The good, the bad and the ugly update

The good news is that I had almost my entire wallet contents including 2 $50 travellers checks scanned to PDFs and stored securely in the cloud so it was relatively easy to cancel everything...and I remembered to pay for a new driver's licence before I canceled my credit card. Violet slept from 6pm last night to 7:15am this morning and the dark circles are receding.

The bad news is that I didn't have the wonderfully generous Babies R Us gift card that my choir gave me scanned and I forgot to buy diapers before cancelling my credit card. Violet also "was fussy" today at day care, but who wouldn't be fussy after being ripped off the beach and out of her grandmommy's loving arms and dragged back to rainy 50 degree Boston where it's flooding again....

The ugly news is that my wallet was actually stolen. After dropping me and my infant daughter on the curb at 1am, that smelly farting bastard bought $30 worth of gas with my corporate card in Quincy Ma at 3am! ARgh! At least it seems that's all he's bought so far (?) and at least I can stop looking for the damn thing. I think I can forgive myself for this one.

Travelling

Palm Beach March 27, 2010

We're back in Cambridge after over a week in Florida. We travelled down last Friday for my brother David's wedding in Miami. As she's been on a plane every month of her life except for the first one, Violet was a great plane companion and made lots of friends by smiling and being generally adorable. I love travelling and always dreamed of being able to travel with my daughter. However travelling with an infant is not exactly dreamy. Packing all of the stuff both of us would need for a week is a lot of work. Some of the packing is fun, like trying to decide which of Violet's fantastic outfits we should bring. But packing up all the bottles, the pump, the pump parts, enough baby food for the hotel, and strategizing about how many Cheerios we would need and what bag they should go in gets tiring....and heavy. It's a lot of stuff to keep track of.

To me, travelling is often about trying new things and venturing into the unknown. Both things that are more difficult for an infant who does much better on a set schedule. I tried to manage Violet's need to nap and eat on time with my need to go out and do things and visit with family and for the most part we did pretty well. Managing another (very dependent) person's schedule is even more demanding than managing all of their stuff, especially in a strange place where everything is new. But, we discovered that King beds are fun to roll around on, french fries are good, and hotel cribs are OK to sleep in too. It was definitely nice to be around our family and hang out in the beautiful March Florida weather.

My one real mistake was booking a returning flight that left Florida at 9pm and didn't arrive in Boston until midnight. I thought I would just be able to put V down like normal at 7pm and that she would just sleep the whole time. Well, our girl is wise enough now to know that getting in the car seat means we're going some place and does she like to go! She didn't want to sleep at all. Watching the TSA unpack all our bags and scan her milk for explosives and walking through the airport where there are KIDS is WAY too much fun! Luckily she was a trouper and even though she was totally exhausted and could barely hold her head up, she was still smiling as we boarded the plane. She even charmed the gate agent into giving us a whole row (last row, but still) and letting us take the car seat on board. She did sleep the whole way back on the plane, as did I, however neither one of us slept very well. V woke up just as we started to descend and I figured I'd better nurse her for her ears. By the time we got off the plane from the last row V was awake but pretty limp, hanging on for dear life in the Ergo carrier. All that extra milk didn't sit well and right as I saw our 60lb bag coming out on the carousel, it all came right back up. A lot of it. I didn't really know what to do - we were both totally soaked, but I decided that changing all of our clothes was more than I could handle right then. I just had to do what I could with the towels and blankets that I had and hope that there wasn't a long cab line as it was only 30 degrees in Boston. I was so focused on getting home that I didn't even notice the cold on my feet in soaked flip flops. By the time we rolled onto Maple Ave, I was REALLY in need of a shower as the cab driver kept trying to cover up his ridiculously wretched flatulence with cheap powerful cologne. Didn't work buddy.

I didn't really forget to bring anything that I needed down to Florida and I managed to drag all 60lbs of our stuff back to Boston, but somehow between the cab and my apartment, I managed to lose my wallet. I know I had it in the cab as I paid the guy (and tipped him despite the flatulence), but now that all the bags have been unpacked and stuff put away, it's still missing. Maybe it will turn up when the Boston Police's Hackney Lost and Found opens tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath.

Violet was a wreck today. After finally getting in her bed at around 1am, she only slept until around 8am this morning. She has big dark circles under her eyes. She wouldn't nap at 10am either. We were supposed to go to brunch at 11am and it was as I was packing up for another outing that I realized my wallet was missing. Instead of just sitting down and crying right along with Violet who wouldn't stop, I strapped her right back in her seat and took her out anyway. It turned out to be the right thing to do. V stopped crying and started smiling and playing when she saw her friends and my dear friends listened to my wallet sob story and gave me some cash. We came home and took a good 2 hour nap and the she crashed for the night at 6pm. So long story, but the journey goes on!

Nor'easter weekend

We've had a bad storm here this entire weekend. It's been raining and blowing like crazy so it's been a good weekend to work on naps. The sleep book I read by Weissbluth a sleep researcher at Norwestern University says that offering your child sleep is as important as offering them good food and I think this is probably very true. He recommends a 9am nap time for a 7-month old baby who gets up at 7am. This always seemed crazy to me - V never seemed that tired at 9am, and it was only 2 hours after she woke up! However, I've been worried that she hasn't been napping enough at day care (usually around 2 30minute naps is all she sleeps!) so I wanted to see if the 9am nap time would help. So I got her up at 7am, we rolled around and played for a while, had breakfast, and then I tried nursing her down at 8:45ish and what do you know it worked! She took an hour nap yesterday and a 2 hour nap today! She went down pretty easily for the 1pm nap too - sleeping another 2.5 hours this afternoon! She had a little bit of a hard time going to sleep tonight, but that's more likely because of daylight savings time.

The all night sleep was unfortunately a one time event. She's back to one waking, however I can't say that I really mind this one waking. It's only for 10 minutes and I know it won't last forever. She's just so dear - I must say that 7 months is quite a sweet age. We're so looking forward to our upcoming trip down to Florida next weekend - it was good to know that better weather is in our future after battling such torrential rains.

"was coiffed"

Look how Violet greeted me when I walked into daycare today! Apparently it was salon day and everyone got their hair done in the tiniest pony tails I have ever seen. Some of the kids had multiple pony tails, Violet just had one. Made Mamma smile.

She did it!!

Well, last night was the night! V slept from 7:30pm to 6:30am! Now that's what I call "sleeping through the night!" I'm so proud of her. Either she didn't wake up at all, or I slept through it (nature's way of Ferberizing?) How come I'm still so tired?

7 months!

How is it possible that another month has gone by already? I guess February was a short, month, but still! Stop growing up so fast dear girl! Sometimes I wish I could just keep you at this stage forever. You are such a joy to be around. Yesterday we spent all day out visiting with friends - brunch followed by a walk and then Sunday dinner and olympics hockey watching. You were such a sweet heart, playing with the other kids and grown ups, playing on your own and with me! You are growing the most adorable little tuft of hair on top of your head - your hair even gets a little messed up sometimes when we take off your hat. Last night you even almost slept throught the night, waking just once for a quick kiss and some reassurance at 2am. Maybe tonight the night you'll sleep all the way through?

3 years out

I went back to Dana Farber today for my 3 year check up and got a clean bill of health. Every year my chances of recurrence get slimmer and slimmer. I have now graduated to yearly scans until year 5 when they'll stop scanning me all together. It was fun to remember being there with Violet when she was just 4 weeks old. What craziness that was! I didn't get quite as good service this time without a newborn, and it's never fun to get poked and prodded and see so many sick people. However, it's always a good reality check to go there and find out that I'm healthy and remember just how lucky I am. Dr. LaCasce (sorry Mom, I didn't get a picture because she was wearing a mask since she was a little sick due to her son's recent conversion from a nanny to daycare) told me that she had recently read a study about how daycare might be good for preventing Lymphoma and Leukemia because it's good for children to be exposed early to childhood diseases to build up their immune systems. Boy did that make me happy. She rocks.