18 Month Basti & CNY

Little Basti Boy is 18 months old!!!  To celebrate, I baked my favorite chocolate cake (it has been yeeeeaaaars since I've made it).  And he really liked it (I scraped off the frosting on his piece).

For the last month or so, Basti likes to point out horses.  And when I say "caballo" he does this rocking motion like he's riding a horse.  Seems appropriate as it's the year of the horse on the Chinese calendar.  And it's great that we have "neigh"-boring horses on two sides of the property!  Across from the house there are two mini horses, and on the right there are two regular sized horses.  I want to ask their owners if it's ok to feed them carrots or apples, but I keep putting it off.  We have fed the regular horses grass from the ground, but that's it.  They're quite big and intimidating so we don't get very close.

Happy CNY!  

Zen Baby

Zen Baby:

Not Zen Baby:

It's a great sense of accomplishment when we manage to get Basti to calm down or go to sleep quickly and quietly.  And it's very stressful and frustrating to have a wailing Basti and not being able to get him to calm down, despite our best attempts.

In a moment of desperation, I came up with the Zen Baby technique...  which has worked just twice for me.  First time, Basti was crying because I made him sit in his highchair for dinner, he wanted no food and just cried.  So I took his hands in mine, closed my eyes, and hummed "Om" three times (deep chest reverberating Oms).  When I opened my eyes, Basti was just looking at me.  I offered him chicken, he ended up eating a whole drumstick.  Wow.  Second time Basti wasn't feeling well and was having a hard time settling down to nap.  So Poppy and I cuddled with him in our bed and Om-ed him to sleep.  Nice.  I attempted Zen Baby on a flight but with no success...  maybe my state of mind was too frustrated or the plane was too loud or Zen Baby is just crazy?  Who knows.  But hey, whatever works!

Last week we went on a family vacation to Maui.  Basti got to get up close and personal with the ocean for the first time, although he was not a fan.  He kept shaking his head no as we inched closer to the water.  But he got to play with sand and he did get splashed in the face with salt water.  Basti also got his first choochoo train ride, and got to meet and feed koi fish.  AND he said his first sentence to Poppy (on his birthday!): "Ich hab banana" (I have banana).  But we didn't have any bananas, so he might have meant he wanted a banana.

Halfway through the vacation, Basti got sick. He had a fever and was very very very tired with not much appetite.  And a severe case of "Mamitis", he wants Mommy and only Mommy to carry him all the time.  So our flight back home was not pleasant, and then there was some turbulence so I couldn't walk him up and down the aisle to keep him entertained.  Felt like he cried half the flight, yikes.  Not a Zen flight.  It has taken him a few days to recover, but his appetite seems to be back and he is walking on his own again.

Going Private...

Taking the blog private as of February 1.  If you would like to read future posts, please email me and I will add you to the reader list.

Banana Basti

Basti said "banana"!  I thought I heard him say it last week Monday I was peeling a banana for him.  But I thought it was just crazy Mommy brain that imagined it.  This time I wasn't the only one who heard him.  At "school", the babies share bananas at snack time.  Basti was getting a little impatient waiting for the other kids to get their hands washed and he knew the bananas were under the table.  So he looked at the teacher and said "banana", and she heard it too!  It's neat that he said it there, because Basti learned to eat bananas in class (peer pressure from watching other kids eat too).

Sunday the word of the day was "ball".  Since we are always saying to Maja "bring the BALL back!"  It's kinda funny that I try to talk to Basti mostly in Spanish.  But I always talk to Maja in English.  So now Basti knows ball in English.  But I know he understands when I tell him "bola".  And we have tested that he understands the names of several animals (giraffe, monkey, fish, horse, elephant) and parts of his head (eyes, nose, mouth, ears) in both Spanish and German.

Every time I've tried to take a video of Basti walking, he drops down on all fours.  This is the only one I've managed to get....  in the wee hours of the morning when everything is dark:

Feeding continues to be a challenge.  Feels like my whole day revolves around what to feed him and how.  Sometimes I have to let Basti "help" with cooking so he will let me put him down.  I scoot a stool up to the kitchen island and give him bowls, spoons, empty containers, and vegetable scraps to play with.  The other day he bit into half a raw onion...  no surprise when the onion ended up flying across the room.  Ha ha.

Now he is putting up some resistance at sitting in his high chair.  When I do manage to squeeze him into his chair, he often cries and starts the meal by flinging everything on the floor.  But he eventually calms down and eats some.  And then sometimes he eats depending on presentation...  For example, he doesn't like scrambled eggs, but if I make a thin omelet and cut it into strips he may eat up to half an egg.  Hard boiled eggs are ok, no yolk please.  Fish on its own, meh; same fish on a cracker, ok.

Samuel's mom has been talking about letting the kids get dirty with fingers paints and such...  I resisted the idea for a while because it is really going to be a huge mess.  Plus these kids love to put their hands in their mouths still.  But the other day I was at Target (shopping by myself!) and I saw all the stuff and couldn't resist.  So we are planning on having the kids make a mess tomorrow...  fortunately, in Samuel's backyard.  Muah ha ha.  

Happy New Year!

Basti is 17 months old, and as goofy as ever.  Got me laughing at lunch with his antics and I snorted water out my nose at a restaurant.  Classy Mommy!  Poppy certainly didn't help by imitating Basti's funny face.

Basti thinks it is funny to sneeze, especially because Poppy sometimes pretends to sneeze with an object on his head so it will fall off.  So now Basti imitates Poppy and tries to put random things on his head (often food) to have them fall off and laugh.

For New Years Eve we had a quiet celebration at home.  Once we got Basti into bed, we prepped the meat fondue and popped the fancy champagne.  I got quite buzzed on just 2 glasses, and passed out a little after 10 pm hugging Maja in bed.  Zzz...

Basti finally decided to start walking on Sunday.  He walks around randomly for longer and longer stretches.  He knows he is way faster crawling so after a bit walking he ends up on all fours again.  Several of his pants have ripped holes on the knees from all the crawling.  And once he discovers the holes in his pants, he rips them even bigger.  So for the longevity of his pants, I hope he starts walking more soon.

Updates on the most important events of Basti's days:

Sleep: He is more consistently sleeping 11 hours straight at night.  Which is great for everybody, but I still wake up sooo tired.  If he sleeps less than 11 hours, he wakes up tired and cranky.  He just went through a week of only 1 nap a day.  Today he's on nap 2.  It all kinda depends on how early he takes his first nap.  But he can usually stay awake for 4 hours in the morning before his first nap.

Eating: This comes and goes.  Sometimes he will eat anything in sight.  Other times most of his food ends up on the floor.  Sometimes I let him graze...  he explores the surrounding areas and I randomly feed him bites here and there, instead of having him sit in the high chair throwing everything on the floor.  It is all trial and error.  He has finally started sipping on milk.  Sometimes I mix it with yogurt and/or fruit for a snack smoothie.

Ah, December 21 was the first day Basti was officially fully weaned.  YEY!  And no tears!  The whole process took several months, and was delayed a bit by having visitors and going on a trip, but we made it.  Got Poppy to greet him in the morning and rock him to sleep so he wouldn't be reminded of cuddling with me on the rocking chair.  Now I need to watch how much I eat (even though I'm always starving still) so I don't gain too much weight!

Pooping: He started drinking a little more juice after Thanksgiving, so I have been offering him a little prune/apple juice every day to keep things moving.  And so far it is working to keep him going every other day.  At least I think that is what helps.

Which brings me back to the Thanksgiving trip, we drove 6.5 hours south to Pasadena.  The long car ride was actually ok.  Since we drove at night, coinciding with Basti's bedtime, he slept most of the way.  Woke up when we stopped for gas, pee break, or Maja (she was getting a little uncomfortable on the way down so we stopped every 2 hours, but she was much better on the drive back).  With all the excitement and commotion of people and new surroundings, Basti coudln't settle down for naps while we were in Pasadena.  So by evening he was extremely tired.  At one point he started banging his head against the floor.  When we wouldn't let him do that, he tried banging his head against the furniture.  And when we wouldn't let him do that either, he started hitting his head with his hands.  Quite disturbing to watch.  For a few days once we got home, he was taking 2-3 hour naps (not the norm) recovering from the trip.  Yikes.  Also, while we were in Pasadena, Basti was on an eating binge, just shoving everything in his mouth, although sometimes he would have so much food he'd end up spitting it out.  Despite all the eating, he was not pooping.  So we tried giving him stool softener, prune juice, pears, etc.  Finally he pooped the morning of the day we were driving back.  He usually has 2 poops back to back, so the rest of the day I was on alert waiting for the second one.  Of course, once we were packed in the car driving away, not even on the highway and we smell it.  Nice.