She was so proud of herself:)
• She’s not clapping yet, and she really hasn’t done any baby signs.  Also, I haven’t heard “uuuhp” in a couple weeks.
• She loves eating snow.
• She loves her daddy and lights up when he comes in the room.
• Television doesn’t hold any interest for her.  And toys are only interesting if they’re being manipulated by someone else.  Or sometimes she’ll play with toys if she’s had a lot of sleep.
• She loves dolls.

That’s a quick snapshot of life with Sylvie these days.  We’re looking forward to celebrating her first Christmas this week!

Dec. 8: Sylvia has been saying “mmmaahh mmaahh mmaahhh” to me for several weeks.  She’s also been saying “baahh baaah” for bye bye (while waving) and “daadaaa” for dada.  All these first words are an extension of her regular babbling, but today she said her first non-babbling word.
She crawled over to me, tapped me on the legs, and said, “maamaaa, uuhhP. uhhP.” (up)  Then later she crawled over to Bryan and said the same thing. Her first word!  Makes sense for a girl who likes so much to be held:)
In other news, Sylvia got her seventh tooth yesterday.  It’s her top right incisor.  That girl is getting a toothy grin!

Dec. 6: We’ve turned a corner in Sylvia’s short-napping world.  It’s been wonderful.  Earlier this week, I again decided to put my foot down on the waking after 45 minutes shenanigans.  I went in to check on her right away and then set the timer for 60 minutes.  After an hour, she was still crying, so I went in and got her up.  Then again for her afternoon nap, I checked on her right when she woke up and tried to soothe her.  Then I left and set the timer for 60 minutes and got my still-crying girl when it went off.

Previously, I’d set the timer for 5 or 15 or 20 or 40 minutes (I have to use the timer, or I just go in because she’s calling for me for heaven’s sakes.  Then I can’t not pick her up, and then it’s all over).  And all of those seemed kind of heartless and horrible.  I often give her 20 minutes to try to settle herself down to take the second half of her nap.  Having me in the room only seems to make her more mad.

I was worried that I’d have to increase the crying times to over an hour the next day, but to my great relief, she slept for a bit over an hour.  Most (but not all) naps this week have been over an hour.  Often an hour and a half. And Sylvia is so happy afterward.  She’ll play by herself, she won’t cry when she bonks her head, she has some patience while I’m getting her food.  If I’d only known that letting her cry for two hours one day would eliminate hours of crying on other days, I would have done this months ago.

Who knows if it’s permanent, but I wanted to write this down so I remember next time what worked in the past.

If my girl slept longer and was therefore happier and less easy to anger, oh what a wonderful world this would be!

Dec. 6: Sylvia will be 10 months old next week.  Can you believe it?  She’s started “walking” by pushing a chair across the room.  She is so proud of herself.  It’s fun to see.  Sylvia loves it when people clap and cheer for her.  But she doesn’t like it when things she wants to do don’t work.  Right now, she has a very low tolerance for things not working right.  And not a lot of persistence.  BUT her screech went away when she lost her voice, and it hasn’t come back yet.  It’s a real relief.  I’m losing a lot less brain cells this way.
Sylvia has long arms, and most of her 6-12 month shirts are starting to have 3/4 length sleeves.  So this morning I put away most of her short sleeved shirts, and all of her warm-weather 6-12 month clothes.  That left her dresser a bit bare.  But never fear!  I went down into the basement and unpacked a big tub of 12 month clothes.  It was so fun to pull out all those sweet baby clothes that either were Andrew’s or I bought before she was born or friends have given to us.  So many sweet things.  Such cute winter wear.  They’re all in the wash right now, and I can’t wait to start incorporating her new shirts and jumpers and overalls into her wardrobe.  I LOVE baby clothes.  Love love love.  It’s a genetic thing.

Nov. 26: Sylvia is a sick girl.  She was up most of the night on Sunday and Monday nights…two teeth were coming in, and she was one very unhappy camper.  She’s now the proud owner of a top left front tooth.  She’s also almost got a forth tooth on the bottom.  Once that comes all the way through, she’ll be up to six teeth.
She started running a fever on Sunday night. Between that and a runny nose, I thought she just had teething side-effects.  However yesterday Andrew got a runny nose, and during our travels yesterday, Sylvia lost her voice.  She’s in good spirits, but now she has a cough and lots of nose-running.  And no scream.
This morning she fell and bonked her head, but when she went to scream and screech, nothing came out.  Silence.  Short “waahh waaahhh” <silent scream> quiet “wahhhhh wwaaaaaahhh” <silent screech>
I couldn’t help but smile a little in relief.
When we had breakfast this morning and she tried to screech in protest at the slowness of the service, no sound came out.  She can still babble and goo, but her upper register has been temporarily put out of order by her cold.  I’m trying not to enjoy it too much.  That would be mean:)