October Catch Up – Part 1

It was a hectic October at Casa Dean (hence the lack of blog posts)!  We are going to do a quick catch up in 3 parts.   Here’s what we’ve been up to lately:

1.  Riding Solo 

This month marked the first time that I went out of town – for a WEEK!  Matt did great, but I will let him tell you all about it.

Dad here - so it is not easy taking care of a one-year old by yourself even if it is for just 5 and a half days.  Persis left on Sunday afternoon so I had to entertain Olivia for about 8 hours and I knew that would be difficult especially because she was not in a good mood when Mommy left.  So, I enlisted my parents to come over and share the burden.  It turned out to be a great call because Olivia was in a much better mood once she got her nap and my parents came over.

One trick my dad taught me was to take her tunnel and turn it on its side.  This creates the smallest baby cage ever.  Olivia thought this was the funniest thing in the world for about five minutes until extreme baby claustrophobia set in.

Once my parents left on Sunday I put Olivia to bed and got ready for the week ahead.  I figured with Olivia in daycare from 8am-5pm I wouldn't have to work too hard.  Unfortunately, that was not correct.  Olivia had one of her worst weeks of sleep ever (she probably just missed Mommy) and woke up every morning around 4 or 5 and wouldn't go back to sleep.  Nothing I tried worked.  So, mornings were not fun.  Luckily for both of us, Mommy had already picked out Olivia's outfits for the entire week (genius) and had even prepared meals for us so breakfast was super easy to serve....it was not super easy to keep off Olivia's face though.

Dropping Olivia off at daycare was easy and then I headed to work until I picked her up in the evening.  Even the people at daycare missed Persis, including the police officer who wouldn't let me park at the school because the spots were "Only for parents of children at the school."  I guess my half-shaven, Polo-tucked-into-jeans look didn't put off a dad-vibe, despite having a school parking pass on the dashboard of my car.

Dinners were easy also because Persis had frozen a bunch of meals.  Then, I would give Olivia a bath and read her a book before calling up Mommy and saying prayers for the night.  I was wiped and Olivia and I were both snuggled up in our beds by 8pm.  By the end of the week I was Olivia's favorite person in the world.  She laughed at everything I said and would give me hugs all day long.  All of that ended two seconds after Mommy walked in the door on Friday night.  Even though I was sad to no longer be the favorite, I think I would live a happy life if Persis never leaves us again for the rest of my life!

Back to mom - Matt isn't the only one who was solo this month.  In fact, he's been traveling quite a bit for work recently, so O & I have been having lots of mommy-daughter fun.  Looking at the pictures I didn’t realize how much time we spent sitting on the floor of the kitchen!

She sits on the floor eating Cheerios before school while mommy packs her lunch:

And she "talks" to daddy before bed every night (and by "talk" we mostly mean drool on my nice iPhone, sometimes hang up on him, and mostly smile as daddy talks)

And a few random iPhone shots...

2.  We went to Mimi and GrandDad’s house to celebrate Aunt Yasmin’s birthday! 

3.  Got re-Ferberized.  From the time she was about 5 months old, Olivia has consistently gone to bed around 7:00 each night and woken up at 6:30 the next morning.  Early, but not crazy.  Well, around 10 months, she started waking up consistently earlier each week.  Pretty soon we were up at 4 am!  We were hoping it was just a phase, but after a few months we got desperate and realized she needed a little reminder on good sleep habits.  So we re-introduced her to Dr. Ferber.  Our stubborn little girl was slow to jump on the sleep train but we are making some slow progress

Yes - this is a picture of her sleeping standing up.  No words.

 
4.  Playing outside.  Now that the weather has gotten a little cooler, and Olivia has become pretty steady on her feet – we are loving playing outside.  (And I am LOVING all the cold weather clothes she gets to wear - how precious are those tights?!)