Fuss or fun? Some of each, I guess...

Sometimes our evening impression of the day that was is belied by our review of the day's pictures. Today, for example, we went to bed talking of Madeline's fussiness and her continued struggle with the afternoon nap; our pictures, however, reflect mostly smiles and positive energy.

We started the day at Olga's -- we might have attempted a brunch at home save that we were out of coffee. It was a lovely morning to eat in the garden, anyway, surrounded by flowers. And Madeline napped all the way through.

We were thinking of going to the RISD alumni art sale or perhaps finding a park to wander, but we'd left the wrap at home and had no interest in lugging the monstrous car seat around. So we returned home, and in no time Madeline woke up hungry. She was also full of enough energy that we suspected she wouldn't be keen to get strapped back into her car seat for another trip out.

So she ate, and she stared.

And she played.

And she fussed. Summer took her for a walk around the house to calm; they greeted me through the open window.

We had songs and coo-and-gurgle conversations and a bit of tummy time, too.

Madeline practiced her grip by tugging on Summer's hair. (She also continues to grab other things ever more frequently: she's pulled my glasses off a few times, she fiddles with her outfits, and she clutches her lizard friend and her plush cheetah, too.)

And when she fussed some more, we played sky baby, a game that turns cries into smiles.

But, as I suggested earlier, Madeline never went down for an afternoon nap and so got fussier as the day went on. By seven I managed to walk-bounce her into a tenuous sleep, and we ran out for some errands. Among them: we got a baby swing and a new type of bottle to try. With any luck, these will help with our afternoon nap and bottle-rejection issues. We should be able to tell better tomorrow.

Fri-day and Fri-night

Madeline had a happy Fri-day but not so happy Fri-night. Again, naps were key.

I tried to entertain Madeline during the day while Summer got some work done. When Madeline got hungry, I'd pass her off and try to do a little work myself. This seemed to go fairly smoothly. Here's Madeline against a backdrop of some program that lets Summer play with the little letters in DNA.

Aside from eating, Madeline checked out the front porch and the yard with me -- our snap peas and greens are sprouting! -- and we sang songs. "I've Been Working on the Railroad," one of my childhood favorites, now almost always elicits a big smile, and sometimes Madeline makes coo-and-gurgle noises along with the song. Also, she spent some more time in the vibrating chair, where she played with such age-appropriate toys as the sunglasses my law school gave me after I attended a function for admitted students.

This was all made possible by plenty of morning sleep -- her nighttime sleep ran uninterrupted into morning nap number one, leading to a very bright-eyed, awake, and happy Madeline around 10 AM. Then a late-morning nap allowed for early afternoon happiness. But the afternoon nap never quite came.

Oh, how we tried! I rocked Madeline to sleep in my arms, but as soon as I ever-so-gently began to put her down (shame on me) she awoke with a start. Further arm-rocking efforts failed. Tummy time didn't tire her out. Next came the wrap-and-walk, usually a sure bet. And, sure enough, she slept, but not enough. For most of our walk to and from Wayland Square she remained wide-eyed, nodding off only for brief spells.

As happens under these circumstances, Madeline's evening involved intermittent shouts, feeding and sleep cues, and serene moments (pictured).

These intermittencies gave way to mostly-constant crying around the time we finished dinner. Because the cries were still intercut with some feeding and sleep cues (the serene moments, however, were no more), Summer took it on herself to try to nurse Madeline to sleep. Finally, this worked, but alas! Friday night was gone. Hooray for the beautiful day, anyway.

Grasping and relaxing

Since Max worked today and the weather was less than stellar, Sprout and I spent the day inside together. Today provided more evidence for the nap = happy baby equation.

Madeline seemed so much happier today than she was on Monday. In between naps we read books, sang songs, played with toys, and did a little tummy time.

We also enjoyed listening to the Beatles and Tchaikovsky stations on Pandora. The former was good for dancing and the latter provided some additional drama during the thunderstorm that hit Providence.

It's been really interesting to watch Madeline's motor skills develop. Each day she has better control over her arms and hands. She spent most of the day with one hand grasping her dress or my shirt. And each day she is more and more interested in engaging with her toys.

Thankfully, she is also able to entertain herself for lengthening amounts of time these days. She enjoys smiling at her stuffed animals, watching her mobile and staring at lights. She continues to get a kick out of funny faces, and I particularly like to watch her reaction when I roll my tongue (I haven't tortured her with my more advanced 'clover' tongue yet). She is smiling more consistently now and continues to laugh in her sleep (this may be my favorite thing ever).

Aspirations

We had such aspirations! This morning we laid out a loose plan -- the only type of plan that makes any sense these days -- of neighborhood walk, Mystic Aquarium, and the possibility of a stop in Warwick on the way home to get a nap-encouraging swing. We ended up, though, accomplishing little other than a low-key happy-baby day, which is plenty.

Madeline started crying before she was awake this morning; once she was up, though, she was happy, hungry, and stretchy.

And after she'd eaten, she was serene.

Though we scuttled most of our plan, we did end up going for our walk while the sun was shining -- up Cole to its terminus at Elmgrove, then over to Blackstone for lunch from Three Sisters. We took our sandwiches to a park bench across the street. Wrapped Madeline mainly remained napping. By our return trip via Hope the sky had clouded over, the temperature had cooled (from hot to comfortable), and a breeze was blowing. Still Madeline slept.

But once we'd been home for a few minutes, her hunger took over. And she ate so enthusiastically that we missed the window for timely driving to Mystic. We weren't too keen on going anywhere else, so we stayed home, played with baby, and got a little work in while she slept again.

As for playing, we read some books (How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Cats?, The Color Kittens, and The Rainbow Fish), we marveled at the Food Chain Friends, and Madeline even enjoyed sitting up and then toppling over.

Also Madeline really clicked with her vibrating bouncy chair for the first time today. She examined the setup for a while before repeatedly and delightedly bashing the red-turtle-rattle with her left hand. She's just accomplished such a bash in this picture, hence the extremely blurred left hand.

So low-key happy-baby days at home are probably fine with her, and therefore fine with us: she can figure out what happens when she bashes or otherwise interacts with interesting things, and we can begin taking ever-so-slight steps back and allowing her to explore her still very limited world.

Naps ⇒ Happiness

This morning Madeline's smiles were not deceptive. Even though Summer spent her longest time yet at lab and Madeline still won't take a bottle despite our early successes, the day was largely happy. Based on a very limited set of anecdotal evidence, I think Summer's right -- naps are the key to happy afternoons and evenings.

The first newsworthy item of the day is that Madeline attentively sat through my rendition of The Lorax -- all 72 pages of it!

Then around 9:30, Madeline fell asleep. I thought this would be her first nap of the day, so when I was sure she was out soundly I set her in the crib. This was the result:

Not exactly the picture of peaceful slumber. Luckily today's weather was again beautiful, so I tucked Madeline into the wrap for a nice, long walk around the neighborhood. In the wrap she got her nap.

The rest of the day proceeded as follows: happy wakefulness, hunger cues, attempted bottle-feed, cries, pouty calm, nap, repeat. Happy wakefulness was good for playing! Hunger cues and attempted bottle-feeds were frustrating. Unhappy calms were sufficient for some more reading aloud. Today's naps seemed high-quality -- not the sort of angry suspended animation she sometimes enters after refusing a bottle. During one I watered our sugar snap peas and mixed greens. And the cries and pouts never seemed to last too long. Here's a cry that I was able to remedy somewhat by playing with toys (wooden fish and Sophie the Giraffe were key, while pink bird served as her punching bag).

When Summer came home, full happiness was restored! Madeline was excited to see her mama (and very ready for some proper food).

After eating, Madeline was content to gaze happily for a while.

When she got sleepy, she rested in the car seat while we did some picking up and Summer prepared a spread for her friends.

I cleared out and balanced the all-women's evening occurring at home by engaging in the manly act of seeing Jane Eyre at Avon Cinema by myself. From what I hear, though, Madeline was very good and enjoyed all the extra attention. And when I came home, she was still happy to see me even after we'd spent several hours spent in each other's exclusive company earlier.

In fact, the happiness quotient was high enough that bedtime was full of smiles tonight: smiles for me, smiles for Summer, and smiles for wind-up dog.

A good night indeed!

Tuesday morning bonus post

Here are a couple of videos from last night. Baby is full of energy!

In the crib before bath:



Kicking in the bath but not quite splashing:

Manic Monday

Deceptive morning happiness.

Today was my longest stretch alone with Madeline and boy was it exhausting! I don't know how parents with more than one kid do it!

Most naps last less than half an hour.
I actually started taking notes of what we did during the day because I thought it might be interesting for some readers. When I was pregnant I wondered what a 'day in the life of someone caring for a newborn' would be like. Unfortunately, my notes didn't end up being very good because I was constantly changing activities, trying to keep Madeline happy.

Mission: produce smile with lizard toy.

Mission accomplished! (Note that the time is only 11 AM.)

She has seemed fussier than usual for the past week or so. I think she may not be getting enough sleep during the day. She starts off the day really happy with lots of smiles and seems to get grouchier and grouchier as the day goes on. Along those lines, most of the pictures from today are from this morning (although some are from bathtime). I'll let Max select the best ones as I need to go to sleep soon! [Ed. note: indeed, Summer fell asleep while I was inserting photos into the post.]

Summer squirting sprout with bath toy: as close to a smile as we got this evening.

First Easter

This morning the Easter Bunny brought a new outfit (and various other goodies) for Madeline (and parents). Madeline seemed more in touch with the gravity of Easter weekend than the gaiety of the holiday itself, though.

After some time at home including a hearty brunch, we walked to Wayland Square hoping to find ice cream. But all the local food purveyors were closed for the holiday, so we had to settle for Starbucks frappuccinos. On the way home, drinks in hand, we checked out the Blackstone Park Conservation District. This is a part of the city we've drastically underused in the past. Even though it's just a few blocks from our old apartment, we'd only ever skirted the exterior but had never realized that there's a network of trails and lovely woods-and-water views.

We first did a small loop at the southern end of the park.

Madeline's taken to grabbing the hem of her wrap rather than simply sticking out a finger or two as she used to d0. And here she's wearing her finest hat in honor of the holiday.

Rather than finish the loop and return to the street, we continued along a branch path, emerging a little later to check out an informative sign and flowering trees.

Then we continued along the elevated middle section of the park, whose paths afford the aforementioned view of the Seekonk River. The wooden fencing is to keep visitors away from the eroding slope; apparently the erosion is severe enough in some spots that the paths are fenced off completely. Note that in this picture, Madeline's clutching each hand with the other. Cute!

We didn't explore the northern part of the park but instead headed home because the weather was getting unexpectedly oppressive for April: mid-70s and humid. But this was perfect for less active outdoor pursuits. So we spread out a blanket in the yard, and Summer entertained Madeline while I planted some sugar snap peas and mixed greens.

Madeline was perhaps feeling overstimulated by all this outside time.

So when we went back inside, we tried for a nap. It didn't work too well: Madeline was wired.

Finally she ended up napping between us on the futon. When she was awake again and we'd finished dinner, we tried to do an Easter-outfit photo shoot. Most of the photos are either grumpy or blurry, but there were some smiles to be captured. Here's the best of the bunch.

Rainy, fussy Saturday

This morning Madeline was in a good mood. Just the slightest bit of attention would provoke a smile. We read books together, and she was quite interested in the material printed on the pages. A quality knuckle to gnaw on would send her a step or two beyond happy.

By afternoon, however, her mood had turned. Fuss, fuss, flail prevailed over smiles. Shouts snuck out between knuckle-gnaws.

Summer managed to provoke a period of quiet thoughtfulness by stepping out onto our front porch to watch the rain.

Quiet thoughtfulness gave way to inexhaustible energy. Sometimes Madeline can expend a significant amount of that inexhaustible energy on a blanket strewn with toys. Today, though, she looked at me as if to say sarcastically, "Yeah, right."

Then she punched away the plush bunny for emphasis.

Tummy time didn't work either. For a while Madeline expressed her discontent only intermittently. She picked up the tempo over dinner. And by dark we were dealing with more or less constant wails. Doing bicycle kicks while singing along to Queen's "Bicycle Race" helped for a moment, but mostly this was the scene:

(Note the jersey: for some time now I've been following the Portland Trail Blazers, who pulled off a huge comeback win to tie their playoff series tonight!)

Madeline's diaper was clean, her belly full, and her temperature totally normal. Seems like the issue was either teething (lots of drool these days) or growing pains.

I finally was able to dance her to sleep. She woke back up for a calm and easy bed time, though she still (around 10) isn't down for good yet. Time to try the wind-up dog again...

Earth Day

Today we celebrated Earth Day with Madeline! Again, the day started off with smiles.

I got to lounge with Madeline while Summer got ready for our first order of business: picking up compost (a pile of which had been handily delivered to Brown Stadium, about a block away) .

With a bit of difficulty (we brought to the compost pile only a plastic trash bag and no shovel) we safely secured our compost and then prepared for our second and primary order of business: John H. Chafee Nature Preserve. Specifically, we planned to stroll out to Rome Point and see the seals before they migrate.

Madeline was ready.

And soon enough, after several characteristic wrong turns on my part, we were there.

Once we made it out of the woods and to the bay, Summer examined one of the large sea stars we found. Madeline was not as interested.

She was willing to pose sleepily for a somewhat sticky family portrait. Due to both the bright sun and my propensity for blinking just as I myself pressed the shutter button, even a passable shot took several tries.

We made it out to Rome Point and found a comfortable, grassy place on a small, secluded promontory.

An unusually awake Madeline was bombarded by nature's many sensory offerings; her expression changed frequently from happy to worried to fascinated to confused.

She seemed to enjoy the feel of grass and dirt on her bare feet.

Summer and I saw the seals, albeit unclearly and from a significant distance (binoculars would've been a good call); Madeline's eyesight's probably not that developed yet. Even so, all those sensory experiences made Madeline hungry.

I wandered about collecting things: shells (pictured) and trash to take out of the park (not pictured). I also saw spiders on the beach.

The whole walk back, we picked up candy wrappers and plastic bottle tops and sundry other rubbish. Summer even went for some high-risk, low-reward little plastic bits in thorny nests.

We proceeded down to Narragansett for our third order of business: seafood from Aunt Carrie's. But on the way, Madeline announced that she was hungry, too. We pulled off at Scarborough Beach (still free in April) so she could eat. When she was done, she displayed her contentedness.

But as it turned out, that smile was a bit misleading. On the short drive from Scarborough to Aunt Carrie's, Madeline said she was unhappy again. We tended to her, got takeout, and took off. She said she was unhappy again. She calmed a bit. She said she was unhappy again. When Madeline entered full meltdown mode we had to pull into a parking lot across from the Hannah Robinson Tower. And there we remained for over an hour, trying to soothe our inconsolable daughter. In fact, between Madeline's fusses and a quick but necessary grocery store stop, we didn't arrive home until 9:30 or so.

But hey, the rest of the day was pretty darn good, if maybe a bit overstimulating for a still-new little person. And Madeline seems to have gotten over her unhappiness: at home, she smilingly acceded to her bedtime routine of diaper-and-outfit change, wind-up dog, and a book (tonight, Silly Games -- speaking of which, wow, here's a brutal review of a set of my childhood favorites). And now, sleep.