Squeakles was put in a time out in his crib for biting me ( it wasn 't hard , but it was the gesture ) . He screamed and yelled for us to come back and get him . Eventually J went back to tell him that he could get out when he stopped screaming at us . Yesterday Squeakles locked the pantry door , which for some reason has the lock on the inside of the door , so once it 's locked you can 't open it unless you happen to be inside the pantry . Although I didn 't yell at Squeakles for doing it , my frustration was obvious on my face . I don 't think Squeakles was mocking me by what he said next , but I do think he was channeling what I was feeling and was trying to figure out how he should act in response to the locked door . He stopped still and said , in a very sad sounding voice , " I 'm so sad . I have a tear . A tear is coming out of my eye and going down my face . I 'm crying . " Then he turned and stood right in front of the locked door and said in a particularly woeful voice , " I 'm so sad . " And what is the Weeble saying lately ? Some " da " , some " tha " , and lots and lots of raspberries . She stands up in the exersaucer , balls up her little fists , takes a deep breath , and then turns red in the face as she spits and makes raspberry noises for as long as she can . It 's really hilarious . Most of the time I make dinner without his help . It 's a lot faster that way . But sometimes he sees what I 'm doing and asks to help , so I come up with various ways that he can be involved . Tonight it started with the asparagus - he handed me each stalk of asparagus from the container so that I could slice off the leaves . ( Those spiky things are leaves , right ? ) He was clearly interested in doing more , so we pulled the stool up to the counter so he could get to work . He broke off the tough ends of each asparagus stalk , brushed them with olive oil , and sprinkled salt and pepper over them . ( As he pinched the salt I 'd poured into his palm and sprinkled it over the asparagus he commented , " just like snow ! " ) I put the asparagus in the broiler , and we moved onto the salmon ( this recipe ) . We started with the same method - Squeakles brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper . We then sprinkled on some ground rosemary ( which , by the way , I highly recommend buying cut up in a jar - it 's just as fresh tasting as fresh rosemary , doesn 't go bad , and is so much easier ) , placed lemon slices over the fish , sprinkled freshly squeezed lemon juice and white wine ( with a bit on the side for Mommy to drink ) , and then finally sprinkled some capers on the top . While the salmon cooked , we ate the asparagus fresh out of the broiler while standing at the counter . Squeakles devoured at least six stalks and only stopped when there was no more to eat . The salmon only took ten minutes to cook ( and actually , should have been cooked for slightly less time because the fillets were somewhat thin ) and were ready the moment we finished with the asparagus . I moved Squeakles to his high chair and brought him the salmon cut up over a bowl of leftover basmati rice from the weekend . He took one bite and said " I looooove it ! " We hope to pass on our good traits to our children , and when we see the not so good traits we work hard to help them conquer them . Unfortunately , I seem to have passed on the terrible - sleep - gene to Squeakles who spent over two hours last night lying in his crib trying to go to sleep . Some nights he does a better job than others at actually lying there the whole time , staying quiet and trying to go to sleep , calling out every 20 minutes or so for a sip of water or a trip to the potty , or when he realizes that we won 't keep getting him up for these things , then at the very least he wants a hug . When he whines and yells , as he sometimes does , we make a big point of not capitulating to his demands , knowing that both the whining and the things he wants are not going to help him sleep . But on the nights like last night , when he lays there quietly , trying his best to sleep for over two hours , I definitely sympathize . Not being able to sleep is a tough spot to be in , and it only gets worse as you get older and not only have more things to worry about , but earlier and earlier times that you have to wake up in the morning . All my life I 've been a night owl and have trouble sleeping when I do finally go to bed . I have memories of trying to convince my parents to let me stay up as late as possible , and when that failed , sneaking a book under the covers . You 'd think that being tired would be enough to make falling asleep a natural outcome , but this just wasn 't always the case . Eventually I learned that I can usually get past it by counting and I find that I rarely make it to 100 before falling asleep . ( My rule is usually that if I get to 100 then I can get out of bed and do something else for a little while . ) So clearly my problem is in my head . It 's a matter of putting my thoughts to rest , and if I can 't , then lulling them out of consciousness . If only Squeakles could count past 20 . And in numerical order , rather than bits and pieces of ordered strings and numbers , such as 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 3 , 17 ! ( The exclamation point there is meant to indicate Squeakles ' final shriek as he reaches what he thinks is the final number in the sequence . ) Or maybe it doesn 't matter if they 're actually in order as long as he thinks they are . We 've been placing Weeble on her belly when she 's up late in the hopes that it will wear her out . During the day , she doesn 't last long on her belly before complaining . But at night she revels in it - laughing whenever she makes eye contact with us and trying to drag herself around the floor . ( Last night she dragged herself at least three feet over to one side and clung on to the bottom of the exersaucer - not bad for a baby who cannot crawl at all . ) From the beginning , Weeble has been a fantastic sleeper . In fact , she slept so much the first couple of months that I kept asking the doctor if she was ok . He reassured me that she was fine and that babies can vary a lot . Well , my memory of Squeakles is that he hardly slept from the moment he was born , and getting him to sleep ( and to stay asleep ) was always a struggle ( and often still is ) . But Weeble seems to love to go to sleep and from the moment we let her sleep uninterrupted ( without waking her up to feed her ) she regularly sleeps for 10 - 12 hours straight . I still can 't believe it . The only " trouble " she gives us is that we have to bounce her in our arms until she falls asleep , rather than just putting her in her bed and walking away . But this is not much of a hardship since it takes ten minutes tops for her to fall asleep , and it 's often under five minutes . I 've never seen anyone fall asleep so quickly on a regular basis . ( Well , except J . So I suppose that 's where she gets it . In contrast , I need at least 20 minutes to ruminate and worry before I finally get too tired to keep thinking of new things to stress about . ) After a really difficult time breastfeeding Squeakles , I thought I was prepared to go in fighting to make this time successful from the beginning . I believed the key to avoiding supplmenting was a better latch from the beginning , fighting off any advice to supplement , and breastfeeding as often as possible ( but at the same time , not waking the baby up any more than necessary ) . But it turns out , I might really just have a low milk supply . I fought at this for two months straight , feeding Weeble 10 - 12 times a day ( in spite of the fact that she slept around the clock ) . But by her third week , she was still losing weight ! I did start supplementing her , but continued the pace of breastfeeding as if there was no supplement . Then she started gaining weight , so I was hopeful that eventually I could pull back the supplement , just as I had done with Squeakles ( it had taken a few months for that to be possible , and as soon as I did it , I went back to work and couldn 't keep up through pumping ) . Once Weeble started gaining weight , I was no longer instructed to wake her every 2 - 3 hours to feed and soon enough she started having about ten hours of awake time ( noon to 5 pm , and midnight to 5 am ) . I tried to work in feedings during these times , but I suspect that the long periods without breastfeeding did not help my supply . Through all of this , I worked to maintain a good latch , but something just wasn 't quite right . It started to get painful - so painful that I thought it was thrush . My doctor , over the phone , doubted me and started me on antibiotics for mastitis . But I didn 't have a fever ( except when I coincidentally got sick , but that fever came and went ) , and when I finally went into the doctor he agreed it wasn 't mastitis . But he also said it wasn 't thrush . No , I had breast trauma ! My nipples were extremely sore and there were blisters . That is truly as gross and uncomfortable as it sounds - no , worse , because I had to breastfeed anyway . And yet , I fought and fought . . . until I lost . I went back to work right after my 8 week maternity leave was up and with pumping I simply couldn 't keep up the pace I 'd been doing breastfeeding . At the end of six months , I stopped breastfeeding completely because my supply had dropped to almost nothing and Weeble was resisting trying to breastfeed under those conditions . We 've recently started giving " solids " - so far sweet potato , carrots , and broccoli . All of these have gone down very easily . When I regain my perspective on the " lost " breastfeeding , I remember how much I enoyed ( and still enjoy ) making baby foods . I am hopeful that Weeble will be as willing to eat everything as Squeakles is , but could I really be so lucky ? We 've switched to disposible diapers . I debated with myself for a long time over this and eventually concluded that I did not have the time to be washing out poopy diapers and covers right now . Anyway , Weeble 's bum wasn 't dealing well with the wetness of cloth diapers . I am also pretty sure that our babysitters are relieved not to have to clean out cloth diapers either ! About three weeks ago , Weeble starting babbling , saying ba , ga , da , ta , ka , ma , fa , va , and that same weird syllable that Squeakles said - boeuv . ( Rhymes with oeuf , the French word for egg . ) Then a week later she stopped saying almost all of them , though ba and ma slip out from time to time . Now da is starting to come back . So far so good ! She smiles ( a lot ) . She 's fairly easy going . ( Unless you take away a toy she was really enjoying , like my old baby rattle that she was gagging herself with , then she screams with real frustration . ) She enjoys watching Squeakles play , and it 's very easy to get her to laugh . Siblings Since Weeble didn 't come with a set of wheels , Squeakles was pretty uninterested in her for the first few months . He didn 't show any obvious jealousy either , but we do think he suffered a bit from the undivided attention he was used to . He definitely went through a whiny period which is now finally starting to get better . ( At the very least , he knows he 's not " supposed " to whine and he usually can stop on demand , especially if he 's confident that he 'll get what he 's asking for if only he uses his " normal " voice . ) More recently Squeakles has started to show a little more interest in Weeble . He likes to let her pull his hair - he goes over to her and rests his head in her lap , and then says " ouchie " when she pulls it . He also imitates our baby talk to her and will gently point out her eyes , cooing " l ' il baby eyes " in a high pitched voice . I absolutely need to get this on video because it 's so cute . Last night , just before bed , Squeakles was wandering around the living room when he noticed a little crumb on the floor just by his feet . In a swift coordinated movement , pacifier was removed and little crumb injested . Just as quickly , I jumped to my feet crying " Spit it out , spit it out " and shoved my fingers in his mouth trying to find whatever he 'd just put in his mouth . J jumped up to help as well , and as I removed a tiny , tiny piece of something now unidentifiable , I said I thought it might have been cat throw up . In the meantime , J and I considered what the crumb might have been : cat vomit , an errant animal cracker , or maybe even a piece of tracked - in cat litter . At that latter suggestion , Squeakles cried even harder . J commented that maybe Squeakles would have to throw it up , and Squeakles wailed at the thought . At this point I thought we needed to tone down the drama , but J was seriously concerned it would make Squeakles sick , and he also thought that the more Squeakles was freaked out by what he 'd eaten that he 'd be that much less likely to eat things off the floor again in the future . But Squeakles was getting a little hysterical by now so I tried to comfort him and tell him he 'd be just fine . I think he thought he was on the verge of death - or at least , the verge of having to throw up . ( Coincidentally , he 'd thrown up the day before , so the memory of throwing up was very recent in his mind . ) We got out a bowl in case Squeakles did throw up , but it never happened . I offered to brush his teeth to get any little bits out of his teeth , and I 've never seen him quite so willing to have his mouth scrubbed out . He drank a little bit of water and it was declared time for bed . While J changed him into a nighttime diaper ( he 's potty trained for the most part , but not necessarily when he 's in a deep sleep ) , Squeakles cried and cried . " Daddy 's gonna read you a story and then I 'm gonna go to bed and CRY ! ! " J told him that the best thing he could do right now is sleep because when you sleep your body fights off germs . Squeakles had the usual nighttime wakings - a request to go to the potty and several wakings between 10 pm and 2 am due to a very congested nose . But he slept for about 11 hours in total and woke up much recovered . I would have expected Squeakles to have forgotten the whole incident from the previous night , but when J went in his room to get him , the first thing Squeakles said was " Did I fight off the germs last night ? " My due date was June 25th . I was told that I was slightly more likely to have the baby early since Squeakles had been born three weeks early , but I reminded myself that it was also possible she would come late . It could even be July ! If you remember , Squeakles was born via c - section . As thrilled as I was to have a gorgeous healthy baby in the end , I didn 't enjoy going through major abdominal surgery and I enjoyed the month - long recovery even less . After much research and hand - wringing about the possible risks , I concluded that I wanted to try to have a VBAC rather than a repeat c - section . ( There 's a very slightly higher risk of uterine rupture due to previous scar tissue and the usual risk of vaginal tearing from a normal birth , but if successful , no recovery period from surgery . And a repeat c - section , being major surgery , has its own associated risk factors . ) And so I did not schedule a c - section . My doctor was starting to suggest an induction , but I was not convinced . I had a new doctor this time because my previous doctor had moved away . I 'd actually met him once before , when I was in labor with Squeakles , so I was somewhat familiar with him . But I knew that he was an advocate for preventive induction - something I support in theory but didn 't particularly want to bring upon myself . He told me that he couldn 't actually give me some of the drugs they use to induce labor because I 'd previously had a c - section , but that there were a few things he could try ( e . g . , stripping membranes ) . I did a lot of reading about them , and hoped it wouldn 't come to that . After all , Squeakles had been born three weeks early , so why not this one ? Indeed , around 2 am in the night that was exactly three weeks before my due date , I woke up with a jolt , feeling like I 'd just been punched in the cervix and might have accidentally peed a little bit . My reaction was dismay - I hadn 't had any incontinence during my pregnancy and didn 't want to start now ! I got up to go to the bathroom to change my " emergency " pad ( the pad I wore in case I did suddenly pee myself ) . I used the toilet and thought that maybe , just maybe , that liquid that I felt might not be pee . But I couldn 't be sure I wasn 't just imagining it . I got up and changed my pad . But when I walked back to bed , I felt a tiny bit more liquid - just enough to make the pad too wet to wear . At this point , I really considered that my water was breaking . But when I went back to the toilet I only got a tiny bit more fluid , so I reasoned that my mind was playing tricks on me and this was probably just middle of the night sudden incontinence . ( In fact , this is almost exactly how things had gone with Squeakles - that I 'd had only a little bit of fluid and wasn 't sure if my water had broken , only to have a baby in my arms seven hours later . Yet I reasoned , what are the chances that this birth would happen exactly as the previous had . ) I went back and forth on this for a while , and finally decided that it would be a good idea to pack my bag for the hospital - something I really should have already done . ( Again , an exact replication of the situation when I 'd gone into labor with Squeakles . ) All of my walking back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom while I debated with myself and then starting to pack must have woken J up because he then got up to use the bathroom . I told him what was going on , but I was so unsure that it was my water that had broken that we both agreed it made the most sense for him to go back to bed and try to sleep . But he never managed to go back to sleep . In the meantime , I kept dribbling just enough fluid to soak through my pads , but didn 't have any cramps . I might have started to feel a dull ache on my back from time to time , but I also could have just been imagining it . Finally J ( who probably just wanted to go back to sleep ) suggested I call the doctor 's office to see what they thought . The doctor on call told me to go to the hospital to be checked because if my water really had broken , they didn 't want me to go more than 12 hours because they don 't want to risk infection . I asked if I could wait until the morning , but she told me I should go within the hour . So okay , I thought , I will go . I 'm not sleeping anyway . But of course Squeakles was asleep and we couldn 't just leave him at home alone . Our backup plan had been for our friend D to come over , but she was out of town and I hadn 't yet arranged for someone else to be our backup . We considerd calling D 's husband ( who was at home while she and their son were away ) , but felt bad about it because we 'd never actually talked to him about doing this , and here it was now 3 in the morning . So I suggested to J that I just go to the hospital by myself by cab . I could take a cab there , and then if it turned out I was really in labor , I could call J and at that point he could bother A ( D 's husband , who is also J 's friend and work colleague ) . And if J couldn 't get in touch with A in the middle of the night , then J would just have to bring Squeakles to the hospital ! J was a little skeptical about my going by myself , but I really wasn 't feeling contractions so we left it as a possible plan while I moved forward about calling my parents and packing my bag . I decided it was worth calling my parents in the middle of the night because they would have a three and a half hour drive ahead of them . When Squeakles was born they didn 't get on the road right away , thinking the whole process would take several hours and subsequently missed his birth ! ( It was a seven hour labor and they arrived within the hour after the c - section . ) So I told them that things might be starting , but that I really wasn 't sure . I didn 't strongly urge them to get out of bed and start driving down here . In fact , the way we left things was that I 'd call them back if it really turned out to be labor , but otherwise would let them sleep and call them back in the morning . What I probably should have realized was that if I 'm calling people in the middle of the night and packing a bag , rather than just heading back to bed , there probably is something real going on even if my brain doesn 't quite believe it ! But soon enough I did get enough clues that this was real . I kept soaking through my pantyliners and leaking tiny amounts when I sat on the toilet . And I started feeling a little more achy , though still nothing like contractions . But they were enough for me to agree that we should just call A to come over and stay at our apartment with Squeakles while J came with me to the hospital . We called A at 3 : 20 am and he answered the phone sounding surprisingly awake and said he 'd be over in ten minutes . And he was . He definitely moved faster than we did ! But when he showed up it was clear he was exhausted . He waited patiently while we finished packing and I changed the sheets on our bed for him ( and also in anticipation of my parents probably staying there the next night ) . By the time we were ready to go ( at 3 : 50 am ) I was finally feeling contractions , ones that were still mild but which made me want to sit down . I 'd started timing them and they were about six minutes apart before we left the apartment . We took a cab to the hospital and got dropped off at the ER because the main entrance was closed . At the triage desk , they took some quick information from me and then brought me upstairs to Labor and Delivery in a wheelchair . There I had to sign in at another desk and my contractions started getting harder and even closer together . They were now about three to four minutes apart , and I was having trouble answering questions while they were happening . At this point I wanted to go directly to a labor and delivery room , but no , first I had to go to a waiting room to wait for a triage bed ( which is a step before getting a bed in a labor and delivery room ) . In the waiting room my contractions were getting so uncomfortable that I couldn 't sit in the seat ( I had to get up and lean over the seat ) , and at one point I asked J to ask the people at the triage desk to hurry up ! They said they were just waiting for a room to be ready . ( Seriously , why aren 't the rooms always ready ? Isn 't this what they are for ? ) When I finally got into a room , it was a shared room . Behind a curtain I could hear the sounds of a fetal heartbeat on a monitor . I felt bad because I 'm sure this woman could hear me every three minutes - I was moaning and saying ow , ow , ow while having a contraction . I was supposed to be getting undressed and putting on the gown . Soon a nurse showed up to do some stuff I can 't exactly remember , but at this point I was in enough pain that I was already asking for the epidural ! Part of the reason I knew I wanted it this time was that whenever I had a contraction I also had the same pain in my outer , upper thighs that I 'd had in my labor with Squeakles . That had been excruciating and I didn 't want to be dealing with that same pain while trying to push . But the nurse had to take more information from me and put the monitors on me . Soon a doctor appeared , and although she was not my regular doctor , I recognized her as the one other doctor in the office who I 'd had any interaction with and I was happy to see a familiar and friendly face . I asked her if I could have the epidural and she said not yet . She checked to see how dilated I was and I was shocked to hear I was only 4 cm . I figured with contractions like I was having that I must be almost there ! I asked her again about the epidural and she told me that there are a few things they had to do first ( like an ultrasound ! ) and then move me to a birthing room upstairs and then I could have an epidural . I was next sent to have an ultrasound to confirm that the baby was not breech . I was in absolutely NO mood to have an ultrasound , especially since my doctor had previously told me that it 's very unlikely for the baby to have flipped ( and he 'd just seen me four days earlier ) and that you really can just feel where the head is by pressing . More annoying was the fact that when I 'd had Squeakles at this very same hospital two and a half years earlier they didn 't make a woman in labor stop for an ultrasound before letting her have the baby ! But they ignored my complaints and dragged me into the room . By now it was 5 : 10 am . I stood my ground though , literally , about not lying on my back for very long . They gave up trying to get me to lie down while they put the IV needle in my hand ( quote from the nurse : " this is the first time I 've done this while I 'm the one sitting down and the patient is standing up " ) , but did insist I lie down for the ultrasound . I waited for a contraction to pass , laid down very quickly on the bed and said , go you have two minutes ! ! As if to drag it out they insisted on taking two pictures . And then , casually before they let me go on my way , one of the nurses said she could tell I was in transition because I was all sweaty and shaking . Well , duh ! That whole process had taken another 20 minutes . Finally , in this condition , I had to walk down the hall , go up an elevator , and then down another hall . Or well , actually , they didn 't make me walk , but I insisted on walking because sitting down was worse , or at least , I insisted up until the point when I really wasn 't making any progress walking down the hall , stopping every three minutes to lean against a wall waiting for a contraction to pass . They finally convinced me that it would be better to get into the birthing room than to lean against the railing in the hallway until the baby appeared . This whole process took another half an hour . At 6 am I was finally in the birthing room being checked for dilation again , while J vigorously massaged my legs to ease the pain with each contraction . I was still only 6 cm , which again , was nowhere as far along as I felt , but it did give me time to finally get the epidural ! I had contractions before the epidural , then about two more fading ones as it was taking effect and then suddenly , they were gone . I mean , completely gone . The only thing I felt whenever I had a contraction was a dull ache in my right leg , but the searing pain was gone so I was thrilled . It turns out that pushing with an epidural is a lot different than pushing without one because I really couldn 't feel anything . Weeble was nowhere near low enough yet for me to feel the pressure of her head or body , so basically I just mustered up a bunch of energy and squeezed . After a while the epidural started to wear off and although I didn 't mind being able to feel my body a little more , I also had a lot of pain in my legs , so I asked if they could turn up the drip a bit more . Then of course I was a little too numb , but eventually things settled into a comfortable numbness . It was probably within the hour that J and the doctors could see her head , but she didn 't progress beyond that very quickly . My contractions started getting farther apart , which meant that I could only push about every ten minutes . In between we all just sat around , talking about what I could do to push better next time or commenting on the time ( my doctor was supposed to be somewhere by 9 am ) or the weather . Then my right leg would start to ache and simultaneously the doctors would notice on the monitor that I was having another contraction and without any one actually saying anything , everyone got into position holding my legs and I started to push again . They positioned a mirror so that I could see what was going on . It took a while before I could see the baby - at first I just saw very surreal bulging - but then finally , I was able to see the top of a little head ! Having a mirror helped immensely because I was getting some real feedback about what my pushing was doing , and I realized I was spending a lot of energy tensing up but not actually pushing . After the pushing continued on for a while , my doctor started threatening the idea of using a vacuum or something , and commenting that he didn 't want this to continue much longer . He gave me about half an hour more to get the baby out , which partly annoyed me , but mostly spurred me on because there was no way I was going to let him do anything - whether a vacuum or a c - section ! ( I chose him because he strongly supports VBACs , so I knew he wouldn 't push me into one unnecessarily , but I also knew that he was monitoring everything and would not hesitate if he thought one was necessary . So I really wanted to push enough to make sure that it wouldn 't be necessary . ) Finally , at the end of one of the pushes , I felt like if I just kept pushing , she would come all the way out . I asked if I could keep pushing , everyone said sure , and all of a sudden , there she was , coming out ! When her head ( and maybe shoulders ? ) came out , my doctor asked me to stop pushing , and I tried , but it was so hard because I just wanted to finish and get her out . But he 'd warned me in advance that if he told me to stop it would be because I was tearing or going to tear and he wanted to be able to minimize it . Soon I got the go ahead to push again and then , at 8 : 43 am , she was born ! ( And just like with Squeakles , it was a seven hour labor . And yes , my parents missed it again . ) I am pretty sure there was a lot of blood down there , but they wiped her off a bit and handed her to me , and there she was - a living beautiful baby in my arms . I held her for a few minutes and then they took her to clean her , weigh her ( 7 lbs 2 . 6 oz ) , measure her ( 20 inches ) , and take her temperature . In that time , the doctor started stitching me up . Apparently I had a " complicated " second degree tear , which isn 't horrible . Fortunately I still had the epidural in me so I couldn 't feel anything he was doing ; it really just looked like he was sewing down there ! But the main reason was that I got pregnant . And tired . And then had a baby . Who is now six months old . Hey , we can still be friends , right ? In spite of the fact that I completely omitted telling you that I grew and birthed an entire new person ? Sorry about that . It 's a girl , by the way . I don 't have a blog moniker for her just yet , since I only , three minutes ago , decided to start updating this blog again . So I will wait until the next post to give you a proper introduction to her - pictures , birth story , and all . Over Thanksgiving , J and I were visiting his family . As we were all tumbling out of the car to go out for lunch one day , my diaper bag tumbled too and with it my dSLR . Fortunately , my father - in - law was right there and he quickly moved himself so that he 'd block the camera from falling to the street . Delighted and amused with his quick maneuver , he exclaimed " oh , you 're lucky , your camera almost fell , but I caught it with my nuggets ! " I responded with something equally odd , telling him that I had never been so glad for his nuggets . Amber half laughed and half grimaced at this conversation . But this phrasing really amused my FIL , so he retold this story at lunch several times to anyone who would listen . Squeakles did not seem to be paying particular attention , but sure enough , a day later , he piped up at lunch the next day , saying somewhat tentatively , " . . . nuggets ? " He got silence in return , but might have noticed me stifling a laugh as I turned towards J . Emboldened , Squeakles said louder , " I caught it in my nuggets ! " He got the reaction he was hoping for , so he told his joke several more times until we all finally pretended it was no longer funny . At some point I think that someone asked him what nuggets were and he answered something to the effect that they were something to catch with . His comments about nuggets occurred a few more times over the next days , but eventually faded away . Until the other day , at home , he randomly said it again . During a Skype conversation with J 's parents that night , we told them that the " I caught it in my n - u - g - g - e - t - s " story had resurfaced . Well , apparently Squeakles is on to us with the spelling because he immediately figured out what we were talking about . So he tried the line out again , but this time he joined us in " spelling " it - " I caught it in my b - s - t - s ! " he cried out with a bit of a shriek at the impending hilarity he imagined . Once I did get to sleep I had to get back up to go to the bathroom . I hate that . And I was having a strange anxiety dream that fortunately I don 't remember now , but it was annoying enough that I had to try to push it out of my mind before falling asleep . J called right back and spoke with a representative from the airline who told him that the flight was canceled due to " maintenance " . And maybe also a little bit the storm , though she said this kind of as an add - on , not as the official reason for canceling the flight . She looked for the next available flight to put us on , at first offering us some really terrible 12 - hr journeys on Tuesday that involved two changes of planes and long layovers ( three hours for one of them ) . When we said no thanks to those , she found us a direct flight on Wednesday flying in first class , so naturally we jumped at the opportunity . We also switched our return flight to two days later , so we 'll be gone for the same amount of time . If anything , our trip now coincides better with the days that J 's family will be off from work . Because J had lab meeting today , he went into work today while I stayed home with Squeakles . It was clear that Squeakles was tired this morning , so we started off by cuddling in an arm chair and watching Thomas the Tank Engine . I was actually hoping it would last a while , but after about 10 minutes he was bored and ready to play for real . With no food in the house for lunch or dinner for two days , I needed to go grocery shopping . I made a plan to go out for lunch with Squeakles ( to Cafe Lutecia just down the street ) , then do some quick grocery shopping , and then play in the snow for a bit . I hoped that after that he 'd be readier than ready for a nap . It was sort of interesting to note people 's reactions to my pushing a stroller on the snowy sidewalks . Some of them would just look at Squeakles and comment on how nice and cozy he looked . Other people would make big offers to help me , though I always refused because for the most part I was managing fine . And others just passed by , never seeming to think of offering to help , including one guy who even made eye contact as he went around me to get by as I 'd hit a particularly deep / slushy spot and was pulling the stroller from the front . There were three stools up front and Squeakles and I took up two of them . As we were settling in , a young ( well , my age ) guy came and sat next to us . Squeakles kept smiling at him and reaching over to the tiles on the countertop in front of him , and even though I apologized , I think the guy liked the attention . Overall , we mostly kept to ourselves though and I hoped we didn 't bother the guy too much . Well , he must have been enamored with Squeakles because when I went to pay , I found out the guy had already paid for us ! ( He had since left and been replaced by someone else who Squeakles tried to win over , but with less success . Squeakles said " Hi Squeakles ! " ( except , obviously using his own real name ) multiple times , and the guy just awkwardly said hi back and that was it . ) I thought that was such a nice gesture for a stranger to pay for our meal , but it was strange too because there was no way I could thank him ! So I left a greater than 50 % tip and hoped that the guy who treated us would have wanted me to pay it forward . I 'm making an actual effort to not only clean , but organize our apartment . By " actual effort " , I mean that I am trying to do things like get rid of things we don 't need and find permanent away places for things we do need , rather than just shuffling things around , making one room look presentable by moving all the excess stuff to another room . It 's possible that this is an impossible task because we only have three rooms ( four if you count the bathroom ) and we 've got a lot of furniture , and this problem has only compounded since we started acquiring baby stuff . But I 'm determined to do what I can . I started with Squeakles ' room the other day . I actually didn 't intend to embark on a major project but he was happily reading books in his crib , so I thought I 'd take the opportunity to hang up a couple of pictures I 've been meaning to put up for weeks now . First , the pictures weren 't framed , so I had to do that . ( I 'd also bought the frames several weeks ago . ) Then I needed a place on the wall to put them , which led me to rearrange the furniture just a little bit and clean and vacuum while I was at it . Squeakles was either reading in his crib while I did all this ( I came across a book with pictures of cars , trains , etc . that he hadn 't ever seen before , so he was very happy ) or commenting on everything I was doing . I moved the folding table out of his room and into the living room in a place that hopefully isn 't too obtrusive and will allow us to whip out the table whenever we have guests and pretend that we normally eat at a table and not at our desks in the living room or off of plates perched on our laps while we sit in a chair . I moved my pink Victorian chair out into the living room and I have plans to put it out on the sidewalk on Saturday and post a freecycle alert so that maybe someone will pick it up . I moved our two dining room table chairs out into the hallway and I 'm currently a little stymied about what to do with them . They will be useful whenever our table is open because of course we need to sit on something , but when the table is folded away , it would be nice for the chairs to be away too . ( Anyone got an extra closet ? ? ) And I moved the infant car seat into a closet and the toddler car seat into our bedroom . I really wish we had a car and could just leave the car seat in it . I mean , the box the toddler car seat it in is the size of a small dresser . So that 's got to go somewhere too - maybe this imaginary closet ? ! First , here is his dresser and changing table . The balloon lamp on the dresser is the one I had growing up and Squeakles loves to look at it . He likes to call out from his crib , " I see geen one ! I see red one ! I see other red one ! " Second , here is the futon mattress on the floor where Squeakles usually goes to sleep . We lie down with him and sing songs or talk a little bit until he falls asleep , and then if we haven 't passed out too , we then move him to his crib . We have thoughts of getting him to start going to sleep in his crib , but not until after our upcoming trip to Florida . ( No point in starting now and then disrupting things for a week . ) You can also see the new pictures I hung on the wall . The photo of the turtle was taken by Amber , and the photo of the bird was taken by Amelie . Squeakles loves both pictures and begs me to pick him up so he can " look at it ? ! " He points to the bird and says " birdie ! ! teet teet ! " , and he points to the turtle and says " turtle ! what does turtle say ? " and then " Hi Squeakles ! " because that 's what I told him the turtle says . So as you can see , it 's not really a cohesive decorating scheme . But you should have seen the room before I reorganized and cleaned . At least there 's room to move around now and everything in there is actually functional . For the past 21 months , I have been the sole nap and bedtime person whenever I 'm at home or whenever we 're traveling . J has only put Squeakles to bed when I 've been away at a conference , or one other time when I was on the phone with a friend who 'd just had a baby . That 's it . The reason for this is that I used to put Squeakles to sleep by nursing him and after 15 months that turned into just lying down with him . ( I have to say , it was a very easy transition , and I also have to say , a welcome one . ) But at the same time , it can be a very time consuming thing to spend 1 / 2 hour or more in his room getting him to sleep every night . ( During the day , the babysitters do this as well . Or at least , they do it when he hasn 't fallen asleep in the stroller first and can then be transferred directly ( sleeping ) to the crib . ) Then again , how much time is " normal " ? I mean , most bedtime routines that involve reading a book , a drink of water , etc . probably still take time , right ? Well , anyway , I 'm enjoying a new normal , which is that J and I are now splitting nap and bedtime duties . We already split up the day into time periods where one of us is primarily responsible for taking care of Squeakles while the other can do work . ( The idea is that if you 're also taking care of Squeakles then you should also be the one to do whatever housework you can manage , such as cooking dinner , cleaning dishes , sweeping , laundry , general cleaning up , etc . I am much more successful at this during full days with Squeakles , but I 'm also getting better in the evenings . That said , it 's still really , really hard ! ) But whenever it came time for bedtime , I would have to stop work and put him to bed , while J got a break and could do whatever he wanted ! Not fair , huh ? But this is the system we had . Naptime . It 's J 's turn . He needs to run to the bathroom , so I take Squeakles and start changing his diaper . Squeakles ' eyes are rolling back in his head on the changing table and all I have to do is place him directly in the crib . J has returned , so I turn to him and say , " you got this ? " I leave the room , and three seconds later , J follows , commenting " that was easy . " Sigh . Bedtime . It 's still J 's turn , but Squeakles is clinging to me after dinner , rubbing my arm across his eyes and saying " hi sweetie " , as if recreating a scene in which I 'm holding and comforting him . I ask him if he wants to go to sleep and he continues to hold onto my arm and says " ga " ( which is still what he says for " yes " ) . I tell J I will put Squeakles to bed because he clearly seems tired and it seems like he really wants Mommy - cuddles . J is more than happy to let me do it because he 's been on Squeakles duty all day and has an online video game scheduled in an hour . So just after 9 I take Squeakles to his room , read three books with him , and then we lie down to go to sleep . He is in a very cuddly mood and doesn 't resist being in bed , but it takes a full two hours for him to finally fall asleep . In the meantime , I have to run to the bathroom and I also suddenly feel the need to eat something , but I am trapped , while J is happily playing a video game in the living room . SIGH . When I finally go to bed , I can 't sleep either and it takes at least an hour and a half for me to go to sleep . Just when I do , Squeakles starts getting fussy and keeps waking up , then finally poops , cries in my arms because he doesn 't want to be awake , and eventually goes to sleep and I end up sleeping the rest of the night in his room . ( I don 't stay there the whole time on purpose , but I was really tired and that is where I fell asleep . )