cindy's world

Jayne told us she’s teaching Allie the days of the week, and the concept of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I think Allie’s getting it. On Saturday, we told Allie that “tomorrow,” we were going to Disneyland. Sunday morning, when I went to get Allie from her crib, she was already standing up holding onto her crib rails. “Let’s see, what should Allie wear today?” I asked, opening her dresser drawer.
Allie jumped up and down and chanted, “Mimi dress! Mimi dress! Mimi dress!”
“You want to wear your Minnie dress?”
“Yeah! Mimi’s house!”
“You want to wear your Minnie dress to Minnie’s house? I don’t know…I think it might still be too big.” Jayne had bought her the dress about a month ago, knowing it was too big, but couldn’t resist because Allie is such a Minnie Mouse fan.
“Noooo, not too beeg, leetle! Leetle!” Allie insisted. I laughed and tried it on, and of course, given all Allie’s growth spurts, it now fits. Even when I was pulling it over Allie’s head, Allie was still making her argument. “Leetle! Leetle!” It wasn’t little, it was actually still quite roomy, but it worked. So here’s Allie on Sunday morning:

(The stepkidlet took the above photos and made the collage. She said, “Look! Twins! Can you imagine if there’s TWO Allies? Oh, I wish!”)

We met up with Laurel and her son, Jonathan, at Disneyland. Jonathan recently turned 3, and was finally a kid whom Allie didn’t tower over. Jonathan was shy the entire morning, but they did ride a bunch of rides together. Well, not together the way Allie and Alexis rode rides together, sitting next to each other. Jonathan was mostly too shy to interact so Laurel held him most of the time. He did come out of his shell a little in New Orleans Square, which is long enough for me to shoot this video of them dancing. You can tell that the toddler class really helped along the dancing skills…for Mr. W.

I love how Allie seems to actually be torn when the beads were tossed at her feet. She didn’t know why the man did that, but she knew she’s not supposed to pick up random things from the floor, and she also knew it wasn’t hers (when she approaches another kid’s toy on the ground, we tell her, “That’s not yours, Allie,” and she freezes mid-reach). A cartoon question mark seems to almost appear and float over her head.

She loved wearing that Minnie dress. We came across a catalog picture of a child in a dress-up princess gown, and Allie pointed to the photo and said, “Oooh, putty dress. Like Allie’s. Like Mimi dress. Putty!”

Happy 21st bday to Toddler-boo. Now that she’s got more command over her physical and spoken skills, a lot more personality is coming through.

For example, yesterday. We’re always barefoot at home. I was sitting in chair and Allie came running by to see what I was doing, and she accidentally stepped on my bare foot with her bare foot. “Yikes! Allie’s foot is COLD!” I yelped.
Allie responded, “Mama…foot…hot.”
It’s all a matter of perspective.

She also likes singing. Her current favorite song to sing is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Rockabye Baby.” She doesn’t have all the lyrics down, though. Mr. W told me that earlier this week, he checked the babycam remotely from work and Allie was awake in her crib after her nap, rolling around, mouth moving up and down. So he turned on the sound, and he and his coworkers watched Allie sing, “Twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle. *clapping for herself* Yaaay! *roll* Twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle! *clapping* Yaaaay!” Her version of Rockabye Baby goes like this: “Rock baby. Rock baby. Rock baby.”

My parents have stayed with us this past week because the stepkidlet was still in Europe, and Jayne took off for the week to take her daughter to college on the East Coast. My parents did surprisingly well. They kept to Allie’s routine, and even made her fresh food for all Allie’s meals. AND, they had dinner ready for us when we got home. We don’t know how they did it, but we sure appreciated it. Allie’s been excited every day to spend it with “Gong-gong, po-po!” They’ve been teaching her Chinese, too. My mom sent me a bunch of videos yesterday.

To translate, my mom told Allie to say to her great-grandma, “Did not, did not, did not.” And then, “Did, did, did.” And then my dad had her count from 1 to 10 in Mandarin.

Allie had her first dance class (toddler ballet and jazz) last Saturday, and seemed to enjoy it, so we signed her up for a 10-week session. It’ll be every Saturday morning, and only lasts about 45 minutes. But she gets to play dress-up and run around with toddler girls her age and refine her physical skills.

The stepkidlet got back from Europe mid-week and is staying with her mom for the next few days, but came by to visit Allie and to give her some clothes she’d bought for Allie in Spain. Allie tried on the harem pants right away, and modeled them doing one of the moves she learned in dance class.

The toddler dance class itself was interesting. Trying to get 6 toddlers (all assisted by their moms) to do the same thing at the same time is like trying to corral and coordinate cats. They went through Disney songs and familiar songs pretty quickly, doing something different with each one, using lots of props like tiaras, star magic wands, hand streamers, flower, pom-poms, bubbles, colorful parachutes. It was a lot like Gymboree but dance-/movement-focused instead of toy-focused.

Allie’s broken teeth are doing well. She still doesn’t seem particularly sensitive to temperature or contact at the point of injury. She now bites carrots and other large pieces of food by moving the food to the side of her mouth, which is a little heart-breaking to watch, but she doesn’t have a problem with it. She’s adapted. I’m glad we didn’t put her under for root canals or extractions for nothing.

Babies are crazy-flexible. Allie will bend and do the downward dog position while announcing with a smile, “Yoga!” and her legs would be straight-kneed, and she’d have her head and elbows and forearms touching the ground in front of her. Crazy, given how long her legs are.

Oh, and she’s better with her colors now. She can tell you whether something is “red, yellow, blue, orange, green,” and hand over or point to objects of your expressed color.

Suddenly, however, she hates baths. I don’t know whether it’s because she hates bathing, or because it’s what tears her from her toys to bedtime. She still enjoys bedtime and naptime, tho, but she will pick up her legs crying, “No! No! No!” when Mr. W tries to put her into the bath. And her legs and toes will flare out and she’ll hang onto the edges of the tub to keep from going in.

We all went out for dinner mid-week when the stepkidlet visited. Allie ran into her old dancing partner*.

She’s going to outgrow him soon. She’s the baby in her dance class (everyone else is at least 2, or just a week from turning 2), and she’s taller than all of them.
Here’s another photo from after dinner, depicting one of those moments in great parenting.

(As with all my photos, rest mouse pointers over the photos for captions.)

* Allie’s old dancing partner. Here is a flashback.

8-3-13: Allie’s first time in a pool. College roommie Diana and family invited us to hang out with them at their next-to-Disneyland hotel.

8-4-13: Allie’s first time in a kayak. It was supposed to be her first time in a launched kayak, kayaking, but after Allie sat there for 6 seconds, the Lake people stopped us and said since it’s a 2-man kayak, they can’t have Allie sit on either of our laps while another person sat in the second kayak seat, because then that’d be 3 people in a 2-person kayak. I wasn’t going to leave my baby in a kayak seat ALONE where I can’t get to her if she decided to get up or fall overboard, so we played in the swimming area at the Lake instead. Maybe next year.

8-4-13: Everybody’s first time meeting Rocker Brother’s new girlfriend, Karen. She’s fascinating. At my age, she’s an associate professor (teaching scientist stuff) in Xi’an, China (better known as the city where all those terra cotta warriors came from). She’s also a personal trainer for body builders, among lots of other stuff. We enjoyed hanging with them when they visited us this weekend from Vegas. (She was also responsible for Allie’s first sugar high, after feeding Allie 2-3 tablespoons of whipped cream at the Cheesecake Factory after dinner.) Allie took to her almost immediately and so did we.

8-10-13: Allie’s first hairdo (not including goofing off with soap for a few mins in the bathtub). Grandma Po-po did this. Allie still doesn’t have a lot of hair so regular hair accessories don’t stay on. Mr. W, however, found a box of tiny ouchless plastic rubber bands that came 200 to the box, and those work like magic.

8-11-13: Allie’s first time on a horse. We were bike riding through Irvine Park and passed by a very nice family loading their horses into their trailer as we were on the way to our car. We pointed out the “horsey” to Allie, and the man called out, “Hey, you guys got a camera? Would you like to put her on a horse and take a picture? This one’s very mellow.” This horse was indeed very sweet, although she may have also been tired out from the riding the family had just completed.

Today: Allie’s first time noticing/pointing out a negative. I don’t have a photo of this, so I’ll have to write a thousand words to make up for the missing photo. When we got back from work today, Allie pulled us to the computer and pointed to the monitor, saying, “Allie pick-ter, Allie pick-ter.”
I clarified, “You want to see pictures of Allie?”
“Yah.”
I went through a folder of old baby pictures (“Baby Allie, Baby Allie!”), and played a video in it in which the footage swept the living room. Allie pointed at the monitor and said with a furrowed brow, “Allie house? No Allie house.” She did this twice in 2 different videos, pointing out that the princess playhouse tent she got for her first birthday from her big bro and big sis were missing from the video of the living room. I’m sure this is what she means, because the second time she did this, she pointed to her tent in the living room while she said, “No Allie house.”
Also funny: On a photo of my dad holding her, with just a corner of Mr. W’s hair and forehead showing in the background behind my dad, I asked Allie, “Who’s this?”
She said, “Gong-gong.”
“Who else?”
“Allie.”
I pointed to the little triangle with a piece of forehead and a small tuft of hair. “Who’s that?”
“Dada.” Hilarious.

(As with all my photos, rest mouse pointer over the photo for a caption.)

College roommie Diana and her family had a wedding to attend in SoCal last weekend, so they decided to come down from NorCal a few days early and make a 2-year dream come true. We’d been talking about taking our daughters together to Disneyland since they were infants, but the distance, and the girls’ younger napping needs, made any prior planning very impractical. Now both girls are 20 months old (Alexis is exactly 2 weeks younger than Allie) and are both down to one midday nap, and are lively, enjoy running around and watching new things and people, and Diana’s threesome were attending a wedding in Temecula anyway. They booked a hotel across the street from Disneyland property for a couple of days.

Allie and Alexis were meeting each other for the second time (altho they had FaceTimed once last year). The first was very briefly for a dinner at a Thai food restaurant when the two were about 5 months old when Mr. W, Allie and I made a road trip to NorCal in April last year. That dinner was late and both girls were young and crabby from needing to be put to bed, so it was more a stressful whirlwind and nobody was able to take photos. 🙁 It’s okay; they don’t remember any of it, anyway. THIS, they will remember.

We met up with each other right outside the main entrance between Disneyland and California Adventure.

The girls were a bit shy at first and observed each other, but didn’t play together. We let the dadas carry them into Disneyland.

Very appropriate that this is the first character we ran into.

And then it was off to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in Fantasyland.

Funny thing about the photo above — I didn’t know this until after I’d posted this photo on Diana’s and Eric’s social networking page and saw the subsequent commentary between Diana and their friends, but apparently, Eric and Diana have an ongoing thing about Eric walking quickly ahead of Diana when they’re out…EXACTLY LIKE MY SITUATION WITH MR. W! At least this day, I had some company. And it gave Alexis someone to wave to.
Dada and daughters in front of the iconic Sleeping Beauty’s Castle!

Mamas and our very excited, very thrilled-looking princesses! =P

Hey, at least they’re both looking forward and not running away.
Our first ride is the first time that both girls rode on Peter Pan’s Flight. Actually, this was Alexis and Diana’s first trip to Disneyland, ever, so that makes 3 newbies on this ride. We let the girls get to know each other at their own pace as they stood in line.

They both enjoyed climbing on the corrals and watching the pirate ships “fly” past. I could feel the hate as parents of older kids behind us had to order their kids to get down and stop climbing, as we just took pictures of how cute we thought our little girls were climbing around and peering in awe at the rides.

Next we rode a flying elephant. There are more photos of the girls gawking through the railings and sticking their feet through the openings, but I’ll spare you those. Both girls enjoyed Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride and posed for a shot on stationary Dumbo on our way out.

The girls did pretty well on the Mad Tea Party’s spinning teacup ride. It’s one of Allie’s favorite rides and she immediately readied herself to spin the wheel.

The girls looking, yet again, wild with excitement and joy.

“It’s a Small World” is Allie’s favorite ride, so we had to take Alexis on it to see how she would react. Allie and Alexis sat in the front row of the gondola with Eric to their right, just the 3 of them, and were perfectly well-behaved. Mr. W, me and Diana sat in the second row behind them. Allie looked around at all the familiar “babies” dancing and sing, and she imitated some of the movements of the Small World characters. Alexis wriggled and danced her way through the ride. She is quite the little dancer. Diana noted that the ride is practically overstimulation with something to see in every direction, music going non-stop, and lasting 15 minutes. After exiting the ride, Eric cautiously picked up both kids. To his surprise, Allie didn’t fight him, and Alexis didn’t fight for exclusivity rights over her daddy. “Hurry up, take a picture, take a picture!” hissed the madly grinning Eric.

It helped that we disembarked while the Small World clock was doing one of its quarter-hour doll parades, which was what a distracted Allie was pointing at.
We were right next to Mickey’s Toontown, so we thought we’d visit an old friend and introduce him to some new ones.

I was hoping for some good photos to choose from, but the Disneyland photographer stationed there only took 1 photo with my camera (this one), and took the rest on their camera, likely so that we have to pay money to get it from them. Well, I guess it was nice of them to give us a freebie on my camera anyway; they didn’t have to.
On the way out of Mickey’s house and barnyard studio, we stopped by Minnie’s backyard (apparently the two are next door neighbors, so he and she really ARE the boy/girl next door) and the girls had a mini tea party.

Then while Diana, Eric and Alexis stood in line to meet Goofy, Allie crashed Goofy’s car into his mailbox. Oops.

“Mama, that mailbox just popped out of nowhere in front of the car.”
I thought their punishment for property damage at Goofy’s house was a little extreme. :/ Good thing Alexis is strong and broke them out of there.

We split up a little after 11am. I drove us home while Mr. W fed Allie lunch in the backseat. Allie took a nice nap in her crib, like our usual Disneyland day routine. Alexis, Diana and Eric went back to their hotel to put Alexis down for her nap as well. After Alexis woke up, they went out for lunch, then walked back to Disneyland and into California Adventure. After Allie woke up, we joined them at California Adventure, where Eric informed us that he’d gotten 2 FastPass tickets for the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, which is my favorite ride at California Adventure. It was a very anti-Diana ride, and she wanted nothing to do with it, so she and Mr. W took the kids to the Rockin’ Rollin’ Dance Party (like a dance club for kids, where they can dance with lots of Disney characters) and Eric and I went on and skipped most of the line with the FastPass. I was happy. 😀 I think Eric enjoyed the ride, as well.
Then our two families split up again, Diana and Eric taking Alexis back to their hotel since she had a very short nap and was getting tired, while we stayed at California Adventure to watch their parade for the first time. Diana promised us it was good, and Allie enjoyed it. I did not expect to get sprayed with water by the parade characters — repeatedly. But it was a hot day afternoon, we’d even changed to into cooler clothes before going back after Allie’s nap, so we dried off quickly.

After the parade we went to their hotel and joined them for their happy hour, where the girls played interactively with each other, following each other around, climbing on the lounge’s furniture, sharing the complimentary food. They also enjoyed the lobby, and their running around and climbing on various (thankfully unoccupied) pieces of furniture pooped them out.

Allie learned three new words that day: Di-Ana, ‘Lexis, and Ewic. <3

This past Saturday, Mr. W and I missed Allie’s bedtime routine for the second time since she’s had a bedtime routine (infancy). The first time was recent, too. It’s a little easier to do that now since Allie’s in the process of weaning herself. In the last two weeks, if she nurses as part of her “old” bedtime routine, she’ll only do so for a few minutes then announce she’s done, and in the past week, she’s mostly told me immediately, “No, done-done” and pointed straight at her crib, telling me she’d prefer to skip the nursing and go straight to bed. That is why we were able to attend Claudio and Jenny’s wedding on Saturday.

My parents came over during Allie’s noontime nap so that they’d be there to put her to bed; the wedding time was 4pm so we had to leave by 3pm. This was my parents’ first time doing Allie’s bedtime routine. Mr. W asked them to babysit for this occasion about a month ago, without discussing it with me beforehand, and I wasn’t happy. My mom doesn’t like to do what I tell her, and she projects all kinds of things on Allie that she makes up in her own head, and if she doesn’t agree with something I’m doing, she just won’t do it. =P Mr. W said this is their “trial” and that if they don’t do what we ask, then we’ll revoke the week of babysitting that he’d offered to them in mid-August (which again was offered to them without consulting me first).

Allie was excited to see “Gong-gong, po-po,” but whimpered when she saw us leaving. She knows our leaving in mid-day and leaving her to my parents is not a normal thing. But she didn’t cry and I was sure she’d immediately be fine. I saw the three of them waving to us from her bedroom window upstairs when I pulled the car out of the garage.
Mr. W and I were 10 minutes early to the ceremony, which took place at Cal State Fullerton’s Alumni House.

This is a selfie by Mr. W and blurry, but he blamed my phone. I think it was him, cuz MY pictures are clear. =P
Meanwhile, back at the house, Allie was having fun goofing off with her Gong-gong and Po-po. This is a nice clear view of her broken teeth. My poor Baby Vampire.

Mr. W was a little alarmed when he saw this photo (emailed to me by my mom) because there were also other photos where she was in the boppy on top of an outdoor side table without an adult sitting next to her. Now that she’s older and more active, we don’t let her sit on high surfaces alone, and definitely not in a Boppy that can tumble down with her stuck in it. But moving on…
Where we were, the ceremony had begun. If the best man looks familiar, that’s because it’s Dwaine! He’s made several guest appearances on this blog already. (So has Claudio, the groom.)

I was only armed with my cell phone, so many of my photos didn’t turn out all that well. Their wedding party was so big (5 groomsmen and 5 bridesmaids, plus 2 flower girls and 1 ring bearer boy) that I couldn’t fit them in the frame of my phone camera.
The bride and groom looked great. They’d both lost a significant amount of weight for their wedding, and were already attractive people to begin with.

This was the first time I’d seen or heard of a unit necklace, and I liked the symbolism.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Allie was enjoying a private Sesame Street puppet show.

And she had her dinner dessert-first, which isn’t a big deal because it’s just fresh fruit with my mom’s homemade plain yogurt. My mom told me that Allie still ate her main course well afterwards.

At the wedding, we had made it to the reception. I just happened to match the wedding party’s attire. Andrae (left) was a groomsman, and Dwaine (right) was the best man. And photobombing us was the groom. I was clueless, altho Andrae, the multi-degree blackbelt, seemed to have better awareness of his surroundings.

Mr. W and I had a great time, even tho he made me walk REALLY FAR to see the campus arboretum after hearing great things about it from Dwaine’s mom and my high heels were killing my feet, and all for nothing, as it turned out the arboretum closes and is locked down at 4:30p daily. It was a fun walk, tho. We laughed and joked as we hadn’t done in a long time.
Mr. W offered (jokingly) to “borrow” some bicycles chained to bike racks on campus to give me a ride back to the wedding since my feet were in so much pain. I turned down the opportunity to commit burglary. He said it was “joyriding” and not “burglary,” because we weren’t going to permanently deprive the owners of their bike. I claimed that if we were caught with the bikes, the defense (us) wouldn’t be able to prove we did not have the intent of stealing the bikes as opposed to just borrowing them. He said sure we do, we have our car here so clearly we weren’t going to ride the bikes home. I pointed out the fact that we have empty bike racks on our car which could be seen as premeditation to steal bikes and bring them back with us. He laughed. I had a point. So we ambled back, joking about chalk arrows on the ground, me limping slightly, waving off his offers to carry me back to the wedding on his shoulders like he carries Allie.
And then as if he’d forgotten my pain, when we got back, he MADE ME DANCE WITH HIM. Ouch! Dwaine snuck by to take a photo and I faked it for the camera. See?

It was also nice to meet some of Claudio and Dwaine’s friends that until then I’d only heard about, or seen on their social networking pages. They’ve heard of me, too, and another groomsman, Geoff, said he’d been wanting to meet me. Another groomsman named Tony exclaimed mid-dinner that he didn’t realize I was THE Cindy, and if he’d sooner realized I was THE Cindy, he would’ve thrown himself at my feet upon meeting me and bowed down to me. I said I was VERY flattered and that would be an impressive thing, indeed, because Tony is a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic. He said he would’ve been impressed, too. Their friends (college buddies) are goofballs, and very witty and funny.

(L-R: Dwaine, me, Andrae, Claudio, Geoff. I joked that this photo makes no sense. It’s all wedding party people…and then me. It’s all old guy buddies…and then me. It’s all Arizona State University people…and then me. I guess I’m special cuz I even fit into places I don’t fit into.)

During dinner, I checked the babycam at 6:45p and saw my parents and Allie in the living room playing. I checked again at 7:15p and Allie was already asleep in her crib. Success! I was very happy. My mom texted that it’s fine for us to stay out as long as we’d like, since Allie was already asleep, but we felt a little bad and left the wedding early — but not too early. We left while the party was still in full swing a little before 10pm, with an hour to go according to their schedule. My parents had a long drive home from our house.

According to my mom, Allie had protested and cried when she was placed in her crib for bedtime, so my mom picked her back up. And then my mom dropped her off in her crib again, so Allie cried again. So my mom picked her up again. And then my mom tried again, and Allie cried, and my mom picked her up again. My dad finally told her to put the baby in her crib and get out of the room already. So my mom did that and Allie went right to sleep. Meanwhile, my mom texted me, “Hope Allie won’t hate me that I left her in the dark room while she cried & reached her hand out to me! My heart was melt!” Two graphics of crying emoticons. Sucker. I told Mr. W that Allie had better not try that with me, and Allie didn’t. The subsequent nights went as normal; Mr. W and I went thru her bedtime routine, we said goodnight to Dada, leaving her alone with me in her room, she pointed to her crib to go in, I put her in, she stretched out her palms toward me for kisses, smiling, then I went to turn off the light and close her bathroom door, came back to her crib where she was waiting laying on her side with her hands sticking out of her crib slats, playfully smiling at me, I kiss her fingers thru the slats, I blow her kisses as I back out of her room and close the door, she sits up and watches me leave, then lays back down and settles onto her fuzzy bear.

I’d say it was a successful night.

My birthday today was, for the most part, like any other day. I wouldn’t have even acknowledged it except that others were kind enough to send me birthday greetings and wishes online and via text messaging, and my judge and former court reporter gave me cards and a gift on Friday. I had not even realized my birthday was already upon us except for my friends’ reminders, and I didn’t even know how old I was turning. The stepkidlet actually had to do the math on her calculator last night. All I remember was that I gave birth when I was 35 so since Allie is 1.5 years old…and that was as far as I’d gotten.

Speaking of my judge’s card… on Friday after lunch, I returned to my desk to see the card envelope sitting there with my name on it. Since we were busy picking a jury for a criminal trial, it was almost an hour later before I was able to get to the card. I opened the envelope and pulled out a glittery Snoopy card, then opened it slowly as cut-outs of presents and ribbons popped up on the inside of the card. I opened it further to appreciate the 3-D effects, and suddenly it burst into song, VERY LOUDLY. I freaked out and clamped the card shut, afraid to look up. My judge upholds a very professional, formal tone in his courtroom, and here I was in front of multiple attorneys, a criminal defendant, approximately 35 prospective jurors, and an audience full of spectators. I looked at the card envelope again. Nope, he definitely did not leave a post-it note on the envelope warning me not to open the card while we’re in session. Looking around, it didn’t seem like anyone had reacted to the few notes that came screaming out of the card. Even so, my heart was pounding. Thanks for giving me a heart attack for my birthday, judge.

This morning, Mr. W juiced some fruit (apple, papaya, pear, grape, cantaloupe, lemon) and veggies (romaine lettuce, kale, beet, broccoli, ginger, spinach, cucumber) in his new juicer and we had that as a pre-breakfast treat, then I made Allie some healthy mini pancakes (1 ripe banana, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup oatmeal, that’s it) and fed her breakfast. The morning was hot so we pretty much stayed inside, although we did let her play in the backyard for a bit. My parents came over during Allie’s nap, and when Allie woke up, the 5 of us went to Rose Canyon Cantina for an early dinner. Allie wolfed down her Mexican food (shrimp ceviche, bits of my mom’s chicken enchilada, some of my red Spanish rice, black beans, grilled fish, and spinach enchilada, some of of Mr. W’s refried beans and green Mexican rice) but was uncooperative for photos. There’s one in which she looks like she’s plotting my demise. My social networking friends theorize that she’s just crabby from being out in near triple-digit temperatures.

After dinner, we stopped by a man-made lake that had a nice walking path and park-like setting all the way around it so Allie could run around. Her mood was much better at the park.

My parents are overly protective and paranoid about Allie’s safety, but would let her do stuff like pick up duck poop. :/ Baby wipes come in handy for times like this.

I’ve never seen her so sweaty that her hair stringed up almost like she’d just gotten out of a bath, until today. She did say “hot” as soon as we stepped out of the air-conditioned restaurant (even tho we ate on a shaded patio), but didn’t have a complaint after that. She drank a ton of water, though, and we had to stop by a Little Caesar’s Pizza to buy a couple of cold bottled waters (which she chugged) to refill her sippy cup before we headed home.

All day long, we were working on her to get her to say “Happy birthday, mama.” In the below video, my mom was supposedly recording Allie on her iPhone, but turned out she didn’t get any of it. My dad luckily was standing by video-recording on his camera.

At the end of day, when I was nursing her before bed, she was dozing off when I pulled her away to switch sides. She sat up drowsily with a sigh, looked up at me with sleepy eyes, and said, “Happy mama.” Then she smiled sweetly and proudly, like we shared a private joke. I smiled and kissed her on her cheek. It’s not the full “happy birthday,” but it’s shrewdly accurate as an observation.

Where in the world did the time go? My mom wrote a social networking site comment on a photo of Allie today about how she’s 19 months old today, and I had to double-check the calendar. Didn’t I JUST post about her 18-month birthday? Jeesh. Today, I packed up all her 18-month clothes and onesies (too short on torso length) and left her with only 24-month or 2T clothes in her dresser.

Loves:
* Kids. She still calls them “baby.” She’ll go up to any kid at the playground and wave and affectionately touch their hand. I’ve noticed that maybe 10% of the kids welcome this contact. The other 90% glare at her and move away, or start hovering over their toys yelling “No!” at her before she even reaches them.
* Parks and playgrounds. New this month: She’ll have a fit and cry, sometimes throwing herself on the ground, when it’s time to leave.

* Music. Listening to it, singing it (she recognizes songs that I’m mindlessly humming and will sing out the next line or identify a character that sings it, and she’s surprisingly accurate on her tones and pitch), dancing to it, playing it on piano or guitar. Last weekend, she got to play with an Allie’s sized stringed instrument.

* New words and characters. This morning she surprised me by being able to identify and say “Big Bird,” “Ernie,” “Monster” (Cookie Monster), “Tigger,” and last week, “Eeyore.” She’s even memorized the order of some of the alphabet and numbers in English and Mandarin. I think it’s just phonetic to her, she doesn’t know “five” is a number or how many that really is, for instance.
* Trucks. I don’t get it. But she’ll excitedly point out pickup trucks (“Duck!”, as distinguished from actual quacking ducks, which she calls “duckies”) and dumpster trucks (“Beeeg duck!”).
* Doing things herself. If I don’t give her the spoon quickly enough, or I offer unwanted help as she climbs up steps or playground ladders, she’ll insist in a big rush, “Me me me! Me me me!”

Dislikes:
* Eating the same veggie too many times in a row. She’ll either refuse it or push it out of her mouth with her tongue. Very frustrating. New thing this month: flinging unwanted food onto the floor. This drives Mr. W crazy.
* Being told what to do. She’ll resist it just to resist it and practically have a tantrum over it. Changing a diaper when she didn’t first announce “poo” has once again become a struggle. Same with leaving a place, even if that place is home. Leaving a playground is the worst. “More park! More park!” she’ll protest shortly before whine-crying and then resisting going into the car and carseat.
* Mealtimes. Or so it seems. At least half the time she’s fine, but we’re not used to her being picky so it’s nerve wracking coming up with something she’ll eat. We’re letting her go hungry if she’s very resistant, other than dig around trying to find something, anything, that she actually wants to eat, because we don’t want to train her into thinking she has her own short order cook. This is what the meal is, and if she doesn’t want to finish the main course, she can fill up on the vegetables. IF she won’t, she still has fruit for dessert. She’ll always eat SOMEthing, but sometimes just not much of it without some effort on our parts to distract her so she doesn’t spit it out, or to come up with a game. Last night’s game which worked very well was “Look at Allie.” Her baby doll which she totes around was placed at the dinner table facing her, also wearing a bib. We’d pretend to feed something to the doll, praise baby for eating well, and then offer it to Allie. And then we’ll narrate what Allie’s eating to the baby, as if bragging about it. “Look, baby, Allie’s eating a carrot! Look, baby, Allie’s eating a noodle! Look, baby, Allie’s eating an eggplant!” Allie would lift up her food in the air toward the doll and say, “Look baby!” before stuffing it in her mouth. She cleaned her bowls and plates, and at the end, she lifted her empty bowl to show baby, saying proudly, “Look baby! Nothing! Nothing!” Goes to show, peer pressure starts at a very young age. =P I also took a tip from college roommie Diana and started putting missing nutrients (spinach, kale, other raw veggies and fruits) into a smoothie for Allie if we feel she didn’t have enough nutrients throughout the day.
* Not having mommy. I’ve started driving to reduce the road rage stress for Mr. W, and when we’re coming back from my parents’ house or Disneyland shortly before her nap and she’s tired, she will throw a fit that I’m not there to offer her comfort. Specifically, she wants to suck her thumb and run her fingers through my hair. Dada’s short hair and arm hairs are poor and unacceptable substitutes. Today, she cried “Mama” almost the entire way home from Disneyland. I also feel like we have to re-sleep-train her because a little separation anxiety kicks in at nap/bedtime when I put her in her crib. She only protest-cries for a minute or less, tho, because we’ve always been consistent in not going in there to acknowledge her protest cries.

This morning we went to Disneyland for the last Sunday morning before our annual passes are blocked out for the summer. While I was changing her first thing this morning, I said, “Guess where we’re going today!” She guessed, “Mimi?” and got it right. She’s now able to express her will and get more meaning out of her trips to Disneyland, so it’s pretty different from the first times we would take her when we first got annual passes. Now we can ask her if she wants to go on the train (which she always waves to), or ride the flying Dumbos, and she’ll nod and say “Yah.” She loves the rides and usually will start to protest with “More! More!” when it’s time to get off. She also recognizes more characters now and with her familiarity, she’s less shy, so we make sure to visit Toon Town so she can greet Minnie, Mickey (both “Mimi” to her), Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and we try to stop by the Pooh ride so she can see Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore.

I should make more of an effort to wear makeup. Oh, well.

Just for fun, here’s her doing somersaults at the park a couple of weeks ago.

And here’s Allie and Dada playing follow-the-leader. Guess who the leader is.


Videos from my parents.

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.

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

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.