Could This Be the End of an Era?

So this morning I was discussing our "get-ready-so-we-can-go-to-church" schedule with the Mister. As I'm down with a sinus infection, I thought a nice steaming hot bath sounded fabulous, so I could relax and steam out my head at the same time. So I mentioned that I thought I might take a B-A-T-H and that since I'd just given Peanut one a couple of days before that I didn't think she needed to get in with me.

This was all fine and dandy until I'm standing at the foot of the stairs and said "Hey, Mister, I'm going to go take my B-A-T-H now..." and from the kitchen I hear a delighted yell "BAFFF!" and in comes Peanut, racing to the bottom of the stairs rapidly signing bath over and over...

Of course she got in with me for a little after that. But seriously. All I did was spell it!! Mister's theory is that she's associated the sound of "B-A-T-H" with the delightful experience that goes with it. My theory is that we have an extraordinarily precocious twenty-one month old.

Vacation vs. Trip

I read an interesting article earlier this summer about the difference between a vacation and a trip once you have kids. There were a number of points, but let's just say that a vacation involves staying in B&Bs, enjoying leisurely strolls down historical districts, memorable dining experiences and returning home refreshed. A trip involves chicken nuggets, fishing the sippy cup out of the diaper bag while driving, hours spent trying to get overly tired children to nap in unfamiliar settings, and piles of laundry once you get home!

We just returned from a lovely trip... we spent a few days with Mister's family at a fabulous resort in the Middle of Nowhere, IL. There's a great state park, an indoor water park and an indoor amusement park all in one spot! So there were hours of swimming, hiking and just plain fun to be had! All of us (seven adults and four kids) were in one big cabin, which was just a blast! From there, we drove up to Wisconsin to spend a few days with my side of the family. We didn't have too many plans, just hanging out with my parents, my bro, sis-in-law and their three girls... Oh, and we had to go to Irishfest - the excuse for that trip!

Peanut and I came down with a water-park-related-illness for a couple of days, but seriously, if you're going to be incapicatated, you might as well do so at your parents house where there are more people to look out for your little one... and people to bring you hot tea at intervals!! We spent a little time at a smaller local festival on Saturday. That was low-key and incredibly picturesque... which was a nice contrast to the fabulous craziness that is any of Milwaukee's Fests... if you're in the Midwest and have never made it to Milwaukee for a fest, you are seriously missing out! There are all sorts of ethnic festivals and one giant Summerfest on weekends throughout the summer. The grounds for the Fest are right on the lakefront, so it's beautiful and cool (sometimes!) and there are thousands and thousands of people enjoying the day with you.

Now we are attempting to return to normal. Mister took yesterday off, so we just bummed around and took a deep breath... but today involved many loads of laundry and a lot of catching up! I've got a little breather, but Peanut and I are flying across the country in just over a week for yet another trip!

slacker and puppies

Okay, so I am a serious blog-slacker. It's summer. I'm playing with my toddler and my new house... what can I say!?

But I saw a contest online today that I just had to enter and share with you... it's for three life-sized stuffed dogs. WHOA. Seriously cool. I mean, I only need one and I get to inflict, um I mean share, the others with two lucky friends if I win.

Why do I want to win these? Well... I'm not really a pet person, but I'd like to be! My parents are the same way, and so when they moved into a house with a large yard and a kennel, they just had to do something about it. So they got a wooden dog, named him Bosco and put him in their kennel. From a distance, Bosco is quite convincing, and their grandchildren love to sit on Bosco, pull his ears, etc. And he's such an angel... I want in on the fake-dog trend!!

I haven't decided which one I would want to keep - I might just let Peanut make the decision. She's been getting very decisive lately, and when she makes up her mind, she gets thoroughly excited if she gets to keep the one she picks. My heart, like Susan's, goes out to the German Shorthaired Pointer, but they're all way cool.

Bum Genius

BUM GENIUS giveaway! Go check it out... I am totally splitting these with my friend P. if I win!

has it been a month?

I know it's been a crazy one, but still. A month? Sorry!

So we sold our house, after 14 showings in 8 days... and two days later, our realtors showed us a house that wasn't on the market, which we promptly snapped up. :) We move in just over three weeks, which is a little scary, especially as the next week for me is going to be wrapped up in writing a talk I need to deliver twice at a conference next weekend. And the lovely Cellular Lola is coming to stay for a while next week - woohoo!

Peanut has been wonderful, she's such a toddler. We thought for a little while there that we might have been past the whole dairy thing, but we're not. Which is fine, it was just exciting there for a little while.

Most summers, I typically like to live in the basement with the air conditioning on - I don't like the heat or humidity. Ick! But I have a feeling that with a toddler, I'm going to be so tanned this summer... I already have a little sunburn and a little tan going on... She loves her blow up pool that we have on the deck. I don't know if it's the sunscreen or the water that's the attraction - I think it's 50/50 for her!

We enjoyed the Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes the other day. I think I have single-handedly introduced 200 people to the recipe so far. Whoa they're good!

Go check out this post over at Rocks in My Dryer. I tell you - it's worth it!

I've become rather attached to Guitar Hero for the Wii lately. Serious fun. We've had it for a week, and I think it's hampering my packing abilities. That thing sucks up so much of my free time... :)

Was It Worth It?

Oh my gooooodness.

An hour of nausea and a few minutes of retching in the bathroom - just to discover that at the bottom of the last few days' garbage lay my drivers license, ATM card, and a few other treasures from my wallet. Did I tell you that for the last five or six days, we've been fighting off a stomach bug? Everyone else seems to be past it, except for the lingering nausea and heightened awareness of smells that I got stuck with (and no, not pregnant!)... and I also got stuck with the job of digging through garbage!

Peanut loves to play with my wallet. My Discover card has a picture of a chimpanzee on it, and she just thinks that is the coolest thing ever. It will entertain her for an hour if I let her take everything out of my wallet, put it back in, etc... Except yesterday, she decided to take a handful of stuff and THROW IT OUT.

So now I'm going to be collecting all those fake cards that come with credit card offers, and go get a dollar wallet from the dollar store, and let her throw those out to her heart's content!!

Imelda Marcos, here we come!

Peanut is obsessed with shoes. Seriously. She wakes up in the morning, and the first thing (after nursing) is to ask to have shoes on. Every day. Since they are the prelude to her favorite activity, Going Outside, shoes have their own appeal.

She has three pairs of shoes - shiny black patent leather ones, squeaky brown sneakers, and girly pink sneaker / sandals. She likes them all, but especially the squeaky ones.

It is not unusual to have six shoe changes in a day. We cycle through them all, trying to see which one works best with the outfit. At least, that's what I tell myself. I think she just likes watching me drop everything to hunker down and help her change her shoes.

I just said "not now, Peanut, soon..." because I was reading the internet, so she went in her room, opened her shoe/sock drawer, and brought me ALL SIX OF HER SHOES. She is now sitting next to me, unvelcroing the velcro ones and prepping them for wearing. She's not very good at putting them on herself - they precariously balance off her big toe, usually!

All right, I'd better go. Since she's wearing a pink hoodie and red sweatpants, I'm going to guess that black patent leather will go best with this outfit!

How Fast They Are

So we returned yesterday from visiting Mister's family for Easter, and I slept as much of the three hour car-ride as Peanut would let me, and then as soon as we got home, I fell asleep. So basically I rested from 4 yesterday afternoon to 7 this morning when I had to get up. I have that nasty headache / sore throat / achey virus that comes and goes and lasts for weeks.

So today my reflexes were a little slow when it came to watching Peanut. She had really enjoyed carrying around her Easter basket today. Usually it was empty, but sometimes it would have a binky or a mini Snickers bar in it. I didn't think anything of her carrying around the Snickers, because it's just the right size to fit in her hand and it crinkles, so she loves it, but oops...

I found her laying on the floor sucking on it a little while ago. Not a good thing. That usually indicates that the packaging has been breached and the contents are escaping into her tummy! Thankfully, she has no peanut issues, but she does have dairy issues, and there's caramel and milk chocolate in that... So I hastily remove the Snickers and go to get her Bendaryl... and I come back to find that she reached onto the dining room table, pulled off the box of Annie's bunnies, opened it, and dumped it all onto the floor.

Gotta love it....

how is this possible?

Every once in a while, I will be doing something else, and then catch a glimpse of Peanut. And I just stop what I'm doing and stare at her. Who is this little person that's been entrusted to me? What a gift!

Today, she was wandering around in her sleeper pj's, clutching a small teddy bear by the paw, and with her adorably messy bed head (she barely has enough hair to count, but it sure can get messed up in the mornings!)... and I was just overwhelmed with love for her.

It's a good day here at our house. No matter what happens, I've got her.

just stuff

I had a niece born on Thursday, and I was able to hold her when she was about nine hours old. BEAUTIFUL! What a fabulous experience. There's nothing quite like a tiny baby that's all pruny from nine months in the water! She smelled so sweet and her skin was like silk. Mmm. I would LOVE another baby in our house.

Speaking of my toddler (whose diaper is emitting some nasty fumes at the moment - so this will be a brief post)... she just asked me to open the cabinet where I keep canned goods. I did so, because she likes to take them all out and put them back. Today, though, she had a mission. She pulled all the stuff out to get to the bags of lentils that were in the back. She grabbed a bag in each hand (and at a pound each, that's impressive) and brought them to me. After putting one in each of my hands, she grabbed my hands, looked me in the face, then let go of my hands so that she could eagerly sign please.

Guess what we're having for dinner! Lentils with ground turkey and onions, some crusty rolls and a green salad. Mmm.

Uh oh. She just brought me the prunes. I gave her a tiny bite and she made her "icky" face. Guess we need to keep working on that one!

All right, must go put another diaper on this child. BumGenius, Mommy's Touch or Happy Heiny? We'll have to wait and see!

swap update

So my project for Leo for the Baby a Baby Swap has been put on hold for a bit while I do some computer freelancing and also catchup on my backlog of ring slings that needed to be made... but today in the mail I received something I found on etsy for him... I think it's great, and it's something I think that he'll really enjoy. I know when I unpacked it, Peanut got these huge eyes and was so excited... she loved it, but after a couple of minutes of her enjoying it, I rescued it so that we can send it on in pristine condition!

Peanut also decided that today was "Pants On Our Head Day." She has never expressed clothing desires before, so POOHD is a whole new story... Welcome to the realm of a toddler expressing her will! Here's a picture of her reading her favorite book... with pants on her head. And yes, her tshirt has candy canes on it. So? You gotta problem with that?

if my cheeks are red...

It's because I'm embarrassed.

A telemarketer just called, which meant that Peanut saw me talking on the phone. She gets all excited about that, and so I usually let her play with the phone for a minute or two, because pushing the buttons makes great beepy noises. I am pretty careful to keep pressing "end" every couple of seconds to make sure she doesn't place a call.

She just did.

And if you're going to call anyone on your VERY FIRST accidental phone call, who should you call?

The Police Department two towns over. They just called to say they had a hangup and was everything okay?

baby sign update

I know I keep posting on this these days, but it's really the highlight of what's going on in my world. The last time I posted about Peanut's vocabulary, it consisted of:

• more
• eat
• baby
• cat
• all done
• banana
• dog
• milk
• light

In the five weeks since that post, she's added:

• diaper
• bird
• pig (which also gets applied to cows)
  
• shoes
• cloth wipes (she made up a sign for this... but they are her favorite toys -she carries a stack of them all around the house)
• pacifier
  
• please
• hot (which also gets applied to cold)
• hat
  

And maybe some others - but that's what's coming to mind at the moment. Not bad, huh? Of course, many of these aren't signed perfectly. They're kind of the "baby talk" version of signing, where it's approximate. Others, like pig, hat and please are perfect - anyone who knows ASL would completely understand what she's saying... It does make it a lot more fun to be out and about with her. We were walking along the outside of a building in town recently, and there's a metal sculpture of a couple owls on the side of the building - and she got my attention and signed bird... she was so excited that she saw a bird!

I had a really good story about her signing, but I forgot. I'm off to go see if I can't convince her to take a nap - we have a lot to do this afternoon, and I need a shower and hopefully a little more sleep, but in order for those to happen, she needs to nap!

baby sign update

This girl can seriously communicate, although her speaking vocabulary is limited to "dada," "yeah" and "hey." She also says "shhh" for shoes, splash, and anything that possibly has a "shh" sound in it!

Today I was in the bathtub, sneaking a few moments of warmth and solitude while she was ensconced in the living room, busily rearranging my coasters for me. She does this for about a half an hour a day, so I figured I had a few moments for myself in between cleaning the house (my in-laws will be here in an hour and I'm procrastinating from vacuuming and going to the store).

Nope. Thirty seconds after the initial "ahhhh...." of warm water, there's a Peanut standing at the tub vigorously signing "drink, please, up, please, please, please..." By drink, she was referring to the water in the tub. She's not very good at the water sign yet, and her rendition of drink gets applied to anything liquid... So she got in with me and had a ball!

I think her most common sign is please. It's a great one, because it saves a lot of squawking. Although she doesn't always realize that I can't see her hand, and she signs please when I'm not looking at her... then she gets upset and squawks!

Peanut really does have quite the vocabulary now, though, and I really need to learn some more signs, because she's eager to learn more!

Baby A Baby Swap

One of my blogging buddies, Top Hat, is hosting a new swap - it's called "Baby A Baby!" It looks like a lot of fun, and basically is for people that love yarn and love baby stuff. That is DEFINITELY me. So... without further ado, here's my answers to the introductory questionnaire for the swap-a-roo! Hurry up and go join before the deadline (which is really soon because I procrastinated on this one!) if you're interested!

1) What is your favorite yarn? Favorite colors? What is your least favorite?

You know, I've never been a picky yarn-er when it comes to natural fibers / unnatural fibers. I have a tendency to go unnatural, just because they're cheaper and I have access to them. I'm not a big fan of the eyelash yarns, but used in moderation, they can add a lot of punch to your project. Favorite colors? For me, I usually like earthier tones, less saturated colors, but for baby? I'm all over bright pastels! I usually tend to go pretty simple in mixing colors - I'm not a daring forty-seven color mixer in a project - one or two satisfy me.

2) Knit, crochet, both?

Crochet.

3) How long have you been knitting/crocheting? Who taught you? Why did you want to learn?

My mom taught me how to knit when I was little, but it never stuck. In college, my household (a sorority crossed with a prayer group) sisters found yarn to be extremely therapeutic, and our business meetings always went better with a lot of yarn involved. I tried knitting again, and tried crocheting as well, and found crocheting to be much more tactile, which I loved. I have to say I don't remember who exactly taught me (it was 10 years ago) but it was definitely one of my sisters.

4) What is your favorite snack/sweet?

Oh, interesting question. I like munchies a lot. I love potato chips (there's nothing quite like them!), trail mixes (but without chocolate, they're not quite as good!), almonds, semisweet chocolate, dark chocolate, mint chocolate, peanut butter and chocolate, crunchy chocolate.... etc! I'm mostly dairy-free for this year, so no milk chocolate or caramel for me at the moment!

5) What did you want to be when you grew up?

A chiropractor. My grandfather, great uncle, uncle, first-cousin-once-removed and dad are all chiropractors. I never fulfilled that dream, but my little brother just went back to school for it, and he's going to join my dad in his practice after graduation. In my family, we all fulfill each other's dreams. Seriously. I have fulfilled my mom's dreams. I should post on that sometime. It's interesting.

6) What names would you NEVER consider for a baby?

Tatum. (It sounds like something a two year old would make up). Dallas. (A city name? Really, that is what you want to name your child after?) Madison. (Presidential last names do not make good girl's first names. Taylor also fits that category). I'm very much a traditional namer. I want my children's names to not scream a time period when you hear it.

7) What things did you, as a child, vow to never to do your children, but have since decided that you will? For example, we weren't allowed sugar-coated cereal growing up and I told my parents I'd NEVER do that to my kids. After some life experience, I think my parents were pretty smart in that decision.

I told myself I would never ever call my daughter "girly girl." I hated that. Passionately hated that. Yeah, I call her that all the time. Oops.

8) What is your favorite thing about being a parent/expectant parent?

This changes as she changes. Currently, it's being able to communicate with her through baby sign language, and watching her realize that she can tell me what she wants... we make jokes and share secret communication - and she can't talk...

Day 3: Communication

So not only did Peanut learn how to walk last Sunday night, she's just soaking up as many Baby Signs as I can teach her.

In the last week alone, she's started using: more, eat, baby, cat, all done and a vague and thoroughly unrecognizable-to-anyone-but-me banana. Add that to her previous vocabulary of dog, milk and light, and you can see how much has happened since we came home from Christmas vacation!

It really lights up her face when she is able to communicate something to me! It's also made diaper changes easier since she grasped the concept of all done -she knows that she can't roll away until I say and sign "all done" and she knows that she can't be excused from her high chair until she signs "all done."

Today she walked into the kitchen (that's already a fabulous improvement over last week) and signed "eat." When I asked her what she wanted to eat, she signed "more." Not so helpful. She then gave her attempt at banana but laughed when I looked so confused. So she walked over to stand under the counter where the bananas were, and pointed up. OH! I gotcha! Of course you can have bananas....

Life as a mother has totally changed overnight. I am in the process of making a Shutterfly album to showcase 2007, and am amazed at exactly how tiny and fragile Peanut looked one year ago...

Day 1: Corned Beef

Yesterday was the last of twelve days off that Mister had for Christmas. The company he works for is fabulous with that - only Friday the 21st was a vacation day, the rest were given to him. But I chose to spend it with him rather than beginning my month o' blogging.

Today's reflection is extremely trivial, but to parents of small children, it might be good to know.

Both Mister and I are avid fans of corned beef. We just love it. We can eat an obscene amount of it hot, and then corned beef hash the next morning usually means that there are no leftovers. At all. We love the stuff. So we were thrilled to see that Peanut enjoys it as much as we do. It's so tender after a day in the crockpot that she loved it... Cut into small pieces, it's soft and easy to pick up. Perfect toddler food, right?

Until the diapers started hitting. Corned beef poop is the most toxic odor that has ever come out of my child. And there's been some doozies so far. I was trying to describe this smell to Mister, and my saying "it really smells like corned beef" wasn't helping, since he finds that smell appealing. But somehow the appetizing odor of corned beef gets warped into this dreadful mutant gut-twisting stench.

So my advice for the day: Corned beef is not your toddler's friend.

Last Night

Mister took Monday off of work, so we had a lovely and lazy weekend to ourselves. One reason we didn't do anything was that he was exhausted! I'd finally had it with Peanut's way-too-frequent night wakings (usually about every hour, sometimes I'd get two hours of sleep). For three nights (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), Mister was in charge of all but two of her night wakings. He had to get her back to sleep... I'd feed her once when I went to bed and then one other time.

We think that the dairy issues were causing her to wake up, simply from an uncomfortable belly. And the change that we were able to make in those three nights and by cutting out obvious dairy (still transitioning into cutting out all of the super-hidden-in-everything dairy) was enough that last night she did great! I actually had to wake her up at 10:40 because I'd gone to bed and was laying there waiting for her to wake up, and she didn't, so I did the "pick her up and feed her before she realizes she's even awake" thing. It worked great!

The next feeding, though, was ridiculous - and halfway through it, I realized it was blog fodder.

So I go in and get her at about 1:50. A little earlier than I would have preferred for the other feeding of the night, but I tried to comfort her back to sleep and she just woke up farther. I swear she can smell the milk. So I nursed her. Just as she was right on the edge of falling back into dreamland, she pees all over. And I mean a massive amount. Heat running down my leg.... her clothes are totally soaked. She falls totally asleep, from the relief of it. As I'm sitting there in the dark, with a sopping baby on the Boppy, debating whether or not to wake her up, suddenly she wakes all the way up and is uncomfortable. No kidding!

So I go over to change her, stripping off her pants and mine on the way to the changing table. Suddenly I realize that the long sleeve t over the short sleeved onesie is going to pose a problem. Either I need to take off both shirts to get the wet onesie off (which is going to put a naked baby in the cold house in the middle of the night - that's a recipe for a very long process of falling back to sleep!) or I need to take drastic action. So I pick her back up, carry her into the office/sewing room, where I grab my pinking shears and hack off the bottom of her onesie, and carry Peanut back into her room. I've cut off the bottoms of onesies before to turn them into t-shirts as they don't always fit over cloth diapers, so this wasn't anything new, but I really did a hack job on it!!

In the process, I caught the edge of a cut I have on my finger on something, which tears it way open, and since it was a really deep cut, I suddenly have blood everywhere. Not too helpful.

So I grab a cloth wipe, trying to put pressure on my finger, and put a fresh diaper on her, put fresh pants on her, and go sit back down to see if I can't nurse her back to sleep. Keep in mind that all I am wearing at this stage is a tshirt and fleece socks. And it's COLD in the house! I put the Boppy on my lap, upside down so that the wet part isn't touching her, and then I realize that it's touching me.

I'm half-naked, bleeding profusely from my finger, with a soggy Boppy on my lap, and a happy and contented toddler on top of that. That's blogging fodder for ya!

Thankfully, after I was able to convince her back to sleep, she slept until 6:50, which is an unheard of feat! (okay, okay, she was doing that months ago, but hasn't slept for over four hours in a row in a long time!)

Happy Birthday, Peanut!

You're one year and one week old today. All those people that said life would never be the same? They were so correct! I can't imagine my life without you and your sweet face. You make me crack up so many times a day... and every day, I fall a little more in love with you.

I loved giving birth to you. It was the most intense experience of my life, and I felt completely fulfilled in my femininity and in my humanity. It was natural, and I felt every bit of you pass through me, your gateway into the world. It's been my joy to introduce you to so much of the world already, and the upcoming years will be so much fun as I get to see you grow and learn so much.

Thank you for being you...

My latest "hobby"

Peanut's always been on the small side, which hasn't ever been a concern. But then when we went for her one year checkup yesterday, she hadn't put on an OUNCE in three months. I know that she had, but she lost it when she had a cold and wasn't interested in eating.

Still, though, that's a little disconcerting.

Add that to my "denial" over the last six months about her dairy issues. She'd developed hives around her mouth the two times that she was allowed to suck on a spoon that had some ice cream on it. Yes, there were two times. The first time, we let her suck the ice cream. Hives. Worried parents. Benadryl cream. A little relief. The next time, I was careful to lick all the ice cream off first, but she still got hives. Not as many, but still... So I haven't let her eat anything that has cheese or milk, etc., but I haven't cut it entirely out of my diet yet. I cut out ice cream, yogurt and milk, but am still eating cheese and cooking with butter.

She's not sleeping nearly as well as any of her baby-friends at this age. Poor weight gain? Restless nights? Add those up and it looks like she is affected by even the slight dairy in my diet.

It's time. We're going dairy-free for a year, I think. Still not sure if the Mister is going to join us, but we'll see. It's our new adventure. It pretty much hails the end of my laziness love of prepared food and having Mister order out when I'm tired.

I know scads of moms out there have tried this and succeeded, and they get more sleep at night which allows them to keep up with all the extra work during the day. Who knows, maybe I'll even lose those last tough postpartum pounds!