Singular Nap-or-at-tus

What?!? Wait a minute. No, how is this possible. I wasn't ready for this. (sound familiar?).

Once again I worried and fretted and researched when we should transition Riley to one nap. Transition! What a joke. I had nothing to do with it.

Riley has been sleeping twice a day for about an hour each time for months. She generally goes down at 10:30am and 2:30-3pm. My life revolved around this schedule. I showered and ate during the first nap and got Isaac started on homework during the second. Sure it made going places tricky because you had to aim for the ever changeable "between naps" window, but it gave 2 short breaks from Riley.

A few days ago Riley slept 3hrs during her morning nap. I was transported back to the first days of her life when I would check on her thousands of times while she slept. Suddenly, the quiet stillness was too much to bear. I assumed it was a fluke, but kept her up until bedtime since she'd slept so long.

The next day her morning nap lasted 4hrs. I was organizing my desk and making a new banner for the blog when I suddenly realized how long I'd been working uninterupted and graphic scenes of Riley injured in the next room flooded my brain. She was fine, but it was too late in the day for her to sleep before bed, again.

At that point I was convinced it was the cold she was recovering from and these long naps wouldn't last. Over the weekend she routinely slept 3-4hrs and on Saturday when I made the mistake of attempting to put her down for a second nap she made sure I paid for it. I was a deaf, basket-case when I gave up an hour later.

It was that afternoon that Mike said "I guess we've moved to one nap." Oh, wow! Oh...wooooowww. Duh. I hadn't realized what was happening until it was over, again. Why is Mommy always the last to get the memo? I had been too close to her to notice a change had occurred. I guess it'll always be that way. I'll only really see her growing up when I look at old pictures or when someone else points it out.

Not to be melodramatic, I'm fully aware she switched nap schedules. It's not like she's off to college, but it is another reminder that she's not a baby any more. She's a toddler through and through. I feel just as torn about the general direction of things as I do about the specific adjustment.

There are a few important pluses here: more hours awake at a time and a longer consectutive break from baby. It also means earlier lunch, ready for bed earlier (which sounds good but means she's up earlier in the morning), and messes with the nap schedule at day care.

How did we get here? She was just this tiny little bean that slept more than she was awake and now she picks out her clothes some mornings and tells me about her day with more words than babble.

Another step, another change. She sure knows how to remind Mommy who's in charge.

Or-or-ee-oooo, the Right Stuff.

Yesterday thanks to social networking I got my hands on  a recipe for Oreo muffins. In a past life I baked alot. It started in high school, around my Junior year when my over-loaded class schedule, extra circulars and after school job conspired to give me an ulcer. I would come home from school with a long list of to-dos and just bake a batch of cookies or something. It wasn't a comfort food thing. Sometimes I didn't eat any at all, but the baking process was comforting, I loved the warm kitchen with the smell of baked goods hanging in the air.

Between my grossly inadequate kitchen, my current inability to sit or stand very long and all the things that have to be done it's been years since I've even considered baking. Here's the recipe: http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/oreo-muffins-53596.aspx

First I had to coarsely chop some cookies, so fun! Also, before you do anything else take the butter out to get soft this is very important.

A word to the wise if your house is anything like mine count out the necessary number of cookies for the muffins and one or two for yourself and put them somewhere you can keep an eye on them. I lost half a dozen to people breezing through the kitchen. It's better to leave your cookie pieces a little chunky.

Remember cook books? Me too I have a shelf full of them, but there's often a laptop on our kitchen table while someone is cooking. As convenient as laptops are, if your internet goes out or battery dies, you're stuck. I had one issue and panicked, and I still didn't print it out.

Yet again I thought that making muffins would be something the kids would want to help with, but I guess I didn't give them advanced enough warning because they were both out cold. Riley who rarely sleeps more than an hour has been recovering from a cold and sleeping longer. As far as big brother goes he discovered a channel that plays 80's cartoons in the wee hours of the morning. I can't really blame the kid for wanting to watch quality cartoons, but I've taken measures to prevent that from happening at 3am ever again. Isaac passed out college style in his science book:

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth I decided to go for it on this inexplicably quiet weekend afternoon. The next step is mixing the dry ingredients. I was a little intimidated by the step that requires you "cut in" butter with a "pasty blender." After consulting Mike it turns out that all they mean is not to mix it super thoroughly, but to leave slivers of butter in the batter. It has something to do with the way it cooks. Also, a wire whisk works just fine for this.  

Another snag we hit was that our baking power was so old it was from a store that has been out of business for some time (maybe 6yrs). We didn't think it would matter, being only powdered chemicals, but the muffins were pretty dense and didn't puff up as much as we expected. They were still perfectly delicious, however. Mixing in the wet ingredients was pretty straight forward and as a nice surprise they only needed to be stirred "just until moistened". I hate mixing for 20 minutes, laughing maniacally as I press every lump between the spoon and the bowl.

And then they woke up. Notice the Oreo face, at least the cookie thieves shared. 

 Riley loves to cook. She "helps" Daddy in the kitchen all the time. She arrived just in time to help me gently stir in the cookies. She did that for a few minutes and then grew impatient and ran off with the salt. There's a sodium mound on her brother's floor courtesy of Miss Roo.

Once the cookies were added it was scooping time. I always have anxiety about this part because I once overfilled my muffin cups with disastrous consequences. This recipe specifically states to fill 12 cup evenly, so there you have it. Fill them all until there's no more batter and then bake.

Once they were in the oven (I got help with that part, thank you Mike.) it was Isaac's turn to help:

Spoon well licked. I went to lay down and my timer didn't go off so my muffins baked an extra 5minutes, but no harm done. I mentioned before if your baking powder is less than a decade old yours will be puffier. Drum roll....

And here's a baby enjoying them

And here's the mess (well I tiny part of it)

Don't you love my beautiful bowls? I love finding reasons to use them. So, yummy muffins were had by all and my love of baking is re-ignited, hurray!

On an related note we ate a lovely dinner of pork chops and rice prepared by Mike. I was done being upright and productive after muffins. We were all sitting around the table, and Isaac exclaimed "we should have a meat tree."  As I have not yet conquered the grocery store, my mind was spinning at the possibility of it, when he followed up with "Or! A money tree."

I told him I'd rather have the meat tree, since a money tree would most likely be stolen. That's when he amended the idea to, "No, it would be inside the house."  I was apparently in Debbie Downer mode, because I immediately pointed out that if there were a money tree in the house, we could never move and it would be hard to have company over, because we might think that they had taken some if it's money.  Isaac thought about this for a minute, and then he said, "No, it would be a public money tree and there would be money for everyone.

 Isaac finished his dinner and went off to ponder how to secure the money tree.

I wish him lots of luck with that task.

Riley's Restaurant

This morning after giving the kids breakfast and dressing the baby I decided to get dressed and even (gasp!) put on some make up. I had of course done a survey of potential dangers and gaged big brother's mood. I was sure they'd play nicely for a bit. I was right.

When I came back to check on them mid-way through my make up application they were playing in Riley's room. Aside from the wall of toys Isaac had built to pen her in all was well. I reminded him how unkind that behavior is especially in Riley's own room. Riley was blissfully unaware of the barricade. She was very busy stirring in her yellow teacup with a smiling soup spoon. I asked her if she was making soup for Isaac. "Hassss!" she replied and continued stirring.

Isaac glanced up from Riley's little doll house where he was pushing Little People off the roof and with the disdain of a 13yr old girl dripping from his words replied "No, thanks. I don't need any soup in a teacup" I'm sure this remark did not have the effect he intended because I laughed which caused Riley to laugh and left him scowling.

Then I said "Oh, Riley you should start a restaurant. Soup in a teacup is quite a niche."

While I sat typing this Riley got into the kitchen garbage. I would re-think any reservations you made for her soup restaurant....

Crafty as a Moose

Moose: http://www.nickjr.com/crafts/moose-no-sew-snuggle-pillow.jhtml?path=/crafts/noggin-shows/all-themes/all-ages/index.jhtml
Zee: http://www.nickjr.com/crafts/zee-no-sew-snuggle-pillow.jhtml?path=/crafts/all-shows/seasonal/all-ages/index.jhtml

My entire plan for today was to make these little pillows Riley saw on TV and freaked out about. I enjoy crafts, but I'm no Martha Stewart by any means, in fact I really enjoy doing my own thing and I find the imperfections interesting.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is a clip featuring Moose A. Moose and his bird friend, Zee.

Parents from my generation know Moose's voice as Stick Stickly... Ah, memories...

I had left over felt from the hedgehog finger puppets I made for Riley's birthday:

Mike had some batting laying around from fixing the couch and I didn't want to go anywhere.
So we begun...

The first thing they don't tell you in the tips section is that not unlike those "10 minute" meals there's hours or prep work. First of all you have to do them both - their kind of like peanut butter and jelly, they go together. So that's 4 pages of templates to print, cut out of the paper and then cut out of the felt.

Still cutting, while Riley screams impatiently in the high chair beside me.

Here is a pile of Moose parts. Now, because I was working with left over felt from another project, I didn't have yellow for Moose's body. I only had brown. One piece of light brown and one piece of dark brown. I reasoned that, in the real world a moose would be brown, but I didn't have enough of either to do both sides. Also, both characters should have black and white eyes according to the directions. I didn't have black or white either, so I decided to use light brown for the whites of their eyes and blue and green for their respective pupils.

It took me a while to realize that, duh, I can fold the felt so I only had to cut the bodies, eyes, antlers, etc once. I was really worked up about things not lining up properly. When I was almost done, I realized all I had to do was trim the edges. Sigh, I swear when I had time to myself I used to do crafts all the time.

The directions tell you to let your preschooler arrange the faces, but by the time I had all the darn pieces cut out she was napping. I am not super proud of my cutting skills on the Moose. I recommend a pair of small scissors for detail work, though I was too tired to go dig them out. As you can see from the second picture, I amputated Moose's tail and had to re-attach it patchwork style. Both pillows had pieces that had to go between the layers. I borrowed a piece of stiff felt for Moose's antlers, but I forgot about Zee's feet. So the poor bird has floppy feet.

The directions talk about pressing down on those pieces for 60 seconds. I don't think that was enough I put a heavy book on top for long enough to proofread a blog post. Also, felt 101 (which I obviously slept through) dictates glue should be applied to the courser side as opposed to the soft side. This caused my pillows problems. Another tip the barcode sticker the craft store puts on is usually on the course side.

I glued the faces while Riley was napping. Sue me, I wanted to see what the pieces looked like all together after all that prep. She woke up in time to "help" stuff them and glue them closed. Here's what a 16mo old helping looks like:

Yup, that's her running away with the batting. They warn you not to over-stuff them since it will cause problems with glue. Once I scooped her on to my lap she did actually hold the glue bottle with me and squeeze. She even pressed down around the edges with me, unfortunately there was no way to take a picture of that moment of cooperation. The whole idea is that these are "no sew" pillows, but like I said, I had the felt sides wrong, so I was having sticking issues. Beyond that, I asked Riley where the eyes were and she promptly pulled them off. While it would have been the exact right thing with Mr. Potato Head, I had to hold back tears when she did it to our pillow friend.

So while Daddy gave Riley lunch, I decided to get out the needle and thread. Just so there's no confusion, those hedgehog finger puppets were my very first sewing project, I'm not exactly a member of any local quilting bees, I just wanted to at least anchor the faces. I thought lunch would give the glue time to dry, and then maybe, maybe, I wouldn't have to sew the perimeter of each. No dice.

I sewed the Moose. I wasn't pleased with how he turned out, but it's a hard and fast rule of crafts and baking that the first one you make turns out the worst. In hindsight, I wish I had stuffed them a little fuller since I was sewing them. Maybe I was being overly critical and I was disappointed in my aptitude for this project in general. I was stressed by the time Moose was done, and thinking, "why? why did I do this again? Answer:

 She LOVED him. He was perfect in her eyes. Even though it took me from 9:00am to 3:30pm to complete the first pillow I was able to sew Zee in the first 15mins of her nap. I sat around for the next 1.5hr impatiently waiting to show her Zee, who was hands-down my favorite. Ta-da!

 When I heard her waking up, I went racing to her room with Zee and a camera. She was elated! I said "Look who's here!" and Riley scooped Moose up out of her crib and held him up. Best friends reunited.

 Hurray, you're both here! I love you so much, Mwah!

 And then because Grandma didn't have a context for our friends, and just to see what Riley would do, I turned on Moose and Zee (gotta love cable on-demand). Here's my smiling, one shoed girl watching Moose and Zee on TV. She kept holding them up and laughing. It was so worth it!

Feeling Human Again

Today was my wonderful baby juggler friend's birthday. I schemed for awhile to orchestrate a mom's afternoon off. Her wonderful husband agreed to watch the babies. I went over in the morning so Riley could play. They had a blast and when they went down for nap we were off.

We went to get our nails done. I was never a high maintenance girl, but when I was single I found my way to the nail place on the corner twice a month for a pedicure. I haven't had a pedicure BY MYSELF (sans baby) in 8mos of pregnancy + 16mos of Riley's life=2yrs, at least. Which isn't really all that socking since the occasional doctor's appointment is really the only thing I do without Riley these days.

This was an important turning point for me. It felt like I'd been under water all this time and had finally made it to the surface for air. I may have taken a few steps in the right direction when Riley was 6mos, but when she was 8mos I had the back surgery which knocked me back to the days of having a newborn (or worse) as far as taking care of myself is concerned.

Eating, brushing my hair and teeth, showering, changing my clothes were not as high on my priority list as they once been. Doing my hair and make-up were things I had hazy memories of from a mythical time when I slept past 7:30am on weekends. It was worse than just being too exhausted from only being permitted to sleep 2hrs at a time, this time around I was not physically capable of any of it.

Even 8mos past the back surgery (2mos after hip surgery) I can't dress myself. I also have to "get flat" `several times a day and I'm just done with being conscious by 9:00 when the kids go to bed. Beyond that I was "on call" for breast feeding for 13mo and between the baby and surgery I didn't get out alot.

Today felt like the first steps on the road to feeling human again. Pedicure-check, Shirts that actually fit me instead of the stretched out stuff I wore all through pregnancy and breastfeeding-check. Friday I'm using the gift card I got for Christmas to get my hair done. Let's have more thinking about just me time especially if it means I stop cringing when someone gets me in a picture.

Riley inspecting my pedicure: (OPI Kinky in Helsinki)

Bare Naked Babies (Butts)

So we have a little seat that fits over the toilet so that Riley can use it. She picked it out herself. It has Sesame Street characters on it. She sits on it before every bath and makes the sound effects of peeing even if she hasn't actually done it yet.

That's all well and good, but toddlers and bathrooms are a dangerous combination. Unless you want your tile covered with unspooled toilet paper, the rubber ducky flushed down the toilet and your little one staggering around drunk on mouthwash. They're a bit like frat boys that way everywhere is a potential "party" locale and you can always measure the fun that was had by the size of the mess left in their wake. This is way our bathroom door is closed to Riley until bath time.

We decided she needed a potty chair in the living room to further potty training efforts. I took her to pick out her potty, all the while talking up what a big girl she was. I put 3 choices down on the floor for her inspection. She babbled for a moment and then sat on the one that looked like a frog. When I encouraged her to "try" the other ones she shook her head. She remained seated and smiling on the frog making peeing noises. When she did stand up she picked up the frog potty and started leading the way out of the store.

We put the potty in the living room and she sat on it a handful of times, but hasn't christened it yet. She did, however, take the bowl part out, put it on her head and march around making pee pee noises. At least the potty is fun and not scary. She inspires alot of confidence despite the fact that she hasn't gone on either potty yet.

The other day Daddy gave her oatmeal for breakfast sans bib. After her well earned bath Daddy took her into her room to get dressed. Later that day as we cruised the aisles at Target I noticed Riley's bare butt was visible over the waistband of her pants. This should not be possible. I assumed we had some diaper slippage, but when I felt the back of her pants there was nothing but baby butt.

Daddy have forgotten a diaper!! He just pulled her pants over her bare butt. So there we were in the toy aisle with a baby going commando. She had been diaperless for what I'm guessing was about 45min. Daddy of course thought this was hilarious and that we should let it ride and see how long she stayed dry. I'm not a big gambler so I plopped the baby down on my lap and wheeled off to the ladies room before he knew what was happening.

We're getting closer to potty training by inches. Her bladder muscles are mature enough to "hold it" and the other day she walked over to me grabbed her diaper and said "Ma, ma peeeeeezzzzz." Onward and toilet-ward we go!

Immobilized Spine vs Gravity

My spine is motionless, fixed, and anchored in place. It no longer bends. The yoga and acrobatic sex ships have sailed. My muscles were so tight they bent the bones and as punishment someone came along and shoved rods into my back like steaks in a tomato garden. This is good because my spine will not be able to continue bending until organs eventually become compressed, but bad because, call me crazy, I found bending over super useful.


The other day I went to get gas, which has always been one of my least favorite activities. I pulled up to the pump, assured Riley this would just take a minute and pulled the lever to release the door to my gas tank. I climbed out, hobbled around the back of the car and unscrewed the gas cap. At one time my gas cap was attached with a little piece of plastic and I could just let it hang there, this is no longer the case. I usually set the gas cap behind the luggage rack on top of the car while I pump.

Today I was pulled just a bit further forward than normal so when I set the gas cap on the roof of the car it rolled down the back window, bounced off the bumper and kept going. I stood there thinking "Oh, crap! Some car is gonna pull in and crush it or knock it into the road." Before I had really considered the ramifications I walked over to where my gas cap was laying.

There I stood several feet from my car with the baby in it unable to pick up the gas cap, in a high traffic area. After what felt like hours (maybe 30 seconds) I knelt down and picked up the gas cap. Now I was several feet from the car stuck on my knees. I tried to calculate how long it would take to crawl back to my car and pull myself up verses rolling towards the much closer curb and praying it was high enough to use. I doubted greatly I'd be able to mange either without being hit by a car.

I knelt there feeling like the worst mother on the planet for abandoning my baby and hobbling away from the car without my crutches and eventually leaving her motherless when a distracted businessman pulls in for gas and flattens me like a pancake. I looked around again trying to pysch myself to crawl for it and that's when I saw someone crossing the street. I'm not exactly the "always relied on the kindness of strangers" girl, but sometimes it's the best option.

"Excuse me" I called over to the man who looked more than a little confused by this lady kneeling at the gas station. With great trepidation he came closer. I wasn't exactly at my most eloquent I said something along the lines of "Hi! Um, could you give me a hand up. Please. I just need a hand up. I dropped my gas cap. My back is fused." I said all of this at very quickly and with a huge embarrassed grin on my face. I'm lucky he didn't turn and run. With an expression no more trusting than he started with he asked "Why, what's wrong with you?" What a question, I took a breath and said "I have a bad back. I just need a hand up."

He eventually extended his hand and I was upright again. I hate gravity. Next time you drop something take a moment and consider what you would do with a back that doesn't bend and bad balance.