Days 6, 7 + Banana Baked Oats
Saturday
Arthur woke up a little before 7:00 on Saturday. Or at least that’s when I heard him - I had been excited to be up and about at 10 to 7 myself, figuring I’d have a bit of time to myself before the kraken awoke. But as soon as I started padding to the bathroom, I heard sounds coming from his bedroom, which soon escalated to wailing. Ah well.
Arthur was in a bit of a mood throughout the first part of the morning. Even after nursing, I couldn’t leave his room for a second without him crying. I wonder if it’s sleep deprivation or seeing his pops on the computer screen yesterday or something else.
He did have a massive appetite for a solid breakfast, I have to say! Cauliflower was still a straight-off-the-side-of-the-high-chair-tray deal this morning, but broccoli was deemed acceptable. He’s a funny little bug.
Arthur has started really purposefully trying to help out when we go on stroller walks; he always pulls up the little bit that goes between his legs and holds it up for me. It’s really cute. Similarly, whenever Miklós or I put him in his sleep sack for the night, he stretches his arms through the sleeves for us to facilitate the process.
Arthur was clearly exhausted when I nursed him at 10:45; he had been yawning and rubbing his eyes, not to mention weepy and clingy. But he really actively fought napping on me. Whenever his eyes started to close and he seemed about to drift off, he’d make sure to sit up, and start crying a little. It’s basically the same nap regression that happened earlier in the crib, but now it’s gotten worse and has been extended to include my lap. It probably didn’t help that his tongue still seems to be bothering him, too.
So, we repeated the pattern of the last couple of days: hang out upstairs for an hour before going for a 12:00 walk in the hopes that I could force a nap on him then. Within ten minutes in the stroller, he was conked out - I knew he needed that nap! He only slept for about 40 minutes or so, though, and somehow really scratched up his face while he was asleep. Ugh, poor little guy. I think his papa’s absence is stressing him out quite a bit.
At one point in the afternoon, I had a photo of Arthur open on my laptop. He smiled, pointed at the photo, and then pointed at himself. He recognized who it was! I guess next we’ll have to see if it’ll work with a picture of me. He did the same when G-Dawg video-called us, but I think initially he was smiling more at his own camera-self than his grandpa’s.
Anyways, Arthur was somewhat clingy during the afternoon, but when he started dozing off during his 5:00 nursing session, desperately fought it tooth and nail. I don’t know what this new level of napping phobia is, but it’s really pitiful. I really really really hope he stops fearing naps like this when Miklós comes back.
Other news of the day? Arthur tasted a new food! It was one that was new to me as well: figs! But our new house will have two fig trees, so I figure we’d both better develop a taste for the fruit now. Arthur did not like the fig when I gave it to him plain at his afternoon snack time; however this may have just been because he was disappointed it wasn’t more banana pancakes. When I spread it on some sourdough toast with ghee, he was very happy to gobble it up! We’ll experiment some more tomorrow.
As for our sixth bedtime together (not that I’m counting or anything)? Arthur’s eyelids started to flutter the second I began rocking him to sleep. I set him in his crib a minute or two later, and he, same as the past couple of nights, looked mildly concerned but didn’t make a peep when I left the room. I waited for a few minutes with my heart pounding, worried he’d start screaming up a few minutes later like he did the previous night. But I didn’t hear anything, so that was a major relief. And with that, we were halfway through our 12 days of Papalessness!
Sunday
When my alarm woke me up at 7:00, Arthur was already crying. I felt terrible about that; I have no idea how long he had been wailing for me. Hopefully not very. He was pretty tired earlier than usual; I even thought he might fall asleep when we went on our morning errand run. When I nursed him at 11:00, after a bath, he was downright exhausted, and started falling asleep almost instantly. But whenever he came close to actually sleeping, he'd start crying and force himself upright so that he couldn't sleep. It's like he's terrified of falling asleep, and it's heartbreaking.
So, we once again had a mid-day nap-inducing walk, and the little guy was conked out in five minutes. Luckily the weather this past week has been beautiful; I don't know what we're going to do next week when it's forecasted to rain every day. This time, Arthur slept for a solid 45 minutes, so at least he got a full sleep-cycle in. At this point, that's as good as it gets for the day.
The poor guy was pretty upset when he woke up; I don't know what is going on with him and napping, but at least some susu calmed him down. In fact, it calmed him down so much that he fell back asleep on the boob. He was napping on me!!!!!! This little nap extension only lasted 10-15 minutes, but still - I was very very very happy about this development.
Still, I would describe Arthur's mood as the afternoon wore on as fussier and fussier. It was one of those days where he constantly wanted whatever I was holding or was out of reach, and started melting down when he couldn't have it. So that was fun. But he did get a bit more reasonable as it wore into evening. It was cute to see him smile when we videocalled Miklós; I think he was excited to see his papa. I'm so curious how he'll react when he gets back.
Arthur tried two new foods today! At lunch, he had some canned mandarin orange slices for dessert. They were canned in fruit juice rather than syrup, but of course they were still very sweet, so unsurisingly were a hit. At dinner the new food was chicken thighs! He's had breasts before, and he seemed to view these on about the same level: he enjoyed them fine, but they were nothing to write home about. I'd say he liked them about as much as he liked the salmon I cooked for him earlier in the day.
And after dinner, of course, was bedtime. It was a play-by-play repeat of the previous night, which meant it took about five minutes with no crying or screaming. Success! And with that, we had completed a full week without Papa!
Anyway, I've been working through a bunch of bananas this past week (with Arthur's help), so have been making various baked goodies using them. Honestly, they've all been great! I'll start out by posting the baked oat recipe I made on Tuesday. I mostly followed this recipe by Chocolate Covered Katie - she never lets me down! Here's how I made it:
Banana Baked Oats (serves 1)
Ingredients
½ cup oats (I used a quick oat mix with some dried fruit in it - it worked great here!)
pinch salt
pinch cinnamon (optional)
½ banana, mashed
¼ cup milk of choice (I used barista oat)
1 tbsp granular sweetener or equivalent (I used a squirt of liquid sucralose)
splash of vanilla extract
chopped walnuts (optional, we didn't have any, but I feel like they'd go great here!)
Instructions
Mash the banana in a mug or large ramekin.
Add in the rest of the ingredients, mixing until fully combined.
Bake in the air fryer (or oven) at 200 degrees Celsius for 15-20 minutes, or until firm.
Gobble up!
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