Skipping Town

Greta was up for much of last night, wide awake from 11:30pm till 1:30am; Andrew was out to dinner with work people, so Greta and I just read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and did a lot of pacing and rocking. She had two two-hour naps today; we'll see how tonight goes. My new theory is that the Motrin we've been giving her for her teeth has been upsetting her stomach. I didn't give her anything at all today, and I'll stick to Tylenol if we need something in the next couple of days. She is still gnawing desperately on her pacifiers and bottle. It was a gorgeous day today, sunny but not too hot, and I took the girls to Lincoln Park as usual. I always walk through the sculpture garden "on the way" to the playground, and today I walked with them all the way to the top of the park to this large area filled with dogs that we'd seen yesterday. At first I thought it was a dog run, but I found out today it's a doggie daycare--people leave their dogs here all...

Andrew figured out the source of the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP: the Internet wi-fi router box thing that sits on top of a dividing wall in our interior courtyard. It provides wi-fi for several apartments. It started beeping at 11pm last night, and Andrew managed to climb to the top of the wall and saw a beeping, flashing light. He turned it off for the rest of the night. We feel a little guilty about this, but we really had no choice. That said, I still didn't sleep, and Greta was up for much of the night. Lucia, too, woke up. We just keep having these nights that are epically awful. It's a wonder that today went as well as it did, with all of us sleep deprived. It was a holiday in Mexico, but Andrew still had to go in to work since some colleagues of his from the U.S. and Spain had arrived. But the streets were full of families out and about. I took the girls to the playground, but it was really crowded and sunny, so we played instead in a little green area within a sculpture gard...

We truly were wiped out from yesterday, BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP so we spent today in our home neighborhood of Polanco. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP We took a walk down Avenida de Presidente Masyryk, which really is BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP beautiful and very European-feeling. We passed lots of luxury shops, bridal boutiques, BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP and "concept stores" adjoining trendy cafes. Though  BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP the girls were having a volatile day--the morning had featured a Lucia meltdown over the fact that I BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP wouldn't give her apple slices with skin on them, even though at home she BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP protests even the tiniest speck of skin (sigh)--but we were hungry, so we sat at an outdoor table for pizza. The girls BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP did fine, though Greta would have BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP preferred to stand in her high chair the whole time. Later this afternoon, BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP we walked to the Museo Rufino Tamayo. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP The girls were not as...

We had a lovely visit this morning from some friends from Brooklyn, two little boys each three weeks older than each of my girls. Lucia was thrilled to have someone to chase all around the house, and Greta enjoyed crawling around and chewing companionably with another little baby. Later in the day, inspired by this other baby’s ability to pull up to standing, Greta decided she, too, would stand. She pulled herself up on the flowered ottoman, arranging her tiny feet underneath her and then pushing right up. Sometimes she starts out in a very wide V and then scoots her feet together inch by inch. Standing! Able to reach newly out-of-reach surfaces! Nothing is safe! I can sense her preparing to practice this newfound skill all night, robbing me of yet another night of sleep. Note to Greta: Don’t make me do sleep-training, my sweet little baby. Please don’t let it come to that. But when you wake up every hour from 10:30pm on and I’m still nursing you three times a night and you’re eig...

It’s our last week in New York. Last week, Andrew drove the girls and me to PA and then took the train back to New York, leaving us to spend the week with Mom and Dad. Though it was a fun week for Lucia (The hose! Watering flowers! The playground! Bubbles! Chalk and Pop-Pop’s stones-and-squares game!), it turned out not to be the relaxing getaway I’d assumed it would be. I’d unwisely taken on a very large freelance editing project, which would have been fine—but Greta got sick mid-week and threw everything into an uproar. She had a high-ish fever, which I managed with Motrin, and a trip to a local pediatrician to rule out an ear infection (there was some ambiguous ear pulling) revealed an eye infection instead. She was uncomfortable, and teething, and unable to either settle herself to go to sleep or to stay asleep. She slept with me most of the week, which was great for her but not so great for my own sleep. By the time Andrew returned, I had past the point of zombie-land and was...