News today on my "babies" from both coasts

Today was a fabulous day for me, and also of course for Dada and Isaac. Why, you ask? The good news came forth on two fronts:

1) We received word today from their publishing offices in D.C. that the journal Science is publishing a paper I wrote on my research. For those of you not familiar, Science is pretty much the Grand Poobah of journals in the science world. Well, technically they share that title with Nature, but the fact remains that if you publish in Science, you are the sexy. My boss is throwing a party for me tomorrow. I had been working on this manuscript for a year, literally from the weekend before Isaac was born until the weekend after his first birthday.

2) After missing my period yesterday, and taking a home test before work this morning and then a blood test at the doctor's office later...
We are pleased to announce that we are pregnant! The impending arrival of a little brother or sister for Isaac will be sometime next February -- internet calculators suggest a due date of February 21.

We are gloating over both, natch, obviously Isaac v 2.0 much more important than the other. Too bad I can't celebrate with a big swig of champagne, but I will go instead of a celebratory Odwalla smoothie.

Dada's Graduation -- a teaser

We went to Dada's commencement ceremony today, which obviously is a big deal since he is so academic now that he gets to wear fancy garb and walk across the stage and have his name announced by some dean. A blog will follow with more details on how we got drenched in one of Seattle's better storm offerings and how Isaac could last for 3 whole hours.

But first I must present to you what is perhaps the best picture I have ever taken, a picture which is a testament to the joy that is digital photography. Commencement was held in Husky Stadium, which means that everybody who walked across the stage got a close-up appearance on the HuskyTron -- a big deal since there were nearly 5000 people graduating today. When they called Dada's name: 1st) I screamed my head off like a good wife to let the crowd know that Dada rocks, and 2nd) Grandma Carolyn and I whipped out our digital cameras:

Where did my Mommy mo-mo go?

I am having a day full of mommy-loathing today, feeling highly defeated and self-conscious of my mommy failings. "Oh, shut your trap, Claire," you say. "Quit it already with your silly case of the 'Poor-Mes'," you say. "You have a gorgeous baby and a gorgeous husband and a fantastic-sounding future and I just love your blog with its diarrhea of photos and lack of text," you say. Yes, I know all this. But despite it, sometimes it is difficult to concentrate on the good things when there are particular frustrations in your life. And I feel like psychological crap and if I dump the crap out on this web page, I will probably feel better, so here you go.

Major Beef #1: Where's the Sleep?
Remember last week, how I blogged about how Sleep and I had been blissfully reunited? The Blog-Curse strikes again, and Isaac has painfully ripped said Sleep away from me, just as Sleep and I were laughing and swinging each other around in circles and feeding each other grapes. Thursday night was the turning point, wherein he was up, completely un-tired, from 1:30 to 4:30. Dad and I took shifts to deal with this awfulness, until finally, on the suggestion of Claudia's mom and dad (who are medical professionals), I gave him some vitamin "B" to help him sleep. That "B" is for Benadryl, and it worked, so shut it. But because of this little interlude, Isaac's clock has been off ever since. Friday night he refused to go to bed until midnight (though from 9 till midnight he was the happiest little guy on earth, laughing, dancing to his Music Maggot, chasing balls around, letting me enjoy my TiVOed Gilmore Girls), and only slept until 7 or 7:30, a solid 3+ hours less than he WAS getting. Last night he was up again in the middle of the night, from 3:30 to 5:00. Tonight he refused to go to sleep at his "typical" bed time, 8:30, so I let him shriek it out, occasionally providing some assistance until 9:15. I have blogged many times about how I "just can't take it anymore" with his sleep problems, but really...HOW LONG CAN THIS GO ON?!?!?!?? And it is one thing to expect him to awaken in the middle of the night; entirely another to quickly grow accustomed to him NOT doing so and then have this set back. On top of all this is what is probably the major problem: 90% of the time, he will not go to sleep for me. This means bedtime or nap time -- something is wrong with the presence of the Mom such that it interferes with sleep-promotion. Yet I am conveniently the one who wakes up with him in the middle of the night. I wrestle with him for an hour and a half, get entirely depressed and despondent over my inability to help him get back to sleep, convince myself that I'm enabling his horrible sleep behavior, consider putting him in his crib to scream it out and then discard that idea because it would wake the neighbors, and finally decide that I can't take it anymore and wake up Dada for his turn. The kid is asleep within 15 minutes of Dada's take-over.

I can't help but think that we're doing something wrong for him to be such a crappy sleeper. And then for me to be so unsuccessful at putting him to bed -- what does that say about me? What have I done to make him this way?

Major Beef #2: Mom-time = Scream-Time
Completely unfabulous and predictable Isaac behavior: Isaac and Dada can have the most awesome time together, romping and playing and whatever. The moment I enter the room, Isaac starts crying, actually whining, about almost anything. Then for his mealtime, which I have to go in the gated-off kitchen to prepare, he follows me and then hangs on the gate, crying "mamamamamamama" no matter how much I talk to him. His fuss can be temporarily relieved with bite-sized food for him to run off with, or with pots and pans to play with, but inevitably he is incredibly upset that he can't cling to me every second. What is this all about? Am I doing something wrong that my kid can't stand to not have me next to him every second?

Major Beef #3: A Mixed Blessing
In two months, I will officially begin my new career as Domestic Coordinator, leaving lab science temporarily behind to stay home with my boy. I am greatly looking forward to it, and feel exceedingly blessed that we have the means and opportunity for me to do this for Isaac, for Michael, and for myself. However, I can't help but wonder if I will like it. What will we *do* all day? How will I clean and cook and do the things I'm supposed to do? Will Isaac miss his friends? Will my relationship change with Dada? Advice or experiences from current or former Domestic Coordinators is appreciated.

Happy 14 months! Recognize the skillz

I haven't blogged for awhile to update you on Isaac's new talents. Some of these are a little old, but I list them in the name of completeness.

Words:
*Kitty -- "Kee-ee". For real this time -- he points at cat-brother and says this. Right before he stomps on cat-brothers tail. On purpose. With his shoes on.
*Doggy -- "Dah-ee", "Dah-dee", or "Dah-kee". We have lots of dogs in our neighborhood, and they always elicit gleeful shrieks and pointing from him.
*Ball -- "Baw", accompanied always by pointing at a ball, or holding up a ball to show a grown-up.
*More -- "mo-mo-mo", usually in context of "gimme that animal cracker".
*No -- He says this in response to pretty much any yes/no question directed his way. One of his teachers was recounting how she asked him last week if he had a good weekend. "No," was his reply.
*And Dada and Mama, which he has done for some time.

Other skills:
*He is trying to run, we think to keep up with Claudia.
*He is hypnotically attracted to balls of all kinds.
*Claudia taught him how to "splash" -- they take small rocks from a section of landscaping near the sidewalk and over to a grate and drop them in to the water below. If you say "Isaac, do you want to splash?" he'll fetch some rocks for that very purpose.
*You can ask him if he wants to swing by asking if he wants to go "whee". When he's done swinging, he'll say "Ma?" and lift his arms up, asking you to take him out.
*He is learning sign language. He can do "more", accompanied with a verbal "mo-mo-mo", which inspired me to buy some board books with pictures of babies making signs. After this, he now does the signs for "ball" and "bird" everywhere, and can mimic the signs for "hat", "fish", "book", "ice cream", "eat", and "drink" when we read the book. His teacher says he started doing the sign for "diaper" at school.
*He nods his head up and down for "yes" when he means it sometimes, but if he means "no", he readily shakes his head from side to side.
*He can squirt you with his squeezy bath toy.
*He loves to push things around when walking, and has discovered how to pull toys behind him when walking, too.
*He has recently discovered that he can bend over and look through his legs to see the world upside down, with much ensuing amusement.
*When he wants to read a book, he will get it and bring it over to you. If I pat my lap, he will turn around and sit in it for a reading session.
*He points at every airplane that goes by, usually before we see them, and can track them even on overcast days when they weave in and out of clouds.
*He walks on the "balance beam", a 6"-wide concrete border around the swingset.
*He wants to eat with utensils (sometimes), and can get food on them and to his mouth (sometimes)
*This weekend: he figured out how to open doors that push inward. Not cabinets; that is old-school. I mean doors to rooms, such as bathrooms and bedrooms. He is working on escaping out the front door, because our apartment is STUPID. Get this: we have a deadbolt, as all apartments should, but we have no other mechanism of locking the door. Now enter the stupid part: you know how, in some cars, you can open the door from the inside even when it's locked? Well, the deadbolt to our house can be disengaged simply by pulling the door handle down. I was hoping we could wait to install some sort of other lock on the door until we moved to Delaware, but now it's looking like we will not be so lucky.
*He has been fully weaned for two or three weeks now.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for now. Happy 14 months, little guy! Now, stay asleep, before your mom starts going crazy. Muhhahahahahha.

More playground adventures of Isaac and Claudia

This weekend Isaac and Claudia had a blast at a neighborhood playground together. Lucky for us, Claudia's mom was there to capture it on her digital camera -- thanks to her for these fabulous pictures. Though how could you take bad pictures of these two future models?

First they attacked the most obvious playground attraction, the bitty-people-sized play structure(s):





Then they found a shed on the side of the playground that housed a bunch of extra toys. A particular hit was this Little Tykes wheelbarrow. Isaac instantly recognized that the wheelbarrow bucket was the perfect size for his little tushy and climbed right in, rocking back and forth to suggest that we should cart him around. Claudia tried to push him, but His Girthyness was too much for her:





Which means that Mom got her exercise running wheelbarrow laps around the playground: