cindy's world

Yesterday was a court holiday for me. Thank you, Mr. Lincoln! Mr. W took a personal day off from his work so that we could hang out and celebrate Valentine’s Day early. We still had Jayne come at her regular time (which is getting later and later :/ ) to take care of Allie.

The first thing we did was hit the gym. It’s been too long and too sporadic for me. I felt really good working out and was happy doing it, like I did the last time I worked out before that, and thought once again about how I really should regularly return to the gym. I’ve just gotta figure out when/how. We used to gym during lunchtime on weekdays, but Mr. W isn’t so much into it anymore. He’d rather use that as “lunch date” time since with Allie we can’t go on regular evening dates or outings. I’m considering doing Insanity on my own at work during lunch, but Mr. W isn’t happy to lose his lunch dates.

After the gym, Mr. W found a hotel restaurant that makes sustainable food dishes, so off we went to try out 6ix. He had the breakfast buffet which I thought was just standard continental breakfast hotel stuff, and I had corned beef hash which had 2 poached eggs. I wasn’t sure if corned beef hash was something I’d like, and altho I was pleasantly surprised to find it’s not overly salty like I’d expected, it wasn’t anything to write home about. The smoked salmon and lox from the buffet bar that Mr. W got, however, was excellent, and also not overly salted/smoked.

And then we went to the “pièce de résistance” of our day: Disneyland. We now know our upcoming vacation dates for the year, and were considering a “stay-cation,” as he put it, instead of a trip somewhere far. Mr. W thought it may be fun to take Allie to Disneyland/California Adventure for a few days in the mornings when the crowds aren’t bad, and have her back in time for her noon nap. And then for a few more days, we can say in San Diego for the San Diego Zoo. Of course this means annual passes would be needed. So after years of not having annual passes, Mr. W and I got a lower-level annual pass for each of us yesterday. The price had almost tripled since our last pass-holding about 5 years ago. Over $350 per person! Good Goofy and Oh My Mickey! We opted not to add on more money for included parking, so we just parked in the area for Downtown Disney and ordered a drink each at the Uva Bar for the parking validation. The two drinks cost $30, so actually, we may has well have paid for parking that day and saved ourselves the calories. =P

Disneyland and California Adventure was fun. We only rode the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Toy Story’s Astro Blasters, and a new Little Mermaid “underwater” ride, since the lines were irresistibly short. The purpose of the trip was mainly a scouting mission to check out the new Cars Land (meh) in California Adventure and to see where we would take Allie so our future trips with her would be efficient.
I’ve never noticed how many babies were at Disneyland before. Or maybe there are more babies there now than there used to be (they’re free until age 2). I watched a mom buy a Mickey-head-shaped ice cream sandwich and feed it to her baby in the stroller. The kid couldn’t have been more than 7-8 months old, and it wasn’t like the mom was eating the ice cream herself. She seemed to have bought it solely for the baby, who didn’t even seem particularly interested. She opened her mouth, but didn’t know how to bite down on the sandwich, so she closed her mouth again, and when the mom kept trying and the baby got some ice cream, she kind of pulled away from the coldness and made a face. Mom kept trying to feed it to her. I don’t know what the point is. Isn’t it good to keep the junk food away from the baby when the baby isn’t even asking for it, yet? When we left the area, the baby had taken a few bites the mom was still trying to get more in the baby’s mouth. It was at Disneyland that I had first seen baby bottles filled with Coke, too.

After Disneyland, we got home early to snatch up a crabby Allie (she only napped an hour, even tho she normally naps less with Jayne than with us for whatever reason) and a yowling Dodo and had a family trip to the vet. It was a long-overdue visit so the vet could teach us how to administer shots to Dodo to help with his severe anemia. Thankfully, Mr. W said he could do the shots. I didn’t think I’d heard right when he first said it, and I made him confirm it. He thinks shots are easier than administering liquid meds into Dodo’s mouth which Mr. W has always refused to do. Granted, the shots are a once-a-day, every-other-day thing for a 2-week course, so it’s only 6 shots, and the meds are twice a day, every day, 5 oral syringes’ worth daily. But I still have the heebie jeebies about stabbing living things with needles. The vet demonstrated for Mr. W with a saline shot into the skin of Dodo’s upper back, Mr. W did a practice shot with the saline, and then he did a “real” shot with the medication. Dodo was great and very tolerant, but I did see him flinch when Mr. W stabbed him. 🙁 My poor baby boy.

Once in awhile, when the stepkidlet actually has time to spend at home on her own without having to rush off to classes, internships, church, or social obligations with her boyfriend/friends, Allie would hear music coming from the stepkidlet’s bedroom, stop and do a little wiggle-wiggle dance while snapping her fingers, then run down the hall and knock on the stepkidlet’s door. When the stepkidlet opens the door and sees Allie by herself in the hallway, I’d hear a big dramatic gasp and a “HIIIIII, baby! Come IN!” I leave them to do their own entertaining in there and would do whatever I needed to in the kitchen, cleaning up Allie’s bowls after a meal or prepping her next meal or whatever. And I would hear a “Show mom! Show mom!” Then Allie would come walking carefully down the hall and appear in the kitchen with a pretty scarf around her neck, a trendy hat on her head, or fashionista sunglasses on her face. After she shows me, she’d run back to the stepkidlet’s room. This is a normal occurrence.

Yesterday, when I heard the “show mom,” I turned and looked down to see Allie walk in with a long-handled makeup brush in her fist held behind her head, like she was brushing her hair with it. The stepkidlet came in behind her and gave a cue. “What do we do with that? Show mom what we do with that.”
Allie suddenly pointed the makeup brush toward her chin, wiggled her hips back and forth rhythmically, and said while wiggling, “Yah yah YAH yah yaaaah!”
“What are you doing?” I asked. “What is that?”
“It’s a MICROPHONE!” the stepkidlet said gleefully as Allie turned and ran back down the hall toward the stepkidlet’s room. I think someone’s being groomed to be a performer.

“Hey mommy.”
“Yes, Allie?”
“Do you know what today is?”
“It’s Saturday.”
“More than that, it’s Lunar New Year’s Eve! It’s almost the Year of the Snake!”
“Oh, is that why you made me wear this today?”
“Yes, mommy, it sure is. Now let’s wish your blog readers a Happy New Year!”

“Gong xi fah tsai!”

Yesterday for Allie’s second Chinese New Year’s Eve (see her first here), we met up with my parents and grandma in Irvine for dim sum. Allie was at first a little pensive that her dim sum experience would be like last time.

But it wasn’t. We let her have some dim sum. Those molars came in handy. She didn’t seem bothered by the MSG, but I limited her food anyway, making sure she had a full breakfast before leaving so what she had was just a snack. She behaved pretty well at the restaurant, altho she kept freaking my grandma out because she’d lean back in her chair to look up at the ceiling decorations, and my grandma thought she would flip herself out of her high chair. Allie ate everything we placed in front of her — sticky rice, shrimp, egg tart, those long flat noodle things that they wrap shrimp in, steamed veggies and meatballs. After lunch, her grandpa told her shocking secrets about what was really in those mystery meatballs.

Then we all came back to our house. My grandma and parents had Allie distribute the red envelopes. “Give this to Dada.” “Give this to Mama.” “Give this to Po-Po.”

So Allie did; she brought envelopes to Tai-Po. She brought envelopes to Gong-Gong.

Here she is bringing me one.

It wasn’t until we checked our envelopes after everyone had left that we realized my grandma had lost her mind. She’s on a fixed income (collecting social security and a meager teacher’s retirement salary) and gave me, Mr. W and Allie an envelope each. I was already shocked at the amount in mine and Mr. W’s, and then the amount in Allie’s was more than triple ours. We put the cash aside in an envelope labeled “Money to Return to Grandma (Slowly).” Because if we try to just push it back at her, she’d be offended. So we’ll have to wait for special occasions for which she CAN’T return a red envelope, such as her bday, to give her this crazy amount of money back. We may have to split it up between several occasions, though, or it’d look suspicious. Christmas, Mother’s Day, etc. But she’d still know it’s the same money being pushed around. Such is the Chinese way. =P

It’s nice having just one nap a day so we have so much time to do stuff in. I think Allie still gets sleepy around her usual morning nap time, but we try to be out so she’s distracted and would stay stimulated. We go to Costco, play at the park, have brunch out. And then we give her an earlier lunch (around 11:30a) and then put her in her crib early (around noon). She now takes less than 10 minutes to fall asleep, where before her latency time was more like 30-45 minutes. I used to think there was a problem that she wasn’t immediately zonking out until I read that the average well-rested toddler plays in their crib for half an hour before putting him/herself to sleep.
With me, Allie would typically sleep 2.5-3 hours or more in total, but for some reason, with Jayne she’s getting 1.5 hours or so.
The only weird thing about this nap from my experience is that during her usual brief wake-ups between sleep cycles, when she’d roll and switch positions and go back to sleep every half hour or so, now she wakes up and WAILS. It doesn’t last long, and she’s usually back to sleep in a minute or two after she lays back down, but I don’t know why it’s such drama when she’s up in between her natural sleep cycles now. So it’s not uncommon for 2-3 stand-up-and-wail sessions for a couple of minutes each to happen during each nap from what I’ve experienced.
I haven’t seen this adversely affect her night sleep at all. She does drop to sleep at bedtime faster since she’s up for a longer period of time after her noon nap and has actually fallen asleep more than a few times nursing and was transferred into her crib asleep. She still may wake briefly to switch positions between sleep cycles, but it’s silent and she’s barely awake when she moves around and resettles. She’d usually be asleep close to 7p and wake up on her own a little after 6a. So it’s been really nice.
Some moms have told me, when Allie was months old, that “all” babies stop sleeping through the night at 9, 10 months and again at 14-18 months, but so far, so good. Those mommies that have told me this opted not sleep train their babies and they co-slept, so I’m not sure if that may have something to do with their experiences. I don’t know why co-sleeping babies would wake up during the night; I would’ve thought feeling mommy and daddy asleep next to them would lull them back to sleep. But we’ve never co-slept so I have no idea. I wouldn’t have been against co-sleeping, but I never considered it because Mr. W was adamantly against it from the beginning, and this is an issue you need both parents onboard for.

Allie was put in her crib earlier at noon, was asleep before 12:15, and 20 minutes in, she sat up and wailed a couple of times. Then she looked around, stunned, pulled her blanket up to herself and hugged it while it was all bunched up, then rolled to her side, and went back to sleep, all within 1 minute. It’s now been 54 total minutes of sleep time. If she wakes up by 2:30 or so, we should be able to visit with Rebecca at the coffee shop. 🙂

Allie and I took a couple of trips to playground parks this past weekend. Both days, it seemed to have been Daddy Day. I can only imagine that the dads were out with their kids because the moms were at home making Super Bowl food. *shrug*
I noticed while at the park with Allie that she’s past the “parallel play” point and is now fully interactive with other kids. She gets really excited when she sees kids and will go right up to them, try to hold their hand, wave and say “hi,” hand them her most precious asset (a leaf, rock or twig she’d found moments ago on the ground). She watched and followed and played along with a crowd of 5 kids crawling around a wooden playhouse boat over the weekend. She didn’t climb the counters and stuff like the older kids did, but she was inside the house and looking through the windows and touching the kids’ arms and exchanging leaves and twigs with them. A little girl who couldn’t have been more than 4 years old or so said to me, “What’s her name?”
“This is Allie.”
“Allie. You have a really cute baby.” I’m amazed because I have never been into babies, even as a kid, and it was most noticeable who the nurturing girlfriends were as teens because they’d coo and go right up to a kid and talk about how cute some kid was when I would hardly realize a kid were there. Now I’m thinking it’s a personality trait (to be nurturing and kid-oriented) from very, very young. That little girl would make a great big sister, how gentle she was with Allie. When Allie handed her a fallen leaf, she took it, held onto it for a few seconds, and when Allie reached again, she gave it back. She watched Allie carefully, moved slowly and attentively so she didn’t scare Allie or knock her over.

On the other side of the spectrum, when Allie was at a different park on Sunday morning, she was standing by a zebra rocker and a 3-4 year old girl with curly dark hair pushed between Allie and the zebra, wanting to get on the zebra. I pulled Allie back a bit as Allie watched, fascinated by the rocking motion. After Allie stared for awhile, I walked on and said to Allie, “Come on, baby, let’s leave her alone to play.” Allie still watched the other girl. “Come on, Allie, let’s go on the slide.” I reached out my hand, which Allie took, feet still firmly planted and unmoving. The little girl actually said to Allie, in an almost-whisper as if she thought I wouldn’t hear, “Go away! Go on, go away! Leave! Go!” How rude. That probably would’ve been me at that age. Someday she’d have to tolerate her mom telling her to have kids despite not liking kids because “It’ll be different when it’s YOUR kid.”

Actually, it IS different when it’s your kid, cuz when it’s your kid, you think the smallest thing is hilarious. Like when Allie was doing something funny over the weekend and I said to her, “You goofball.” She ran off and then ran back holding her big rubber ball out to me, saying, “Ball.” And when Mr. W was ticking off his grocery list to make almond-anise biscotti from scratch, he said, “Butter, sliced almonds, white flour –” and Allie interrupted with a loud “*SNIFF SNIFF*” “Haha, that’s a different kind of ‘flower,’ baby.” “*SNIFF SNIFF*”

Speaking of tolerating what moms say, my mom told me this weekend to have Allie watch TV. According to my mom, Allie isn’t talking because she has no TV to learn speech from. As if we don’t talk to her! As if she’s not talking! As if TV is good for her developing brain! I didn’t bother to go into that and dealt with it how I always deal with unsolicited advice from my mom — by biting my tongue.

Mr. W is coming out of his sickness. Since the end of last week, he’s been quarantined in his bedroom and ate very little for the first few days. To keep the spread of viruses to a minimum, he hasn’t touched Allie, has no part in preparation of food, touches as few surfaces as possible, and what he does touch, I wipe down with a Lysol wet-wipe (doorknobs, counters, keyboard, mouse, etc). It’s been a little hard on me to have 100% baby duty, but it’s worth it if Allie could escape the norovirus. I’ve been taking my vitamins, extra Vitamin C, had an organic kale salad with the juice of an entire lemon the first evening, chicken soup, anything to keep the immune system up. I’ve even been sleeping downstairs on the couch. Allie’s been getting a Mandarin orange with her lunch and dinner, which she loves so that’s great.

It’s funny and sad to watch Allie play Marco Polo with Mr. W. When we come back from our walks or during her meal or just at random times, Allie would get a playful gleam in her eye, smile, and then call out, “Dah-dah?”
“Allie?” would come a response from the bedroom.
“Dah-dah?”
“Allie?” When Allie hears the reply, she would smile all excitedly and then go back to whatever she was doing. For Mr. W, it’s not fun and games as much as painful. “She’s calling me and I can’t go to her or touch her.” He was so sad. I honestly don’t think Allie’s noticed that Mr. W hasn’t been touching her. When she wants cuddling, she still comes to me, sits in my lap, or raises her arms to me to be picked up. Mr. W is the “play” parent. I’m the “comfort” parent. Since I’ve been both the past few days, she’s been fine with Mr. W as just the “mystery voice” parent. I mean, she’s knows it’s him, when she hears a noise she’d point toward it and identify it to me with, “Dah-dah!” But then she moves on.

The Sydney norovirus is contagious for 3 days after symptoms have alleviated, so Mr. W would effectively have an entire week of not having anything to do. I wish he’d take over medicating Dodo since I have to do everything else, but he hates doing that, and instead has been so bored in the bedroom he’s watched a ton of movies on his iPad, jailbroke his iPad3, even cut his hair when he was still febrile. Over the weekend he even washed all the sheets on his bed, but since he was still sick, I consider the sheets re-contaminated and still haven’t slept upstairs.

It was exactly a year ago today that Allie caught the RSV bug from Mr. W, who’d been sick with it from work. Hoping history doesn’t repeat itself.

Mr. W complained last night of stomachache, but he has an oddly sensitive digestive system, so I didn’t think it was anything unusual. By lunchtime when I called him, he sounded listless and thick-voiced.
“Were you napping?” I asked him.
“No, I’m sick. My body is achy, I feel weak, my stomach still hurts, and I have a headache.” Oh, crap. The current super-norovirus from Sydney, Australia has these symptoms, plus vomiting and/or diarrhea. It’s not the H3N1 flu that’s been ravaging the country, which our flu vaccine this year covers. I know that one of Mr. W’s coworkers had been out the first three days this week with norovirus symptoms and when it’d first started, he’d thought it was food poisoning (a common misidentification given the symptoms). He’s back to work now but still not feeling better. This Sydney norovirus remains contagious up to 3 days after the person has recovered, and is apparently so hardy that it withstands temperatures of 140 degrees Fahrenheit and transmits itself to different victims through even cooked food. It’s running rampant in our county jail system, and sick inmates have been quarantined, court hearings have had to be continued when inmates couldn’t be transported to court due to all the quarantines and sickness. When you share a toilet in the open with fifty other men any given time, you tend to spread illness especially when diarrhea is a symptom. Makes me glad that we’re doing a civil trial and not a criminal trial with an in-custody defendant.
Mr. W said he may just take the afternoon off so that he could nap at work (he can’t leave early cuz we carpooled and I’m in trial). I said, “Okay, I’ll call you every 10 minutes to check up on you.”
“Don’t you DARE,” he said, sounding serious.
“Or what?” I challenged.
He thought for a few seconds and then said, “Or I’m going to play with Allie when we get home.”
Big loud suck of air from me as I gasped in disbelief. “Don’t you DARE!”
At least he laughed. But now I’m all paranoid that Allie’s gonna get norovirus after she’d just recovered from her cold. 🙁 It’s going to be tough having 100% Allie duty without help or the ability to hand her off while I do her dishes or prep her food, but I think it’s worth quarantining Mr. W to the bedroom if it means Allie can stay healthy. Diarrhea is more common in adults, vomiting in children. Both put the sick person in danger of dehydration and in children, malnutrition.
“If I catch this from you,” I told Mr. W, “I’m going to eat a bunch of cupcakes.” Even with that enticement, I’m still hoping what Mr. W has is not the super norovirus from Sydney.

College roommie is weaning her daughter (2 weeks younger than Allie) off the bottle, and seems to be having a hard time. It seems like the first year and a half of a baby’s life is all about taking food and in what delivery method it’s supposed to be done. Getting the baby used to breastfeeding, getting the baby bottle-trained. Then getting the kid to take a sippy cup by age 1 so that the bottle can be eliminated by 15 months. And then I just read fairly recently that I’m supposed to wean off the sippy cup around 13 months. What the heck? Then why even introduce it for such a short period? And then there are doctor’s suggestions/standards about not letting the baby go to bed with a bottle, not giving juice in a bottle (both for cavity concerns), not letting the kid run around with a bottle or a sippy, not letting a bottle or pacifier be frequent companion for the baby over the age of 1 so the kid doesn’t get “bottle mouth” when teeth are growing. Having something constantly in the mouth slows down speech development. Blah blah blah.

We got lucky with Allie. She nursed well and aside from an early-age bottle strike that lasted a weekend, drank breast milk from the bottle well. She would even take the bottle from me when we were bottle-training by giving her a bottle a day in preparation for my return to work. She got a bottle after each nap, but soon seemed to not care one way or the other, and would run off after being released from the changing table post-nap to go play. She’d have to be snatched back to be given the bottle, which she then takes without any issues. So when she dropped naps, we simply dropped the corresponding bottle feeding along with that nap, and she didn’t care. Then when she was down to 2 naps a day and I was running out of stored breast milk after her first birthday, we dropped the bottle feeding that normally came after the afternoon nap and replaced it with a snack. She didn’t have a problem with that, and as we introduced cow’s milk after her first birthday, we always served a couple of ounces of it at a time with her meals in a measured container with a straw. She would drink milk from that just fine, she drank smoothies out of a straw just fine, and she drank water from a straw and a sippy just fine. Basically whatever form we offered anything in, she took. We started the straw early, around 6 months, by plugging up the top of it with our thumb and transferring water from a cup to her mouth through the bottom of the straw when we were at a restaurant. That way she got to drink from what she saw us drinking from, and got used to the idea of a straw. Then as she got older and could suck, we let her use the straw the right way on the few occasions we gave her water when we were out. The sippy cup was only learned after she mastered the straw, because the non-drip Playtex sippies we got required a harder suction. I think this had to do with why she always choked when she drank water from the sippy (we’ve only ever served water in her sippy cups). For ease, we have been giving her water in her sippy cup with the lid removed, and a straw. Less stuff to wash, anyway. She’s been fine and seems to be over her choking on water thing as of this week. When the frozen stockpile of breastmilk ran out a couple of weeks ago, we removed that bottle feeding, I removed that pumping session, and she and I are on par now with only a morning wake-up nursing and a bedtime put-down nursing. I’d already put away the bottles a week ago.

I think the only person who’s sad about these stages of growth passing by is Jayne. Allie used to be put to nap by falling asleep on us as we held her while standing and swaying back and forth for 10-15 mins, then being transferred to her crib, which was a source of anxiety as the transfer may or may not wake her up and she may or may not go right back to sleep once in her crib. I was relieved, and thought Jayne would be relieved, when Allie decided she no longer wanted to be held and rocked to sleep for naps and instead would reach for her crib and practically leap out of our arms pulling at and hanging onto the crib railing to go straight in. It was a time-saver and a back-saver…but Jayne said she missed it and was sad to lose that cuddling time with Allie. Then as the bottle feeding sessions dropped off, Jayne once again expressed regret to see them go, occasionally telling me that it seems like Allie WANTs the bottle (which we haven’t found to be an issue, more like if you offer it, then she wants to play with it, but if you don’t offer it, it’s out-of-sight, out-of-mind). I think what Jayne misses is the intimacy of holding Allie for an extended amount of time. Our active little girl sometimes asks to be held or cuddled, but not that often, and not with everyone, and usually only for a minute at a time. She’s usually more eager to be off on her own exploring or playing and running.

The one-nap thing is going fairly well. Some days, Allie will seem to really want to nap at 9a, 10a, though. For the most part, Jayne has stopped giving her the opportunity to nap in the morning and moved the afternoon nap down from late afternoon to closer to 1pm, which is when it’s supposed to be. Friday, Jayne let Allie take two naps because she said Allie was so tired, yawning, rubbing her eyes, being crabby in the morning, that she must’ve really needed it. So she got two naps, each over an hour, but the second one was late so it made her bedtime later. Today, even tho she showed drowsy signs at the old morning nap time, I didn’t take her to her room and instead let her keep playing. We gave her an early lunch then put her in her crib 10 minutes before noon. She was out by noon and slept until 2:30p. Then given the longer awake interval before bedtime, she fell asleep during nursing, went right back to sleep after I gently transferred her to her crib, and has been in bed asleep since 7pm. I can get used to this. However, as with almost everything that I write on here, I’ve probably just jinxed myself.

(Today, my parents and grandma brought Curry House takeout over to celebrate my dad’s and grandma’s bdays together. My mom asked whether Jayne speaks to Allie while caring for her all day. I said of course. Mom said she was thinking that maybe Allie’s not learning to talk because no one talks to her. Grrrr, Allie is FINE.)

I finally got our on-site photographer’s photos by mail yesterday. We’d done the photoshoot December 11, paid the photographer Kari in cash then, and she’d said that the photos normally take 2-3 weeks to be done but she’d agreed to edit a few images for me and email them within 2 days so that I could use them for Christmas cards. She did start working on them right away, it seemed, as I’d seen some photos go up online, but all of them had her watermark across them. I waited a week then called, emailed, and texted her asking for the photos to be emailed. She finally got back to me and said sure, she’d email them that night, and did. She actually emailed something like 15 photos (sans watermark). I was delighted with the photos, the xmas card was a big hit. Her package included a CD of edited images and two 8×10 prints. We didn’t really need the prints, but we wanted the images. I was hoping for a good photo that I could use to take advantage of an online special for a design-your-own cell phone cover, 50% off. I checked online periodically, and the special was still ongoing.

Weeks went by with no photos in the mail, and I started wondering whether the emailed photos, to Kari, was a replacement for the CD. I emailed Kari December 26 asking if we are still getting the CD, and she responded a week and a half later on January 5 (Saturday), saying that yes, she will put the CD and prints in the mail by Monday. The next week came and went. The week after that came and went. I once again started my multiple ways of contact. Phone calls were again unanswered, so I finally emailed her on January 17, “Hi Kari, Have you sent the CD/prints, yet? We haven’t received anything, I wanted to make sure it didn’t go to a wrong address. The correct address is [address].” No response. This is someone who was responsive to the point of multiple back-and-forths in a day when we were booking the session, as she addresses her emails via her smartphone as well. I called her and left her a voice mail January 23 asking if she got my email. I got a text later that evening saying that she’d sent the photos and they should be at our house no later than the next day. We did get the package the next day, and saw that she’d used overnight shipping and spent over $12 on postage alone. (She didn’t charge much at $125 for her entire package.)

When we got the CD with over 30 images and two 8x10s of Kari’s choice — a shot of Allie laughing in the beach chair and a shot of the 3 of us, Mr. W was so happy with them that he’s already considering using Kari again, but I wonder if he really wants to go through all that again. He had been annoyed at our delayed photos, as well. I actually felt bad for “pestering” Kari about the photos, and then I felt annoyed that I felt bad because she’d clearly had the photos done already and just not gotten around to sending them, and if she’d done what she’d said she’d do, I wouldn’t have had to pester her. I don’t like being in a position where I have to hound someone to do something and feel embarrassed hounding them. I still like her and she’s clearly been busy doing photoshoots since our photoshoot (I’ve seen new albums go up online), but sending a prepaid package over a month AFTER the promised date and not being responsive to my inquiries and calls are not very professional. I wonder how long it would’ve taken, or if I would’ve ever gotten it, had I NOT pestered her about it.

So with both companies, the one that did Allie’s studio portraits and the one that came out on-site for an outdoor shoot, I’m content with the quality of the work and the photographers themselves, but their follow-up could use some work.

Anyway, here are some favorites from the CD. First, an Allie portrait:

Then, some Daddy-Allie shots:

Then an Allie and Mommy shot:

And finally, Allie with both parents:

(As usual, rest mouse pointer over photos for captions. For more photos from Kari’s photoshoot, see here.)

I tried to make the last photo above into a cell phone case, but no matter how I worked it, the cut-outs for the rear camera and flash of the Galaxy SIII phone would be over Mr. W’s forehead. =P And altho the 50% off special had still been available this week, it has now expired, anyway.

So would I recommend inGrace Photography? Yes, if you want good quality prints (their prints were beautifully mounted on cardstock, matte), don’t need a big variety or digitals, and/or if money were not an object. Would I recommend Kari Flores Photography? Yes, if you’re not in a rush and like variety and digitals. Both were great with Allie.

My little baby-boo is 14 months old today. Whew.

My parents were over this weekend and remarked that she’s so quick with copying everything they do, such as gestures or making faces or working the computer mouse, EXCEPT for talking. They shrugged and said she’s just a very, very delayed talker. Dude! She’s on par with all the published expectations for her age group. I don’t think my parents remembered correctly when they claimed I was reciting Chinese poetry before I was 1. Allie uses single words only, but she’s got quite a few of them, and adding new ones every day. Mr. W recently taught her to call out “mama” when she needs me, so she does that now and I have to stop what I’m doing to respond so that I could encourage her to use her words. She still plays the “bayaya” game in her bedroom and attached bathroom. And she hums a lot, she hums along with music playing, she’ll sing “lalala” when she’s playing with her toys or hears the stepkidlet practicing singing and guitar. Sometimes when we’ve tuned music out, we’ll see Allie wiggling rhythmically in her high chair and we’ll realize there’s a perky song playing in another room.

Allie’s a little more fussy now than she used to be. She’ll whine if she’s put down before she wants to be, and turn and jump up and down with her arms around me until I pick her back up. She’ll frown and complain if you take something away from her before she’s done with it. She still resists and rolls to her stomach and tries to run away when we’re trying to change her diaper about 30% of the time. BUT, she’s still got the easy laughter, the sneaky playfulness, the curiosity. She loves to run to the windows or glass doors and look outside. She gives an excited gasp and looks at us and smiles or forms an “o” with her mouth when she hears Dodo yowl, or a siren roll by. When nursing, she sticks her free hand under my arm and tries to tickle me, giggling before I could even react. She still empties out her toy boxes and buckets and walks around with the container over her head. (This last item we took advantage of and have been putting hats on her when we go outside; she protests things on her head less now.)

Strange thing — she keeps choking when she drinks water. It doesn’t matter if we give it to her in a cup, in a sippy, in a straw. If it’s water, she’ll hack and cough as it goes down the wrong way. Milk, no problem. Her food is pretty much all chopped food and small bites now. We now feel safer handing her a large food item (such as a chunk of banana or a baby cookie stick) and letting her eat it in manageable bites, or she’ll dip it into yogurt or applesauce and eat it in small bites. Even weeks ago, she’d just stuff the entire thing into her mouth. She LOVES kumquats. Blech. And she loves the spiciness of ginger. Mr. W will juice ginger root and pour a bunch of that into her fruit smoothie and Allie will chug it.

2 or 3 molars are now out, and the teeth I had been most curious about are peeking out: her canines. I had learned decades ago that the oval pointed canines are a strictly Asian trait. Forensic people can tell an Asian skull immediately by looking at the canines. Mr. W calls my canines “sharp little cat teeth” since I used to bite him with them in play. My mom calls my dad’s pointed canines “tiger teeth.” Since Allie’s of mixed heritage, would her canines be flat like Mr. W’s, or pointed like mine? I was delighted the other day to see that her canines are like BABY VAMPIRE TEETH. They are SO cute.

In the past week, Allie has been mostly skipping her morning naps or dramatically shortening them (21 minutes over the weekend). Given that, I think Jayne has started deliberately keeping her busy and out in the mornings to do away with the morning nap altogether, and to encourage a long afternoon nap. We’ll now be getting more time to DO stuff. Yay!

Allie’s over her cold and is once again, healthy and strong.

And did I say active? Yes, quite active.

Dodo was puking more frequently than usual the last few weeks, and occasionally I’d find a hairball in it so I wouldn’t worry about it, but at the end of last week, in one morning he’d left 5 piles of vomit, and a lot of it was just yellow bile. Knowing this is a symptom of his progressive kidney disease, I increased his antacid prescription med (fantomidine, aka Pepcid) to twice daily (which was the original prescribed amount, but I’d only been using it as-needed with the vet’s approval) and made him an appointment for a kidney re-check for yesterday. Over the weekend, he didn’t vomit once, so I figure I’ve updated his antacid to his current needed amount, but it’d still be a good idea to do a blood test anyway to make sure his other daily prescription meds, amlodipine for high blood pressure and a supplement of potassium, are still within the proper amount as his last checkup was last April.

Dodo’s blood pressure at the vet was super-high again, 220/200. The doctor told me to increase amlodipine from 0.25 ml per dose to 0.3 ml per dose, and meanwhile they took his bloodwork.

For the past 2 days since I’d increased his amlodipine by a measly 0.05 ml, he has completely STOPPED yowling. I thought it was just part of his feeding routine, since he’ll get up, eat food and/or drink water, then come back to his sleeping spot and yowl at the top of his lungs 8-12 times, then settle down and go back to sleep. He’s been doing this for over a year. Both vets at the current animal hospital Dodo goes to have told me yowling may be a sign of headaches caused by high blood pressure, but since he only did it as part of his feeding routine, we sort of just dismissed it as one of his quirks now. Maybe it HAD been a headache issue the past year+. That makes me feel bad, because now I’m wondering if his amlodipine amount was never high enough, since the blood pressure machine was broken when we went back for a recheck last year after he started his meds. We didn’t worry about his blood pressure too much despite being in the dark about what it actually was, because blood test results then came back within normal ranges after he started meds.

The vet called with blood test results yesterday. Dodo’s kidney disease has progressed in the last year — his calcium levels are elevated so the kidneys aren’t filtering out as much calcium as they need to; he’s extremely anemic because his kidneys aren’t producing the hormone that tells his bones to make red blood cells; one of his kidney enzyme values has now gone past normal and into “high.” Lowering his blood pressure back into normal would slow down the disease again and it would be less like “blasting a fire hydrant into a weak filter.” Hopefully the kidney enzyme levels would go back into the normal range with that alone. As for the anemia, I’m going to have to do a 2-week course of subcutaneous injections on Dodo to add the “make red blood cells” hormone back into his system, and the vet says I should see an energy spike and hopefully also an increased appetite after that, and the injection would only be given on a rare “as needed” basis thereafter. The vet thought Dodo’s kidneys felt like they were within a normal size range, an improvement over the enlarged kidneys the other vet had found a year ago, when the disease was not yet treated.

To help Dodo’s constipation (since the kidneys don’t leave enough fluid in his system thanks to the disease), I’ve been giving him prescription canned “wet food” the past few days in addition to his prescription dry kibbles. Unfortunately, the wet food is in pate form, and Dodo has never done well with pates. He likes them and will eat them, but his tongue doesn’t seem to know how to bring the food up into his mouth. He ends up smashing the food into the bottom and lower walls of the bowl. I often fluff the food back up with a spoon and sit it loosely in a pile like a mountain, and he’ll go at it again, smashing the food back down instead of picking it up. I followed the vet’s suggestion the past 2 nights of putting the wet food on top of some dry food to keep it off the bottom of the bowl, and that’s worked better. Dodo loves it; he purrs so loudly when he’s working at his wet food, and his poops did seem to be less dry. (Sorry for the scatology report.) Poor little kitty had never strained and grunted while in the litter box before this stupid kidney disease. The vet also suggested squirting some mineral oil (about 1 ml) into his food to help moisturize, so I’ll have to go find some mineral oil. It’s so much nicer to lure Dodo out to be medicated by the scent of yummy food, instead of by picking him up and out against his will. And immediately giving him the bowl of wet food after medicating him is a much better and more effective distraction to keep him from trying to puke his meds back up. (I used to try to get him to drink water, pet him, if he’s gagging already I’d pick him up and rock him, or I’d q-tip his ears.)

This weekend, I get to go get “trained” on kitty injections. I guess I’m grateful I was my own guinea pig first. I’ve stabbed myself with enough subcutaneous syringes to know that it doesn’t hurt. Usually.