Gratuitous Baby Pictures

I really just wanted an excuse to post pictures today, so I thought I'd go through some that we took last weekend and describe a day in the (weekend) life of the Dilly-Pickle.

Our weekend starts bright and early, when Dylan wakes up at her usual time (6:30).  Daddy, who gets to sleep in on weekends, usually gets up and gets her out of her crib, changes her diaper, and gives her vitamins while I wash my face, brush my teeth, and put on sweatpants.  Sound familiar?  It should.  With the exception of Daddy sleeping until 6:30 rather than getting up at 5, this is what we do every day.  Sometimes we get really really lucky and she'll get up at 7.  She does that about once or twice a month.

Then Dylan is brought downstairs and nurses.  I don't know what we're going to do instead when she loses interest in that.  Perhaps go straight to the breakfast room for breakfast?

Lately for breakfast she's been eating: peeled clementines (she loves them, and Luca loves peeling them for her), cheerios, ripped up pancake, or bread with peanut butter, and baby cereal with baby fruit.  This week we've started also giving her whole milk and today we also let her feed herself cereal!

While Dyls eats breakfast, Mommy eats her breakfast and compulsively checks her email.  We're usually done around 7:30 or so.  Then mommy goes upstairs to put on pants while daddy gets Dyls dressed.  Mommy takes the Boo for her morning walk at about 7:45 or so while Daddy plays with the Pickle.

I usually return from the Boo's walk at around 8:15 or 8:30.  At this point Dylan is usually about cooked and ready for nap #1.  We take her upstairs for that at 8:45 or 9 most mornings.

The length of this nap varies a lot.  Sometimes it is only 1hr.  Last weekend after the daycare debacle with the naps she slept 3 hours.  While she slept, I worked on my dissertation, did some reading and other chores, and Luca went to the grocery store.  He did some other stuff around the house too, but I don't remember what.

If she sleeps less than 3 hours, she'll usually get a whole banana for snack and will nurse.  Since she woke up at 12, it was time for lunch.  I don't remember what she ate, but usually we try to give her a meat/protein, a vegetable, a fruit, and a starch.  She's also started getting whole milk, and we usually offer her water too.  Oh!  I think she had pork tenderloin and mashed potatoes on Saturday.  She ate the pork with mango chutney.

After lunch we took her to the playground and helped her walk around and climb on the equipment.  She was fascinated by the other toddlers there.  We also took her for a walk in her car to Clark Park to swing on the swings.  The nice thing about the car vs. the stroller?  She can't fall asleep in the car and blow her afternoon nap!

We got back at about 3PM.  Time for nap #2!

Nap #2 lasted about 1.5-2 hours.  She was one tired pumpkin after being systematically sleep deprived at daycare all week!  Mommy and daddy read on the couch, watched football, and snoozed during this time.  It was quite relaxing.

She woke up at 4:30 or 5.  We played in the cage for another hour and then ate dinner.  6:00 - 6:30 it's dinner time.  I think we ordered in Indian food, which Dyls ate.  It's kind of spicy for her though, and she sometimes cries, even with the mild spice... though this doesn't stop her from shoveling it into her mouth anyway.  Yogurt helps a lot. 

At about 7 we went upstairs for a bath, and she was asleep by 7:30.  We watched some more football (I think) and went to bed at 10.  It was a really nice day!  Also quite productive.  I could even imagine getting more done around the house / for school midday if one of us (rather than both of us) took her to the park.  That wouldn't be as much fun though.

Below are some pictures of her doing some of her favorite things.

She really likes her musical instruments, especially a glockenspiel and her maracas.

Playing the triangle

She also has been enjoying her peg board / pounding bench.  She doesn't really pound it though, preferring to press the pegs through the holes like buttons, and then flipping it over to do it again.  She sometimes presses a peg completely out of the hole and on occasion has been able to figure out how to put it back in.  She also has a pounding tower with balls that roll down.  She is quite fond of that as well.  She has been taking puzzle pieces out for months, but last weekend, with a little help from mommy, she was able to put some of the puzzle pieces back also.  She can stack 2 blocks, but still thinks it's more fun to destroy than build.

The pounding bench

She has a dolly that makes baby noises when you press on her chest.  This weekend we caught her doing CPR on the dolly to make it make the noises over and over again.

She will sit and be read to sometimes too.  Her favorite books include any lift-a-flap book.  She also really likes Snuggle Puppy (because it involves singing) and Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See.  Maybe I am deluding myself, but I could have sworn that the other day when I asked her to show me where the blue horse was she pointed to it.

I've mentioned this before, and I doubt it will last forever, but one of her other favorite activities is eating.  We talk to her a lot at meal times.  Here she is clapping her hands.  She also knows how to slap our hands, to point to what she wants, and how to blow kisses.  She's not a huge talker, but at breakfast the other day I could have sworn she said "Boo."  She also says mama, dada, dolly, uh oh.  Maybe she repeated owl this past weekend?  Not sure. 

Clapping her hands

She LOVES the tunnel, and thinks it's hilarious when Boo races through it also.  Here she is feeding mommy a mum mum. 

Tunnel

We're fortunate that there's a playground with equipment appropriate for toddlers near our house.  She's finally figured out what to do there.  Before she'd just sit on the ground and look around.

Walking -- an action shot

She made it up here with only minimal help from mommy.

Here she is trying to climb stairs like a big girl

I didn't post the picture where she is eating dirt.  We will have to work on that.  She also thinks the leaves on the ground are fascinating.  Fortunately there weren't any used condoms in the park this week or spat out chewing gum.  It's something we need to keep an eye on definitely though. 

Sitting and observing. Check out her big-girl shoes!

When we took her to daycare on Monday, her separation anxiety was worse than usual.  Maybe that's because she had a really nice weekend too?  At least that's what the daycare teachers implied when they said, "Oh, did you pay her extra attention this weekend?" almost insinuating that we should NOT be doing that so as to make their lives easier come Monday.  I'm probably just being paranoid, though.

Anyway, that's what Dyls is up to these days!  She is so much fun.  I am a little bummed that now I'm about to go back to med school and won't see as much of her.  Since it's 4th year, hopefully it will only be bad for a few months.  Unfortunately, "not bad" for medical school is the same as working like a dog in most other jobs, and then people expect you to get things like "research" done in your "free time" because you're not in the hospital constantly.  Blah.  I am not optimistic.

She does make me want to have more kids though.