cindy's world

Because this is the age of technology, instead of telling you some of the things Allie is doing, I can now show them to you. That is, I can show them to you if you aren’t using an Apple iPad or iPhone or iTouch that won’t let you view flash. =P

The first video (4 mins) was taken this past Saturday. I was in the now-fenced off playing area with Allie, when I discovered that for whatever reason at the moment, saying “voo voo” to Allie cracked her up. So I grabbed my phone to document it. Cuz it’s cute. I also happened to capture her playing, cruising, making faces, razzing (with a mouthful of teething ring), on top of the giggling. It’s too bad I didn’t get her dancing. When music comes on, she often stops what she’s doing, pulls herself up to standing position and wiggles her butt, hips, and “jumps” up and down (by bending and straightening her knees) while nodding her head to the rhythm.

This second 3-minute video depicts her playing with her daddy yesterday, being chased into her room shortly before her bath. It’s The Great Pre-Bath Allie Chase! Bonus footage: Allie playing with water at the edge of the tub. And me in the mirror (accidental footage).

Allie’s going through a mommy preference stage. It doesn’t mean she’s unwilling to be with others, just that if she were playing with Mr. W, or even Jayne, if I were to walk by she’d get a big smile on her face and stop what she’s doing to come to me. If she were standing or being held, she’d reach out to me and lean in. If I don’t pick her up or go to her, she’d start complaining, and if I still don’t pick her up, she’d give a “Why hast thou forsaken me?” wail. Mr. W doesn’t seem to be jealous or to mind at all, except when I can’t pick her up and she’s now fussing and refusing to go back to whatever she was doing. “We were doing FINE until you walked by!” he’d complain. If I can’t go join them (i.e., if I had some chore I had to do), I would usually try to sneak quietly by them while Allie had her back turned. This mommy preference thing usually happens when she’s getting a bit tired, such as near naptime or bedtime. I think she associates me with comfort, whereas she associates Mr. W with play.

As for what I think about this inconvenient mommy preference thing… I feel like the girl who’s always picked last for a team sport suddenly and unexpected gets picked first, and not just by a random team captain, but by the most beautiful, beloved, magical, important person that could pay attention to me, and I’m touched, flattered, and feeling like I must surely be dreaming. SHE loves ME? SHE *wants* to be with me? She chooses me out of all the people in the room? What did I do to deserve such devotion?

Allie is now our little mimic. If someone coughs, she’ll do a fake cough. If someone makes a face at her, she smiles big and then does the face back. Smack your lips at her and make bubble-popping sounds with lips like a fish and she’ll do it, too. Sometimes she so likes a particular face or sound that she’ll practice it on her own, such as the pop-pop-pop bubble-lips sound or the “ptthhhh” with the tongue, spittle flying everywhere. It sure beats the phase in which I had to make sure my pathways had wide berth whenever I was holding Allie, as I had somehow given birth to a baby who is half-human and half-velcro. (That comes in handy when I need something picked up from the ground, however. I just dangle Allie over the object for a couple of seconds and then bring her back up. She’ll reappear with the dropped object in her hand. I don’t even need to bend over.) The imitations are much cuter and always good for a laugh.
I took advantage of the mimicking the other day. Mr. W has tried to show her the piano but she’s always been more interested in touching the shiny silver knob on the controls. This time, Mr. W told her to watch me play piano. I hadn’t played since before she was born, but Allie watched my hands intently. Then she reached out toward the keyboard, so Mr. W sat her next to me. She watched me, watched my hands, and then imitated the open-close and the finger-wagging on the keyboard. Her hand motions started out more like she was scratching than pressing individual keys, but she got the hang of it and we managed to play a duet. 🙂

I posted this pic on the social network and my mom’s comment was that I should’ve placed a mirror in front of Allie so that we can see her face. I bit back the sarcastic responses I’d wanted to make. It’s not a posed shot! I’m not in a studio! AND I obviously didn’t take the picture! I’m surprised she didn’t tell me I should’ve put on a flattering dress and some makeup first. =P

My mom redeemed herself by emailing me this photo of her, tho. My parents are with friends on a trip to Yellowstone National Park right now, making some stops along the way at Mr. Rushmore and such.

Notice the death-grip she has on her iPad3. Now that’s a Mother’s Day present well-gifted. She looks like Mr. W with that thing permanently adhered to her hand. I guess Allie’s not the only mimic around.

It seems to me kind of a waste that I’ve invested all this time learning all these baby things, and I’m really enjoying making healthy baby food which Allie seems to enjoy (new today: organic baby kale + organic carrot puree, and will do a steamed pear + organic cherry puree for dessert), and these skills are going to be good for, oh, a few months. I feel like I need to find out who else is having a baby and offer to make food for their kid with a grocery expense account or something. Hey, the neighbor across the street just gave birth. Paisley Rose is the baby’s name. Maybe I’ll make the offer. I’ll first intimidate her with information about not using steaming liquid for some things that are high nitrate veggies, like kale and carrot, but to use the steaming liquid on other things that are safe like pear in order to add the nutrients back in, and give her info on what foods constipate and which ones are laxative and which ones are to be introduced later (like eggplant) and which ones to feed together to maximize nutrient absorption (like high-iron spinach with high-vitamin C carrot to help the body absorb the iron), and when her head’s swimming, I’ll offer to take all the guesswork out and prep it for her for $15/week. Then I’ll get to keep using my Baby Chef baby food maker, which I love.

Speaking of eating baby food…we finally got Allie her own baby toothbrush. The doctor’s recommendation all along was a wet washcloth to wipe down her mouth, tongue and gums twice a day, but it’s really hard to get a terry washcloth into her mouth without her sucking all the tap water out, plus it’s too hard to get it — along with my finger — far enough in her little mouth to access her gums. So we went on a walk last week to the store across the street…

and brushing immediately became my favorite part of the morning and bedtime routines. Here’s why:


She was a little distracted by the cameraphone in her face, but normally she says “Ahh!” when we say “Ahh.” She sees the toothbrush coming and smiles and opens her mouth. How cute is that?!

I seem to always be in pajamas when I have an ice cream craving. In the fight between laziness and gratification, laziness keeps winning. So there’ll be no ice cream runs tonight. I’m a little sad about that.

It’s amazing, the changes and overnight growth in our baby girl. Three nights out of the past five, she wasn’t nursed to sleep and then transferred, sleeping, into her crib. Instead, she suddenly became wide awake and squirmed and cooed, so I had to place her in her crib awake and undrowsy. It was freaky, albeit ultimately pretty uneventful. She’d give a couple of wails when she saw I was leaving after putting her in the crib, but by the time I got downstairs, she’d already be playing in her crib on her own, pulling herself up, rolling around, bear-wrestling, pulling on her crib bumpers, etc. She was usually asleep within half an hour or so, altho it’s a nervous half-hour for me watching her on the babycam. I take it as a sign of growth. She was MUCH more sleepy nursing as a young baby, and less and less so now. I guess she can’t nurse to sleep forever. The good thing is that she can now eventually go to sleep on her own in her crib without parental intervention (as opposed to just going BACK to sleep on her own, which she’d been doing since 6 weeks). She also doesn’t fuss while she’s working on it, so that’s pretty great. I looked up when the last time was that she had a middle-of-the-night awakening/nursing. It was in early April.

She’s also understanding words. I noticed in the past week or two that if I were to say “clap,” she’d clap. Sometimes I’d be talking to Jayne or Mr. W and simply use “clap” in a sentence, and suddenly she’d start clapping. This is also the case with “bye.” When we leave in the mornings and when we show anyone out, we say “Bye-bye!” and open and close our hands in a wave, trying to get Allie to do the same. She usually does by following our example, but now she will open-close in a wave when she hears the word “bye.” Once, she was playing in her newly-fenced off carpeted play area, and the talking toy she was no longer interested in timed out and said, “Bye-bye!” Allie stopped what she was doing, stuck out a hand, and open-closed it a few times in a wave. Then she went back to playing.

Today, Jayne reported that she was going over colors with Allie, pointing out “red,” “yellow” and “blue.” Jayne said that each time she said “blue,” Allie would turn and point up. Finally, walking into the living room and looking up, Jayne realized what Allie had been pointing at: four mylar balloons floating against the ceiling, gifts from Muoi and Bob last weekend. For the past few days, Mr. W had been allowing Allie to bat the balloons around as I said over and over, “Balloons! Balloons!” Apparently, she’d been listening.

She’s still good at respecting “No.” She’ll stop what she’s doing if we say “no” firmly. Once Mr. W said it TOO firmly and loudly when she was struggling and fighting a diaper change, and scared Allie. Instantly she froze, a look of agony on her face. My poor baby.

Oh, we’ve also started brushing her five teeth with a baby toothbrush and water as a part of her morning and bedtime routines. She’s very cooperative. She sees the toothbrush coming and opens her mouth in a big smile. I brush her front teeth, her lower gums, her upper gums. She seems to enjoy it with her mouth open, the toothbrush squeaking against the bare gums. Then I brush her tongue, and she smiles at that, too, as if it’s tickling her. She probably won’t be that cooperative for long since this is still a novelty, but we’ll take it while we can.

(If you wanna see short video clips of her waving and clapping, see this post.)

On Saturday, Allie met two of my mom’s closest friends, a couple named Muoi and Bob. Bob used to be a driving instructor and had given me some formal driving lessons when I was preparing to take the exam for my driver’s license at age 15. Muoi works with my mom. The two don’t have children of their own, so they are kind of vicarious grandparents of Allie’s. My mom says Muoi goes around work armed with photos of Allie on her iPad and shows them off like a proud grandma, although she does give actual grandma credit to my mom.

The four “grownups” got to our house after Allie’s afternoon nap. Much exclamations, excitement and cooing ensued. After we hung out at our house for awhile, we headed off to our favorite local sushi joint on the lake for some omakase. Since we arrived a bit before the restaurant opened, we wandered around the area and checked out a portion of the lake. Allie does more pointing and the rest of us unquestioningly follow her lead like her puppets.

“Now look over there!” *point*

Allie enjoys the fountain outside of the restaurant with Daddy.

We were the first into the restaurant, entering right as it opened and snagging seats at the sushi bar.

My mom said that Muoi and Bob had a great time. Although they loved sushi, this was their first time at a sushi bar. Definitely first with omakase. The sushi chef, Johnny, was a newbie at the restaurant and had only been there a month. He did GREAT…probably because he used to own two sushi restaurants, one in Florida and one in NorCal, before he relocated to SoCal. According to my mom, Allie was a big hit, too, and they talked nonstop about her on the whole drive back with my parents. Mom emailed me today and said that Muoi brought her iPad to work with her to show off photos she’d taken of/with Allie over the weekend. Haha.

Allie: Look up there!
Muoi: Okay!

The husband is very insensitive with his words (both in giving and receiving) and I’m very sensitive with and to words. A lot of the stuff that he says that I bristle at, in the past he has told me he doesn’t mean and that I’m “supposed” to ignore them. But words have meaning to me and I take them seriously; in reverse, I try to use my words meaningfully with as much integrity behind them as I can muster. In receiving words, Mr. W is less affected, doesn’t find them particularly memorable (even when I want them to be), so he delivers his words with the same little intent behind them.

If I were to say to him something like, “You ALWAYS do this,” which he often says to me and would upset me in its exaggeration and cause me to fly into explicit examples to prove its untruthfulness, he would just shrug it off.

Sometimes he makes an observation or comment using words that I find inflammatory, so I’m inflamed. Sometimes I tell him something that I really mean and he blows it off, scoffs and pretty much calls me a liar.

He wishes I were less sensitive; I wish he were more sensitive.

I don’t know what to do about this discrepancy. Mr. W’s solution is that we just shouldn’t talk to each other.

I’m at the pinnacle of happiness right now.

Allie started to look a little spacey while playing around 9:10am earlier, so I took her upstairs with her special furry blanket, laid that in her crib, she pulled to her crib, and I placed her in it. She gave two small mews of protest without even turning around, as I walked out and pulled the door closed behind me. In the silence, I checked the cameras on the computer. She was playing and rolling in her crib, standing up here and there, and had laid down hugging the blanket, sucking her thumb within a few more minutes. At 9:17a, she was asleep. It is now 10:23 a.m. and she is still asleep.

So I’m on the computer, reading a book of real-life comedic bloopers in the utterances of politicians, kids, courtroom people, Mr. W’s been running small home errands refilling his hummingbird feeders and clearing out the freezer, we’re going to buy Allie a baby toothbrush for her 5 teeth when she wakes from this nap and has brunch, and meanwhile Rockabye Baby is softly playing lullaby renditions of Black Sabbath (one guess as to whose selection that is) thru our Apple TV.

BTW, Allie’s been napping that way for the past 2 weeks. Sometimes if she’s less tired, she’ll entertain herself in her crib for up to half an hour before she yawns, rubs her eyes and goes down for her nap, but this whole thing is definitely a back-saver. I was starting to get concerned how our nanny Jayne, who’s about my height but in her 50s and is much, much slimmer than I am, was going to rock Allie to sleep when she gets taller and hits 20 lbs. Jayne says she misses the rocking, tho. When she left to go home yesterday, she gave Allie a kiss on her head and told Allie she loves her. 🙂

Hubby is planning for retirement. I’ve been planning, too, but in an unspecific, nebulous, not-thinking-about-it sort of way. My retirement accounts and investments are in order and have been growing since I was 23, the Roth-IRA was begun when I turned 21, the real estate is in place with good renters in it, and the 15-year mortgage on it will be paid off in less than 6 years. But in hubby’s planning, he knows stuff like where he wants to live when he retires (Ashland, Oregon or the Big Island, Hawaii), what he wants to do when he retires (travel whenever possible for weeks or months at a time, internationally, depending on Allie’s school year calendar), and most importantly, WHEN he retires (in 5 years). This is troubling for me because this means he also knows what I’D be doing when he retires — at least, what he wants me to do. As I would be too young to retire and would be ineligible to draw from my retirement benefits, he wants me to simply quit.

This is many women’s Cinderella dream: to meet a handsome man, fall in love, have a family, and have him say, “I will take care of you financially. Just quit and travel with me and our child.”

I’m petrified. I have been financially independent since college and part of my sense of self, freedom and security are based on having my own money. I like not having to answer to anyone else how I spend, save, or invest my money and generally, I haven’t had any problems. I’m not irresponsible with money, and I like that I reap my own rewards that way. I don’t have to be affected by how others, even my husband, spend their money, and that’s a huge stress-saver in a marriage. To lose my job means to become dependent on my husband’s retirement income. He keeps saying that it’s “our” money and not “his” money, but in my head, I see myself as a helpless burden with her hand out for an allowance, sheepishly taking money she didn’t earn and would be afraid to spend without express permission for each item to be purchased. I feel small and powerless. Unentitled to an opinion on purchases or to have preferences. I feel like I should be calling him “sir” and hoping to please him so he doesn’t fire me or find a younger hotter model of companion and put me out on the streets. *cry*

Mr. W: Where should we go on vacation this year?
Me: Well, maybe —
Mr. W: The airfare to Afghanistan is at a nice low rate right now. Let’s stay there for a month during Allie’s summer vacation.
Me: Yes, sir.
*cry*

I know, I know, it’s not that bad. We’ll get to take Allie on educational trips, she gets to experience different environments which will open her eyes and increase her tolerances to worldly cuisines, cultures, and people. We’ll make sure she’s fit and ready to do the nice physical excursions, too, like hiking to the nice vistas, rafting through the rivers, and, just for me, running with mom at Disney races and maybe even a Boot Camp Challenge or two. We’ll both get to be around for all of Allie’s school events and activities, or extracurricular stuff. We can move to places with excellent education systems and not be tied down by things like commutes to jobs. I’m trying to get my head wrapped around this to be okay with the major upheaval coming.

A lot can happen or change in 5 years, I know. But I know my parents aren’t going to be happy that their only child is moving their only grandchild out-of-state. They’re already unhappy that we live almost 40 miles away from them. Ugh.

Rebecca said something the other day about making and reaching for your dreams. “Think about what you would do if money were no object. Make a list. And then make those things your intention. The universe will pick up on it.” I guess my nebulous “retirement” will have to now take form.

P.S. Did I say that Mr. W can’t wait and talks about retirement daily, and contrasted with his retirement dreams, current daily life drives him crazy? He’s eager to not have to go to work anymore, whereas for me, I feel like I’d be abandoning my judge. =/ I’m also nervous that losing my salary would kill our safety net and if Mr. W has an unforeseen expense come up, I wouldn’t be able to spot him like I currently am able to during property tax or insurance due dates. I guess that’s why we’re consulting with a financial advisor right now. I need a realistic picture of when we can afford for me to quit. *biting fingernails*