cindy's world

Allie’s pediatrician confirmed at the 18-month appointment that we can wean her at any time we want to since she’s gotten pretty much all the nutritional and other benefits she needs from breast milk at this point. She suggested we start with eliminating the morning feeding. I’d been thinking the same thing, since Allie is easily distracted in the mornings and moves on to other things. It’s the bedtimes that she points to the recliner in her room and asks for “mama, nom nom?”.

I waited until this week to cut the morning nursing, because Mr. W and I were attending a soiree last Saturday afternoon that would go into the evening, so we’d already be missing her evening nursing for the first time. I didn’t want to go more than 24 hours between nursings cold turkey as that would be…uncomfortable for me.

Allie did great Saturday night. Jayne came over Saturday afternoon and we did almost a normal goodbye routine with Allie. It was the first bedtime in Allie’s 18-month existence that I wasn’t there to go through it with her. I knew she’d be fine; she sleeps well on her own so even if she fussed before going into her crib, I knew once she went to sleep she’d be fine. And she was. Jayne said she tossed around sucking her thumb for half an hour after she was in her crib, then went to sleep. That’s pretty normal for Allie. Jayne said Allie gave her no trouble with teeth-brushing or flossing, and only asked once when she was being changed for bed, “Mama? Dada?” Jayne said that mama and dada would be home soon, and that was that. Meanwhile, Mr. W and I were at his boss’s 60th surprise birthday party thrown by the boss’s wife at their beautiful home on a hill with a spectacular view. They even had valet parking and catering for the event. I had 2 glasses of wine and a key lime pie martini. Here’s a photo Maggie’s hubby Tom took of us:

We weren’t able to take a photo with the spectacular view behind us cuz then we’d be backlit. 🙁

So anyway, now it’s Day 2 of the nurse-less mornings. Allie’s treated it the way she’s treated the elimination of post-nap nursings/bottles — like she doesn’t notice. We just give her a little snack before we leave for work, a couple ounces of cow’s whole milk and some fresh fruit or veggies. She loves her little munchies like I do; things just taste better when they’re “stolen” or “snuck” around square mealtimes. Meanwhile, I’m less comfortable. And I have to eat less crap and burn more fat to make up for not eliminating those extra milk calories.

Allie had crackly-paper amnesia, which I was not expecting but was grateful for. In the 6 month gap between her 18- and 12-month doctor visits, she’d stopped associating the crinkly wax paper sound with shots. She only had 1 shot anyway, a booster on her Hep-B (C?), and it came at the end, after the nurse had already applied the fluoride varnish on Allie’s teeth. Allie was busy licking her suddenly sweet teeth when the nurse told me to have her lean back on the exam bed. Hearing that, Allie laid back on her own while the nurse told me to hold her hands. I did, and told Allie to look in the mirror on the wall next to her. She turned to the mirror, and before she could blink, the nurse said, “Okay, the shot’s all done.” Whoa. Fastest shot in the west. Allie didn’t even flinch. She looked at me confused for a second, and I thought she may start crying, but she simply went back to licking her teeth and looking in the mirror.

Here are her stats:
Height: 92.5 cm (that’s 36.4 inches, or over 3 FEET!), 100th percentile per World Health Org (WHO) standards
Weight: 23.82 lbs, approximately 60th percentile per WHO
Head circumference: 46 cm, approx. 46th percentile per WHO

On the height percentile graph, Allie’s little “x” is so far up in the white space above the top 95th percentile line that if I were to estimate where the number would fall if the chart continued up, she’d be about the 150th percentile. There’s no such thing as being taller than 150% of girls her age, so I’ll just put it in perspective by telling you that Allie is 5 inches taller than a girl her age in the 50th percentile.

We had this appointment with a female pediatrician that we’d seen when Allie was a lot younger and we’d really liked. Somehow Kaiser shows her as Allie’s primary care physician and not the male doctor we’d interviewed and selected, but Mr. W encouraged me to make the appointment with this female doctor, hoping she’d be more punctual than my experiences with the male doctor. She was. She was also very enthusiastic and seemed very amazed and impressed by Allie. I think she may have been exaggerating her responses in an effort to encourage me to do the parenting that she wants me to do. For example…
Dr. H: *examining Allie’s teeth* She has all her teeth, and they look good. Have you started to brush her teeth, yet?
Me: Oh yeah; we’d been brushing her teeth for a year now, twice a day, and flossing at night.
Dr. H: Wait a minute, wait a minute…you’re FLOSSING her teeth? That’s INCREDIBLE!
Me: She really likes the children’s floss picks we got, and she gets to choose a color and she’ll even floss a bit herself before I take over. I swear I think those floss things are flavored because we have to hide them from her in the mornings or she’ll want to floss then, too.
– and later –
Dr. H: Is she saying more than 6 words?
Me: Yes, and she’s started putting 2-3 word sentences together now. Like “Mama, wa-wa, hold” when she wants me to hold her sippy cup for her, or “More peas, please,” “Broccoli hot.”
Dr. H: WAIT a minute…you’re telling me that not only is she eating her vegetables, but she can identify them AND she asks for more?!
Me: Yeah, she eats primarily veggies and fruits.
Dr. H: That’s AMAZING! I noticed you checked on the survey that you don’t feed her juice, desserts or sweets. That’s great!
Me: I figure she always ends her meals with fruit, so why give her fruit juice?
Dr. H: That’s exactly what we want her to do. We want her to EAT grapes, not drink grape juice.
– and later –
Dr. H: I’m going to put her on the ground and have you go across the room, and I’m going to watch her go to you. Call her over to you.
Me: Come here, Allie.
Dr. H: Oh, she’s RUNNING. That’s great. What other physical things is she doing?
Me: For the last month she’s been doing somersaults when we ask her to.
Dr. H: *eyes wide* Wait, actual somersaults? Is she leaning down and just imitating a somersault, or is she actually flipping over?
Me: She flips all the way over. Sometimes she looks to her side and it ends up being a side roll over her head, but usually she looks between her feet and flips a 360.
Dr. H: That’s AMAZING. She is VERY advanced. Kids this age will usually lean down and put their hands and head on the ground, but they don’t flip over, so even if she’s going sideways, it’s very, very advanced for her age. ConGRAtulations, mom!

Maybe I’m just skeptical on how impressed Dr. H seemed to be about everything because I follow Christi’s blog where she in detail tells about what her 2 tots are doing, and those kids were talking, eating well on their own, etc. way before Allie. Allie’s language skills seem to have only really blossomed this past month. Her spoken vocabulary is increasing exponentially and surprises us daily, like today, I sat her on my lap and we went through photos on the computer and she was able to answer my “who’s that,” “what’s that” questions by naming animals, vegetables, people, substances (bubbles, wa-wa, rock), and herself. “Who’s that?” “Ai-ee.” And as the photos went by, she got clearer with her enunciation of her name until it was “Ailee.” A new 3-syllable word this week is “bumblebee.” (She also calls gnats “bumblebee”.) Even tho it’s a big advancement for Allie, my parents also think she’s soooo delayed in her talking. They claim I was reciting memorized poetry in Chinese before I was 1. I’m skeptical and I think it was more like 2 and they remembered wrong. I AM impressed how on-pitch Allie is when she sings bars from the couple of songs that we know. The nurse who administered Allie’s fluoride and shot was impressed, too — all it took for the fluoride was for me to tell Allie to “go Aaah” and Allie opened her mouth obediently while the nurse brushed on the fluoride, exclaiming meanwhile that Allie IS very advanced. I asked if this is usually a difficult part of her job, and she said yes, and that kids usually cry and clench their mouth and she’d even been bitten before. Later as we got ready to exit the exam room, I overheard the nurse at the nurse’s station tell another nurse how Allie didn’t cry at the shot.

Later that day, Vicky came over and met Allie for the first time and hung out with us for about 5 hours. Allie was very angelic all evening, friendly with Vicky (who had bribed her with a giant balloon Elmo, which was waiting at the front door when Vicky rang the doorbell, such that when I asked Allie who was at the door, she answered, “Elmo!”), and just a happy kid in general. Vicky commented that Allie does everything we say. I hadn’t ever thought of it that way, but Vicky pointed out that when we tell Allie to stop and walk, she stops running immediately and walks, and we tell her to take something out of her mouth, and she does, and when Mr. W makes her stop shoving food in her mouth and slow down, she does, and when he asks to see inside her mouth before he allows her another piece of food, she opens her mouth for his inspection. But all my friends’ kids this age that I’ve observed are like this, too. With variety at the dinner table, Allie’s eating has gotten much better, and I’m happy. For example, today her dinner was brown rice mixed with quinoa and grilled fish pieces, with sides of baked yam, canned sweet peas, steamed carrots, steamed asparagus, steamed zucchini, and she ate it all. For dessert she had a smoothie made from fresh carrot, apple, rainbow chard, papaya, acai, banana, honeydew, banana, pineapple, loquats, assorted berries, plain Greek yogurt, guava juice and soy milk. She drank 5 ounces of it. Generally she’s a giggling, playful, silly machine running around full of joyful energy with a burgeoning imagination (today she pretended to feed her animal toys with her sippy cup).

Baby-boo turned 18 months old today! It’s funny how a kid (har) can make you feel like an old goat. (har har)
We (hubby, stepkidlet, stepkidlet’s boyfriend, me and Allie) celebrated with a healthy dessert at Bowl of Heaven.

Allie enjoyed a Popeye bowl, which is a frozen fruit puree made from a blend of acai, banana, strawberry, blueberry, pineapple, fresh kale, fresh spinach, apple juice, superfruit blend, topped with bananas, honey & granola. She easily ate half. I ate the other half.

Here’s some quickie bullet info about her this month. I’ll have medical stats in a week for her 18-month well-baby appointment.

Obsessions:
* Earth’s Best Organic Mini Waffles (maybe it’s because Elmo’s on the cover of the box. She’ll ask for “waffle” repeatedly until we either give it to her, or she cries in frustration.)
* Plum Tots Fiddlesticks (“feedle,” she’ll sing-song, in much the same sequence as she asks for waffles)
* flossing (found some kids’ flossers at the store, bought a package, now she wants to floss mornings and nights, and we had to cut her back to nights only. she’ll even do it herself after the teeth are brushed.)
* cheese (“jeez” and sometimes “peez”, which may have also been “please”)
* watching videos (we limit her to short clips of Sesame Street music, Disney music, or other educational musical stuff)
* climbing (she surprised us last Sunday by making it all the way up a chain ladder on a playground by herself, when she’d never even climbed one rung on her own before then. We have it on video, but video now seems impossible to share on my image hosting site with its current updates.)
* new foods (especially new veggies, or veggies she hasn’t had in awhile, like sweet peas, black olives, garbanzo beans)
* singing (she goes around singing and humming to herself, even after she’s put in her crib. sometimes she sings herself to sleep)

Working On:
* self-feeding with utensils (getting good with the fork “fo” and spoon “boon”)
* colors (her immediate answer anytime she’s asked what color something is, is “boo” [blue]. We make her stop and look at it, and tell her the correct color. If she points out something of her own accord, she’s more likely to say the right color, but when asked, the answer is always “boo.” The other day, Jayne was focusing on “yellow” and kept asking her what color all sorts of yellow things were. “Boo?” “No, yellow.” “Yellow?” “That’s right, yellow.” Later that day, Jayne gave her a bowl of fruit for a snack, and pointed out the blueberries. “No, yellow,” Allie corrected her.)
* 2-word “sentences” (“mama hi,” “swing boom” [I fell down the swing and went boom], “brocky hot” [this broccoli is hot])
* identifying & saying more veggies, animals, shapes, insects, etc.

Dislikes:
* miscommunication (she’ll have a mini-fit if we’re not understanding a word she’s saying)
* being vetoed (she wants more video, more more!)
* loss of control (the way to get her to eat more, or get in the car willingly, is to let her do it all herself; she’s all happy and proud when she climbs into her car seat and sits down properly)

Routines:
* Woken up at 6:30a
* Nurses briefly, gets her teeth brushed, diaper changed, goes downstairs (if weekday, goes to Jayne and says bye-bye to mama and dada and closes the garage door at 7a)
* Breakfast at 8:30a
* Snack at 10:30a (Jayne feeds her a big breakfast and skips the snack)
* Play or parkplay or walk until 11:15a
* Lunch at 11:30a
* Naptime begins approx. 12p, lasts between 90 mins to 3 hours, depending on her needs that day
* Snack after waking from nap and getting diaper changed (she regularly poopies in the 15 mins of alone time she has after she wakes from her nap)
* Playtime until 5:30p (if weekday, mama and dada comes home around then)
* Dinner between 5:30p and 6:30p, depending when her last snack was
* Playtime, bathtime until bedtime
* Bedtime routine starts between 6:30p and 7p, depending on how late her nap went (change diaper and into PJs, brush teeth, floss, says goodnight to dada, closes bedroom door, nurses 10-20 mins)
* Approx 7:15p, in her crib, says bye-bye, night-night to mama, waves, lights out
* Asleep between 7:15a and 8p, depending when she went to bed and how tired she is

Mr. W noted on Sunday night that Allie’s appetite seemed to be returning. My parents were over visiting and we all took a walk to a nearby Baja fish restaurant for early dinner. Allie ate quite a bit of black beans stirred into white rice, grilled whitefish, guacamole, diced tomatoes. And then when we went home, she gobbled up papayas.

Monday, we were all a little nervous as I briefed Jayne on Allie’s recent changes. We’d prepared a bunch of separate veggies and fruits for Allie’s lunch, plus some shredded Kahlua turkey stirred with Mediterranean white rice to place her previous one-pot meal. We left in the morning with Allie happily in Jayne’s arms stuffing her own little face with cut papaya from her little bowl, eagerly closing the door behind me. Jayne had expected Allie to cry to watch us leave her after 2 weeks straight with her.

When we came home, we were greeted with a happy giggling girl who greeted me by pointing at Jayne, saying, “Jean? Jean?”, like “Look who I had all day! Jayne!” And she’d randomly run up to Jayne and hug her leg. It was very cute and I was happy to see that there was no readjustment needed. Jayne had clearly missed her, and said that Allie ate like a bottomless pit AND took almost a 3-hour nap. No issues whatsoever, no tantrums. I was very relieved. Jayne said Allie recognized the broccoli right away and said, “brocky?” unprompted, which surprised me because I hadn’t given her broccoli in months. She did the same thing with peas, just pointed and said “pea” and I can’t even remember the last time I’d given her peas. I’m impressed with her memory.

Today, Jayne’s teenage daughter Alyssa is with them (whom Allie LOVES and who loves Allie and had reportedly said to Jayne, “Mom, you know you have the best job in the WORLD, right?”) so I hope everyone has a lot of fun. Allie again couldn’t shoo me out the door fast enough this morning, practically closing the door before I could squeeze out. 🙂

I have a TON of photos, so just picking a few wasn’t easy. I did it almost haphazardly. Anyway, here we go.

WEDNESDAY: Arrival at our beach house in La Jolla, San Diego, half a block from the beautiful Windansea beaches!

This is a prime location, altho the house is old and the week stay cost us a month’s worth of our mortgage. But it was a nice roomy 3 bedroom house, well-kept and clean. Fully stocked kitchen.
We walked down to Windansea beach (talk about an affluent area) as soon as we settled in. There were lots of big rocks to climb and sit on, and perfect surfing waves.

Allie had a rough time that night settling down in the playard in a foreign room. It was like sleep-training all over again. She nursed fine, was sleepy when I put her in her playard, but as soon as she realized I was leaving, she stood and cried. Her iPad was playing white noise and I closed her bedroom door behind me. She cried for maybe 10 minutes then went to sleep. It was a painful 10 minutes for me. Thank God we had her fuzzy bear in her playard. She curled up on that familiar security item. This protest crying lasted for 2 nights, and 2 naps. After that it was just like at home, where she’ll curl up on her fuzzy blanket for her nap or her fuzzy bear for bedtime and tell me, “Night night,” suck her thumb, and watch me leave.

THURSDAY: The morning started with a visit to…

Allie doesn’t mind the hiking backpack, altho sometimes she’ll want to explore on her own. Then she says, “Ou? Ou?” for “out.” We had her in part of the time and out to burn some energy whenever the area was flat and uncrowded. She saw and pointed out the “mock-nees,” which surprised us because real monkeys don’t look like her cartoon or stuffed monkeys.
Allie: Mama?
Me: Allie?
Allie: *pointing* Mock-nee?
Me: That’s right, monkey!

We also watched polar bears.

Two cats.

Allie played with the baby elephant for a bit, then found herself patting the leg of the big elephant next to the baby elephant. She looked up following the leg, and noticed the adult elephant for the first time. “Beeeeeeeg!” she breathed. Her new expressions of “beeg” vs “leetle” are funny. I was handing her organic baby puffs to eat on the drive (looks like Cheerios) and gave her a crumbled piece about a quarter of a normal piece. She rolled it between her thumb and forefinger and said in a high-pitched voice, amused, “LEEtle!” After that she would ask for “Puff? Puff? Beeg!”
We spent the morning at the zoo, came back to the beach house for her nap, and in the afternoon, walked with her to the beach. “Beace? Beace? Wa-wa. Bubble!” Yes, the beach is where is water and lots of bubbles and foam. She’s never been in the water when the waves were that big, and whimpered at first, so I’d pick her up so she didn’t get swept out to sea.

Allie warmed up to the beach quickly and had fun.

Lots of big rocks to climb and sit on.

A puddle of ocean on a flat rockbed is fun, too.

Catch-and-release sand.

Dada and baby footprints.

That afternoon, the two stepkidlets got there and we all had a quiet evening in. These two are MELL-OW on vacation. No partying, no bar-hopping, they just took a walk to explore the beach when Allie was going to bed and then wanted to watch the Game Show Network the rest of the night after having dinner in the outdoor patio. I’m not complaining, believe me. I’ll be just fine never having to care for another drunken person.

FRIDAY: Back to the zoo in the morning. This annual pass thing comes in handy.

That afternoon, the stepkidlets’ respective significant-others showed up. They worked out their carpool arrangements pretty well so that each couple had a car for their trip back. Allie, meanwhile, had her first dip in a jacuzzi. The verdict? “Wa-wa. Bubble. Hot.”

She stayed in there maybe 15, 20 minutes before asking for “ou? ou?”
The kids all hung out at the house keeping an eye on Allie (thru the babycam) while Mr. W and I went to pick up pizzas for dinner. Seriously, mellowest group of young adults ever. They went for a walk at the beach, came home, watched some TV, hung out in the jacuzzi for a bit, went to bed. The entire house was dark by 11-ish.

SATURDAY: Mr. W and I doubled-dated with the stepdaughter and her boyfriend (plus Allie) and took a walk to breakfast while the stepson and his girlfriend slept in a bit. BTW, the sleeping arrangement the kids (all in their early 20s) worked out between themselves in the largest bedroom with a queen bed and two bunk beds is that the guys took the bunks and the girls took the queen bed. I did not expect that. That’s pretty courteous. After everyone had their breakfasts, we drove over to the Underwater Park area to see the many seals, sea birds, and play in the cove. And I thought it was a scenic enough area to force everyone to take group photos I wanted. Heh heh. Here are Mr. W’s two daughters.

Here’s the group with the horizon tilted cuz Mr. W had to set the camera up on a rock with a timer.

Mr. W’s three kidlets.

In the afternoon, as the kids all prepared to leave, my parents arrived. Stepdaughter helped me change the sheets on the queen bed in the big room. And soon, the kids were off to return to their busy lives at home, and we continued our vacation with a new set of babysitters for Allie. We took my parents to explore the nearby Windansea beaches, too.

Poor baby threw up her lunch this afternoon, and had runny poopies the next day. I think it was from the introduction of all the foreign bacteria in seawater, since she kept sucking the ocean salt off her fingers after she’s done playing at the beaches.

SUNDAY: Sunday morning, we did what my dad and Mr. W had been looking forward to for YEARS. My mom said my dad hasn’t stopped talking about the champagne brunch seafood buffet at Tom Ham’s Lighthouse since we took them there 4 years ago. The place was closed for renovation and only opened up that weekend, and was serving their very first meal THAT brunch. Were we lucky with timing or what?

Allie and my dad had fun exploring the new grounds.

Allie had lots of shrimp, a bite of lobster, and more crab than she’s ever had before.

Since we were the first ones to arrive for their first meal served and had made their first reservations, we were seated at a corner with full panoramic windows around us at 90-degrees. We even caught a live show of some trainers working with their dolphin, teaching it to jump, flip, hug, etc on command. This was probably a dolphin from nearby Sea World.
The weather took a turn that day, however, and started raining. We spent the afternoon visiting an aquarium for something to do. The La Jolla area had virtually no indoor options, Mr. W was unhappy to find out. Even all the malls were outdoor open-air styles. But Allie still had fun looking at fish, petting starfish and playing with “babies.”

She even got up close and personal with a shark encounter.

MONDAY: It rained all morning, but did clear up in the afternoon. We took advantage of the sunshine and drove to the La Jolla rocky cove section again, so that my parents could explore the area. Allie did some rock climbing herself.

She did not want to get off this high perch with the great view of the ocean and the seals sunning on their rock islands.

There were even twisted trees to climb.

What’s twistier, the trees or the grandparents?

Grandpa Gong-gong and Grandma Po-po left this evening. We were finally on our own for a few days. It was eerily quiet.

TUESDAY: The weather was decent all day, so we hit the zoo in the morning again, and in the afternoon after Allie’s nap, we took a long bike ride along the coast, exploring the “trendy,” more “night-life” part of the San Diego beaches, through Pacific Beach Park down to Mission Beach and back. Man, there are a lot of vacation weekly rental properties along the shores. I guess that’s one way to get help paying the $30K monthly mortgage. Here’s Allie at Mission Beach where we let her out to go run around a bit.

When we were dressing her that morning, she said, “Mimi?” That’s her word for Minnie Mouse, and we looked around, but didn’t see any Minnie items in the room.
“Minnie? Do you see Minnie?”
She pointed at her pants. “Mimi?” she said again. Ha. Never knew she noticed Minnie’s attire, but yes, that’s definitely Minnie’s classic color theme.

WEDNESDAY: We packed up and left Wednesday morning. I hadn’t expected to stay the whole week since Mr. W had been wanting to leave once it started raining. Good thing the skies cleared up after a couple of days. Allie woke up so early that morning that she fell asleep for half an hour in the car on the drive back, which is unusual for her. It did mess up her nap routines and bedtime a bit, but overall she still came out fine in the hours of sleep she had. What vacation doesn’t screw up a kid a little, right? She was so cute sleeping, tho.

I rarely get to be next to her when she’s asleep, so I got to study her sleeping form. Made me sleepy, as well.

I feel like Allie hit her terrible 2s sometime last week on vacation. She definitely protests when we want her to do something, go somewhere, not because there’s any reason she doesn’t want to do that thing or go wherever, but because it wasn’t HER idea. If she decides to go where we’re going, or if we offer it to her and she takes us up on it, then it’s fine. This has made a lot of things challenging, because she’ll protest loudly and drop to her knees and raise up her arms when we try to pick her up if she’s not moving.

She also gets frustrated if she’s saying a word that we’re not understanding. She’ll point and say “bru?” and we have to figure out what “bru” is.
“Blue?” She shakes her head, frowning.
“Balloon?” She shakes her head again, her face crumpling. A third wrong guess gets a frustrated shriek out of her and a near-tears wail. She tries hard with the language thing. Sometimes it comes out very clear. “Doctor” is a new favorite word thanks to a Sesame Street musical video about the people in your neighborhood. “A doctor is a person in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neigh-bor-hooooood…” I sometimes wake up with the song already playing in my head.

The biggest challenge right now is food. In the last week, while we were on vacation, I spent the first day during her naptime chopping and steaming a ton of her favorite veggies. Carrots, edamame, things I can’t even remember anymore. She happily wolfed a lot of the veggies down the first and second days, and then decided she was sick of carrots. She’s refused carrot since. I stopped giving her edamame the rest of the week so she recently started eating them again. She is now refusing all of my one-pot porridge stews, and prefers to eat things separately, especially if it’s what we’re eating, also. She just seems to be over the baby stuff and into the grownup stuff. Anything new, she loves. She’s been wolfing down grapes but seems to be tired of bananas and strawberries. Melons are hit and miss. Grilled fish, she loves (for now). Mediterranean food has been a huge hit and she’ll gobble up the rice (which she says as she eats it) with the seasoned ground chicken and ground beef kabobs. I stir steamed zucchini in there to give her some greens, which she’ll still happily eat. Sometimes the pickiness can be resolved by giving her control, such as simply handing her the spoon or fork. Sometimes she’ll ask for the spoon (“boon?”). Suddenly food she’s been spitting out and refusing to eat when fed to her will be voluntarily shoveled into her own mouth and happily eaten. This is going to be such a challenge, since the pre-made food was so much easier. I make a big pot at one time and freeze squares for her, and in the mornings, we pop a square out and let it thaw for her lunch and for her dinner. I’m not going to be home to cook for her on weekdays so I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can see Jayne going through the whole “I can’t do this, I can’t do this” thing again if Allie is fussy at mealtimes with her. I think variety is good for Allie, tho. We went to Souplantation yesterday and going through the salad bar, we just made her a plate with a scoop of everything. Peas, olives, hard-boiled egg pieces, garbanzo beans, butternut squash bits, etc., popped the plate in front of her, and let her have at it. And she did. Not sure how I’d recreate that at home.

We just came from Disneyland. We decided to bring a lightweight stroller for the first time, and sometimes she’d sit in it, other times when you ask her if she wants to go in the stroller, she’ll shake her head and look like she’s about to cry. So when I was carrying her, I asked if she wanted to walk. She shook her head, whimpering. I asked if she wanted to sit in the stroller. Same response. I asked if she wanted me to hold her. Same response. Putting her down, she refuses to move and yet refuses to be picked up as well. It was like she was always on the verge of crying. In the car on the way home, because she refused to eat the porridge, she finished her edamame and papayas and was still hungry, and kept asking for “waffle.” I didn’t have any of course, so she cried the entire way home. I tried the porridge repeatedly (and it’s good, cornish game hen I stewed with brown rice and chopped carrots, celery, onion, all made from scratch) and even seeing it, smelling it made her cry more. I hope this phase passes quickly. It’s not cute.

While I was running around between CVS, Sav-On, and Walgreen drug stores for Dodo’s prescription earlier today, I came across a flyer entitled “How to Raise a Healthy Eater.” I took a copy with me and showed it to Mr. W when I got home. It talks about how the toddler is responsible for how much is eaten and whether to eat at all, but the parents are responsible for selecting and presenting quality food to the kid, and for timing the meals and cultivating the standard of mealtime behavior so the kid will eat well and properly. There were also 5 tips on raising a good, healthy eater and how to “prevent the ‘picky eaters’ or worse yet, an overweight child.” I read the 5 tips and their explanatory paragraphs to Mr. W:
1. Don’t be a Short Order Cook
2. Plan for Regular Meals and Snacks
3. Limit Juice and Milk
4. Don’t Bribe with Food
5. Get Kids Involved in the Kitchen.
Allie took the page and did what she always does with paper: wad it up to listen to it crinkle. “Here’s what she thinks of your healthy eating paper,” Mr. W said smugly. I pretty much do what the flyer says already, with exception to the last one because she’s too young to be very involved in the kitchen, altho Mr. W frequently lets Allie handle a fruit in its natural form and then opens, dices, chops, slices it up in front of her so she knows what she’s eating and where it comes from.

So earlier, I was making chicken-n-dumplings from scratch and while the whole chicken was boiling and I was chopping onions and prepping the wheat and white flours for the dumplings, I sent Mr. W and Allie out to the grocery store across the street for celery and carrots. It also gave them something to do. When Mr. W came back, he confessed that since I wasn’t around, he tried to “sneak Allie some frozen yogurt.” They went to Golden Spoon next to the grocery store, and after the first spoonful he fed to Allie, she frowned, shook her head and refused to take any more. HA! Take that for trying to corrupt my little healthy eater!
Then they walked into the grocery store, and Allie spotted the carrots. She pointed excitedly at them and was very happy when Mr. W grabbed a bunch of carrots and put them in their cart. Next, he bagged two bunches of celery. He told me that Allie insisted on holding them, and hugged the bagged stalks lovingly in her arms while she sat in the grocery cart, holding them like a dolly to her body until they left the store. He handed Allie, who was standing next to him in the kitchen while he was telling me this story, the bag of celery. She opened her arms, held the celery to her chest in the same way I may hold HER, and stood there solemnly.

That’s my girl.

Allie’s mental development is growing by leaps and bounds.
She peed in her potty last night for the first time as she was about to get in her bath, Mr. W gave her a loud ovation which startled her into stopping her stream, but then he quieted down, encouraged her to continue, and she did.
She loves her bubble baths and would point upstairs in the evening after dinner, say, “Bubble bath” (which sounds more like “Bubble? Baa?”), and want to go upstairs to take her bath before bed.
Earlier in the week, we went to the grocery store and put her in a plastic kid car attached to the front of the shopping cart, which she loves to ride in because it has two steering wheels and she navigates them both. On the way back to the car, Mr. W made a sharp right turn with the cart which caused Allie to bang her cheek against the inside of the car. She instantly started wailing, and when I asked her, “What happened?”, she replied, “Dada. Dada. BOOM!”
This morning, her daddy dressed her in a bright yellow shirt and blue pants. When asked what color her shirt is, she said, “Yellow.” When asked what color her pants are, she said, “Boo.”
Also cute: she’s learned to say “no,” pronounced “nyo.” She doesn’t do it in an tantrum-y way, but more to let us know what she doesn’t want. “Want some water?” “No,” she would respond, shaking her head.
She also likes to stop when she’s close to our face to point out facial features. She’s touch her index finger to each part, naming them. “Eye. No (nose). Nock (neck). Ear. Teef (teeth).” There are some features she knows but can’t say, yet, but she would point them out on us and then point to the corresponding part on herself to show that she has it, too. Hair, eyebrow, mouth, tongue. And belly button. She knows “butt,” though. “Buh buh!” Point.
The temper’s calmed down dramatically, possibly because she’s getting better at communicating so there’s less frustration for her. Not that she doesn’t still give the big frown and the angry “Uggghhh-huh-huh-huh!” when she has asked for something like “Momo” repeatedly and we don’t allow her to watch more Elmo videos.
Speaking of videos, I’m constantly surprised what she recognizes in them. She’d name her sister, mama, dada, Elmo, kids (“baby”), bubbles, birds, bikes, balloons, mau-mau (cat), dog, everything she has words for.
I also enjoy Allie’s feedback when something tastes good. “Mmmmm!” she’d say, stuffing it in her mouth. Today she “mmm”ed at edamame (“mommy?”), spinach and cheese ravioli, and loquats.
She’s affectionate, playful, goofy, really a joy to be around.

Baby-boo is 17 months old today!

This reminds me…I gotta make an 18-month appointment for her. She hasn’t been to the pediatrician for awhile as the well-visits stretch farther and farther apart with older babies, so I don’t have any stats. I do know that in the last month, she went through yet another growth spurt, and I’d had to pack up all her clothes smaller than 18 month sized and send it on to the next baby girl behind her (Michelle & Eddie’s daughter Scarlett, who just recently turned 1). I think she’s outgrown her size 4/5 shoes, too, and is now in 5/6.

For whatever reason, Mr. W is now all video-friendly with her. She watches herself on videos, Disney movies’ song snippets from the movies (“Bubble! Bubble!” she’d point out excitedly when she watches the “Under the Sea” song in The Little Mermaid), and Sesame Street song videos. Even though Mickey/Minnie was her first recognized character (I think she thinks they’re the same creature in different costumes, as they’re both “Mimi” to her), Elmo was a close second and her current favorite. She’d see him across the room and say, “Momo?” #3 coming in the past week is Winnie the Pooh (“Boo!”). Her two favorite music videos are Sesame Street’s Ernie and Elmo singing “Sing After Me” (I think that’s the song’s name) and Pooh singing “Up Down and Touch the Ground.” She now goes around all day singing “feedo…deedo…” and will lay/stand in her crib dancing and singing before finally laying down to sleep at night.
When she sees Pooh in her room decor, or randomly thinks of it, she’ll say “Boo?”
Sometimes I’m not sure what she’s referring to so I’ll ask, “What? Book?”
And she’ll clarify by putting both arms in the air and bringing them back down, just like Pooh, and say, “Up down.”
If we sing just a word of two from either song, she’d identify the character.
Me: “Sing dye dye dye.”
Allie: “Dye dye dye! Momo.” And she’ll snicker in that “kkk kkk kkk” way of Ernie’s (who does that half-way into the song).
Me: “Doe doe doe.”
Allie: “Doe doe!”
Me: “Up, down, touch the ground…”
Allie: “Boo!” *flapping arms up and down* “Up, down.”

She’s got new words all the time and tries to tell stories. Jayne had told us yesterday that while at the park, a big bulldog came running up out of nowhere and knocked Allie over. Because we’d known about it already, when Allie said to us in the evening, “Doggy. Doggy. Boom!” we knew what she was telling us.

Her favorite foods right now are beets, carrots, oranges, and new single fruits. She went nuts over loquats yesterday. She’s still more interested in single foods than in mixed things like when I make a one-pot wonder. She’ll eat it, but she’d rather eat asparagus or cauliflower by itself. Oh, and ice. She loves crushed ice and with a little bowl of it, she’ll happily crunch until, as she points out, the bowl holds only “wa-wa” instead of “ice.” When she finds a big piece of ice, she’ll say “Beeg!” and stuff it in her mouth.

She looooves sand and rocks. The zen garden at the front of the house has become her sandbox, complete with her rakes and shovels now part of the scenery. She’ll squat over and play with the rocks lining the front edge of our yard for as long as we let her.

Still loves other kids. Will walk up to strange kids and play. (Still calls them “baby,” too.) Still silent around strange adults. She’ll stare at a stranger but if they stare back, she’ll look over their shoulder and refuse to make eye contact. Until she warms up, of course, which happens faster in her own environment, and then she’ll dig out all her current favorite toys to show the new person.

We’ve got her sitting on her potty periodically, which she’ll tolerate, but nothing’s happened in it, yet.

She’s supposed to be going through a normal predictable long (as in, 6 weeks) fussy period pursuant to Wonder Weeks right now, with tantrums and major resistance as she realizes she should have a say as to what to do with her own body parts and where to go. She had tantrums for about a week when we “forced her” to get her diaper changed, “refused her” requests to play with the remote controls or computer components, “forbade her” to go to sections of the house unsupervised by closing the safety gate leading to those areas. Whines, tears, flailing, hitting the nearest wall, banging her forehead on the ground, and everything. We would just sit calmly and not give in. After a week, seeing she doesn’t get her way that way, she stopped it and now sings through her diaper changes, altho she’d still be unhappy with us when we wouldn’t let her take the mouse or remote control, or watch a ton of videos just because she’s pointing to the computer monitor or iPad and saying, “Momo?”

Her hair’s coming in a rather light shade of ash brown. Surprisingly light. I’m seeing less and less genetic input from me; maybe her eyes will turn blue next month. The explosive tantrums are definitely her dad’s. Ha.

Schedule-wise, Allie wakes up on her own at about 6:30a, and if she’s not up already, on weekdays Mr. W wakes her up between 6:25a-6:30a. She gets her diaper changed, nurses, gets her teeth brushed, then goes downstairs to wait for Jayne. (Sometimes Jayne comes when Allie’s still nursing, and hearing the door, Allie will pull away and say, “Jing?”) Jayne makes her breakfast of usually eggs/omelet, some fruit and/or cereal and whole milk around 8:30a, picks out her clothes for the day according to the weather. Then they go to the park and come back around 11a. (On a weekend, I give her a light snack like fruit/yogurt/cheese and milk around 10:15a, but Jayne doesn’t do mid-morning snacks cuz she does a more substantial breakfast.) Allie has lunch at about 11:30a, then takes her nap at noon. I’m starting to think that nap duration depends how tired she is, so she’ll sleep between 90 minutes and almost 3 hours. Then she has an afternoon snack, they go play somewhere or draw with crayons, and we get home around 5pm. We feed Allie dinner around 5:15p, she plays and/or takes a bath, then it’s bedtime routine around 6:30p. She is read a story (which she still has trouble sitting through) or given an interactive story/video/educational game on iPad, then she’s changed into her jammies, gets her teeth brushed, nurses, and is usually in her crib between 7-7:15p. Once she’s in her crib, it’s immediate lights-out until morning when Mr. W gets her to start her day.

Just for kicks, here’s a 2-minute video of Allie meeting Elmo for the first time in person on Saturday. Mr. W decided to surprise Allie with an Elmo puppet, and set it up on the stairway landing while Allie napped.

We met up with my cousin Jennifer, her hubby Brad, and their little girl Alexandra for dim sum last Saturday morning. I’m pretty sure that the last time we’ve all seen each other was at Alex’s first birthday party 6 months ago, so reacquainting the two little girls was overdue.

While waiting for Jen, Brad and Alex’s arrival at the Irvine Spectrum, we let Allie run around the quad by a Ferris wheel. (We’d agreed to meet in front of Capital Seafood for dim sum, but as it’s the first building nearest the street, Allie kept trying to dart toward the parking structure across the street. Kinda scary.) Allie saw a little boy about her age running around with his daddy and some other guy. She decided to follow him. When he finally saw her, he decided to chase after her, and Allie played coy, turning around and running back across the lawn, the small boy in pursuit. She climbed onto a chair, he climbed up after her, and suddenly, she decided he was in her space. I thought it was cute, though, and asked if the boy’s dad was okay if I took/posted a photo. He said it was fine and that if his wife were there, she’d be taking photos, too. So here’s Allie and Hudson.

Hudson was friendly and even hugged Allie, but she’d apparently already made up her mind.

Turns out Hudson is 18 months so he’s got 2 months on Allie, a month for each inch she has on him. =P This is starting to happen a lot.

Soon, Jennifer, Brad and Alex arrived. The two little cousins were a bit shy with each other, and Alex so shy that she didn’t want to go near Allie and wanted to be carried by her parents. Our fiercely independent girl didn’t push, but she was good running/walking on her own to the restaurant. Both girls ate pretty well, across from each other between their respective parents, and Jennifer was impressed watching Allie gobble up the extra steamed cauliflower and carrots I’d brought along. Dim sum isn’t known for being very veggie-oriented. Alex ate well on her own and can use a fork, and did resist veggies like her parents predicted. Allie ate a lot of the Chinese broccoli we’d ordered for the table. I let her sample everything, but didn’t want her to eat a ton of the sodium- and MSG-laden food. Allie didn’t much miss it.

After brunch, we tried to get the girls play together for a bit.

Alex wouldn’t get close enough for Allie to hug, so Allie hugged the nearest bush, instead.

Yes, I’ve heard jokes about her almost being a tree-hugger. I’ll have you know that while we were waiting for Jen, etc to arrive, Allie did indeed hug a few palm trees in between dancing from one music-blaring wall speaker to another to another.
With her daddy in tow, Alex got a little friendlier.

Here are the two either playing invisible soccer, or doing the kid-n-play.

They even watched a few horses go by.

When we were walking back to our cars, Alex was holding on to Jen’s hand toddling along, and Allie was running along ahead of us. I thought it would be cute to get a photo of us two mommies walking with our little girls, holding their hands, but Jennifer misunderstood me and picked Alex up. I figured a photo with us holding each of our girls is fine, too, so we took that. The girls refused to smile.

And then we moved to do the photo pose I wanted, but Alex got shy again and refused to be put down, so I didn’t get that photo. Oh, well…next time. But meanwhile, Allie decided to play Runway Model and struck a pose.

I was a little surprised at Alex being so shy since she’d been in daycare for most of her life, so I thought she’d be very social. However, her cautiousness may highlight something Mr. W is concerned about — kids in daycare deal with all sorts of little personalities, some overaggressive, and they have to know how to protect themselves. Allie doesn’t know to do that; she’ll walk up to any kid and want to share toys, give them hugs, touch their hand, and for some kids, this is invading their personal space. Mr. W is afraid that in a social setting, Allie may get picked on or pushed or something because she doesn’t know to stay away from other kids until they’re ready for her. I don’t have enough kid experience to know either way, whether it’s a learned protective behavior we’re seeing or just a personality thing. I’m not very concerned at this point. I rather like my friendly secure kid.