Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Four

Houses

Today was a long day. Highlights:

• We didn’t put in an offer on either of the south Austin houses (that have the identical floor plans). One was clearly better than the other, but we found that we liked the west Austin houses a lot more because of the quiet and the views.

• We did decide to put in an offer on a house, though, and we were excited to find out that although others were interested and circling the place like buzzards, none had yet put in an offer. So we put in our offer and got a verbal acceptance tonight! Tomorrow will begin the long process of buying a freaking house!!

• Milo was great in the car today! She fell asleep without any fuss at all while we drove around. Granted, her naps were short, but there was no crying or struggle to get to sleep!

• I drove around Austin, and it wasn’t terrible. I don’t drive in San Francisco, and I can’t really remember the last time I drove as much as I did today. It was nice to know that I didn’t have anxiety and felt completely comfortable behind the wheel in our soon-to-be city.

• Mom left us at around 3pm, but she got to see a lot of houses and it was good to spend some time with her. She got to see and hold Milo a lot! Milo just loved having her in the back seat, too. Mom was talking and making faces at her nonstop, and Milo just laughed and laughed!

• Nearly forgot to write about last night: Milo was awake for a while and was inconsolable. She just kept crying and crying, and there was nothing we could do to get her back to sleep. So it was a cry-it-out kind of night, with lots of comforting shushes and back rubs. She eventually went back to sleep, and Chase and I kept hearing phantom cries for a while. Then, we had to wake her up this morning to head out on our house tour, which was a difficult decision to make. But she did great, and hopefully sleep will be better tonight.

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Three

Austin Trip

Travel day: Milo was a great traveller, even though she hadn’t had a nap since the morning.

Our flight was in the afternoon, so we spent the morning packing and getting ready. It felt like such a regular day, actually. We got Milo down for a good morning nap, made lunch, and watched some tv. Milo played, and we got stuff done.

We actually discovered a house that we really like and we think we might put in an offer when we actually get to see it, so some of the morning was spent arranging a back up plan for taking care of Sophie if we happen to need to extend our stay in Austin for inspections, etc. Chase and I are pretty excited about the house - it’s in south Austin, and strangely enough there are two houses that have the exact same floor plan that went on the market at the same time. So, we’ve possibly got double the chance of getting a house we like!

We got a Lyft to the airport, and Milo was great all the way to the gate and getting on the plane. She fell asleep for part of the flight, and was playful and fun for the rest of it. We were able to let her play on the floor by our feet; she mostly wanted to stand and play with toys, and we let her. I don’t know if it’s allowed, but at least she wasn’t bothering anyone.

The drive to our rental wasn’t fun, though. Milo was over tired and needed to get in bed pronto, but the rental was quite a distance from the airport, and we had to pick up dinner on the way. We ended up getting her into bed an hour later than normal, but hopefully she’ll do ok tonight.

At the rental we found Mom waiting for us. She’s going to accompany us to look at houses for part of the day tomorrow, which we’re happy about. We talked for a little while tonight but got in bed not too long after we ate dinner. We were pooped!

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Two

Lost Phone

I lost my phone today. Luckily, I have everything backed up to iCloud, so none of my precious baby photos are lost. But still, I feel pretty dumb for losing the phone itself. I still don’t know how it happened. I was getting off of BART and I reached in my jacket pocket to make sure it was there. Then I thought to myself, “I’d better zip my pocket most of the way so that my phone doesn’t fall out.” So I did. Cut to 30 min later, when I’m on the bus and I reach for my phone in my pocket and it’s not there. It was a terrible feeling.

I then spent a good part of the afternoon trying to track it using Find my iPhone, but that only works if the phone is somewhere with a signal. So it never came up. I called it about a thousand times, but I’m guessing it lost battery pretty quickly since it was only at about 30% when I last checked it. So who knows where it went to.

Notes:

• Chase joined us for sign language class today, which was a ton of fun. The babies were not as active at first, so I was afraid that he wouldn’t get the true experience. Actually, Milo was the most active for a while, and she ended up in the teacher’s lap for some of the class. But the other babies woke up somewhere along the way and were a lot of fun.

• Milo was kind of the bully in class today; another baby had a toy, Milo decided she wanted it. So, she went and took it. When the other baby reached for it, Milo held it away from him. I don’t know where or how she learned that. But it was funny.

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-One

Naps

During Milo’s first nap this morning, I decided to take a nap myself. It was really nice, actually. I haven’t done that in a while. Milo slept almost 2 hours, and I think I probably slept about 80 minutes. Milo woke up refreshed and in a good mood, and so did I.

Most of the day was spent playing, so not much different from other days, really. Milo had two shorter naps in the afternoon, and I didn’t get as much done as I’ve gotten in previous days when she napped longer. Today, I managed to clean up the kitchen a bit and fold laundry, but that’s about it.

Milo continued to blow raspberries with her tongue, and she also started making a clicking sound with it. She’s really exploring everything she can do with her tongue lately! It’s very cute.

Day Two Hundred and Thirty

Raspberries

Notes:

• Milo started blowing raspberries today! It’s just an extension of sticking her tongue out, but I’m excited about it. And she mimicked me each time I blew raspberries, so it seems pretty likely that I taught her this particular trick.

• Amazing 2-hour nap this morning, and another (90m) in the afternoon! I almost didn’t know what to do with myself.

• She slept from about midnight to 6am, which is a good stretch. Woke up laughing and babbling, so we left her alone until she got fussed. Then I went in to feed her, and she slept until 7:30! Nice.

• Today was probably the hardest diaper change I’ve done. She just screamed because she didn’t want to be laying down; as soon as I was done, she just rolled right over and started playing. I hope this does not continue.

• Easy dinner: cauliflower steaks and leftovers. We gave Milo more bananas, but she wasn’t terribly interested in them tonight.

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Nine

Slow Chase

Today was another day that was pretty uneventful. I don’t want to call it boring because Milo’s so active that I’m never really bored. She and I played a lot. I like to let her crawl on me as I lay on the floor sometimes, but I may have to stop that because she hurts me sometimes.

She hasn’t quite gotten the hang of her walkers yet; she pulls up at them and often tries to climb on them from the front instead of getting behind them and pushing. But we’re working on it, and she still has fun with them.

One of the cutest moments today came when Milo chased Sophie around the living room. Granted, they’re both pretty slow, so it wasn’t high-speed by any means. Here’s the story: we get one bright, sunny spot on the carpet in the afternoon, and Sophie loves to lay there. So, she went and laid down, and then Milo took off after her. Sophie slowly got up and moved across the living, with Milo slowly following behind. Sophie got up on the bed where Milo couldn’t follow, and then Milo occupied herself with some other toy. Sophie then returned to the sunny spot, with Milo following closely behind. Repeat. I loved watching it.

Milo is also fascinated by different mouth movements still and tries to imitate them more and more. Today she tried to imitate me when I put an egg in my mouth and blew it onto the carpet. I’ve also been blowing raspberries with my tongue, and she watches very closely.

We didn’t go out today because I just didn’t feel like it, so I ordered a pizza and we just chilled out at the apartment. Milo seemed ok with it. She gets a little fussed when I put up the gate to keep her in the living room, but she forgets about it easily. She’s also proving herself to be a smart little cookie because she always goes back to the places that we take her away from. It’s like she knows she’s not supposed to get into stuff there, so she wants it more.

Not a bad day, overall. Dinner was easy, and we fed Milo some bananas while we ate. She still likes bananas pretty well.

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Eight

Monday

Today was kind of boring. We played a lot, and Milo spent some time exploring, as usual. She tried to get to the radiator again by crawling over all the stuff we have in front of it, so I barricaded it a bit more to keep her away. She also crawled out of the living room into the entry way, so we’re going to need to get some latches on the doors very soon. (We put an adhesive-backed latch on the closet door, but when we pried it off, it took a big chunk of paint with it. So we’re rethinking our strategy.)

At lunch, Milo tried a new baby food (from the store because I forgot to defrost any homemade purees), which had kale, sweet corn, and quinoa. She liked it ok, but she wasn’t super excited about it.

In the afternoon, we went out to get groceries, and I put Milo’s pink hat on her for the outing. She looked adorable, and she didn’t try to take it off even once. Also, while we were walking, she got very excited about a group of strangers walking behind us. She was front-facing in the ergo, so she was trying like crazy to turn around and look at them. As they passed us, she laughed and squealed with delight as they talked to her. It was something to see!

I got a little ambitious with dinner tonight because we’re trying to use up some sun dried tomato pesto we bought a while back. So dinner was stuffed chicken breasts, which involved pounding them out, using the food processor to make the mixture, stuffing the breasts and securing them with toothpicks, then breading them and baking them.

It was involved, and Milo was not easy to deal with during that time. I let her play on the floor in the kitchen while I cooked, and she was fine much of the time. She got all of the paper bags out and scattered them around, which was fine as long as she didn’t try to eat them. But then she got into the cat food, which meant I had to put her in the travel crib to keep her safe while I cooked. She wasn’t happy about that. But Chase got home just in time to keep her company!

The food was pretty good, and we ordered some dessert from Doughbies, which was delivered pretty quickly. I love having the ability to get dessert delivered within 30 min. I’m going to miss that.

Notes:

• Milo now sucks air through her gums making a squeaky sound. She does it all the time, and Chase thinks it’s her trying to make the kissy sound. I’m not sure, but I love the little face she makes when she does it.

• Milo successfully flipped Sophie’s stool over today. We keep a plastic stool at the base of the bed so it’s easier for Sophie to get up there (she’s old), and Milo often goes to it and pushes it around like a walker. Today she flipped it and looked quite happy about that.

• She has learned to cry when she can’t have something or wants something; example: we just put her on the floor and she wants to be up; she gets one of our phones and we take it away. The examples could go on and on.

Eskimo kisses

I’ve started trying to give Milo eskimo kisses. Having my face occupy her entire field of view is interesting enough that when I get that close, she usually stops what she’s doing. Her eyes widen, she smiles, and for a few rubs of the nose she goes along with it.

But then she tilts back her head, drops her jaw, and wraps her whole wet, slobbery mouth around my nose. Eskimo no more.

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Seven

Easter

Chase and I don’t really celebrate Easter. We often forget that it’s happening until we’re reminded by a slow bus schedule or people walking around with baskets. This year, I think my mom reminded me a bit early and I kept it on my mind because of Milo. Still, we waited until the lat minute to buy a dress or basket, and we didn’t do anything really Easter-y.

It was a pretty good day, though. In the morning I went to yoga again, which still kicked my butt. It’s sure not as easy as it was when I was pregnant.

Later, we got to do some Facetime video chats with family as they had their big get-together at Mom’s place. Milo is very active when we Facetime because she constantly tries to grab the phone. So there’s a lot of me moving around with her coming toward the phone, then a lot of her crawling away after she’s lost interest and me following her.

Chase and I also dressed Milo up and did a mini photo shoot with a bunny that Serena bought her, some carrots, and her little basket. It went ok, and we got a few cute pictures. At some point, we went out to lunch and I ordered the pot roast because it’s Sunday and Easter and why not? Milo ate some avocado at the table with us, and lots of people remarked on how cute she is.

Much of the day was spent at home playing with Milo and getting her to nap well since she didn’t have great naps yesterday. So she napped, we watched more documentaries, and before we knew it, it was time to put Milo down for the night.

Bed time was late tonight because Milo had a late 3rd nap, and it was hard to get her to sleep for the night. But eventually she drifted off and we finished our documentary.

Next year Easter will be more fun; we’ll participate in the egg hunt, and Milo will get to discover confetti eggs. Maybe we’ll even buy her a proper Easter dress with a little hat.

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Six

Academy

We’ve been meaning to get to the Cal Academy for a while, and today we finally made the trip. We took Milo immediately to see the fish in the aquarium, and she did seem to enjoy looking at them. She also liked looking at the other people around, just like she did last time I took her. As Chase was sitting with Milo at the big tank, another little girl went up to them and was very interested in being next to Milo. At one point, she put her arm around Milo. It was super cute, and Milo loved it.

After the Academy, we hat lunch at Jenny’s Burgers, which we hadn’t had in quite a while. Milo was a little hard to handle, and for the first time ever, we were those people with too much stuff in a tiny restaurant. That’s because I decided to take the stroller to the academy today. So we had the stroller, the ergo, a few things we bought at the academy, and the diaper bag. It was kind of cramped in there.

On the way home, we got a call from our realtor about some paperwork that needed to be send in for a back-up offer we’re putting on a house, so our leisurely stroll home turned rushed so that Chase could get to UPS in time to overnight a package. We did stop in a little resale shop to buy an Easter dress for Milo. I got a couple, and while neither was ideal, they were both very cute.

Milo didn’t go down for a nap until around 3pm, and even then it was a short one, which meant that she was fussed later in the evening before bed.

Overall, it was a pretty good day. We had leftovers for dinner and Milo went to bed on the early side. Chase and I watched 2 documentaries. Before dinner, we made a quick trip to Target to get a little basket and a couple of stuffed animals for Milo’s first Easter.

Notes:

• Today we bought Milo 2 wooden push-toys, which are like walkers. She can stand at them, holding a bar, and push them forward as she walks. She absolutely loved them, even though she hasn’t really figured out how to use them without help.

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Five

Active Day

Fridays have again become a day to look forward to because of baby sign language. I’m still always a little nervous, though, because Milo’s naps can be unpredictable. But today she had a great nap before class and was ready to go!

Unlike last week, Milo didn’t do much to make me embarrassed. She did try to bite another baby’s shoe while he was still wearing it, but he and his mom were very nice about it.

In class, she crawled around a lot! She even made it up to the teacher, and he held her for a bit while he talked. It was sweet. She also got to the teacher’s portable speaker, but to be fair, other babies had already gotten it off the table, so she was just following their lead. And I retrieved her before she could get her mouth on it.

The other kind of sweet, kind of intrusive thing she did was to climb in the laps of other parents at class, all of whom were very nice about it. Oh, and at one point during class there was a mini baby fight over a plastic water bottle that another mom had brought, which she resolved by taking it away from everyone. I got Milo to behave a lot by giving her my camelbak water bottle to play with. I’m going to be sad when that tactic doesn’t work anymore.

After we got home, Milo had another good nap in the afternoon; she waited until we got home to fall asleep, which meant that she only had two naps today, which is happening more and more.

And this evening, Chase got home super early and we went to the store to get groceries for dinner. It’s always nice to begin the weekend early!

I didn't know my armpit hair was load bearing

The moment Milo learned to pull to stand, she started pulling anything and everything within reach to stand. Sometimes it’s the couch or a bedpost, but sometimes it’s a pant leg, a chunk of skin you thought was more firmly attached, or, in my case this morning, as Milo was rolling around on our bed…

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Four

Babbling

Notes:

• Milo has started babbling more, and both Chase and I noticed that it sounds different because she’s producing more consonants. So instead of ooohs and aaahs, it’s gaga dada ma, etc. It’s very exciting!

• Her sleep has been pretty normal: she was up at 7:30 today, 7 yesterday, and is in bed by around 8:30 usually. I feel pretty good about the amount of sleep she’s been getting, both during naps and overnight.

• Naps today were good: nearly 2 hours for her first nap (she actually woke up and put herself back to sleep during the first one, which I was impressed by); her second was nearly 2 hours, as well. When she only has two naps in a day, it usually makes for a marathon awake session, which was true for today. She was up from her second nap at 4pm, and then awake until bed at 8. She does ok, though.

• My girl ate well today: we tried a broccoli and cauliflower mix (I mixed together two homemade purees). Milo and I are settling into a routine in which I make my own lunch and heat hers, and we eat lunch together at the table. She finishes well before I do, but it’s still nice to sit together and eat.

• I forgot to mention that Milo tried strawberries the other day. I pureed them in the food processor and put some of that liquid in yogurt. The yogurt was too tart, so she made lots of faces at that. But she seemed to enjoy them when we gave her the strawberry puree by itself. We also tried to give her some chopped up strawberries to her to suck on (without pureeing, but stuck in one of those mesh bags so she couldn’t choke on it) but she didn’t go for it.

• Since I’ve begun going back to yoga, it’s kicking my butt every time. Today it actually made me a bit emotional, I think because it made me realize that I haven’t been taking care of myself the way I should be. I’m definitely going to start going more often so that I feel comfortable in my body again.

• Milo went to sleep easily tonight. She sometimes hums or babbles at night when we sing to her. It makes me wonder if she’s singing along with us since that’s part of her routine.

• Often, Milo will pull herself up when we stand up - so she’s right on our legs standing right next to us. It’s very cute, but it makes walking difficult.

• Today, perhaps for the first time, she reached for me when I held my arms out to pick her up from the travel crib, which I was very excited about. We’ve been trying to teach her to reach for us when we say “up, up”, and today she did it!

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Three