Catching Up w/ Random Thoughts

It's been a long time since I sat down to write about what Bella is up to. I've been meaning to catch up. Especially after this blog was so helpful when catching up w/ Bella’s baby book. I did a good job documenting her first year and want to try to get as much of her second year down as I can. So below are random thoughts from the past few months. Things that I think I’ll want to remember in a somewhat stream of consciousness style..

Bella is talking away. Every day she seems to get more and more articulate. Up until Christmas it was sporadic words. Right around Christmas time is when it really picked up. She spoke her first ‘sentence’ on Jan 25 – “Dada read book” and since then she’s been stringing words together frequently. Recently she’s gotten a hang of ‘and’… What’d she have for dinner? “noodles AND applesauce” (not just “noodles. Applesauce”. She’s also starting to combine two concepts - what should we do? “get dressed and go to Mara’s house”. Sounds so simple, but they make her sound so grown up!

That’s also when she really started getting a hang of her ABCs. She quickly learned all the letters and the ABC song is now one of her favorites to sing while walking around or in the back of the car. For about a month now, she’s been able to tell you what letters stand for – thanks to all our awesome ABC books and Sesame Street. ‘M’ is for Mama, ‘C’ is for Cat, ‘I’ is for Ice Cream.
One super cute thing is that her answer to us being out of anything is to “go to Cub and buy more!”. She knows Cub is where to go get more food, so if we run out of string cheese “go to Cub and buy more cheese!”. The other day we went to Rainbow instead of Cub and she refused to acknowledge it and called it “Green Cub” instead (since the Rainbow sign is green and Cub’s is red).

She’s known all her colors for a long time, which was actually kind of a bummer come Christmas because so many of the ‘age appropriate’ toys seemed not appropriate for her. We worked on shapes and numbers and she also picked up on those quickly. By 21 months I’d say she was proficient in letters, numbers, colors and shapes.

She’s still a great eater – loves loves loves fruit. She’ll eat an apple or pear over anything else. She also loves ham, peas, carrots, goldfish, bread & jam, Krispies, macaroni and cheese, just cheese, (making) pizza and so much more!

The terrible twos have kicked in…or at least I hope this is it and it doesn’t get worse! We try to let her choose and make decisions whenever possible, which we can sometimes use to get her to do what we want (“do you want to go to Grandmas house or stay home? If you want to go to Grandma’s, we have to get dressed!”) but it can also backfire when she thinks she gets to decide if she gets to brush her teeth or not or if we clip her fingernails. The other day she threw a tantrum because I wanted to put her hair in ponytails. God forbid!

Today we went to the Auto Show and Bella had a blast looking at cars. She loved sitting in the front seat and pushing buttons and being free of a carseat. We let her run around and she was a very good listener when I would tell her to “stop!” or “go the other way”. I don’t know how thrilled everyone else was to have a toddler running in between the cars, but she was having a blast and actually was able to stay out of people’s way. She didn’t like it when we had to get out of a car to “share” with other people (“no share! No share!”) but got over it quickly when she saw the next shiny new car.

Bedtime routine is this – get jammies on (favorites are pink and white striped Minnie Mouse, pink Santa and Snowmen or blue monkeys) and play for a little bit longer. Then we get a pacifier and sit in her room to read 4 books. She gets to pick a blanket (her current favorite is Nana blanket which JT’s mom made for her) and 1-2 friends to sleep with. She doesn’t always sleep with the same stuffed animal or toy. Last night it was Ike, the monkey. Tonight it’s a snowman and an Elephant. Her baby, Barbra is common but so is Pikachu or a stuffed puppy that used to be bigger than her.

She gives lots of hugs and kisses and is starting to give cuddles away without having to ask for one. I love it when she is in a cuddly mood. Tonight we went to dinner at Space Aliens and were in a booth. Bella was on the side with me and every few minutes she’d reach over to me and say “hug” and give me a big hug around the neck or “kiss!” and “muah!”. I also got lots of butterfly kisses. Daddy was a bit jealous!

Without us provoking she started saying ‘hi’ and ‘byeeee!’ to Scrappy and Lyly. It started one morning when we were getting ready to go somewhere, I wasn’t quite ready yet and it made Bella upset. So she started fussing and YELLING “BYE SCRAPPY DOWNSTAIRS. BYE LYLY” like that would convince me to be ready faster. I got the hint she was ready to go but also couldn’t stop laughing. Especially since we don’t talk about scrappy too much, but now he’ll always get a ‘hiiii!’ in the morning and a nice goodbye.

We Caved

And by ‘we’ I mean I caved. I gave the go ahead to Aunt Mara and my mom to let Bella watch a little TV during the day. So now she watches 30 min of Sesame Street with Mara and 30 min of Mickey Mouse Club (Hot dog!) with my mom...and football with Daddy on the weekends :)

I’ll admit that part of the reason I gave the OK was because it’s entertaining for me to talk to her about what she saw that day. It’s cute to ask what Elmo did today and have her dance around or see her imitate Cookie Monster shoving cookies in her mouth (which no, we still don’t let her have those!!). She knows Mickey and Minnie and loves Donald “Duh!”. It’s amazing how fast they catch on to these characters. I predict a lot of Disney/Sesame Street licensed products coming into our house for Christmas...

Also, I know it’s nice to have a little break during the day and as long as she isn’t totally addicted to the tube, I know it'll be fine.

Stats from 18 m check up

• 24 lbs 14 oz -- 50th percentile
• 32 inches long - 75th percentile (only grew like 1/2 inch in 3 months!)
• really big head (can't remember the number) - 90th percentile. This is why it took me almost 3 hours to push her out. :)

She got her flu shot and her H1N1 shot. Otherwise pretty standard/uneventful. Dr. Amy did say she was impressed with her 'advanced vocabulary' but I know that really means she is the smartest baby she’s EVER met. Right? ;)

Where did Oct go?

For real. Time is flying. And Bella is growing way too fast. Every day she amazes us with something new.

She's picking up on words really well. Not stringing any together, but is able to communicate with us just fine. I love having a 'conversation' with her each night. Although every night she tells me pretty much the same thing (her and Papa drew blue snakes, she ate 'fish' for a snack, and sang songs about the sun)...but she does remember things. For example, JT's mom told me that they sang Wheels on the Bus a lot one day and when I asked her later that night "what song did you and Nana sing?" she did the 'wheel' motion.

Simple things like this make you realize that she is a little person with a mind of her own. Which is also clear as she starts to get more independent. For example, she no longer wants to sit in her high chair - it's her booster or nothing at home. She fought a bib for a while but we are over that, thank god. But the trick is to let her choose things now. Let her choose from 3 bibs, let her decide what she is eating for breakfast (Rice Krispies, toast or oatmeal is usually her request), let her pick out her shoes, etc.

While TV is pretty much still off limits, we’ve caved and started letting her watch YouTube videos of songs. It’s so cute to watch her dance along and point out her favorites. I don’t mean to be one of those strict moms, but I just don’t want to get her in the bad habit of being addicted to TV….but I’m thinking for Christmas she can get an Elmo dance DVD. Just no movies or cartoon shows yet. We’ve got plenty of time for those!

On that same topic, we get a little bit of a hard time for not letting Bella eat candy or fried food…but I think it’s been good. So yes she went trick or treating, but no she didn’t get any of the candy. It goes back to getting addicted to things early- the last thing we need is for her to stop eating fruits/veggies because all she wants are fries and cookies!! So still no candy, no fries, desserts are a special treat on someone’s’ birthday, etc. I know it won’t last forever, but her liking apples and broccoli over anything else won’t last forever either – so we are taking advantage of it while we can!

There’s the monthly update. For pictures go to facebook or flickr.

Boy that was hard...

Left Bella for 6 days. The first few were honestly fine, but by day 5 I was really starting to regret leaving for so long. Maybe it was because by that time we were at my Aunt's in Carlsbad and I not only knew I could have brought her there (just not to our 3 days/2 nights in LA) but heard her on the phone for the first time since we left....

So it goes without saying that it was so great to see her again today. I know she was in great hands, but missed the cuddles, kisses and laughs she gives us each day.

In other news, I'm loving the playtime our ECFE offers 2x a week now. Monday nights are for babies and toddlers only, Thurs nights are for babies though Kindergarten age. We've been to several and at first Bella was timid but tonight she RAN into the room and had a blast. It is so good to see her actually interact with other kids (she imitated one boy, actually allowed another kid to play WITH her, and laughed alongside another kid...little things that you don't get to experience when your kid isn't in daycare).

It’s also nice to chat with the other parents of course. Potty training has been on my mind lately. I know it’s too early to really start, but I think she’s starting to pick up on the fact that sometimes ‘Mommy has to go potty in the bathroom’ (rather than a diaper) and my mother-in-law told us that she actually warned them she was going to dirty a diaper (pinching her nose for ‘PU!’ before she did it). I haven’t seen that yet, but don’t doubt it. Anyway, talking to this mom it sounds like she started at 20 months and the last time we were at the Dr she said not to even bother doing anything now…so again, I know it’s early but it’s the next big milestone to tackle!

This week should be low key, hopefully… we need to get back into our normal routine and hope that isn’t too tough for Bella, either.

Big Helper

Bella can now help us ...

• put away dishes - she takes one thing at a time from the dishwasher and brings it to the cupboard where it belongs (yes, she even knows cups go one place, Tupperware another, silverware in a drawer...)
• "fold laundry" - still working on this but she likes to take laundry from the basket, run into a room (ours or hers) and put it in a random drawer. Pretty cute.
• put away groceries - if she likes it/eats it, she knows where it goes - otherwise we have to direct her to 'fridge' or 'over here by mommy'

Just need to get her scrubbing floors and weeding the garden - then we'd be set!

Yup, we're still here.

I haven't been checking blogs or writing in my own for a long time (maybe all summer?) but have been getting caught up the past week or so.

Can't promise regular updates. Mostly because I don't think I can keep up with Bella. Seriously, everyday she amazes me by doing something new.

The latest is learning her colors. I'm shocked that she actually can identify black, blue, white, red, etc. She’s not always consistent, but I attribute it to her being stubborn (not wanting to ‘perform on command’) because she clearly knows what she is doing. She even says 'black' - why 'black'? I don't know unless it sounds similar enough to 'baaa' which she does to imitate a sheep.

Words come sporadically. She hasn't really said a new one lately - down, kitty, and num num are still the most common. And 'NO' of course. Thankfully she learned to "say" yes by nodding her head vigorously. It’s a little easier to know we are understanding her as before if the answer wasn’t ‘no’ we just assumed that was a yes.

The new thing in my car is not only for her to ask for music (“mmmmm” and point to the radio), but specific songs. “YUM YUM!” is for “I like to eat, eat, eat Apples and Bananas!” hitting her head for ‘No more monkeys jumping on the bed’ or arching her arms above her head for ‘Mr Sun’. Or sometimes she’ll just make the ‘itsy-bitsy’ spider gestures and we sing it since I don’t have it on CD.

She won’t eat bananas anymore. Burn out? But she’ll still stuff herself with almost any other fruit. She officially doesn’t like potatoes or chocolate. Breakfast in the mornings are usually Rice Krispies, an Eggo or apple oatmeal.

JT and I decided to stop ordering fried food when we go out to eat after we got fed up with all the kids meals in restaurants basically being a plate of fried food (fried chicken fingers w/ a side of French fries for my kid? No way.). We always ask for steamed veggies instead of the fries, but I wanted to follow the rule that if we won’t something to Bella then JT and I probably shouldn’t be eating either – right?

So no fried food [hint hint Grandma! ;) ], but yesterday I decided to get her a happy meal (my first time ordering one since my own childhood!) w/ chicken nuggets and she wouldn’t even eat the breaded/fried part. Good girl! Although, talking with people at work it doesn’t sound like these healthy habits last. The other morning I got informed that soon enough Mac & Cheese will be the staple of her diet – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fingers crossed that my kid is the exception, right?

So to sum things up, we’re having fun and it still amazes me how Bella can make these ‘minor’ things (like eating breakfast) extraordinary. Who knew I’d get excited about someone eating waffles for breakfast? But it’s so damn cute to see her point to the freezer and then the toaster!

Oh and congrats to my friend Jessie who is pregnant with #2 – reading her blog about pregnancy symptoms brought back some memories, that’s for sure!