Not every whim

Unlike Steve, I have already been trying out some discipline with Ruby. She’s developed an unpleasant habit during nursing where she writhes and turns away. Not only is it annoying and time-consuming, it leads to sore nipples for me. At best, she squirms a bit during feedings. At worst, she arches her back and cries as well. Weirdly, she always turns her head away to the right. I don’t know why.

I’m not sure of the cause. Possibly she’s impatient for me to let down. Possibly she picked up some bad habits from bottle-feeding (where the bottle followed her mouth around as she turned her head; Steve has now stopped this). In order to stop the problem, I have unsuccessfully tried:

– Feeding with her and I both lying down
– Feeding with her lying down and me sitting up
– Feeding with both of us sitting up
– Feeding while I stand and jiggle her
– Feeding while I bounce on the yoga ball (a moderately successful tactic)
– Facing her to a blank white wall to minimize distraction
– Holding her hand to calm her inner jitters
– Holding her body tightly so she can’t move easily
– Taking her off for a minute after she turns away
– Saying “No” in a firm voice

Today I tried a more martial-arts-inspired approach: use the enemy’s energy and momentum against them. While feeding her (in the standard position), I turned her body so her head was ALREADY turned to the right. This really seemed to help. If she turned her head, it only went a little bit, and she didn’t break the connection. She also seemed calmer. I’ll have to give this approach a few more tries to see if it’s a winner.

It’s hard trying to enforce discipline on an infant who not only doesn’t speak, but can’t even understand me very well. I suppose it is a good warm-up for the terrible twos.

I had a few things to add:

• You can tell the seriousness of Ruby’s crying by the expression on her face. When it’s serious, her face looks sadder and her lower lip curls in.
• Ruby is often quiet. Despite all the noises she makes (described in the previous entry), I’d say that she’s quiet at least half the time she’s awake. When I picture her, I picture her just looking silently at the world.
• We’ve made the transition from putting Ruby in sleepers all the time, to putting her in real outfits most of the time. Granted, she’s still wearing pretty comfortable/easy stuff, generally one-piece things like creepers or overalls with a onesie.
• When you carry Ruby upright so that she’s looking over your shoulder (facing backwards), she usually puts her near hand around your neck and holds on. It’s very endearing.

I don’t have the time to write very often, so here’s a roundup of my thoughts.

Happy Canada Day! To celebrate, we will be filling out Ruby’s Canadian citizenship papers so she can be a properly documented dual citizen.

Yesterday’s vaccinations didn’t seem to have much effect on Ruby’s mood or sleep, but they made her hoarse. It made me realize that she does have her own voice, because I notice now that it sounds different.

After much trial and error, I’ve determined that the “baby spatula” method of transferring a sleeping baby to her crib doesn’t work. Usually, Ruby falls asleep in my arms, so I have to put her down without waking her. The “baby spatula” is where you put your hands flat under the baby, so they can slip right out after you put her down. The problem with that is that on the way down, she’s not very well supported, and so is likely to startle awake. My new method is to bend down into her crib while holding her in my arms. Then, I let go of her feet (easy). Then, I use my free hand to support her head as I gently slide my arm out from under her head and shoulders. It usually works.

Ruby is very charming. Almost without fail, she’ll smile when she meets a new person. We were at a party last night, and she was happy and smiling the whole time (when she wasn’t asleep). She also performed her circus trick a couple of times.

During the week, I’m the one who gets Ruby when she wakes up in the morning (because I have to go to work afterwards). She’s always super smiley and happy, and often wakes up without crying. It makes such a great start to my day to have about 45 minutes of happy Ruby first thing. After she’s fed and changed, I take her into our room and she cuddles with Steve while I get ready for work.

Just yesterday, Ruby suddenly became more chatty. She’s vocalizing regularly now (mostly vowel sounds)… and it’s very cute.

I posted a few more pictures on Ruby’s album from our old digital camera. From now on, most of the pictures will be from Steve’s fancy new camera that takes much better pictures. The old camera will still hang around, though, because of its video capabilities. In the new photo set, you can see Ruby performing her circus trick much better than last time.

Ruby got her first dip in the Pacific Ocean (just her feet) this week when we took a road trip to Seaside, Oregon. It was a lovely trip, and she slept angelically in the car almost the whole way there and the whole way back. Our hotel was a 5-10 minute walk along the beachfront promenade to the main drag. We enjoyed having to take a little walk before every meal / outing. Ruby travelled in either the Baby Bjorn or our Premaxx sling, even during meals (we had no stroller with us).

Seaside is kind of a hoky town, as evidenced by the many shops-of-crap (from dolphin art to “antiques” to t-shirts with stupid jokes) and the four or five nearly identical surf-and-turf-style restaurants. We wandered around anyway, then went to Cannon Beach to spend an afternoon.

Ruby gained two new skills while we were there. First, she became more chattery and we enjoyed several nonsense conversations with her. She seems to say “ah-goo” when she’s happy. Click here to watch a few short clips of her vocalizing.

Also, one of our circus friends told us about a circus trick that only young babies can do, so we gave it a try. Check it out!

On the downside, Steve and I think Ruby has begun teething. Others (notably our parents) are dubious because it’s pretty early, but the signs seem obvious to us. Once a day or so, she’ll start yelling/crying like she’s in pain (not a regular fussy cry; and she rarely cries in any case). She’ll really bite down on any fingers put into her mouth, and she’s drooling what seems like an entire ocean’s worth. The first episode happened in Seaside on Tuesday night, and Steve ran off to Safeway to buy some baby Tylenol, which helped. We’re just waiting and watching for now, since babies can teethe for a while before teeth are actually visible.

You can see more photos from our trip in this folder of Ruby’s album.

Here's a little preview of our trip to Seaside, Oregon (we're still there)…

(Click for a bigger version)

Ruby’s been having a lot of fun lately…

She’s gotten over her apprehension of baths and now splashes around in the water, having a grand old time. Click here to watch a short movie of her in the bath. (The movies in this entry will open in Windows Media Player.)

In one developmental milestone, Ruby has jumped a month ahead: she can stand for over a minute at a time. We’re helping her balance, of course, but her legs are strong enough to hold her up as long as she wants. She enjoys standing and likes to do it a lot: click here to see.

We’re still waiting for Ruby to develop the use of her hands, though. To this end, I’ve been trying to put toys in front of her more often so she gets the idea. She still hasn’t gotten very far, but likes to watch the toys swinging as she hits them accidentally: click here.

Last night, Ruby took a big step and moved into a crib in her own room. (Previously, she’d been sleeping in a smaller co-sleeper near our bedroom.) The night went without a hitch and she slept about eight and a half hours. It seems that the air conditioner in her room (the attic can get VERY hot) makes soothing white noise that helped her fall asleep. Here’s a picture of her crib, and here’s a picture of her napping in it today.

P.S. The antibiotic eyedrops are helping her goopy eye, which is looking better already.

Actually, she's got pink eye. Kate noticed a little goop in her eye this morning, and she got progressively goopier through the day. We took her to the doctor this evening and now she's on antibiotic eye drops in her left eye.

Here's a picture from just before we put eyedrops in. All that goop on her eyelid is coming out of her.

We also had the doctor check out her eczema and he counseled the same as everybody else: moisturizer, using less soap, and hydrocortisone cream if it gets really bad.

Also, Ruby weighs just about 12 pounds.

The Social Security Administration finally released the numbers on baby names for 2005. Nationally, from 2004 to 2005, the name Ruby went up from #158 (2098 babies; 0.1046% of total) to #132 (2421 babies; 0.1215% of total). In Washington state, Ruby went from #64 (88 babies) in 2004 to #76 (76 babies) in 2005. That means that in this state, the name is becoming a little LESS popular, even though it's gaining nationally. (Unfortunately, percentage of total babies wasn't available by state.)

Here's a screen shot from the Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager, a fun toy showing the popularity of names over time:

(The lighter pink segments are names like Rubi, Rubie, and Rubye). As you can see, Ruby was far more popular between 1900 and 1920 than it has ever been since. At its peak in 1911, it was the 22th most popular girl name (3364 babies and 0.7630% of total). Its current rebound is relatively small, which I remind myself when I start worrying about our Ruby encountering other Rubys a lot.

(Click for larger image)

We took Ruby to her first Mariners game on Friday night, to celebrate my dad’s birthday. (True to form, the M’s lost.) Ruby was a hit among the fans around us, and was happy and alert through a lot of the game. I fed her in the “family restroom”, which was basically a single-room restroom that had a chair and a changing table. I was glad it was there, even if it was still a grody stadium bathroom. Sadly, I left our changing pad in there. I’m hoping to get it back from Lost and Found.

Since Ruby was born, Steve and I have both had the same waking dream many times… We’ll wake up halfway, and in a half-asleep state will start anxiously pawing through the blankets looking for Ruby (who is actually sleeping happily in her co-sleeper). Somehow, though, both of our new-parent brains keep getting fooled by blanket piles.

Ruby’s newest trick is standing up. She’ll hold her own weight on her legs for several minutes if you hold her armpits and help her balance. Not only that, but she loves it. She’ll smile and chatter as she wiggles her hips back and forth.

Breastfeeding has finally become easy and routine (thank goodness). Ruby has gotten much more efficient, too, so feedings rarely take longer than 20 minutes total now. (She took 45-60 minutes as a newborn, and about 30 minutes for several weeks after that.)

This week, we acquired a bunch of new furniture, which was exciting. We got a new custom bookcase, a crib, an Adirondack loveseat for the porch, and a set of kids’ Adirondack furniture. All but the bookcase were great deals, too. Getting the crib spurred me to finally finish setting up our top floor, so we now have a guest room and Ruby’s nursery. That was a great thing to accomplish. Next job: organize the basement, which now contains much of the crap from upstairs.

We had some store credit to a kids’ boutique, so we got to do a little shopping for fancy outfits for Ruby. Many of her clothes are hand-me-downs, which we LOVE, but it’s nice to have a few cute outfits too. I’ll try to get some pictures up eventually.