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Sooo, we may, MAY, have some sleep progress. As you all know, we have been suffering through Keegan sleep issues for a long time, since birth in fact. I know you are tired of hearing about it at least as much as we are dealing with it, but the most frustrating thing is that they don’t seem to improve as he gets older. After an excruciating couple of months when we battled with jet lag, guests, and simply regular life that translated in multiple nights wakings, super early wake ups (as in 4, 4.30am), more sleep training, crying and just overall crankiness, especially on our part, we decided to try something new. Enter My Tot Clock. It is an over-sized, sturdy clock, whose face changes color depending of the time of day, mainly blue during sleep time and yellow when is time to wake up.

The idea is that Keegan will not be allowed to get up till the yellow light comes on. Of course you set the wake up and bed times, and you can dim the night light to nothing as well. You can even set to have lullabies playing and wake up music, or story telling, but we do not use that feature. It has settings for timeouts (red light), positive reinforcement (green light) and naps. You can also override any setting, and manually start any routine.

Taking advantage of Keegan’s fascination with clocks, we began using it during the Christmas break and I have to say that we had some moderate success so far. Nothing as drastic as the site’s testimonials, but success nonetheless. First of all, now Keegan knows that he is supposed to wait for the yellow light. When he goes to bed he says “yellow light on awake ” or “luce gialla up” or something to this effect. It is a big difference from before, when we could only tell him he was too early, which of course meant nothing to him. Also, he often stays in bed till slightly later (we are still in the 5.30/5.45 range, but it is a start, and much better than 4.30/5). We had been creeping up the wake up time, little by little, and we are now at 5.40am. Hopefully we will be able to move it closer to 6 am, eventually.

There are of course set backs; there are still times when he wakes up a little earlier, but at least now we have an enforcement measure: we are not picking him up till the yellow light comes on, no matter how much he cries or how many times he calls out mama or Tiziana…oh yes, if after a while, if I don’t answer his calls, he starts calling me by my first name. Maybe he thinks I am not quite certain he is referring to me when he calls out mamma. What a weirdo. Not that he ever calls out for daddy or Matt.

The clock also helped with nap time. Again, for a LONG time we decided not to fight his preference for stroller or car seat naps. We were simply too exhausted to deal with it, and with the blessing of our doctor we enjoyed his 2/3 hours naps strapped in into some sort of seat. However, with winter coming, we really wanted him to get him used to sleep indoors, in a bed. So, with many days to reinforce his behavior during the holidays, we started putting him to bed in his room, in the big bed. Again, we used the clock, which has a setting for naps, and stood our ground. The first day he cried more than half an hour, and we had multiple escapes, but the next few days got better. Now, while still resisting, sometimes crying and escaping from the room a few times, he naps in his room. We don’t always get two full hours, but it is a start.

So, is this a miraculous clock? Not quite, but we did get some improvements so far (hoping that they will stay even after the novelty effect worn out, and when construction will begin). Most importantly, Keegan accepted the clock as part of his sleeping routine and he is excited when he waits till the light comes on.We are also really hoping it will be more and more effective as time goes by. When Keegan will be older, we can even use it to teach him to go play on his own in the morning and not to wake up up till the yellow light is on, maybe set to a comfortable 9/10 am…one can always daydream, right?

For now, we will wait for our morning call: “mamma, yellow light!!!”

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The dreaded day has arrived, and the big birthday has come and gone. Age, of course, it is only a state of mind, and this is my new 2010 resolution: to believe I am 10 years younger! Jokes aside, I had a nice three day weekend to celebrate, and a very needed one at that. We had a very stressful week so the extra day off was a nice bonus, especially because Keegan’s daycare was open. We did not do anything exceptional but we had a very nice time, and I now ready to start this new chapter in my life.

I began the celebration early, on Friday. One of my great coworkers, Brad, let everyone know that it was my birthday, and so my collegues took me out for a jummy Thai food lunch. My boss also got me some pretty flowers and two great cheesecakes to share with my class. Thank you everyone!!!!

We started out the weekend with a trip to Seaworld on Saturday. Tizi and Keegan met Jennifer and Hannah (while Matt enjoyed some ME time). It has been a while, so Keegan was very excited about seeing Hannah, and playing. We saw the penguins, the dolphins, the sea stars, and of course Shamu. The show was great, 5 whales at once and lots of jumps, but the kids were more interested in playing on the stairs and singing the alphabet song with each other to care. Jennifer and I chatted and got all caught up with the latest news. Keegan had a little bit of a cold so he was a little fussy, but fell asleep in the car, so mom and dad could have a peaceful lunch. As we got home, Tizi found the beautiful flowers her parents sent: I loved the modern, ikebana-style arrangement with lilies and orchids. Thank you.

I love the “deer in the highlights” look on Keegan’s face

The afternoon was mellow, and for the evening, Matt cooked a delicious meal, so we could relax while watching a mindless movie.

The next morning, Keegan woke up really early, and he was in a feisty mood all day (maybe because the attention was not on him but on me). Fortunately, we got him to go back to bed for a little longer; when he got up, he sang his rendition of happy birthday: “Ha birthday to mama”. He was aware it was mom’s birthday, but he was still hoping his birthday would come up soon again too. After a couple of timeouts, for random biting and hitting, we started our day. Well, Matt and Keegan did: I went back to bed for a couple of hours. I woke up with the smell of eggs and bacon: Matt cooked up a great breakfast, and we all ate together. There were of course the long phone calls with family and friends, and the morning flew by.

Keegan went to bed late and somewhat fussing, and woke up early, just as we were starting to relax. So we off to the park we went, to tire him out. Lots of running and kicking the ball around, his new, favorite- to-the-border-of-obsessive game to play. It is all he wants to do, at home, on the patio, outside…He better become a great soccer player.

It was starting to rain, so we ran home for cake and presents. Matt bought this awesome white chocolate cheesecake from Extraordinary Desserts. Some of you may remember it: it was also our wedding cake.

Keegan was very excited about the candle blowing, but even more about the present opening: he liked to distribute them and did not even insisted into opening them. Matt cracked into my Amazon.com wishlist, and bought me a couple of books I really wanted, so I was very happy. We left one last gift for our private birthday celebration later that night.

At 6.30, our babysitter came by, and Keegan was happy to see her. Not only he did not cry when we left, but he was busy playing with  his back to the door, and barely acknowledge we were leaving.

getting ready for a birthday date

Matt must have read my mind, because he made reservation at Bertrand’s at Mr.A’s, an awesome restaurant with a great view of San Diego.We had dinner looking at the glimmering downtown lights and San Diego Bay. Magical! Being the old people we are, we were home by 9.30 pm, but we were so stuffed we could barely move. After we got home, we concluded our celebrations with the last present, a beautiful necklace.

On Monday, I did not have to work, so I had the whole morning to myself…after an early scare. Keegan did not sleep well because of his cough, and ended up waking up till 6.15 am As you know, this is unheard of, unless he is sick, so I was  really worried he was not feeling well…we gave him some tylenol, and we sent him off to school. Fortunately he was fine, and he had a great day…and so did I. I leisurely had breakfast, prepped for class, cleaned up, and had long chat with friends, via phone and Skype. It was a great end to a good birthday weekend.

I did get some flak from not throwing a big bash, but honestly, it is more work than anything and with most of our friends having young children, it would have been hard to ask everyone to get sitters. Instead, since the BIG day is coming for Matt too in a few months, we decided to have small celebrations all year long…isn’t this more fun?

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2010 is here and we want to wish you all a wonderful new year. May it be full of happiness and joy, and lots of fun.

Our 2010 started well. We rung in the new year with our friends Krista, Eric and Torin. By now, the 6 months gap between Torin and Keegan is really not very noticeable, especially because Torin is as tall and big as Keegan, so play dates are a lot more fun.

They arrived in the late afternoon, and we were actually able to stay up till midnight! It was Keegan’s first “night time”play date, and it went great. Again, the bouncie did come to the rescue, providing lots of entertainment for two very active little boys. Again, no much fighting, which was great: they even swapped their toy cars and played somewhat together.

bouncing with the cars

It was really interesting to see them play together: definitely a different kind of playing than when he is with one of his girlfriends. Nothing outrageous, but definitely more high energy.

no figthing, but lots of “parallel”play

We were even able to have a wonderful dinner all together: the kids sat through the whole meal, playing with each other, and making the most obnoxious and loud sounds they could come up with. It was hilarious.

They both had a later than usual bed time, but by 8.30 they were both crashed out, Torin in his pack-and-play, and Keegan in his room. So, it was adults time. It was really nice to kick back, chat and drink.  Television shows are lamer and lamer each year, but we did need an accurate countdown.

almost 2010 (proof we were in fact awake)

We were even able to see some fireworks, which were so loud that they woke Keegan up. So we cheered at the new year under a beautiful full moon, a blue moon at that, in the warm San Diego evening.

The first day of 2010 started exactly like the first day of 2009. I could have written the same text as I did last year:

Tizi and Matt started [2010] cuddling the little “monster” in the big bed and playing around: is there any better way to start a day? It is a rhetorical question, of course, but despite the sleep deprivation, it is awesome to get started listening to Keegan giggle. It makes it all worthwhile.

The only difference was that we were actually grateful of the 5.45am wake up, (more on a later post), after so many 4.30/5am wake ups. See how your perspective can change?

After an Tizi’s early morning nap, Keegan had a play-date with Jada. Our neighbor Sharon stopped by late morning, and again, the bouncie was the star. I tell you, it was money well spent. Besides some arguing about books, again all went well. Keegan is definitely a social boy, and loves to have friends over. He also tries to boss them around, to no avail.They had so much fun, Keegan went to sleep later than usual, and he was so tired, he DID NOT FUSS at all, and slept two full hours.

jumping is more fun with some milk

hamming it up in the bouncie

And with these, we promise, we will conclude our bouncie pictures series.  You would think we are getting paid to advertise it…are you listening Jump-o-lene?

The rest of a the long weekend was quiet: a walk to the juice store (Keegan’s new favorite), a bike ride on the bay, lots of playing with new toys, reading books, and riding around. We even got to go around the block with Jada and her big wheel. Keegan is doing well, but still getting the hang of pedaling and steering, so a ride around the block takes quite a long time.

check out my new wheels and my hot girl

The end of the weekend also meant, going back to work and daycare. All and all it has been a great vacation: Keegan has been really good, and we thoroughly enjoyed the time spent together. We are very grateful for our healthy, happy little guy. So, invigorated by these days off, we are going back to reality and to our normal life.

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Wow: the holidays came and went really fast. We had a great end of the year, even if we did not go anywhere…or maybe BECAUSE we did not go anywhere. After all, we did not have to fight the crowds at the airport, or face delays, extreme weather or enhanced security. And we could simply have fun in our beautiful, warm city. Keegan’s daycare closed on the 23rd of December till after the new year: good thing it was the same time I had off.

He had a great last day:  they organized a Secret Santa gift exchange, and he got a great firetruck, with lights and three different sounds from MacKenzie, together with some candies. He was excited and played with it non stop for the following days. We did a few last minute errands: post office, visiting the neighbors, checking out holidays displays…

Christmas eve was a flurry of activities, mainly more last minute errands for me: Matt had the day off, so we spent some time together as a family. We went to see the Christmas lights again, and after putting Keegan to bed, we got to work: I had Keegan’s gifts to wrap and Matt had a tricycle to build (plus wrapping Tizi’s gifts). We tuned in to the 24 Christmas Story Marathon and morphed into little elves.

ready, set, go!!!!

The hardest part was to decide what gifts to give him: I did not want to overwhelm him with too much stuff, especially since he still had lots of new toys to play with from his birthday. So we settled on the Little Talking Broom, two emergency vehicles (we saved the firetruck for later), the magnetic Let’s Build Book (to get him used to the idea of construction), the Tickle Monster Book Set, two books from Italy, (the alphabet book, and a puzzle book), and of course the tricycle.

Matt is almost done with the tricycle

I went to bed by midnight, and Matt did not make it to bed till 1.30…This is the life of procrastinating parents.

All the gifts, minus Tizi’s (still to be wrapped)

Keegan woke up bright and early, as usual, but he did not quite realized it was Christmas morning, so we got our usual cuddling time before dashing to the living room by 6.30am. It was so much fun: Keegan was so excited about the presents, and loved to open them and distribute them to us. He liked everything, and immediately started playing with the new toys.

Hopefully he will like sweeping long enough to b able to help us clean

It all happened so fast we did not have the time to take many pictures. By 7.30 it was all done….and Tizi went back to bed: a most welcome Christmas gift.When I woke up, Matt went to take a short nap, and I called my parents. Keegan wished them Merry Christmas and Buon Natale via Skype and we had our digital family get together. I cooked (!!!) breakfast, and we all had brunch together. After Keegan’s nap, we went to Mission Bay for a bike ride since it was a beautiful sunny afternoon. Again, we rode about 15 minutes, then Keegan wanted to play, i.e. run up and down the grassy hills,then we rode back. It was wonderful.

When we got back, we opened our stockings: Keegan did not get any sweets, since he does not really crave them yet, but we got an awesome bootie. He did get a couple of little play things, including a screaming monkey, a tambourine and his favorite Twinkle Twinkle Little Star book, that mom had to sing over, and over and over again.

We did not quite make it to have a big dinner together, so when Keegan was sleeping, we had our own adult dinner and crashed pretty early. What a great Christmas. My Christmas of course, was not over yet, as I still had to finish wrapping the gifts for Italy, and write the New Year cards, and ship everything…for the new year.

The calendar really helped out this year: because of Christmas being on a Friday, as well as January 1, Matt had two long weekends and we had plenty of time to spend together. We had a mellow weekend: we played with the new toys, we tested out the new wheels, and we played at different parks. Now he mainly likes to kick the ball or play in the sand, so it does not really matter where he is, so the Clairemont community parks will do.

first tricycle ride

The following days were heavily scheduled: mom was really worried that Keegan would get bored, driving the both of us crazy. As a first thing we got the bouncie back from storage: it has been  a big hit on Keegan’s birthday, so we figured it would have been entertaining him more on his days off. And we were right: he has been bouncing in that thing quite a bit, alone or with his buddies. Fortunately it fits in the sun room, so we don’t have to drag it in and out.

We started the week by visiting the New Children Museum. We had discounted tickets, and we spent a couple of hours there. Keegan had fun jumping on the inflatable horses, and playing around the Rain House and inside the Trojan horse. He was so tired he fell asleep in the car.

On Tuesday morning we met with MacKenzie at the park: he was so excited he squealed when he saw her. They played, and run, and climbed, and aside form one little meltdown and a couple of sand throwing episodes from both parts, they had a blast. Once again, he was so tired, he fell asleep in the car and slept 3 full hours. I finally got to ship my gifts: let’s hope they will arrive.

On Wednesday morning, Tizi got a belated Christmas gift: a morning off. Our wonderful sitter came over, so Tizi could enjoy some ME time. As an added bonus, Keegan did not cry at all when she left, so no guilt trip there. I went to the movies and checked out Up In The Air: i really liked it, and it was a great distraction. In the afternoon, my old college buddy Lidia stopped by: we have not seen each other in at least 4 years, so it was great to see her. Keegan got to do one of his favorite activities: grocery shopping! Matt got home early and met us at the store, so it was an easy trip.

And just like that, it was New Year’s Eve: Matt got home at lunch, and we spent the last few hours of the year getting ready for our play-date/ New Year’s Eve dinner.

2009 has been sometimes challenging, but definitely never boring: we are looking forward to a new year full of excitement and new adventures with our fiery little guy.

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