Dude. I am so tired.

The other day Wade asked me, with great concern, how I got a black eye. I ran to the mirror and looked. I didn't have a black eye; no, I had giant dark circles under both my eyes. Sigh. Ruby is does not nap well, and it is wearing us out.

This -- the fact that we can't get our baby to sleep well -- is actually hard to admit. I'm used to succeeding at things. I set high expectations for myself (and often, to their dismay, others), and then I go about working hard to accomplish those things. There are times when I'm a bit too productive and can't relax or I get mad at myself for not meeting those standards (I'm going to send Wendy Kopp my therapy bill for this). So please know that I am exceedingly frustrated with the fact that I have failed at getting Ruby to be a good napper.

Nighttime is OK. Not amazing, but pretty good. She nearly sleeps through the night -- it's fitful and fidgety but not fussy. It's the naps that have been killing us. Oh god, the naps.

She was an OK napper for the first several weeks -- inconsistent, but then, all newborns are. Then we went through about a month-and-a-half long phase where she only slept if she was held. That was a productive six weeks, let me tell you. Basically, I tivoed anything and everything that seemed remotely interesting and then watched a crap-ton of TV while I held Ruby as she slept. Then about a month ago, I discovered the magic combination of the Miracle Blanket and the baby swing, and since then we've dressed her up in her little lavender straight jacket, popped her paci in, and let her swing away. She looks like a tiny, fabulous asylum escapee on a trapeze.

But before you can actually put Ruby in the swing, she has to be soothed. And soothed. And soothed. And sometimes there's more soothing involved. Said soothing involves walking, rocking, shushing, singing, and bouncing. Said soothing has to last until she is fast asleep -- which usually means 10 minutes or sometimes 15. Sometimes 20. Sometimes when we put her down after 20 or 25 minutes of walk-rock-shush-sing-bounce, she wakes up and requires another WRSSB session, again sometimes lasting 20-25 minutes. And then she might wake up again, requiring us to do the whole thing over again. You know what's the most awesome part? After all this -- sometimes up to an hour of putting her down -- she may only sleep for 20 or 30 minutes at a time, at which point you put her down again to try and squeeze out another 15 minutes.

I cannot tell you how tiring this is. I feel like I work out all day. On the upside, my calves look amazing.

Worse than our annoyance and utter, utter frustration at the WRSSBing and it's mixed results is the resulting lack of good sleep for Ruby. Poor kid -- on bad days (when she fights every nap), she is so exhausted and overtired by the end of the day that she's just the most wired, cranky little gopher ever.

And if you are a parent of a baby whose baby sleeps great -- either because you used to have problems and resolved them or (especially) if you never had sleep problems: I hate you. I don't care if you don't have these problems because your baby is older than mine (Neal and Angela, Lora), because you read a great book (Annie -- I love you but I also hate you), or if he or she has narcolepsy, I just hate you. (And yes, we read those books. They suck. We burned them.) I even find myself bitter at people who don't have babies but who seem like they wouldn't have these problems. Earlier this week during a particularly bad day I found myself thinking, You know, that Oprah seems to have her shit together, but I bet she wouldn't be so great at getting a baby to fall asleep. Stupid cow.

All this, by the way, explains why I haven't blogged. Or emailed (Joey). Or returned phone calls (Pat, Lora, a million other people). Or answered my phone (everyone except my mom and Nikki (I mean, if girlfriend calls from Africa, I guess I'll answer)). Or visited (Grammie).

BUT!

BUT... we have a solution! All is not lost! We got help: we hired a sleep consultant. Our consultant, Brandi, worked with a friend of mine out here whose daughter is three months older than Ruby, and I watched this kid go down for a 45 minute nap with no more than a snuggle and a rock and a kiss. The whole put-down process lasted maybe five minutes and the kid slept solid. None of this 15 minutes, then 20 minutes, then another 10 if you're lucky and persistent. It was beautiful, like seeing a rainbow.

So Brandi came over this morning and met with us for nearly two hours. She went over every baby-sleep topic in the universe and answered every inane question that we could think of. The tips that she gave us are all to optimize Ruby's sleep and minimize her crying as she learns how to put herself to sleep unassisted. We're working on night number one right now, and all things considered, it's going pretty well. I'm not going to give details because I don't want to jinx it. More than anything though, it feels good to have a plan and be working towards a real goal: a well-rested Rubykins.

Lord willing, I'll be black-eye free within a week or two. And in the big book where I keep track of these things, I can mark down "Getting Ruby to Sleep" as a success.

Ruby, recently.

Just a few recent pictures I've been meaning to post.

We ordered R a Gymini to play with based on a friend's recommendation (holla Ange!). So far, she's pretty much stunned by it, but it offers her more stuff to look at and play with when she gets bored with me. It was a glorious, amazing day yesterday, so we took it outside. Lulu -- as usual -- was nonplussed by Ruby and her toys, now outside on her turf.

Ruby has also displayed a disturbing affinity for the TV. (Remind you of anyone Kim-Kim?)

Or maybe she's just a fan of Vince Young of the Titans like her dad? Here's what she was watching:

...But she seems delighted by the score, so maybe she's a Colt's fan?

And these I just took this afternoon because she was being redonkulous. (And after the hellish sleep schedule that the little gemstone has been trying out the last few days, she'd have to be to make me take a ton of pictures like this.) Ahem, please excuse the messy living room.

I'm starting it.

Dear Friends,

In emails, I frequently sign off to friends with "Big hugs," as opposed to "Sincerely" or "LYLAS." I decided today to abbreviate "Big hugs" to "Bugs." Spread the joy.

Bugs,
Michelle

Meeting of the minds.

Rubes had her first playdate on Friday with Sara (5 1/2 months) and Jack (10 1/2 months). She's been so into laughing and smiling at the baby in the mirror that I sort of thought that she and Sara would be placed on their bellies facing each other and immediately squeal with delight at the sight of another baby. How fun!

As you can see, Ruby was much more concerned with screaming and with the flowers on the blanket. I'm not even sure if she realized there were other babies there.

Little victories.

This past weekend was absolutely lovely. Ruby is getting so big -- having the doctor tell you she's 15 pounds and actually picking those 15 pounds up on a regular basis are two different things. She barely even fits in her crib if you put her in there the short way! But as she grows in size, she's also getting much more mature. We ran her all around this weekend, and she was so unfussy. She's definitely starting to enjoy all her little adventures. We:

• Took her to the supermarket on Saturday. She didn't cry at all in the car seat, totally took in all that Trader Joe's had to visually offer, and actually fell asleep in her seat while we were shopping. And she is not one of those babies who falls asleep in the car or in the stroller.
• Walked her in her stroller to a local market (big market day Saturday) to pick up a few more things. Ruby's totally chill in the stroller now, as long as we're moving. The only problem we have in the stroller is that she desperately wants to sit up and see what's going on, but she's just shy of actually holding her head up and being propped up. So instead she lays there and does these insane crunches in her stroller trying to lift her head up. It's like an abs class at the gym in there.
  
• Also on Saturday, took her to the beach for a big walk with Lulu. Again (and now I'm totally jinxing it -- have I mentioned that I'm insanely good at jinxing things? The moment I mention (or type) that something is going especially well, it devolves; if I were a superhero, I would be Jinxy the Wonderkid), she was amazing. Then on Sunday, she got another trip to the beach with Bibi and Mommy (dear god, I'm one of those mothers who speaks of herself in the third person). Two trips to the beach on a gorgeous, mild Cali weekend reminded me that while I hate a bunch of stuff about LA -- idiot drivers, shallow-as-hell citizens, looming threat of life-ending earthquake, yada yada yada -- spectacular natural beauty and fantastic weather year-round sort of makes up for it.
  

Of course this afternoon (after another successful trip out, walking to the library and Borders), Ruby acted like she'd never heard of this thing called "nap." But whatever, I'll take the wins where I can get them.

Oh crap.

I did it.

I did the thing that all parents are afraid they will one day do. The thing that you see on the news and wonder "How the hell did they let this retarded person raise a child?" The thing that seems so stupid that it should be impossible to accomplish.

I locked the baby in the car.

Now, before anyone freaks out, she's fine. She was actually more than fine during the whole ordeal. If anything, I was not fine -- or, more to the point, my ego was not. More than anything the whole thing was just very embarassing.

Earlier in the day, when I was loading up Ruby to take her to my aunt and uncle's house for a little family get-together, I accidentally sat on the car keys, setting off the alarm and apparently reprograming the damn clicker to start locking autmoatically when you shut the door. This function is not a useful function. It should be removed from all clickers, and people should be responsible for locking their own damn car doors. But, at the time, I didn't think anything of it. I was in a hurry to get going because once R is in the car seat, she's a ticking time bomb that could go off any time in the next ten minutes or next hour; you never know how much time you have.

The trip was successful though, even if the visit was not. Rubes had not napped enough during the day before we left, and an overtired infant is not pleased to be passed around from crazy Persian person to crazy Persian person. Oh did she fuss. Poor thing. She took too two short naps and dazzled everyone with her adorable poutiness before I decided it was time to go. She needed her swing/crib/someplace to sleep at home. So, we reloaded and marched back to the car with my mom and uncle in tow to say goodbye.

Here's where it all went horribly wrong. I clicked the car open, opened the front and back doors, and put the keys back in my purse. Then I put my purse and the diaper bag in the front seat and closed the front door. Then I put the baby in her car seat and closed the back door, and started to walk around to the driver's side.

And that's when I heard it. Click.

I spun around a saw Ruby happiliy chewing away on Bun-Bun. I grabbed the door handle -- all the door handles, one by one -- but nothing. Nada. Locked locked locked locked. And all of a sudden I was one of those idiot women you see on the news.

Luckily, it was dusk and pretty cool out, so she certainly wasn't too hot in the car. If anything, I would've been worried that she was too cold, but I'd just changed her into long sleeves, long pants and socks. And, we'd just finished nursing a few minutes before, so she wasn't hungry. So really, thankfully, she was fine. And if it had been hot out, I just would've broken a window and gotten her out and that would've been the end of it. As it was though, you'd have thought something life-threatening was going on anyways because I burst into tears. I made my mom run back into the house to call Wade, who was working at the office (because, of course, my phone was in my purse, in the car). Here's where I'm even spacier: Wade asked where the other set of car keys were, which reminded me that I'd misplaced the other set of keys -- my set -- earlier in the week and had been using his. So, no spare car keys at home. Yay me!

Another uncle came out and was on the phone with AAA. More uncles and cousins came outside (I have a big family) with wire hangers all untwisted and began breaking into my car. Someone else brought out a giant flood flashlight because it had gotten dark by now. Where was I? My mom and I were tapping on the window and singing like crazy people to calm down a now-fussy Ruby. Nothing was wrong with her, I just think our time limit in the car seat had expired. So picture it, Sicily, 1932 (sorry, sorry)... Picture it, approximately 20 people all around my beater of a Subaru (and yes it's fairly new, and yes we've already trashed it), all yammering away in Farsi, arguing about the best way to open the door with one of the three wire hangers people had stuck in (and a giant metal kabob skewer that looked an awful lot like a sword pointed at my baby) Should they hit the unlock button? Yank the handle open? Lots of jokes were made about how many Persians does it take to get a baby out of a locked car. Interestingly, Subaru Forresters are surprisingly hard to open with a hanger. Eventually, Ruby just cried herself out and crashed. She was asleep for about 20 minutes by the time AAA got there and busted her sorry ass out. That, plus the ride home, meant that she was asleep for over an hour. So take note new moms: if your kid needs a nap, just lock them in the car! You can't even really hear them crying!

Le sigh. Thinking back on it just makes me tired and embarrassed all over again. I'm a dumb-ass. But, Ruby survived her mother's spaciness unscathed and I now hold on to my car keys anytime they're not in the ignition. Lesson learned.

For posterity

(Warning: this may not be of interest to anyone but me, but as this blog is the only journal I keep these days, here is where information gets recorded.)


Things Ruby is doing right now:

1. Sucking on her hands a ton.


2. Tracking people (and Kermit) like crazy. Where ever you go, those big blue headlights will stay on you.


3. Grabbing things if you put them in her hands, and once she grabbed something that I touched the back of her fingers with. She is currently grabbing with much love Al the Elephant (thanks Julie and Major!) and Bun-Bun the pink rabbit (thanks person I can't remember who gave it to me at the shower!). Here are Ruby and Al (she's looking like such a baby these days -- a newborn no longer! -- though at 15 pounds, I guess that would be one crazy-big newborn):


4. Falling asleep in her crib on a regular basis. Granted, she only stays asleep for 10 or 15 minutes, but I think the point is that her crib is becoming a happy, restful place for her.


5. LOVING the birdies on her mobile (she's staring at them in the picture). When I put her in her crib in the morning to brush my teeth, eat breakfast, etc., she goes nuts when she sees them. As soon as she sees her little birdie friends, she smiles and even...


6. ...Laughs. She's got this sort of half-cough, half-shout laugh thing going on all the time now. It's the best. We're currently working on an homage to Ernie (of "Bert and" fame), with a new kheh-kheh-kheh sort of laugh.


7. Loads of new sounds. She's especially chatty right after she's woken up, eaten and been changed. Gurgles are a current favorite, but we had one tongue-out zerbert this morning that was excellent. Lots of squealing and screeches too. Not unhappy ones; it just sounds like she's trying out her vocal cords. .


8. Sleeping in 45-minute cycles. Literally, you could set your watch by it. Then we're up for 90 minutes, get super-fussy (unless I can cut the fuss off at the pass) and asleep again for another 45. Occasionally, I can get her back down for another 45 right away, but it's rare. I do worry that she's not getting enough sleep, but I swear to god, it's not for lack of trying on my part. Naps occur almost exclusively in the swing, though sometimes in the crib.


9. Only feeding once in the night. Of course, I'm SO jinxing this now, but it's happened for the last three nights, so I hope not. Swaddling helps, but I think since she's as big as she is, her tummy can hold more so she can go longer. She does one giant feed at about 9:30 p.m. or so, another at 4 a.m. and then again when she gets up at about 7 a.m.


10. I feel like we should have an even ten for this list, so let's see what else... Tummy time is about the same--we've sort of plateaued there... Oh, there's this weird thing she does when she's tired or hungry or basically anytime she's not totally rested and content: she claws at her face like she's trying to pull it off. It's really disturbing, actually. Anytime you hear "Oh god, please don't do that!" you know she's trying to claw her skin off again. At first I thought she was itchy maybe, so I started moisturizing the hell out of her face, but I think it was just a nutty, self-destructive alternative to something more calm, like yawning or rubbing eyes. She hasn't done it in a few days though, so hopefully we've grown out of that phase.

Kermit's gonna get arrested.

The other night, this Korean lady knocked on our door. Apparently she lives in the apartment complex across the alley that our patio backs up to, and her unit faces the alley and, thus, our patio. This patio (pictured) is where we shove Kermit (also pictured) when his incessant meowing becomes too much for us. Though he frequently gets out and scampers about the neighborhood, the backyard/patio is totally fenced in and is the only place he is sanctioned to go outside.

[Note: When I say incessant, I am being quite literal. He will meow nonstop for hours. And it's not even a meow that seems to mean anything. It's just like this: "Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meoooooooow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow." And so on. We've had him checked for every medical condition known to cats that might cause this. Thanks to these tests, he's now on special cat food for his kidneys, he's had his teeth cleaned and a few bad ones pulled -- twice, and he even went on kitty anti-depressants for a few months until we realized it was making him poop everywhere (they made him a bit too relaxed). Nothing helps because nothing is wrong with him. He simply lives to bug the ever-loving beans out of us, and now because we've taken such good care of him, he's going to outlast us all.]

So the Korean lady -- all dressed up in heels, dress, sunglasses atop her head -- starts in on Wade: "Do you own the black cat?" [Kermit is so dark brown he's often mistaken for black.]

Wade: "Um, I guess." [Wade just thought he'd gotten out again.]

KL: "You let him outside in the back?"

W: "Sometimes. Why?"

KL: "I can't sleep! Morning, night... he screams all day!"

W: "Well, we don't keep him out that late or put him out that early."

KL: "No! I can't study during the day either."

W: "Well, I can't keep him inside all the time." [He didn't say it explicitly, but his tone was clearrly one of "Suck it, lady."]

So the Korean lady pulled out a blank index card from her wallet and asked, "Where do you live?"

Wade looked at her, pointed to the number next to the door, and read it to her.

KL: "What's your name?"

W: "Why?"

KL: "For when I call the police on you and the cat."

Wade simply told her to have a nice day and closed the door in her face. Frankly, I say if the popo wants Kermit, they are welcome to him. They can make him march up and down the corridors of the jails and subject the prisoners to his racket.

(Ms. Morse, I know I'm going to catch hell from you about this post. Just keep in mind that we haven't killed him, yet. And that makes us very, very good cat-parents.)

We have the biggest baby in the world!

Ruby had her first doctor's visit today. Daddy, Mommy, and the baby visited Dr. Bral. Ruby was a peach even though she was verrrrry tired. She smiled and cooed and gurgled at Dr. Bral, charmed Rachelle (his wife and my aunt's sister), and in general was such a good baby.... Until the shots, at which point -- before the pain even registered -- she looked at us with absolute shock and confusion at our betrayal. Poor kid. She was so worn out that she even fell asleep on the five-minute car ride home, and she NEVER does that.

But back to the title of the post. Check it, yo:

Weight: 15.0 lbs. (95th+ percentile)
Height: 24.75 in (95th+ percentile)
Head circumference: 15.6 in (50th percentile)

Just to put it in perspective, that height is the 50th percentile for a four month old and the weight is the 50th percentile for a five month old. Our little girl? Two months and one week today. Nikki always said that I miscounted her conception dated and that the baby actually spent 10 months inside me, making her come out all big and mature. She should know; Nik was 9 1/2 pounds when she was born. In fact, when I told my mom how much Ruby weighed today, she said, "Well, she takes after Nicolle then."

So yup, Ruby's a bruiser. Other babies need to watch out and not piss her off (Olivia, I'm talking to you here). Maybe my boob juice is like HGH. I should start marketing it to professional athletes.

Grease is the word.

Rubes has had a bit of dryness (maybe eczema?) on her scalp lately, and it seemed to be itching her. So, I took some of her baby oil and did a little scalp massage on her, which she LOVED. The end result, as you can see, is a fancy new 'do that she is rocking old punk rock stylee. And hopefully less itching.

Let this moment be celebrated far and wide.

Ruby fell asleep 15 minutes ago.

In her crib.

On her back.

By herself (i.e. no rock'n'shush from Mommy and Daddy).

It's actually ending as I type, but whatever. I can't believe it actually happened. It makes me think it may, someday, happen again.

We must be the change we want to see in the world.

This is the face of the newest volunteer in Livingstone, Zambia.

Nanny Nikki left last night to travel (for three days!) to Zambia in southern Africa, where she'll spend a month volunteering at local schools, helping build new schoolhouses and doing other community work. All because a few months ago she said, "I think I want to go volunteer in Africa" and then made it happen.

Good on you, Nik. I love you. Have fun, be safe, do good.
***********************************************************************************

UPDATE: Nikki is still on her way to Zambia, having stopped in London for the night. She has started her own blog to document her travels: Nikki in Africa. My sister seems to attract insanity where ever she goes, so enjoy what will, I'm sure, be an entertaining journal of her adventures.

Happiest Mommy on the Block.

I didn't want to jinx it, but as it's 10:15 on Sunday night, I'm going for it: baby-wise, it was a GREAT weekend.

As of a week ago, Ruby would only nap if someone held her. Do you know what that means? It means that because we also slept with her at night, we (and by 'we,' I mean 'I') were with/holding the baby 24-7, literally. When Nikki would come over to babysit, her main role was really to be a warm body for the baby to sleep on. But then, last Monday in anticipation of Nanny Nikki going bye-bye for the month of September, I decided to retry the whole swaddling thing. I don't know if it's big elsewhere or if it's just because the guy who wrote it is a pediatrician out here in Santa Monica, but The Happiest Baby on the Block is a big effin' deal out here. Everymom who's anymom uses it. Basically it consists of five s's, the most important of which is swaddling the baby. But for us, swaddling was a lame waste of time: she fought, she fussed, she busted out of her blanket-y confines.

Then I bought this thing called the Miracle Blanket. And I went after those other four s's with a vengeance. And I busted out the swing again. And you know what? On Monday afternoon she slept an hour and a half ON HER OWN in the swing. On Tuesday, an hour ON HER OWN. On Wednesday, two and a half hours ON HER OWN. And so on and so forth.

People, we've made a breakthrough.

I think this is what having a baby is all about. You feed them and cuddle them and play with them, and then they SLEEP. During the day. On their own.

What's even more amazing is that when she's well-rested during the day, she even more of a sweetheart then usual. We coo and goo and blllttthh. We laugh and kick and look all around. And we don't fuss. In fact (and now I really am jinxing the last 74 minutes of the day), today she didn't really cry at all. Oh, there was a tiny bit of fussing when she woke up from her nap, but it only lasted about 5 minutes. We even took a car ride (smiling and cheery for 95% of the ride), two naps in the swing, and a bottle and NO MAJOR MELTDOWN.

Sigh. Today, I really loved being a parent.