Two-word sentences are here!

Just a quick update, because lo and behold, merely two hours after I posted the last blog post yesterday, Violet began putting two words together! It’s official: her first two-word phrases are: “again please,” “eyes open,” “eyes closed,” and “kitty walking.” These are distinctly different than her “two word phrases” that she was really just treating like one two-syllable word (eg, “let go,” “want it,” “have it,” “swipe it,” etc) – you can tell she is combining two separate words, and they amount to more syllables. So, woo! She is also suddenly conquering 3+ syllable words better (like saying the letter “W”).

Mother’s Day catchup

Whoopsie, I’ve been a little delinquent updating this because many, many things have been afoot. To summarize in brief a few of these items keeping me busy before quickly doing a Mother’s Day catch-up list of Violet’s recent cute-isms, we bought a house (!! moving in mid-Aug, provided closing goes well– this really requires several paragraphs, so I’ll bookmark it for later), I stepped up my work hours to 30 hrs/week on salary, and Ming has had a very, very busy end of the season, which is thankfully lightening up a bit soon because I am maxed out. The house isn’t getting cleaned, the errands aren’t getting done, and I’m waking up at 5:15am from stress even though Violet isn’t waking up til 8am! (Normally, I’d wake up around 6:45/7am).

Ok, anyway, since I am up all extra early (it’s 6:20 right now) and no one else is awake yet, let me write a quick update on Violet! She continues to be cute and adorable and wonderful. This marks my 3rd mother’s day with her, as I count it – note that the 1st mother’s day was the day I got the positive test result saying I was pregnant with her, so a good Mother’s Day indeed.

Thing she is up to lately:

* She now says “bless you” when you sneeze. (Whew, no more demons around when I sneeze when I’m alone with her!)

* For awhile, she was saying “no” and “kay” in response to questions, but the “no” is cutely with the inflection of a question (she picked that up from me, since I’ll ask her to confirm if she doesn’t want something, “no?”). But a few weeks later, she has largely stopped saying “kay” and has gone back to just saying the name of the thing if you ask her if she wants something and she does indeed want it. But she’s all about saying “no” when she doesn’t want or want to do something. :p

* She has well over 300 words now that she spontaneously generates of her own accord in the correct context and says correctly… ie, if she sees an airplane, she’ll say “airplane.” I definitely can longer keep count. She can pretty much say and identify anything. She is even attempting 3+ syllable words these days, though mostly they get shortened to 2-syllable words. She had her 15 month well-baby visit (21lbs5oz – 30th percentile, 31 inches – 75th percentile) and her doctor said usually when babies know THAT many words, they are putting two words together, but she’s not doing that yet… but then again, babies don’t usually know THAT many words until they are 2+ years old, and that combining two words doesn’t generally come til around 18 months, so it’s not usually a developmental question they ask at the 15 month visit, so it’s not concerning that she doesn’t do this. I mean, I guess she’ll say multiple related words within a 10 second timeframe, just not back to back. And technically she says things like “let go,” “hairclip,” “want it,” “have it,” “get it,” and “swipe it” (yes, the latter while holding the “iPhone,” which is also a word she can say), but we don’t count those as two words because she says them more like one 2-syllable word, if you know what I mean. I’m trying to think of the most funny and obscure words she knows…. she can correctly identify a mortar and pestle (there’s one in her Busy Town book), she can identify a pangolin (um, yeah, what? that’s definitely an animal I learned at the same time she did – in her Tails book), and we’re working on saying “necrotizing fasciitis.” (she has a Giant Microbe necrotizing fasciitis doll).

* She has mastered the iPhone, for better or worse (I had kind of hoped to not let her near one for at least a decade). She has figured out how to swipe it open deliberately, and like I said, she can say “Swipe it.” :p Watch the video of her swiping it open.

* One day, I was doing some flow cytometry analysis for work, and she came over, so I pointed to the plot, and told her those were “cells.” A few days later, I was analyzing data again, and she comes over and points at the screen and says “cells!!!” I just about died. She’s way too smart and cute. This is her though – you only have to teach her something one time and she assimilates it immediately and will apply the knowledge the very next time, even if it’s a couple weeks later.

* ….which reminds me of a funny story. We brought her to the Berkeley Infant Cognition Lab (“Baby Lab”) for a study of 14 month olds where they strap the baby into a high chair and then show them repeatedly how there are a few shapes but only one of them makes a box make a musical sound, and then they ask the baby to pick from the shapes, to see if they’ll pick the right one. Apparently (according to the researcher), most babies are cool with sitting there and watching her demonstrate this multiple times before being allowed to pick a shape. Violet, on the other hand, isn’t into repetition of instruction – she verbally begged and pleaded with the researcher, using every relevant word she knew, to try and get the toys, and was trying to claw her way out of the high chair like a wild animal. Ming and I were doing our best not to keel over laughing and disrupt the experiment. Violet was begging, “Please! Shape! Box! Have it! Want it! One! One!” (the “one” was because the researcher was saying something like “Oh, look at this one!” and when Violet gets super desperate for something, she’ll start just shouting the last word of every

Same eye color/pattern

sentence you say). And then when it was time to give the shape back and move on, the researcher said, “Can I please have the shape back?” And Violet said “no” and shook her head and clutched it to her…. lol…. oh help me. Violet is so funny. I really need to get a video of how she says no. Anyway, it was a fun experiment, and Violet overall enjoyed getting to play with the toys, even if she didn’t enjoy the part of having to watch someone else play with toys. She earned an honorary B.A. from Berkeley Baby Lab, and when go in again, she’ll get an M.S. and then a Ph.D. like mama.

* She has memorized a lot of her books! We do a lot of reading over here, especially since that’s what we do to make potty time fun. Even though she has fifty trillion books, we have somehow read through all of the ones that are appropriate for her age right now, so she has started to memorize them. You can say, “Who do you think you are, Queen of the trampoline?” and she’ll say “maybe!” (from the book Olivia Saves The Circus). You can read the book “Moo, Baa, La La La” and pause before what the animals say, like “a cow says…” and she’ll say “moo,” and then you can say the next line “Three singing pigs say….” and she says “la, la, la.” And then she’ll say “no, no!” because the next line is “no, no, you say, that isn’t right, the pigs say oink, all day and night.”

* She understands a little Spanish. I haven’t been speaking it with her as much as I’d like to, but I do read some Spanish books to her, so she knows a bunch of animals. You can ask her what the animals say using the Spanish words for the animals, and she says the correct sound, and sometimes translates the word. Watch the video!

* I got her these foam bath lettersthat she loves (they stick to the bath wall), and so she is starting to be able to identify letters. I haven’t really quizzed her on them, and mostly the nannies give her a bath

Reading, wearing swimsuit, in her chair

while I’m working, but the other day I gave her a bath and noticed that she can correctly identify the letter “Q” for whatever reason. None of the other letters that I’ve noticed so far. When she sees letters or numbers, she often says “eight” for whatever reason. I guess that’s her favorite number. If you ask her to count things, she’ll repeatedly touch her finger to things – like if you ask her to count the ducks on a page, she’ll point on the page multiple times, as if she were counting…. so cute.

* For several months (can’t remember if I put this in the last post), she’s been able to identify sensations – she’ll say verbally when it’s hot, cold, windy, dark, etc.

* She can correctly identify squares, circles, triangles, and diamonds and say those words as well. So, for example, she’ll point to a diamond shape and say “diamond!”

* She LOOOOOOOOVES coloring, holy cow. She’ll ask to color, and if I’m busy doing something, she’ll get all cute and say “please” and do the sign language for please, such that I really can’t resist dropping what I’m doing and getting her set up to color. Who can resist a baby asking so nicely, saying please all cutely? She’s really into say “circle” while she colors – I think she thinks she’s drawing circles.  I got her a giant over-sized easel drawing pad, which works better than a small paper, but I still have to keep an eye on her because mysteriously, we wound up with some crayon the wall the other day….!

* For awhile she was singing part of Twinkle twinkle little star and the ABC song – seriously, she’d sing part of the song when I was singing it. And she’d prompt me for the next line “Up above…” of Twinkle twinkle if I didn’t move on to the next line quickly enough. But a few weeks ago, she stopped allowing singing of any songs whatsoever, unless they happened to be playing on the TV or radio and I was singing along. I’m not sure what’s going on (some toddler feistiness thing?), but she gets mad and grunts/screeches when anyone tries to sing. Soooooo weird….. :p

* You can ask her “What do people do on an airplane?” and she will answer “sit!” We had to practice this recently on an airplane trip – she kept trying to climb down and I got her to sit still by having her look around and notice everyone was sitting.

* When she gets stuck, she is learning to say “stuck! help!”

* She has taken to requesting to go to the park and to color – these are the things she requests to do most. After she gets back from the park with the nanny (on days when I work), she runs to see me to give me the full report of what she did. Me: “What did you do at the park?” Violet: “swing!” Me: “What else?” Violet: “kid!” (meaning, she say kids there). Me: “What else?” Violet: “Swing!”

* She also likes giving reports of what she ate for dinner. She gets this cute look / demeanor where you can tell she is searching actively in her mind looking for words and trying to tell me, as if she were trying to put together a sentence or something, and then she bursts out with one word. At first, she was correctly telling me what she ate, like chicken, milk, cheese, strawberry, yogurt, squash. But lately she has started just naming random foods when I ask her, hmmmm. Maybe it’s because we practice naming foods randomly in other ways – like I’ll ask her what she wants to eat, and she’ll name some foods. Lately, I’ve been asking her what she’s feeding her dolls/bears, because she has been spoon or bottle feeding them as a pretend game, and she apparently is mostly feeding them a diet of lentils. Haha!

* My favorite words that she says right now are “spoon” (she says “boon”) and “yogurt” (she says “wee-gurt”). I think they are my favorites because she mis-pronounces them cutely, whereas she says most other words correctly. Watch the video!

* We’re down to 3 nursings a day. going from 4 to 3 was the hardest transition yet. We did have a couple of days of tantrums, her wanting the post-nap nursing session, and once I wasn’t able to distract her on to something else, so I gave in, but I have been trying to get nursings down to a level where I’m ovulating at better intervals in prep for next baby later this year.

Taking clothes out of drawers, a favorite passtime

Three nursings seems to do the trick, so we’re staying there. She does well now, though, and is definitely into her cow milk finally, and she has even learned to say “cow milk.” She was at the park the other day with the nanny and she saw a mama nursing her baby, and she turned to the nanny and started frantically asking for “cow milk” – haha, at least she didn’t ask the nanny to nurse. Smart girl!

* Ok, here’s a new, awesome one as of a couple days ago – Violet has started correctly using the word “almost.” For example, she LOVES to climb on the couches now (more on that later), but when she doesn’t quite make it up on top of them, she’ll say “almost.” Or if she tried to put something into a container and it missed, she’ll say “almost.” Wow, seriously? That seems like such an abstract concept. I am just constantly in awe of her brain.

* Ok, yes, the CLIMBING, which she makes sure you know she’s doing by saying “climbing!!” She has suddenly become a climbing *master*, and just yesterday, she ran into her room and 2 minutes later we hear frustrated whining, like she’s got herself stuck somewhere (note, I have the place baby-proofed like crazy, so she’s generally fine going into her own room alone for a couple minutes) – and we go in there to check on her, and lo and behold she has CLIMBED UP ON A TABLE AND INTO A BASKET ON THE TABLE. What????? Definitely a new feat, and definitely no windows are ever getting opened in this apartment because all our furniture is in front of windows!! At least in the new house, we’ll have more space to not put furniture in front of windows.

* She’s still wearing her lamb robeez shoes, but is definitely starting to outgrow them. They’re size 5, so it looks like we need to find ourselves some size 6 shoes! Sadly, it doesn’t seem like they make adorable character shoes above size 5, and she needs more robust soles now anyway since she is walking around outside a lot, so we’ll have to find something cute and comfortable in the next size up! I hear See Kai Run shoes are comfortable.

* She’s still sleeping 12 hours a night, and napping for anywhere from 1.25-2.5 hours – pretty variable day to day, but the most common length is 1.25 hours.

* Prior to our recent airplane travel, she had been telling me when she had to go poop, so I didn’t have to change poopy diapers for like a week! But traveling reset her a bit, so we are having poopy diapers here and there. I’m back to having to just put her on after meals, and she does poop and pee in the potty, but isn’t asking to go anymore. Also probably because we haven’t been watching the Potty Signs DVD enough lately. Usually we watch that while getting dressed for sleep after bathtime (it’s the only way she won’t fight getting her clothes on).

* We got her her very own little sofa chair, which she just LOVES. Definitely a good purchase.

Hugging her baby doll and kitty

* I finally started letting her go in the sand box at the park, and it’s actually not as bad as I thought – I was picturing finding sand in diapers, etc, but as long as she’s wearing good coverage clothes, she’s fine. I also got her some sand toys, which she loves. Yesterday, we were at the park and she was playing with her sand toys, and four 3-4 year old boys came rushing over to play with her toys in the sand box. I was the only adult nearby, so I was suddenly managing a ton of preschool-age playing, including mediating sharing and working together and an episode of “he threw sand at me!” “but he threw sand at me first!” … me: “Well, let’s not anybody throw sand at anybody else,” which apparently was enough to put and end to it. Ha!! 15-month-old social dynamics are a far different ballgame than 3-4 year old social dynamics. Definitely faster pasted with the older kids, but they respond to logic a lot better than 15 month olds, who basically just steal toys with each other, don’t share, and get upset when things are taken from them.

House hunting

* I’ve started having to triple-stuff her nighttime diapers. Recall we use bumGenius 4.0 one-size cloth pocket diapers – the same diapers she has been wearing since birth! Still only using one insert during daytime, but instead of 2 at night, we’re using 3 at night now because she is drinking SOOOOOOO much cow milk, that she is peeing like crazy in the night. I guess she’s also just hit the threshold where she’s bigger. The doctor said she doesn’t need more than 18 oz milk a day (including breastmilk, I’m guessing), so one day I ended up giving her some water after she chugged down 2 full straw cups of milk. I was starting to worry she was having some medical issue, suddenly drinking that much, but decided it’s probably just because 1) It’s become really hot out, and 2) She has a nasty mucusy chest cold thing right now, so maybe those are making her extra thirsty.

Coloring at the dentist (mama + daddy’s visit)

* I bought her this baby doll that she LOVES. She was playing at someone’s house who had a baby doll, and she just gravitated towards it, so I ended up getting her one since she really didn’t have one like this. She is so sweet to the baby doll, picks her up the right way, and snuggles her and hugs her and feeds her a bottle. When the baby is laying flat, the eyes clothes, and violet says “nap!” Now, she has taken to saying “nap” whenever she lays down any of her stuffed animals. She also says “sleeping” if she sees someone with their eyes closed, regardless of whether they are actually sleeping. We have this Happy Chinese New Year book where the people are smiling and their eyes look closed, and she points to them and says “sleeping!” whenever we read the book.

* Oddly, she recognizes Geico signs, like when we’re out driving, or on commercials, and says “GEICO!” There’s a “Good Chevrolet” sign outside our local market in the same font and color as the Geico signs, and she swears this also says “Geico.”

* Violet LOVES wearing hats now. She gets this silly, cute look on her face when she puts one on her head, like “Hey, look at me, check me out, I’m wearing a HAT!” She can even put hats on herself now!!

* Violet LOVES putting on her swim suit… she does this every day (just putting it on over her head, and wearing it for an hour). We need to take her swimming; we’ve been having some hot weather!

* Violet has been climbing into cooking pots, colanders, boxes, etc… just like a little cat!

Ok, that’s the Violet summary for now!! More later. Cute videos below, but more at http://www.youtube.com/babylukedragons

Angela

Old MacDonald had a farm….

Ok, ready, set… write a post as quickly as I can because Violet will be awake in 20 minutes! I’ve been trying to get to sleep as close to 9pm as possible so that I wake up a little earlier than she does so I can shower, get through emails, etc so that when she’s awake I’m not running around trying to get all that done and can instead have some family time before we all set about our work, errands, flow for the day.

First, Violet is *adorable* aaaaaaaa I love my little baby. “Baby” – well, she has become more toddler-like lately, running around everywhere and saying well over 100 words now. I need to get a video of her saying different words while she’s in this stage because I know she’s going to progress to multiple words and sentences sooner than later and I don’t want to miss capturing these sweet baby days of exclaiming single words in her little baby way. For now, here’s a video of Violet knowing her animal sounds (14 months old) – oops, we forgot duck, monkey, and horse!

While we’re at it, I upload videos from time to time at this link, so check em out.

Ok, we’ll do a little milestone/anecdote readout since I’m short on time today! In no particular order….

* She’s definitely stacking rings and sorting shapes and even being my little “helper” (she loves to say “helper”) in putting things away. I can officially ask her to do something like “put all these items on the shelf” or “put all the blocks back in the bag” and she’ll do it. Woooooo cleanup time.

* She has started saying “poo” here and there, and so I put her on the potty when she says it, and she has tooted a few times but not actually pooped after saying that. She is, however, still going poop and pee on the potty regularly every day (it’s a rare occasion that I have to put her on the changing table these days), and she now declares what she has done. So, she’ll say “pee!” when she pees and “poo!” when she poops. She’s pretty fascinated by it. We still make it into storytime so she likes it. Oh, and most random thing, but for whatever reason, when we let her play with the shower curtain while on the potty, she immediately pees. She likes to play peak-a-boo with it. And I’ve learned my lesson to NOT let her be diaperless while I prepare her bath or else she will grab the shower curtain and pee on the floor! Don’t know what it is about that shower curtain…. but I can guarantee a pee with it. Useful for making sure she has an empty bladder before nap / bedtime. Oh, and she has been using the signs “more” and “all done” on the potty (for fun though, not in a meaningful way yet) – she is super into this potty training DVD we have by BabySigns so she steals a lot of signs and language from that. I believe she also got permission to unroll the whole toiler paper roll from there because one of the babies on there does that!!! :p

* Speaking of signs, she still uses lots of signs… one of her favorites these days is the sign for “bath” (which happens to be similar to the sign for “bronchitis,” which she accidentally does sometimes…. ha). It’s funny because she knows how to say all of the words but she enjoys doing the signs while saying the words.

* Can’t remember if I already mentioned this one in another post, but she’s definitely got the second syllables of words down. So, whereas she had been saying “aaaa” for apple, now she says it correctly. She has mastered the “p” sound and is great about saying words accurately now (there are still some cute babyisms).

* She knows how to say “shh” and put her finger to her lip now. There are parts of some of her stories where it’s quiet or they say “hush” etc, and she knows to do this. Or when we flip to the part of Pat the Bunny where she sees bunny sleeping, she does that.

* She has been enjoying going to the park. We take here on occasion, and one of my nannies often takes her to the park while I work in the morning. We have a park basically right across from our apartment (down half a block). She even got into walking to the park on her own from our house and walking back, but then after a couple weeks of that, she stumbled and fell and scraped up her nose and forehead, so we decided to call it quits on the walking-on-concrete for now, even though she’s generally pretty stable, having been walking for 4 months now. We had a little scare trip to the ER after that fall because several hours later, she vomited twice (after lunch) and we wanted her evaluated for concussion, but they thought it was probably something up with her lunch or nerves with a new nanny because it didn’t quite follow the concussion signs and she otherwise was acting 100% fine. So, phew.

* She has been identifying things that are blue… she’ll point to something (anything) blue and say “blue.” No other colors, just blue. So funny! Doesn’t matter what it is – an envelope, a toy…

smelling a flower

* She has a sense of what belongs in nature and what doesn’t…. when we’re walking through the park, occasionally there will be a piece of paper/plastic/trash in the field, and she’ll say “trash!” Whereas she knows that sticks are sticks, leaves and leaves, flowers are flowers, grass belongs there too. So neat that she has that concept of what doesn’t belong there.

* She’s starting to know subcategories… if she sees a daffodil, she says “daff-dill” instead of just “flower” (though most other flowers are still just “flower”).

* I’m apparently now taking requests! I can say, “What do you want for lunch/snack?” and she’ll say “Cheese!” or “Ham!” or “Milk!” Sometimes she even requests foods when we’re at the table, foods that she can’t see… she’ll just ask out of the blue for strawberries, milk, pinto beans (she calls those “peen”). It’s still a rare thing, but it’s cool that it’s starting to happen. As for requests, yesterday I said “What song should we sing?” and she said “Twinkle” and did the little hand motions she makes for “twinkle twinkle little star.”

* She is big into saying “up,” but right now “up” means “please change my Up status” – ie, she says up when she wants to be picked up and also when she wants to be put down. We say “down” to correct her when she means “down,” and she will repeat after us, but she still says “Up” when she wants to be put down.

* For whatever reason, she has started saying “dog” instead of “doggie” (probably hearing me say “dog” in general conversation… she picks things up very quickly). Where is my little baby going???? Stop speaking correctly!!!

* She likes to narrate what’s going on… so she says “dropped” when she accidentally dropped something and says “uh oh oh oh oh!” And will say “broken” if something is broken, like if her zucchini spear broke in half. She’s basically always naming either the object she’s playing with or the action she’s doing. She will say “cold” if it’s cold outside (which she does often) and “windy” when it’s windy. She’s always saying “hot” when I put a new food in front of her now – I wonder if she’s asking me if it’s hot because as soon as I assure her it’s not hot, then she goes for it to eat it.

* I’ve found a good way to get her to try new foods (she is pretty reluctant these days) is to liken them to something she’s had before. So, I was giving her some tri-tip the other day, and I had to tell her it was like bison to get her to try it. Or I was getting her to try turkey and had to tell her it was like chicken. I’ve been trying to get her into new veggies, but it’s been hard. Not sure how we’ll get there… but I’m not too worried yet since she’s still nursing and generally otherwise eating well.

* Speaking of nursing, she’s still nursing 5 times a day, though Sunday I decided to try to get that down to four times a day (before and after naps and night time sleeps). The first day, it didn’t work (lots of “milk milk milk!” requests in the mid-morning), but yesterday Ming and I went out for a date morning tennis game and Violet was with the nanny and it went well. Crazy to think she is down to nursing only before and after sleeps!! She is very good at drinking cow milk out of a straw cup now, though I find that she is still requesting to nurse at random mid-day times and won’t take cow milk instead. Since she pees in the potty, I can feel comfortable that she is hydrated because I can see that her pee isn’t dark, but I still feel nervous about whether she’s getting enough fluids because she’s not really taking in a lot of cows milk in between meals… so she nurses four times a day and has cow milk 2-3 times a day…. hopefully that’s enough! Seems like it. Anyway, I’m not planning to decrease her nursing any further than this for awhile yet. It’s a little calming, though, to know that if I got hospitalized or had to be away for a day or something she could actually now *survive* without me there… before we got her taking the straw cup, you just couldn’t get her to take a bottle, sippy cup, and she would take only a small amount of fluids through a normal cup and only sporadically at that. Now I feel comfortable that she would actually take fluids when thirsty (although if she were upset enough, she might refuse). While there are nice / bonding aspects of her being dependent on me for survival, it’s also calming knowing she CAN now get fluids/foods from other sources in addition to me.

* Aaaaa the cutest thing, when she pats kitties (either in books or in real life), she now says “soft” and “pat.”

* She can point to many of her own bodyparts now. She response appropriately to “Where’s [person name]‘s nose?” and points to the appropriate person’s nose, whether it’s hers, mine, or Ming’s. We’ve got the basic body parts like nose, eyes, mouth, ears, toes, cheek and head. We’re working on shoulders, knees, eyebrows, chin, and forehead.

* I am constantly astounded by how much normal, complicated language she pays attention to and processes. One example.. we were in the living room and I said, “Ok let’s go for a walk to the park. Time to get your socks and lamb shoes on!” and she runs into the other room, reaches through the banister to get her socks and shoes (I had *no* idea she knew that I hid them there), and pulls them out and sits down and starts trying to put them on. Haha! She constantly amazes me. At 14 months old!!

* The cutest thing… she gets sad when other people hug me!! Even when Ming does! She gets possessive of me, like “this is MY mama!” Oh boy, it’s going to be greaaaat when a sibling comes along, right? But interesting, I had her monkey hug her teddy bear and that upset her too, so maybe she just feels like she should be the one doing the hugging. In any case, she has been nice and snuggly on occasion lately. Her latest trick is to want to snuggle and be too adorably cute to put down right when we’re about to put her into the carseat. She’s learning

flipping through cookbooks

* Lately she has begun scratching her head when she is super duper excited about something. It’s a cute little tell.

* The other day, she said “home” when we got back home, I think because I always say “We’re home!” when we return home. So cute.

* Violet has been into smelling flowers, whether imaginary (with the baby sign) or real flowers or flowers in books. It all started with the Pat the Bunny flowers.

WHEW! How did I get that all out before she woke up? Time to start another day. More general updates later.

Angela

peacefully smelling a flower

How an Irish/Sicilian Mama Makes Dumplings

Pretend for a moment that you’re not Asian, and you have no family tradition of folding dumplings… but you walk past some Nasoya dumpling wrappers at Whole Foods and think to yourself, “Hmm… I really like Trader Joe’s frozen dumplings, so I’m going to try to make some… from scratch (except-for-the-caveat-of-the-premade-wrappers)!” Today I had my first adventure in dumpling folding, and had no idea if it would work or wind up like a pottery disaster where you forgot to score and wet the edges before sealing, or left the fondant out in the air too long before putting it on the cake… but it worked! I decided to just wing it and not look up instructions. If you take nothing else from this post, just know that the two most critical commandments of dumpling folding are: 1) No dumpling shall touch another dumpling whilst steaming, and 2) Thou shalt coat the surface of the steamer with olive oil.

How to make your own dumplings:

1. Go buy some dumpling wrappers, because you don’t have time to make your own and these are just as yummy. Make sure the man at Whole Foods tells you to steam them and not boil them, since you hadn’t thought of that part. :p

2. Buy all your ingredients. Don’t forget to buy ginger like I did. The other things I bought: fennel bulb, lean ground turkey breast, sweet

Who, me?

yellow bell pepper, oyster mushrooms, carrots, and green leaf lettuce. I’m thinking mint could have been good in there too.

3. Wash, finely chop, and sautee all the ingredients (add the oyster mushrooms and lettuce last since they are wiltier). While this is going, start your steamer water boiling!

4. Let your baby tear apart the kitchen and say, “Who, me?”

5. When the gamish is done cooking, get out a big plate and lay out a couple of wrappers. Wet along all four edges, and put a bit of filling. Don’t overfill it like how you overfill your fajitas every time you go out for Mexican, because then the wrapper will rip and BLEH (that was the sound of your dumpling contents spilling out of the wrapper after they were steamed). Fold it along the diagonal (or, hey, why not fold them horizontally, if you want some rectangular dumplings? Or make your own wrappers and fold them into DINOSAURS). Press, press, press to seal along the edges. Don’t rip them.

Not like this

6. Steam them. No!!  Not like this!!!!   <——–

Like this!

7. Like this. –>  Coat the bottom of the steamer with olive oil so they don’t STICK and rip when you pull them out (ahem, I ate that batch), make sure they are not touching while steaming also so they don’t stick and rip, and then you’ll be able to pull out some nice, intact dumplings at the end (which I saved for Ming).

8. Gobble them up while saying “gobble, gobble”…. because there is turkey inside and, well, any time you tell Violet she’s eating turkey she says “gobble, gobble” while eating.

- Angela

Fun little anecdotes

I’m accumulating a list of a lot of things I wanted to write down to preserve for memory later, of the cute little things Violet has been doing. Really, there are so many, way too many to keep a full account, but here are some fun special ones!

* Every time the doorbell rings, Violet screams “hi!!!!!” and usually shouts it again as we make our way down the stairs to let someone in.

* She has been having a two-syllable word explosion. She had a number of them to begin with, but it has really started taking off. She’s at the point of imitating nearly every word we say, and I have completely lost count of how many words she uses correctly on her own… seriously, I think we’ve surpassed 50 already.

* She has started bringing us books when she wants us to read them. If I’m sitting on the floor, she’ll bring me a book, then she’ll turn around, back up, and sit carefully on my lap. It’s so cute… positioning herself for storytime on my lap

* She walks to the potty herself now – I just tell her it’s time to go to the potty, and we walk through the house to the bathroom and she says “paa!! paa!!” She particularly enjoys flushing. :p I only let her do that when she’s pooped or peed, as a little reward. We wave and say “bye bye!” to the poop and pee. She loves that.

* With Violet’s super mobility, she’s no longer content to be confined to the living room most of the time, so I’ve taken to leaving the baby gates open, and I’ve put a gate at the top of the stairs now so she can roam. I had to step up the house-wide baby-proofing to the next level since she is out and about, but there are still a few areas here and there where she has to be supervised. She is also getting ridiculously tall and reaching on top of some lower counters and pulling things down, so we have to be careful of that now.

* She’s getting lots of random teeth on the sides now, even though she still doesn’t have one of her front bottom ones (she has three there, but not the lower left one yet of that set of four).

eating Udon noodles

* She has started drinking from straws. I had been giving her water / milk from a cup and tried a sippy cup (which she treated like a toy), but couldn’t get her to drink a significant amount of anything. Then at the suggestion of another mama, we tried a straw cup and yes, that is the solution!! We started with Jamba Juice and she got the idea well because it’s thick enough to stay up near the top part of the straw, so she could discover by accidental sucking that there as a reward, motivating her to continue. Then we moved to cow milk in a cup (even though she doesn’t need it right now, she needs to get used to it for when we eventually wean). The straw cup is definitely the solution to getting her to drink and not play with it or reject it. Something’s fun about it to her. I bought her a Zoli straw cup and LOVE it – there’s a little heavy weight at the bottom of the flexible straw and gravity helps it move around no matter how the cup is positioned (even if they tip it up like a sippy cup), and it doesn’t leak. My only suggestion for improvement would be to make it like the Lifefactory bottles that are glass with a silicone cover to prevent breakage. I’d much rather she be drinking out of glass than plastic because of the chemical leaching issues with plastic (even the BPA-free ones).

* She so cutely exclaims “Oh!” sometimes. She was flipping through a cookbook and pointed at a soup and exclaimed “Ooohh!” Just so cute.

* I think she’s ready to start coloring, so I ordered her some crayons (some non-toxic Melissa and Doug ones that are triangle-shaped so they don’t roll off tables / under couches, etc). She was coloring with a pen the other day…. so cute.

* She has been making all manner of animal sounds – she now says oink, meow, woof, cheep, cluck, moo, and flap (yes, penguins say “flap flap” :p).

Using the Swiffer

* She loves to be my little helper, swiffering, “putting away dishes” from the dishwasher (goodness help me), unpacking groceries (some of which she sometimes puts on the correct shelf). Yes, she’s gotten the idea that “things have their place” and will often put things where they belong… put blocks back in the bag they belong in, put baby food on the baby food shelf, etc.

* She has gotten to be decent at feeding herself with the spoon, with the caveat that she has decided that the spoon fits best in her mouth when it is upsidedown… so she fills it right side up, then turns it upsidedown to put it in her mouth, and sometimes the food falls out onto her bib. :p But by and large, she does a good job. So I let her feed herself oatmeal in the morning (and I help a bit).

* She was in awe of some fish we saw at Crab Cove yesterday… there was a nice fish tank in the visitors center, and not too overcrowded with loud children – it was really peaceful and she really enjoyed the fish. She says fish like “chish.” (She hasn’t mastered the “f” sound yet.)

Showing off her new hair clip

* She has begun hiding…. Now that she is allowed to roam around the house, she’ll go hide behind doors, hampers, etc… the first time this happened and I didn’t know where she was and called out to her and she didn’t reply, my heart was racing… goodness. But I found her hiding behind a hamper down the hall, with a mischievous, high-adrenaline look on her face. Now it has become a game (Ming actually plays hide-and-seek with her sometimes).

* She will sit down next to things she shouldn’t be getting into when she has the opportunity, instead of getting into them – like she wants to get into trouble, but is restraining herself. I was in the other room cleaning and the office door was open, and she went up to the office and sat down outside it and stared in and I came out and saw her there, restraining herself from going in. If I were there, she’d just go into the office, but since I’m not there and she knoooowwwwsss, she doesn’t. She has done this in a number of situations.

* She has started testing limits and seeing if we really mean “no” in a number of situations – outlets in the kitchen that she has access to (I have baby outlet plugs in them, but I still don’t let her play with them), stove burner knobs (our stove was designed by a stupid, childless person who put the knobs to ignite and change the gas flow on the front, in reach of 1 year olds) – anyway, I’ve decided it’s not a good idea to say “no” repeatedly or to get frustrated or try to shout be scary or firm – all of those things I think are inappropriate and ineffective and just get the parent frustrated and have a negative impact on the emotional welfare of the child – so what I do (which seems to be working) is to kneel down in her face, tell her not to do it and tell her if she does it again, she will have to leave the kitchen and say bye bye kitchen (I word it both ways so she understands me – which I know she does understand me), and I redirect her to something else that will engage her attention (this is the key part – little ones this age need to be redirected on to something else, or else they’ll just go back to doing the forbidden thing). If  she does it again, I remove her from the kitchen (I put her into the living room, which is 100% baby proofed and next to the kitchen, and she usually stands at the gate whining to get in). I tell her why she had to leave the kitchen and she’s not allowed in for 2 minutes. Then I let her back in and see if she’ll behave. She behaves.

Stroller walk at the beach

* She has started saying words at the same time she does the baby signs for them. One cute and useful one is “milk” – she will now say and sign it at the same time, which is super useful because some of her other words sound like milk (like “melt” which is what she calls her yogurt melts), and in her youth, she used to sign “milk” to mean other things (not so much anymore). Yesterday, she signed and said milk in her high chair, and I gave her cow milk in the straw cup and she drank it. It was so great. She knows that she can use words and signs to indicate specific needs that I can then fill. This is SO much better than generic screeching and whining. It’s contextual though – so, she knows she gets mama milk (nursing) when she signs and says it when she’s not in the high chair, but knows she gets cowie milk when she’s in the high chair. We don’t have a different sign for the two things. Ideally, this will make weaning easier down the road since a word and concept won’t have disappeared. (We’ll see.)

the beach

* She has taken to climbing…. she tries to climb over one of her baby gates… she stacks cereal boxes and tries to climb to reach higher on a shelf in the kitchen… goodness gracious. For now, I just let her try to climb the gate (it’s in effective), and I dismantle the stacked boxes to deter her … but I know eventually we’ll have to proceed to the NEXT layer of baby-proofing.

the first lasagna I've made

* Stacking – yes, now she stacks things. She used to just knock down things, but she recently showed us that, yes, she does know how to stack things too. She stacks baby food jars, pinto bean boxes, cereal boxes…. yes, most of her stacking occurs in the kitchen (she’s not super into stacking her toys or blocks…. ha)

* She has been singing for awhile, sort of random humming, but lately she has been singing actual words of songs… Like when we sing “head and shoulders, knees and toes,” she hums most of it but sings “head” and “mouth” and sometimes “eye” (she knows how to say head, toes, eyes, mouth, and nose). She also likes to sing the ABC song, which her little music table plays… she says a few of the letters. She’ll generally pick out one letter per part of the alphabet, so it’ll be like “A A A A E E E I I I I N N O T T T” etc… but it’s super cute and you can tell when she’s singing the ABCs for sure. She also dances while she sings… and dances in general when she hears music. She definitely prefers songs that are faster and with a good back beat.

playing with our wedding conicals

* She loves pulling off her socks (and exclaiming “sock!”). This is the first thing she does when she wakes up from a nap in her crib. I can’t keep socks on this girl if she doesn’t also have shoes on – she just loves pulling them off.

Whew, ok, those are the recent milestones and anecdotes. As for what else has been going on, I feel like Violet and I have been battling cold after cold this winter, having had four of them now. It’s rough because I love going to playdates and the social interaction, but being sick really hits me hard and sends everything to a screeching halt. I am feeling about 90% over this last cold,

distributing chocolate

but Violet is realllllly sick from this last one. So sick that I actually brought her in to the doctor, which I’ve never had to do for her colds before. It was coming out of her eyes even, and she has so much congestion. She even vomited from choking on mucus. She stopped eating for a few days, and stopped being able to nap because of coughing fits from post-nasal drip every time she lay down. She’d cry out so painfully in her sleep, and let out a painful cry every time she coughed. She even went through a period of not wanting to play constantly (she’d just sit down and cough and cry – that has never happened before). Man, it has been rough. The doctor thinks it’s probably RSV, which tends to manifest as “more severe than a typical cold.” Violet didn’t have a fever and no wheezing sounds in her lungs and her O2 sat is fine, so she didn’t need any treatment. I was so

got her to drink Jamba Juice when she wouldn't eat

worried she’d drown in all the mucus since she isn’t clearing it well. Steaming her the bathroom didn’t seem to really help. And she hates the nose snot sucker. So we’re just riding it out for now. Doctor gave us a list of a few things to watch out for, but so far she’s just holding constant. I’ll probably bring her in again if she hasn’t improved in another week. She’s back to napping and not coughing in her sleep, it’s stopping coming out of her eyes, and she’s resumed eating, so at least that’s an improvement, even though the congestion is still awful. Poor little thing! She’s still running around playing and being happy while she’s awake though, so she’s a strong little baby girl.

I’m itching to get some exercise – get back to my pilates, yoga, and stroller walks. I’m still not 100% and I’m not sure whether to go for it or rest, but we’re going to go for some light walking at the zoo today as a long-overdue family outing. I’m 4 pounds away form my pre-baby weight, despite not being able to exercise, so that’s good news. And I’m up to working about 20-25 hours a week (from home) and enjoying it. We’re finding a good rhythm, and I’ve found some good nannies. It’s always in flux with finding part-time nannies, when their schedules change, when they find other employment and you have to audition someone new… but I’ve learned to just roll with it and be flexible with scheduling.

Ok that’s all for this naptime post!

Angela

Happy birthday to Violet!

Lots more photos on our smugmug account, and videos on our YouTube account.

On January 20th, Violet turned a whole year old! Happy Birthday to Violet! To celebrate, we spent the morning together as a family at home before Ming had to leave for work around noon. We let her open presents from us and presents send by family, and she had lots of fun ripping open wrapping paper like at Christmas. I made her a special cake the day before and we let her have at it. She actually was

very gentle with it, not your typical “smash cake” instance – it was covered in fondant, so not very messy in any case. We both thought she would go for the chocolate butterflies since she loves butterflies, but she actually went straight for the little balls of white fondant. We quickly realized she thought they were the little fresh mozzarella balls we have been feeding her, as she attempted to taste one and looked confused. Cute! Eventually, she tasted a chocolate butterfly and realized those are delicious. The cake itself was actually banana bread, which she enjoyed eating as well. Violet and I did a lot of good playing that afternoon, had a phone call with Ming’s parents, had a few little friends over for a birthday playdate to celebrate later that afternoon, and then we ended the day with a Skype session with my father and brother back in Boston. One of my presents to Violet was a photobook I made her about my pregnancy with her and her newborn days, so we read that as one of our special bedtime stories that night!

A couple days before her birthday, we had her 1 year well-baby visit to the doctor where she got all her shots and measurements, and had some blood drawn to check hematocrit and lead levels (all fine, whew!). Violet is 85th percentile in height (30 inches), the same percentile as her last visit when she shot up off her previous 50th percentile curve. She is 45th percentile inweight (20 pounds, 5 ounces), still on the same curve she’s been on since birth. Her head is always around 45th, too. She had all her vaccines – physically, she took them really well – no pain, swelling, fever, or apparent discomfort or any physical issues whatsoever following the vaccine or in the couple

Demanded to read the cereal box after turning 1

weeks afterwards (sometimes with MMR/chickenpox, side effects emerge a couple of weeks later, but she had none). Emotionally, they were pretty hard for her, and she had a fear of strangers the rest of the day… and well, actually, she still has a little bit of a fear of being set down in a new place, but part of that I think is just the developmental stage she’s in where she doesn’t like to be separated from me until she knows it’s a safe, fun environment. She usually warms up after 20 minutes, especially if there are toys around. A lot of people feel like their babies are growing up too quickly when their babies turn 1, but Violet has actually started snuggling with me more suddenly, which she never used to take the time to stop and do, so I feel like I have my snuggly little baby still. That, combined with the fact that she is still nursing 6-7 times a day, so a baby she still is!

Violet’s word explosion continues. She says about 40 or so words now, I’d guess. I had to stop keeping track after her 1st bday because there were so many new ones, but the list up til then is: doggie, up, toss, hat, clock, hi, “Hi, love”, bye, no no, hot, cado (for “avocado”), heart, eye (while pointing to an eye on a doll), nose (while pointing to a nose), teddy, duckie and duck, kitty, this, that, mama, uh oh, di di (diaper), dot (we point out dots in books), nana (“banana”), aa (“apple”), chich (“fish”), sock, cracker (she says “crack”). Man, there are so many more atthis point, but that’s the list I had written down back when I was still keeping track. My criteria for what counts as a word is if she spontaneously produces it in the correct context and it contains at least one of the syllables of the word (so, while she doesn’t say “banana,” I count it as a word since she says “nana” while pointing to bananas when we see them in the kitchen or store). She imitates countless other words, but I only start counting them when she generates them without me saying it first.

with mama's kitty from 1981

Anyway, it is truly amazing to watch her language skills grow. For example, now when I put a plate of warm food on the table that is steaming, she sees the steam and points and says “hot!” I had taught her the word ‘hot’ when I would blow on food, I’d call it “hot” and she started saying it at first when I’d blow on food. But she must have noticed that when I blow on food, there is also steam present that indicates it must be hot, so now she says it when she sees steam. I can’t believe she put those concepts together!!! There was one time I pointed out the steam to her, so maybe she just was paying attention and connected it then, but I don’t know. Super amazing that she is connecting concepts like that!! I think she has a vague idea of what ‘hot’ actually means because she has touched some food that was a little on the warm side and didn’t want to pick it up, so I told her it was ‘hot.’

sample dinner for Violet: lamb, zucchini, rice, lentils

Suddenly, now that Violet is 1, her food sensitivities seem to have disappeared. She hasn’t had a food diaper rash in weeks now, and can even eat zucchini (previously one of the foods that gave her a rash). And now that she is 1, we can start giving her basically everything (except eggs, shellfish, and nuts), so she has been trying out a lot of new foods. She LOVES salmon, but is still making up her mind about eggplant. She’s not a fan of parsnip, but does like radish. And really, really does not like tofu… man I wish I had captured that one on video. Even though she nurses so frequently, she also

She really likes "Oh the thinks you can think"

eats solid food like a champ. We were wondering if we were feeding her too much since she eats sooooo much, but her weight is 45th percentile, so she is regulating her calories well. It’s all that running around she is doing! We have been doing our homework of trying to get her to drink milk from a cup – even though it’s not nutritionally important right now since she is nursing, she will eventually need to drink milk for the calcium, so the doctor said to start introducing the concept now so she doesn’t reject it later. She’ll take a sip or two, but that’s it…. so we’ll just work with that for now.

What else is going on…. Ming is working but also having some time for family (yay!), I am still working part time, Violet is officially down to one 1.5 hour nap at 11am (though this past week she has taken a few 2-3 hour naps, so let’s hope that trend continues!), we had our third cold of the season and I am ready for Spring. Can’t believe daylight savings switch is around the corner once again – time flies! Oh, and I started going to a weekly knit night in town for relaxation and fun socializing! We live in such a nice town with some really nice people to get to know. I’m not sure what I’m knitting right now (maybe trivets?), but I am mastering the basket weave stitch, in any case.

Cute Violetisms…. she now does a cow “moooo” but it sounds like “mmmmmmmm.” She enjoys helping me stuff her diapers, and playing with the swiffer in the kitchen. She LOVES playing in the kitchen in general. We’ve been out at night a couple times recently and she loves waving and saying “hi” to the moon (the moon appears in a lot of her storybooks, so to see it in person is awesome). Nearly every time we go out, we see doggies (still one of her favorite words), and she is super psyched about that. She says “bb bb bb” for blueberry, and she loves dancing and singing along with music.

Until next time!

Angela, Ming, and Violet

A week in the life

This week, I thought I’d try something new – I’m going to keep a daily journal of our goings on for one week! A week in the life of the Lukedragons (from mama Lukedragon’s perspective, anyway). Complete with iPhone photos snapped whilst on the go. I realized I’m inconsistent at reporting potty and nursing schedule, but basically she nurses 3 times in the morning before her nap, and then another 4 times before bed. And potty after every meal, when I can, and after every wakeup. And assume about 7 diaper changes a day. This has been a particular good week, with Ming working from home a bunch, so hooray for that!

Thursday 1/12/12: 

7:30am – Violet woke up, after 11.75 uninterrupted hours. Ming let me sleep in again, as he has been so kind to do the past couple of weeks. He requires about 2.5 hours less sleep than I do, which I’m super jealous of!

Violet's lamb shoes

8am – I woke up, nursed Violet, finished the laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, called Blue Shield to find the address to which I send Violet’s proof of prior coverage since she is on a new plan and otherwise they will charge her a surcharge without proof, stuffed Violet’s cloth diapers, showered and got dressed, ate breakfast, got Violet dressed. Ming did work on the computer while she played, fed her baby oatmeal cereal + pears for breakfast.

Violet's baby shoes

9:15am –  Violet and I left to go to a local shop owner’s store for a town playdate with children of various ages. There were kids ranging from 8 weeks to 3 years old. The shop owner hosts lots of playdates, knit nights, and crafts night, which are an awesome way to connect with the community and have some fun during the day. Her back room is decked out with lots of kiddo toys, and Violet enjoyed playing with a tricycle, doll house, ball, music table, and then decided to wander around the store, where she fell in love with a deep blue tea pot and kept switching between pointing at that and a picture of boats – so I taught her the words for “tea pot” (she says “pa”) and “boat” (which she didn’t imitate) – I must have said them about 50 times. There was a 10 month old energetic, friendly boy who kept wanting to climb up Violet and play with her, but Violet was intimidated and cried for mama – it takes her awhile to warm up to new people, and she’s happen to play alongside them, but gets scared when they get in her personal space. Good learning experiences, with mama there to help her. It was actually nice that she wanted to sit near me for the first 45 minutes because I actually got to SIT instead of chasing her around for once. But inevitably, she got comfortable and started walking around everywhere. It was nice to have a chance to see familiar mamas and meet some new ones!

11am – Back at home. Nursed Violet to sleep for 10 minutes. While Violet napped, I started this entry, ate a snack, did some scheduling, took care of emails, got Blue Cross to fax Blue Shield with proof of prior coverage to remove surcharge, wrote a thank you card for a gift Violet received, added to Violet’s book wishlist on amazon.com, ordered on amazon.com the baby nail clippers that we lost on our Yosemite trip.

Violet enjoying fresh mozzarella

12:30pm- Violet woke up from her nap. I rocked her back to sleep for 15min, put her in her crib, she woke up, tried rocking again, to no avail. She peed in her potty while we read her baby swan book, then we had lunch: for me, leftover lamb shank, carrots, celery, jasmine rice (cooked fresh), bell pepper (steamed fresh), fresh mozzarella. For Violet: peas, green beans, avocado, yellow squash, fresh mozzarella. After cleaning up, I nursed her again, put her on the potty, wrestled to get her clothes on.

2pm – We headed out for a 3 mile/1 hour stroller walk with three mamas from a mom’s club I joined.

3:45pm – Then Violet and I whisked over to our gym where we met up with Ming after he got off work, and I took a 4:30pm yoga class (which helps my post-pregnancy aches and calms my mind) while he worked out in the gym, and Violet played at the gym childcare. Yesterday, they had to page us to come get her because she was frantically and inconsolably wailing (separation anxiety), but today she did much better – she was off and on upset, but they were able to distract and console her for the hour we were away.

5:45pm –  We headed home, played for a bit, cooked dinner together (three separate dinners! Ming likes spices and sauces, I don’t, and Violet is still on restriction due to rashes)

6:30pm – Ming gave Violet a bath while I cleaned up from dinner and started the dishwasher, then he cleaned the rest of the dishes while I watched some Baby Signs DVD with Violet.

7:15pm – Family story time! Ming read “Oh the thinks you can think” and I read “Goodnight Gorilla” (two of her favorite books). She was repeating a lot of the single-syllable words that ended each page.

7:45pm – I nursed her to drowsiness and put her in her crib. After Violet went to sleep, I checked email, Facebook, BabyCenter, read some 1Q84 in bed and tried to go to sleep at 10pm (couldn’t fall asleep til 11pm! need to calm my mind).

Violet’s new words/phrases today were “Hi, love” (I thought she was just saying “hello” but I realized I had been saying “Hi, love” to her today), heart, and I swear she named all the farm animals on her Old MacDonald finger puppet book. Oh and I forgot “Eyes” on her word list from the other day. Today she actually pointed to a doll’s eyes and said “eye.” Today was a 1 nap day again (she didn’t fall asleep in the car on the way to Yoga.)

Friday 1/13/12: 

7:15am – Violet woke up after 11.75 uninterrupted hours of sleep. Ming got up with her, took her to the potty (she’s good about pooping on it when she wakes up).

Holding her Morning O's hostage (threatening to drop them on the floor, over and over)

7:30am – I woke up. I really benefit from those extra 15-30 minutes. Ming started the diaper laundry and brought his car over to the shop to be fixed. I nursed Violet, we played for a little bit, and then I fed her oatmeal cereal with pears and had my breakfast. She gets Morning O’s (like Cheerios, but organic) for finger foods at breakfast, and she keeps holding them hostage, threatening to drop them over the edge of the highchair, with this brisk motion and intense face. It’s too much. She’ll do it, too, unless I say “no, no.” Ming walked the few blocks home and did some computer work while Violet and I played.

9:45am – I nursed Violet again and got her changed, dressed, and into the car for a trip to the retirement home. Once a month, we go to a playgroup there and play with the retirees. This was her first time there since starting walking, and she had fun playing with all the toys (especially the inflatable ball) and waving and saying “hi” to everyone. She was less intimidated than at the playgroup yesterday (probably because we got there before anyone else so she got her bearings and got excited, and the kids were also more mellow today).

11:30am – I went through lengthy, ridiculous measures trying to keep her awake on the car ride home, since this visit coincides with her nap start time. If she fell asleep in the car, she would wake up when I took her out 20 minutes later and not go back to sleep for the rest of the day once inside the house. Luckily, my measures worked and I got her home awake. Ming got some good computer-based work done while we were away.

12pm – Ming changed her and dressed her for nap, and I nursed her to sleep (one hour later than normal). During her nap, I finished the diaper laundry, ate lunch, wrote a bit of this, got caught up with emails, did some scheduling. Ming went to get his car and go grocery shopping and then cook for dinner later at a friend’s house.

1:30pm – Violet woke up, potty time, then cooking for lunch time, dishes, cleaning up.

Some of the new (used) clothes

3pm – I got Violet changed and dressed, and we went out to the bank, the post office to mail a TY note and a return package (Violet’s snow boots… it never snowed!), to pick up a $35 used bag of 18M-2T clothes and a pair of shoes from a BPN mama.

4:30-7:30pm – Dinner at a friend’s house who has a baby that is 3 months younger than Violet. They did some fun playing, and we had a yummy dinner where the babies behaved themselves and we actually got to hold an adult conversation! At one point, I blew on some food to cool it down and she said “hot,” so it seems that she is using AND understanding that word. Violet kept getting scared when her 9 month old friend would crawl towards her, so we’ve decided she is afraid of being chased / her personal space being invaded, whereas she is happen to interact with other kids that are sitting nicely next to her or when they are being held. Maybe it stems from the little boy grabbing her yesterday, or maybe she has some innate desire not to be chased (I *hated* the game “tag” as a kid – it made me so afraid). After yummy dinner and good company, Ming headed off to a concert and Violet and I went home, changed her into jammies, and I read her “Goodnight Gorilla” and then let her flip through the book and “read” it to me. She pointed at the pictures on the wall in the book and said “picture!” – I have to think that was a total fluke of luck that she said that, but we’ll see if she does it again tomorrow night. She also pointed to the eyes on one page and said “eye.” On the way inside the house with Violet strapped to me in the Ergo baby carrier, 2 bags over my shoulder, and 2 bags in my hands, I found myself wondering how the heck anyone does this with more than one kid. If it’s daytime, the older kids can walk (I *guess*, but you still have to hold their hands crossing the street!), but Violet was so sleepy – am I supposed to strap her to my bag and the baby to my front someday when we have two kids?? Maybe you just don’t go out separately from your spouse at that stage in the game.

8pm – Ming went to a friend’s concert while I brought Violet home, changed her for bed, read her Goodnight Gorilla, and nursed her to drowsiness and put her in her crib for the night (a bit later than normal).  After Violet went to sleep, I put away things from the bags, went through emails, FB, BabyCenter, read a little 1Q84, and did my nightly paper journaling of “5 things that resonated positively with me today” that I have been doing all week before bed. Then I went to sleep at t 10:30pm (right after Ming got home).

Saturday 1/14/12:

7:50am – I woke up. What’s that? BEFORE Violet? Why, yes. Yes indeed! I actually had the glorious luxury of taking 5 minutes to fully open my eyes, stretch, wake up slowly, and check email/FB before getting out of bed when she woke up.

8:15am – Violet woke up – she miraculously slept in (12 uninterrupted hours of sleep), and didn’t even make a peep in the night for once – I should clarify that by “uninterrupted sleep,” I mean that we don’t have to go in there, but often she cries out. Not last night though! And I often find that when she goes to sleep later, she still wakes up at the same 7:15am time, but today she generously slept in.  Ming went into get her, and she was playing happily in her crib, babbling, pointing and exclaiming about things… so cute. It’s nice when she’s in a happy mood when she wakes up, because it means she is well-rested. She is always happy waking up in the mornings since we sleep trained her, and she is happy waking up from naps like 60% of the time. Makes me think she could deal with more naptime sleep sometimes, but we try everything in our power to get her to go back to sleep, and it doesn’t always happen. At least she sleeps well at night! I ran a poll in my January 2011 birth group on BabyCenter asking moms how many hours their babies nap for in a day now – check out the previous blog post for results. After Violet woke up, I nursed her, Ming did potty with her, I started the laundry for the used clothes I bought for her yesterday, and then we lounged and listened to some of The Invisible Gorilla on audiobook (my book club’s next book) while Violet played in the room with us. I took the opportunity to just lay there and relax, and Ming did his version of relaxing, which is using his computer (reddit and all that).

9am – We fed Violet oatmeal cereal and banana and ate breakfast, I nursed her again, and then I took Violet into our bedroom and let her walk around and read books and explore while I cleaned the room. Then Ming came in and read some books with her (Olivia Saves the Circus and Oh The Thinks You Can Think). Violet was so cute – after the Olivia book, she climbed over to the end table and grabbed Oh The Thinks You Can Think for Ming to read her next – she really likes that book. He tried reading her Fox in Socks next, but we can never get her to sit and listen through that book – I think it’s a little too rhyme-laden and incomprehensible and she prefers the slow of normal language.

10am – I swooped away to take a shower (I always feel like I have to make a run for it and just go take a shower before anyone can stop me. :p).

11am – Ming changed Violet and got her in jammies for a nap and I nursed her to drowsiness and put her in her crib, where she rolled over and drifted off to sleep. I was surprised she went down so willingly at her usual time given that she had slept in an extra hour this morning, but she’s pretty programmed to be sleepy at 11am and 7:30pm. During her nap, I updated this entry, cleaned the living room and organized her toys (we are always missing one ring on her ring stack, never the same one, and it drives me nuts!), put the laundry in the dryer, cleaned the hallway, contacted a charitable organization to come pick up our old (but well-functioning) CRT TV for donation, called the credit card company to have them stop sending me balance transfer checks so I don’t have to keep shredding them unnecessarily, folded Violet’s laundry from the dryer, coordinated schedules with Ming for the next month, and wrote up my list of questions for Violet’s 1 year well-baby doctor’s visit.

12:30pm – Violet woke up, Aunty Mel came over for a visit, where we did lots of playing and Violet fell in love with Mel’s purse and taking things out of it and putting things in. Ming cooked us a delicious lunch and we played and played and played. Ming played for a bit, but then got some studying done.

5:30pm – Mel went home, we had dinner.

6:30pm – Violet’s bath, Baby Signs DVD + jammies, and family storytime. Usually Ming isn’t home for the nighttime ritual (dinner, bath, storytime), so we have been enjoying it with him home!

7:45pm – Nursed Violet and put her in her crib for the night.. Then it was time for some computer catch-up time, including 1.5 hours of scheduling on for me…. I try to block designated times for my part-time work and for play dates, and work all this around Ming’s schedule so as to maximize family time (I try to avoid scheduling work or playdates for the limited times he is home). Ended with my “5 resonating positives” paper journal entry.

10pm – My attempt to go to sleep… Had a little trouble falling asleep again, ugh! (Why have I been staying up so late lately?? Maybe because Ming has been able to help in the mornings.

Sunday 1/15/12: 

7:07am – Violet woke up (11.25 uninterrupted hours). Ming got her and took her to the potty.

7:30am – I got up. We had breakfast, did potty again, Ming started the diapers washing, and we did some low key playing at home. While playing, she did TWO somersaults. She has been doing this thing for the past couple of weeks where she stands up, bends forward, and puts her head and hands on the ground, like she’s going to do a somersault, and today she finally did it! A little gymnast in the making. Oh, on the potty this morning, she did the sign for “Ball” twice, for the first time, as we were flipping through her BabySigns book. I feel like that’s her first “obscure” sign… well, I guess it’s not that obscure, given that she has a couple balls at home. Just seems like such an advanced sign. She has been enjoying pointing to balls and balloons in her books though. There was a heart on one of the pages and she said “heart.” When we got to the sign for “hot,” I said “hot” and she repeated me. And when I showed her the sign for “mama” (fingers spread wide open, tap thumb to chin)  and said “mama,” she smiled and did the “milk” sign with both hands – yeah, apparently “mama” is synonymous with “milk” to her. She has been doing the “milk” sign sometimes when I know she isn’t hungry (if she just nursed 20 minutes ago or something), but needs mama-snuggles comfort.

11am – I nursed her to sleep for 10 minutes (Ming had headed off to work earlier that morning). I finished the diaper laundry, updated this entry, began reconciling our Dec 2011 family budget, and then Violet woke up after 45 minutes… ack! I think it was my fault – her diaper had leaked pee, and I neglected to put her on the potty before naptime (I always regret not putting her on before naps, so I almost always do now) – so she was holding it, and that plus the nursing was just too much. Ug! Obviously, she wasn’t going back to sleep after that.

11:45am – Violet woke up from her nap. Luckily, Ming came home from work for lunch and played with her for 45 minutes while I finished the budget and got together the estimate quarterly taxes for mailing.

12:30pm – Ming headed back to work, Violet and I had lunch and I kept her occupied with finger foods while doing the dishes and cleaning.

1:30pm – Violet and I went to the library for family storytime. On the way out to the car, it was windy, and Violet really enjoyed seeing the leaves blowing in the wind. At 8 months old, she’d sit calmly and listen to the story, watch other children. But now, she just wanted to walk around, chatter, point and exclaim, try to engage the other kids who were listening to the story, try to take the storybook, etc. Sooooo, not sure whether we will head to these again. BUT the library is a fun place to take her because she can walk around the children’s section, play with other kids, and they have lots of board books that she doesn’t have.

3pm – After the library, we headed up to Berkeley to join Ming at work (BCCO soloist auditions). Since Violet had missed half of her morning nap, she actually took a 45 minute nap in the car on the way there (phew!) so that she ended up having her grand total daily requirement of 1.5 hours of nap time.

3:50pm – We headed inside the house at which the auditions were being held, and the hostess had lots of toys at her house, so Violet played, and then sat in our laps a little stunned and clingy while listening to the powerful operatic soloists. After the first three, she relaxed a bit and started chatting and walking around the house, so we headed home shortly thereafter, since I got tired while chasing her.

5pm – We headed home, and had dinner at 5:30pm and Violet played with her toys at home after. I got caught up with some computer stuff.

7:15pm – potty, jammies, storytime, then Violet nursed to bed at 7:45pm! Ming got home from work at 8pm. We got some computer stuff done, had some conversation, and I made it to bed by 10pm. (Still, too late!!)

Monday 1/16/12:

7am – Violet woke up, Ming did potty and played with her.

7:40am – I got up, nursed Violet, played with her, fed her cereal breakfast, did potty with her a couple of times, let her roam around the house with me in tow (usually we keep the rest of the house gated off, so she loves when we let her loose). Ming did a rampant cleaning of the kitchen surfaces, using water and the juice of a fresh lemon (who knew you could just do that instead of using harsh cleaners), then he did the vacuuming. Violet LOVES the vacuum, while she fears being chased by crawling babies (what?). Violet helped me stuff her diapers (ie, she played with them, handed some to me, took some away, while I stuffed them).

10:30am – Violet got sleepy early today, so headed down for her nap 30 minutes early. I tried to call the bank to open her an account, but lo and behold, it is a holiday and they are closed. I got some emails done, checked facebook, checked in with Ming about following up on life insurance policies and him writing his will, started patent application for my research (long overdue IMHO, but technically still within the allowable window).

12pm – Violet woke up after her standard 1.5 hour nap. Ming tried rocking her back to sleep (we always try to get her to nap longer, but it never works). So we got her up, I nursed her, and we walked a couple blocks down the street to another mama’s house who was selling 18m-3T girls clothes for $1 each, and board books for 50 cents each. We got about 25 items of clothes, and 8 books, and Violet was in heaven flipping through the books this afternoon. She also enjoyed seeing lots of doggies on the walk.

1:45pm – We got home, cooked, and ate lunch. I let Violet play with water from her cup, soaking herself, while I cleaned up. Then I took Violet out and had her wash her hands (she is into this these days – really gets it. Thank goodness, due to the avocado all over her hands…) Whenever she’s in the high chair, she always points out the window in the direction of the tree right outside the window, and says things… I always thought she was pointing at the tree, but today she pointed at it and said “doggie!” and I was like… um… no… that’s a tree. But then I looked closer, from her angle, and realized she could see a reflection from the street, and there was indeed a doggie walking by in that reflection. Ha! She’s alway seeing things I don’t see. Then I let her play in the livingroom with her new books, attended by Ming who was doing computer work, while I started laundry for the clothes we just got.

3pm – I tried at 3pm and 4pm to get her to take a second nap (as I always do), and yet again, she decided she didn’t want it. We read her new books and I rested on the couch for the first time today.

4:30 – 7:30pm – I have a mother’s helper watch Violet while I do my part-time science consulting job. Violet played, ate dinner, had a bath, and got her jammies on, and my helper miraculously cleaned up the toys in the living room, saving me some time later. Ming headed out for work around 5:30pm.

7:45pm – Storytime with mama! “Oh the thinks you can think” and “Goodnight Gorilla” are this week’s favorites. Nursed Violet to sleep, and she was in her crib at 8pm.

8pm – I eat dinner, and do some bulk cooking for the week while I eat (for the week, I cooked several servings of farro, jasmine rice, quinoa, squash + zucchini + bell pepper). Folded laundry. Then I watched a little of the Betty White 90th Birthday Tribute (funny and cute! wow, it’s been awhile since I had the TV on. There’s an outside world at night!), updated this entry, checked email, and the farro didn’t finish cooking until about 9:15pm. Where did the time go?? Off to bed for me, with a little reading beforehand. (This 1Q84 book is realllllllly slow so far; not sure how much longer I’ll continue.)

Tuesday 1/17/12:

7:45am – Violet woke up, and I did shortly thereafter (Ming got up with her). We did a whirlwind getting-ready routine (nursing, shower, more nursing) before our morning nanny arrived.

9-11am – I did science consulting work while Violet played with the nanny in our living room and had proper breakfast. Ming left for work around 10am.

11-11:45am – Violet and I had lunch.

12-12:45pm – Drove down to Menlo Park for an appointment. Violet napped in the car, and woke up when we got there. This baby just will not stay asleep once the car is put in park. :p

1:30-2:30pm – Mama’s appointment.

2:30-3:30pm – Drove back home.

In some of her new used clothes

3:30-5:45pm – I played, and played, and played with Violet, who has been a little clingy in the evening lately. She’s even snuggling with me these days – just coming over and resting her head on me and hugging/snuggling with me. It’s so sweet! I love this phase. We read books, played with various toys, and she is so amused when I lay down in her jungle (this playmat with jungle animals dangling).

5:45pm-7:45pm – Morning nanny came back to watch Violet so I could attend my first ever knit night at a local shop. I loved it! I hadn’t knitted since being on bedrest after Violet’s birth, but it came back pretty quickly. I’m working on a scarf (or something! we’ll see) done following a basket weaving pattern. Knitting is so meditative, and it’s so fun to chat and gab with other women without the babies around. What a nice break!

7:45-8pm – I got Violet dressed for bedtime, read stories, and nursed her to a state of relaxation, but her eyes were wide open. I put her in her crib, and she rolled over and drifted off to sleep. Such a good little baby. Man, she totally didn’t go to sleep this easily when she was a newborn (or for the first 9 months of her life, really).

8:10pm – Ming got home from work, we caught up, had dinner, got computer stuff done. I did more scheduling (scheduled my morning helper through the end of February, and send out an inquiry to a nanny that was recommended to me since I’m looking for some additional coverage these days to get more work done. Oh, Ming and I also decided to forego the gym childcare option since Violet has been pretty upset to be there lately, and I’m worried about her getting sick there too, which totally puts a 3 week cramp on our playdate style, and then I get sick and anyone who knows me knows I do not cope well when sick. Anyway, not that we know that she caught her two previous colds there, but I just want to minimize it while I can. Eventually, I’ll have no control over it (school and all), but for now, I’m going to enjoy some peace. :p Anyway, we are hiring someone to watch Violet in our home so we can go to the gym more regularly.)

10pm – I went to sleep. Again, so late!! But I always end up staying up this late because I need time to catch up and unwind a tiny bit before bed. Where does the time go.

Wednesday 1/18/12:

7:45am – Violet woke up, Ming gave her a bath. I woke up at 8am, then we hustled to get ready… showers, eating, nursing, dressing, etc, and were out the door by 9am on our way down to Menlo Park for Violet’s 1 year well-baby visit! Violet fell asleep for the last 30 minutes of the car ride down.

Pointing at the truck mobile in the Dr's office

10:30am – Got us some baby stats! Violet is 85th percentile in height (30 inches), the same percentile as her last visit when she shot up off her previous 50th percentile curve. She is 45th percentile in weight (20 pounds, 5 ounces), still on the same curve she’s been on since birth. She got all her 1 year vaccinations (MMR, chickenpox, pneumococcal, Hep A, can’t remember if there was something else), which was pretty traumatic for her. I think they affected her physically a lot less

Looking at the truck mobile, with her baby growth book

now that she is older, but emotionally they impacted her more. She had to get blood drawn to check lead levels afterwards, and after that, she got terrified at the sight of anyone unfamiliar because she thought they were going to hurt her. She was pretty upset for the next hour, but then fell asleep on the car ride back up, and woke up in a very good mood. I’m so glad the days of fever, inflammation, and crying are over – she used to suffer for the first 12 hours after vaccines

Sleeping with hand in empty cereal container on the way home (the only thing that would calm her down)

when she was 0-6 months old, but she tolerates them so much better physically now that she is older. Gave the doctor her milestones – she says and appropriately uses 17 words now (and will imitate countless others), she’s walking, eating like a champ, and she’s apparently early with her nap schedule – most babies switch to one nap between 12-18 months, but she did this around 11 months and now takes only one 1.5 hour nap. Given that she sleeps 11-12 uninterrupted hours at night and is in a good mood throughout the day (and usually doesn’t fall asleep

Loving the water fountain outside the Dr office

in the car unless it’s naptime), the doctor said it’s okay that she’s down to one relatively short nap. We also got the go-ahead to start giving her previously forbidden foods like carrots, strawberries, and fish, and we are going to try to push her nutritional diversity and monitor the food rash thing. Given our history, she still can’t eat nuts, shellfish, or eggs. And our homework is to start giving her breastmilk in a cup instead of just water in a cup, so that she gets used to drinking milk from a cup. Otherwise, when I eventually wean her in a year, she won’t be used to it and won’t want to drink milk from a cup (and she needs the calcium, even though she’s a good eater of cheese and yogurt). Oh, and back to the vaccines – apparently they can get bumps or have some other minor side effects even two weeks from now, which I thought was interesting. And the doctor talked with us about discipline (turns out we were already acting in line with her recommendation for this age), and the most effective way to deal with tantrums (which, thankfully, we have not encountered yet – she thinks maybe Violet’s propensity for good verbal communication will help her tantrum less). She has her next visit in 3 months. Oh, and for all you mamas scheduling 12 month baby visits, I learned that they can’t receive their shots more than 4 days before their birthday (we did it 2 days before) and that even doing it a couple days before could flag their future school to give you a hassle about how they weren’t really 12 months old when they have them, but technically they have to accept it if it was within 4 days, even if they give you a hassle. Knowledge to bookmark when scheduling your 12 month visit!

Playing at home after Dr visit

1:30 – We arrived back at home, after a brief stop by one of Ming’s work offices, and my little trip to Spun Sugar where I picked up some supplies for Violet’s birthday cake. I may not be throwing her a giant party, but by god I’m going to try my best to make her a cake that will amuse her. When we got home, Ming left for work in Modesto, and Violet and I had lunch and played and rested. Then I let her play on the kitchen floor for a bit while I made some chocolate hearts that I will decorate tomorrow in prep for her birthday Friday. She loves playing with kitchen things.

4:30-7:30pm – One of our nannies came over to play with Violet, feed her dinner, bathe her, and get her ready for bed while I did my science consulting work from home. Violet went pee on the potty twice for her. She’s getting good about going with the helpers now (she used to really only go for me).

Playing in the kitchen while I made chocolate hearts

7:45pm – I read Violet this week’s bedtime stories (she is starting to anticipate words that I will say on certain pages and say them herself). I had nursed her at 7pm, so she decided she didn’t need to nurse to sleep, so I just held her, rocked her, and sang to her. Then she flopped over on her side in my arms, which is the cue for me to put her in the crib. She roller over and went to sleep on her own. She is such a little snugglebear these days!

8:45pm – And here I am now finishing up this post before I head off to bed after an emotionally exhausting day worrying about how Violet would do! Ming is on his way home from work in Modesto. A few birthday packages arrived in the mail for Violet today, and we are excited to open them on Friday.

What a week it has been. It’s been a pretty great one. A nice balance of work, baby time, me time, and family time. I’d like to get to the gym more and get to bed earlier, but other than that, I wouldn’t change much. I do foresee more work hours ahead for me, but I feel good about the other factors that continually pull me to stay balanced. I was never this balanced before I had Violet, so it is pretty fantastic that she is helping me achieve that. She inspires me in so many ways. She’s so open and friendly with everyone, and startles and surprises people when she waves and shouts “Hi!” to them on the street. Ok, anyway, a nice mushy way to end this post.

Other Violet things of note….

She officially has her 7th tooth (the first 6 came in all at once at 8 months old). She doesn’t get teething pain, so that is nice. No drooling either, for that matter.

I forgot to mention in the Yosemite post a funny anecdote… we were hiking through the woods, and she kept pointing and saying “doggie!” and Ming and I kept paranoiedly looking for bears, since she sometimes calls other animals “doggie”… it was pretty funny.

Data trends among mamas of 1 year olds

One of the things I’ve been doing to relax after Violet goes to sleep is mining data from mamas of 1 year olds in my Baby Center birth group, in the form of polls. Some of the data are interesting, so I thought I’d share! All our babies are just about 1 year old, and the demographic seems pretty diverse – working moms, part-timers, stay at home moms.. different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds… different regions of the country. Some interesting commentary, stories, debates, and discussion in the comments, but those aren’t presented here. Here are the data:

Question 1: How many hours does your baby nap for total in one day (age 12 months)?

Question 2: How many date nights have you had since your baby was born (one year later)?

Question 3: One year after giving birth, how much pregnancy weight have you lost?

Question 4: How long did you / will you breastfeed? (Note that some people commented that they went for 9 months, but I accidentally didn’t have that in the poll ranges)

That’s all for now. I’m planning to post another update later this week! Check back then.

- Angela

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Well, vacation is over, but we thoroughly enjoyed Ming having some time off, and we seized family time with some lounging, cooking, playing, and even a 3-day trip to Yosemite. We had been to Yosemite two years ago, and we stayed again at the Tenaya Lodge, which is an awesome place adorned with holiday decorations and cozy fireplaces. They have lots of activities for families year round (sleigh rides, snow play area, gingerbread house building, ice skating rink, etc), though not quite age-appropriate yet for Violet, so we took the opportunity to do a lot of hiking, eating, and resting. There’s no snow this year so far in Yosemite, so it was very different than the last time we went, right after a fresh snowfall. Basically, you win either way with Yosemite – either you get to do lots of hiking readily (no snow) or you get to play and frolic in the snow and still do some light hiking (with snow).

Along the hike to Mirror Lake (4.5 miles), we saw a couple of deer up close, within 20 feet of us – so Violet got to see her first deer. Gorgeous scenery, flowing rivers/creeks, large mountainous rocks, green wintry trees, good exercise, good company. It was great. We also hiked at Mariposa Grove (2 miles), which was a new stop for us – got to see a lot of giant redwoods and sequoias. We, of course, visited lower Yosemite falls (2 miles). We make a tradition out of having a meal at the Ahwahnee in the valley, which is a huge, warm, romantic lodge (the only place in the valley with heat, too!), and a restaurant with delicious food. Their restaurant is the most welcoming and accommodating restaurant I have been to in terms of service, especially when you have a baby. Despite being rather upscale (and you’d think more geared towards the adult dining experience), they went out of their way to make sure Violet had everything she needed. Great service, great food, great ambiance, and a great way to relax after a 4.5 mile hike.

In previous years, we spent a lot of time relaxing, reading, journaling by various fireplaces – but it’s definitely a different experience bringing an almost 1 year old. First of all, the drive out there (and driving to and from the valley from the Tenaya, 45 minutes away) was at times stressful. We managed to time commutes with naps when possible, but it’s a 4.5 hour drive out there, and let’s just say we sang the ABC song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star over a hundred times (she really likes these for some reason). We also turned on the radio and sang along, making up song lyrics about doggies and using other various words we know she understands and loves to hear / use. This got to be pretty funny, current alternative/rock songs with lyrics about doggies…. and Violet was laughing a lot…. so we survived the car rides with some creativity and a lot of effort. Violet is obviously walking quite well now, and therefore not so content to be restrained in her ergo carrier or held for lengths of time exceeding 5 seconds. Luckily, the Tenaya has a LOT of open space – huge hallways, huge lodge common area… so Violet got to do lots of walking around, and we pretty much had to chase her around everywhere. Even on hikes, she wanted to be let down after awhile, so we let her do some walking on the Mariposa Grove hike. So while we had a lot of fun, and had moments of relaxing here and there, it’s definitely a more “active” experience with a walking baby. A bit harder than our usual scene, playing at home in our baby-proofed living room or at friends’ baby-proofed houses.

Violet had a major word explosion on the Yosemite trip. She will imitate TONS of 1 and 2 syllable words (and occasionally attempt to approximate larger ones). She is reliably saying (in an appropriate context) the words: hi (while waving), up (to be picked up), doggie (which she says 5 times in a row for actual doggies, and once for other animals), kitty (she JUST picked this back up, after losing it for a couple of months), cado (what we call “avocado”), clock (one of her favorites… yeah… what???), no no (she says this when resisting doing something she know she shouldn’t do), toss (when she tosses something, which she LOVES doing – but it sounds more like “ta” right now – still working on the ‘s’ sound), hat (which she does while doing the sign for hat), cold, uh oh. Other words she will regularly parrot when we say them: stay, key, elk, cook… lots of others. She is also getting pretty good with certain signs: milk, hat, and eat are her big ones. She will occasionally do “more” and “all done,” but mostly she just prefers to whine to convey these. Sometimes people way at her using their fingers/hand instead of their whole arm, and she thinks they’re signing ‘milk,’ and she does the sign for “milk” – then she’ll keep going up to them and doing the sign for ‘milk’ excitedly, like, “hey, yeah, I can communicate about ‘milk’ too!” It’s pretty obvious she isn’t actually expecting them to give her milk. Now *I* can’t say ‘milk’ or do the sign for milk without her going completely nuts, since I am the sole bearer of milk…

Others Violet-isms…

It dawned on me yesterday that she knows which way to turn the pages in a book to read it through. She has been enjoying feeding herself yogurt with a spoon (she won’t let me spoon feed her yogurt anymore, but will with other purees). She loves playing with water in a sippy cup after meals (and will occasionally actually drink some). She’s so proficient with a normal cup that I can’t give one to her to play with in the bath or she will drink the bath water with it. :p She claps if you sing “If You’re Happy And You Know It” or say “clapping.” She’s so open-hearted and friendly, waving and saying “hi” to everyone we pass. And I swear she grew a few inches over the break because I let Ming put her in the carseat for two weeks, and my first time putting her in yesterday, she seemed MUCH longer (legs more bent in rear-facing).

I am back from the holidays and working part-time and balancing playing with Violet, having social playdates, and getting all the home related stuff done (health insurance, wills, bills, retirement, budget, cleaning, etc – the list never ends). I find that I really thrive best when I have structure and a schedule, and so I actually felt a little lethargic over the break. Luckily, we have a good schedule for the rest of the month that represents a nice balance of everything (work, family time, and social time), so I am happy. I decided to resume some paper journaling, which I hadn’t done in about 1.5 years, mostly as I got into writing this blog. But now I’m going to take 10 minutes every night to at least write a few sentences in my paper journal, including a little segment savoring the good things that went well that day. I’ve been reading this book called the Buddha’s Brain and I like the idea of reinforcing positive neural networks and stopping reinforcing negative ones. So I’ll use the paper journaling as a way to do just that! And to write out more of the emotional content of things, since I use this blog for more of just the facts of what’s been going on.

Ming is back in action and hard at work (can you believe he is only home for dinner 4 nights this month?), but some day I may get him to write something in the blog. For now, my perspective.

I’ll keep this post “short” and end here! Could it be? Until next time!

Angela, Ming, and Violet

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.