October 2010

It is now February and I am just getting around to updating the blog. Hopefully "readers" aren't too disappointed. I just remind myself that I use the content of this blog to make my Schneider Luck yearbooks, using Blurb. So better late than never. Luckily, I made a bulleted list back in October with want happened. Now I just have to rack my brain to remember what those notes meant!!

Cousin Nick
First off, Cousin Nick arrived. My cousin and his wife, Meredith, made it happen! They were not happy with life in Arizona and took life by the horns and made a move to Missoula happen! We offered our guest room to Cousin Nick and he came to start his job at the beginning of October. I was a tad nervous because I didn't really know him but I figured that since he was Aunt Harriet's kid, and I really like her, that he had to be pretty cool. I was right. It was awesome having him stay with us. Every night after work we would have dinner and drinks together and watch Mikey crawl around and pull himself up and push his pushers around the living room. Mikey got pretty attached to our new family member and liked seeing him come downstairs in the morning and come home from work at the end of the day.

Hula Hoop for Peace
The annual Hula Hoop for Peace event happened on a nice Sunday afternoon in Caras Park. I convinced Jenny to bring Thomas to the event where we let the boys crawl around and play in the grass while other people hula hooped. My yoga instructor, Sylvia, was also there so I was able to introduce her to Jenny and show off Mikey.

UM-MSU & new friends

The Michigan-Michigan State game was a bit of an event. Cousin Nick was still staying with us and we also invited some new friends over. Alex and Laurie brought their twin daughters over to watch the game. Alex and Laurie are Iowa fans so it was pretty cool to have more BigTen people in the house. What was really fun was starting a little tradition of dressing Mikey up in the winning team's colors at the end of the day for a picture. (It was fun because I was the winning parent.)

Mikey's Birthday!
We celebrated Mikey's first birthday at the corn maze. It was awesome! I invited people from all my Mama networking and we had a great turn out. We brought cupcakes and hot cider to serve on a cool and grey-cloud day. Mikey liked playing at the park and seeing all the people from his world gather in one place...I think he was a little amazed seeing physics and astronomy people in the same place as playground people. :) Instead of gifts, we asked that people write a note in his notebook. We had some fabulous messages, including "on this day" stuff that Jen and Dave filled out with history and sports facts.

Walking
Mikey was walking by the end of the month. Again, we were lucky that we were both there to see his first unaided steps. (We had been helping him to walk around for months!) He stood in the doorway, looked up, and took four little baby steps before sitting down. How proud he must have been!

Walking Backwards
Not one day into walking forward did Mikey start working on walking backward. Instead of pushing his bookbus, he started to pull it while walking backward. I continue to be amazed at his bodily awareness.

Self sooth?!?!
Still struggling with Mikey's separation anxiety and sleep problems, I borrowed a book from my friend Lisa called, "Good Night, Sleep Tight." As I read yet another book on teaching infants to sleep, I came across the single biggest revelation that I had had. Mikey didn't know how to self sooth. Let me elaborate. Mikey's version of self-soothing was to prevent injury. He learned how to fall without cracking his head on the hardwood floor and generally just kept himself from getting hurt. But those few times that he did hurt himself and started to cry I would scoop him up and give him hugs and kisses...naturally, right? So, Mikey never had to figure out how to self-sooth. This problem explained a lot of his separation anxiety to me. When I left him with Lisa, she would sooth him by taking him outside for a walk. After reading about self-soothing, I asked Lisa if she would have the patience to let Mikey figure out how to sooth himself just sitting in her living room. She happily agreed to help and, on my recommendation, encouraged Mikey to play with his loveys (the Red Car and Daisy). Sure enough, it worked! And, for my part, I stopped scooping him up to sooth him. Instead, I would show him Daisy or some other toy for him to find comfort in.

What a huge step forward in parenting for me!

Pandora
Part of our morning routine is to listen to Pandora's "Steve Miller Band" station. Mikey likes classic rock AND Mike is brushing up so he can hold a candle to Jim Jacobs' music knowledge. (This is important because they team-teach and every day Jim starts lecture with a classic rock iClicker question.)

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