Misc Family

So Terry has been back for 5 days now, and Valerie has settled back into her normal nighttime routine. It took that long. But we're all getting a little more sleep around here now and it feels GREAT.

We're really enjoying having Grandma Irma and Grandpa Conrad in town, helping out in a thousand different ways (playing with V., cooking 3 hot meals a day, scanning slides of Terry's babyhood, running to the post office...). I haven't downloaded photos yet but will have those up soon. Ish.

Yesterday was my beautiful sister Anita's birthday! Happy birthday, P! I love you!

Quote

As a fledgling anthropologist, this thought struck a chord with me - Pam writes about the commodification of "traditional" or "native" cultural practices:

"I have to believe that the difference between exploration and exploitation is the heart that we bring to the experience, the knowledge and respect."

You can read the full post on her blog, Blood Signs.

Flying Solo

Terry left for the airport at 3 a.m., headed out to do some workshops on international development in Colombia. The house feels really empty.

Maybe because his clothes aren't piled all over the couch anymore :-)

17 Months!

Top two photos were taken at the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale, and the bottom two at church (nursery and library)

17 months old today! I uploaded my pictures, and I noticed how much harder it's getting to get a good face shot. For one thing, she won't hold still! For another, every time she sees the camera she wants to look at the pictures on the back display.

I'm happy to report that the sores on her tongue are gone, and her gums look better. Phew! We should be back to normal by the weekend, according to Dr. Google.

Here are some 17-month markers:

Favorite song: still "Old MacDonald," which she requests by hooting "Ooo! Ooo!" in a very high-pitched voice.

Favorite food: green peas

Favorite activity: going to the Children's Museum

Favorite toy: hmm.... probably the bath toy that Lorie P. gave us recently!

New words:

- boat (see above)

- church (though it comes out more like "T-ch"

- hot

Things that make her smile:

- playing peek-a-boo

- being flipped upside down

- "If I Were A Butterfly"

- dogs

- Daddy

Answers

So the nurse says it is stomatitis (I had her spell it for me), and it should go away on its own in 5-7 days, although the web site says 10. Looking back, I remember now that I noticed a little red granule on V's tongue maybe 5-6 days ago, which has since developed into what looks like a double canker sore. Poor little thing - I'm glad she's eating as well as she is, all things considered. Tonight she ate a lot of green peas, and some applesauce with pureed spinach mixed into it. Thankfully she's been drinking plenty of water. The nurse said the main thing is to head off the dehydration. And she's still nursing plenty. So we just have to wait it out.

Gums

This morning I noticed that V's gums around her top and bottom front teeth were all inflamed and red. I took a toothbrush to her teeth and INSTANT BLOOD - oh so sad! I googled "toddler bleeding gums" and it came up all about gingivitis and taking her to to the dentist. But B. thinks it's all about the teething. She (V) also has two cold sores on the tip of her tongue.

POOR BABY!

No wonder all she wants to eat is yoghurt, applesauce, mushy peas, oatmeal, and mama's milk. And her usual morning egg yolks (hard boiled).

I feel so bad about nursing her to sleep and not brushing her teeth better. She is getting two new bottom teeth and we've been putting Orajel on them, which has definitely helped her sleep better since Saturday. I'm pretty sure the redness/bleeding is new as of this morning. So maybe it will pass quickly as well.

Anyone else have experience with this?

Thoughtful

Here we are in early October. Today is the deadline for a small grant that I was eligible to apply for, but I wasn't paying attention and missed the e-mail announcement when I still had time to apply. I maybe could have pulled it off, but for one reason and then another I procrastinated and then it became too late.

I'm frustrated with myself - it was a small amount of money, and Terry didn't think it was worth the effort of applying for it, but I still feel like I should have. I enjoy writing, and I'm good at it, but it seems like the logistical details of the grant process trip me up every time. I'm not particularly good at multi-tasking (although I've been hearing a lot on NPR that recent research shows nobody really is, they just think they are), which was one reason I left my last two jobs. Juggling a lot of little details is also what I find most difficult about parenting.

It's a beautiful fall day today, and I would love to stare out the window and daydream all morning. But I'm paying someone else to mother my child so I can do my academic work.

Techno-yay

If you scroll back through previous months' posts, you'll notice a sudden sharp drop in the number of pictures posted here, starting around the end of July. This is because my camera battery charger has vanished. I have been taking pictures on my cell phone camera, however, so that V's young life might not go wholly undocumented. I finally got around to uploading them onto my laptop. Here are a few favorites from August and September!
This one was taken at the Harrisonburg Children's Museum quite recently:This one is at our neighbor's sandbox, where we spend a lot of our free time:This is one of her favorite activities, which she requests by leaning towards the car door going "Bvvvvv!"This is right before I trimmed her bangs a couple weeks ago:

She is getting so big! The 18-month onesies are already too small - although the 12-month pants fit just right!

Genius baby

This noon while eating lunch, Valerie was looking at the cover of her "My First 100 Words in Spanish" book. Lately she's been pointing at all the letters and asking me (with her sign for "sing," which is to brush her hands together) to recite the Dr. Seuss rhyme that goes with each one.

So today I decided to test her a little bit, and asked here "Where is the T?" and she pointed straight at it.

She can correctly identify, at least on this book cover, T, W, and S. And sometimes M.

Also, when I sing the alphabet for her, she'll chime in at the correct time with "M."

***
Another cute thing she did this morning took place when we were looking at the church directory at all the pictures of babies. I showed her our family picture, pointed to her dad, and said "who's that?" She immediately lay down on the floor, curled up against me, and said "A!" - because this is how her dad sings her to sleep every night (singing the ABCs). It was adorable.

new first

When I dropped V. off at B's house, no tears! Just a little "mama!" as I walked out the door. The window was open so as I walked away I clearly heard nothing but crickets chirping.

Sixteen months!

Valerie is sixteen months today! Since I recently did a "milestones" post, maybe I can just do a "day in the life" post.

This is our new routine.

Valerie wakes up sometime around 6 a.m. Since Daddy is on night duty, he brings her up to me and I either nurse her in our bed or take her back downstairs to nurse. Daddy goes back to bed for 1-2 more hours of shut-eye.

After nursing, Valerie goes straight for her books - she pulls them off the shelf and I groggily read a few of them to her. I change her diaper while singing a song (usually "The Wheels on the Bus," with our own added verses, e.g. "the tractors on the bus go brrrm brrrm brrrm!") and then go play in the living room while I make breakfast.

For breakfast she eats two egg yolks, some of my oatmeal, and a piece of fruit - as much as she wants. Often we watch youtube videos of farm animals, or read books while eating breakfast. Then we play in the living room while I get dressed, put pants and shoes on her (she sleeps in a clean onesie, which is then what she wears for the next day), and get her bag ready for the babysitter. If we have time and if she cooperates I might wash the dishes, do a load of laundry, or knit a little bit.

She likes to play with her electronic keyboard that plays "Old MacDonald" when you stick a certain block on it. Another current favorite is the Princess puzzle from Aunt Anita, or the Lego dinosaur with Lego cavemen that ride on its back, from Grandma Irma. She's getting quite good at the puzzle! Some days we go outside and watch the neighbor boys ride off to school on their bikes, or sit in the neighbor's gazebo and play in their sandbox. We have great neighbors. :-) She also likes to feed their dog a snack, and even if we have no treat for him, will extend her hand towards him and make smacking noises with her lips. She does the same thing with her toy animals - tries to feed them books, even!

A little before 9 we head out to B's house, where I drop her off for the morning. During the drive she likes to look at her Baby Einstein lift-a-flap book that has musical buttons as well. Actually pretty much any lift-a-flap book will do - she LOVES them right now.

After I drop her off I drive away crying and try not to think about how much I miss her.

At noonish I go pick her up and hear a report of how the morning went. She's been doing great over there! She's playing well with baby E. and yesterday got all rambunctious with the two dogs! They are very gentle dogs although full of energy. Evidently she would deliberately run into them, fall down, and laugh her head off!

We go home, have lunch (often not much because by this time she's very tired), and then nap for a couple hours.

Yes, she is down to one nap a day!

Sometimes I nap too, sometimes I do other stuff. Like blog. Like right now. :-)

After nap we go do something fun, sometimes with Daddy, sometimes just us, depending on if he has class or meetings. On Mondays, she goes to Grandma Dot's for a few hours and I get even MORE stuff done!

Then supper around 6, then bed.

Since she went to one nap, she's been falling asleep a little earlier, within a half hour of 8:00, and I think sleeping in a little later - say 6:30ish. Although, she's also been waking for about an hour every night as well. So I'm not sure what her total hours of sleep are in any given 24 hour period, but I'm SURE it is less than average. Oh well.

Speaking of sleep... I think I'm going to go try and grab some right now myself, while I have the chance!!!

Thankful

It's all good news today: even though Valerie woke up at 5 this morning, she went back to sleep at 6 for another TWO HOURS! Since she went down at 8 last night, that gave her a total of 11 hours of sleep! Fantastic! So even though we had to rush to get to the babysitter's on time before my 10 a.m. meeting, I was glad.

And she had a great day with B. and baby E. I'm so happy. She cried and clung to me when I left, but soon calmed down, B says, and was fine the rest of the 3 hours I left her there. She was happy to see me at noon, and wanted to nurse immediately, but that's normal for her - she does the same thing when I leave her with Grandma. Yay! She was happy and content all the way home and ate a good lunch, and is now napping. Again, yay!

I think she is feeling better from the cold that she's had since Friday, which came immediately after a bout with roseola. All this on top of cutting her first-year molars. She's had a rough couple of weeks.

I have incredible piles of housework to catch up on, and grocery shopping. Hopefully we can get through some of that this afternoon.

one more cute thing

Tonight when I was nursing Valerie to sleep, she sat up and made (her version of) the sign for "butterfly"... because she wanted to nurse on "the other side"... Maybe it's coincidence, but maybe she's really using homophones to communicate! Through signs!

I know, I know, nap when the baby naps

I know I should be trying to catch some shut-eye while Valerie naps here, but there are so many cute little things she is doing these days that I can't let them go undocumented much longer or they'll be lost in the grand scheme of things.

She's making connections: when she sees a picture of an animal she knows, she will run to find more pictures of it in other books or on her puzzle pieces - cows, especially - maybe because of the distinctive black and white markings on most pictures of cows. She also recognized a picture of an owl on a wooden block, and made her own sign for spider (tips of pointer fingers together, trying to do the move from "Itsy Bitsy Spider") when she saw a picture of a ladybug that had particularly long legs. She identifies the coffee shop by the sign for "gorilla," because in the one we frequent most often there are some children's drawings on the wall of "wild hair guys" that apparently look to her like gorillas. They're not even the same color, but something about them evokes gorillas for her. Which is weird because she also signs "gorilla" when she sees something black, even if it's a dog (and she knows what dogs are!).

Physically, she's climbing more and more. She also likes to back up and sit on anything that's the right height for her - even Grandpa, when he's lying on his back on the floor! That was pretty funny.

Her favorite music right now is a Putumayo reggae cd that we have. At first she just wanted to look at the pictures in the liner notes, which are printed like a little booklet inside the cover, but when I played it for her she really enjoyed it - especially if I hold her and dance around.

The funniest thing she did, though, was when I was reading her a book that included the line, "nine nimble bugs a nibbling," she started going "pbpbpbpbpbpbp" - you know, the sound it makes when you sort of twang your lower lip with one finger? Every time I get to that line, she does it - it's hilarious - it really does sound similar!

Other sounds she makes: for sheep, she says "M-m-m-m" with a little stop between "M"s, and for pigs she says "shhhhssssss" - I guess that's what the snore/grunt noise I make for pigs sounds like to her. She has a respectable "moo," and a very cute "eee-e-eee-eeee" for roosters crowing.

It's really funny - she always says "Mama" (or, often, "Mamamam") in a high-pitched little coo, but almost everything else is in a normal tone of voice, including "da[dd]y." One exception is the "ba" she says for cat, I guess because their meow is also high-pitched.

Check-up Stats

Yesterday was Valerie's 15-month checkup. She is still 75th percentile for height (now 31.5 inches), 24th for weight (22.6 lbs) with a head circumference of 18 inches (hat knitters take note) :-) She endured 3 shots and a general look-see with weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. As long as she didn't have to be up on the table she was fine, but any movement towards it and she went ballistic. Poor little thing.

We took along some of her current favorite toys - the book that we refer to as the "ha ha bunny" book, a plastic donkey she likes to chew on, and a lift-the-flap book about a Christmas snowman. These kept her happy while we sat around waiting for the next thing to happen.

For some reason she has come to hate baths, I don't know why. So nowadays I stand her in the tub and give her a quick wipe-down. With the cooler weather we also don't have to wash her hair as often.

Right now she is at B's house, the new babysitter. B has a daugher, E., who is just a month younger than Val. Again with the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth this morning when I left. It's so hard. Terry keeps saying she'll get used to it, and I know she will, but how long will it take?

15.5 months

So I missed the 15 month update post, but as you've probably noticed my blogging in general slowed waaaay down this month. Not sure why exactly; I just never felt like it, whenever I sat down at the computer (which, granted, wasn't often). It's just... August.

But today marked the beginning of Fall for me; the weather dawned cool and clear, and Valerie and I had our first day with her new child care person. I'm so content with her - a fellow mom who goes to our church, her little one is exactly a month younger than V. They live in an old farmhouse out in the country with two friendly, gentle dogs. V. had a great time running around the toddler-friendly house, snacking on yoghurt and grapes, playing with the wooden blocks and warily eyeing the other toddler. Tomorrow I'm going to try leaving her for about 45 minutes, and then maybe 2 hours the next day. I was pleased with how quickly she took to the new environment there.

Today marks four days straight that V. is down to one nap a day. She had flirted with this arrangement a few times in the past month or so, but it's starting to feel more like a pattern now. This reeeally frees up our mornings - we actually all went to church yesterday! Three days out of the four, she went down at 12:20 - although length of nap has varied quite a bit - from just over an hour, to three hours.

Right now, she is asleep in her car seat, which I brought into the house. I know I should be napping too (I tried! Really I did!) but I'm a bit on hyper-alert in case she wakes up and wants to get into bed.

So, other updates/milestones? Hmmm.... well, her favorite book right now is "Corduroy," and consequently she is very interested in buttons. She beats on her chest to signify "gorilla" or (inexplicably) "dinosaur," or anything that is black (like the gorilla) - even her dad's black T-shirt. Speaking of dad... she's getting very attached to "Da-ee" and even cried a little this morning when he left for work... And she will take "no" for an answer when she wants to keep nursing but I'm ready to stop.

She just seems to looooove being able to walk and run, to be self-propelled, to get where she wants to go on her own two legs. Ever since she took off walking her overall affect has been markedly happier, more laughs and giggles. She does this thing now where something will tickle her fancy and she'll say "hahahahahaha!" with a big grin on her face. Another thing she loves to do is pretend to feed the neighbor's dog, her toys, or even pictures in books with whatever she is holding in her hand (a rock, a cheerio, another toy) - she'll hold it to the other's mouth and make smacking noises. It is too cute.

Quick Pic

Trek Camping 2009:
Probably the funniest moment was when Terry was in our tent changing V's diaper, and she jumped up and ran out without a stitch on... the little grin on her face was very cute. She looooved watching the ducks that kept wandering in and out of the campsite. She was not such a big fan of her fan club - the two 6-year-old girls who just wanted to sit next to her and pat her arm and touch her hair and tickle her and talk to her... a bit much for our little introvert!

A Matter of Perspective

We had back-to-back family reunions in July; here are a few pictures of Valerie with her cousin Lotus.

But I find this picture below particularly hilarious because of the way the forced perspective messes with the viewer's perception of the relative sizes of the two kids:

It will be so fun to show the girls these pictures when they are older!

Bad Blogger, NO BISCUIT!

Summertime = relaxed schedules = no babysitter (other than Grandma of course) = drastically reduced computer time. Hence lack of posting lately. That, plus the back-to-back family reunions last month and subsequent exhaustion. Last week I said to Terry, "I MUST get some work done soon," so we arranged a schedule that gave me 3 afternoons this week to work. And I made enough progress to feel ok about taking time to download pictures from the past three or four weeks, I'm not sure exactly how long... but...

V. IS WALKING!

Yes! Full-on walking! July 27, she took off after a book and never looked back.

Also... she RECOGNIZES LETTERS. My baby may be a late walker, but I reckon she'll be an early reader. We were playing with alphabet blocks, and suddenly something clicked in her little head and she said "A!" From that moment forward she consistently and 98% of the time correctly identifies all writing as "A." Granted, she's not actually reading, but she recognizes this abstraction known as the "alphabet" as a visual pattern, and it has a name: A. She gets a huge kick (probably because of the lavish praise we give her when she does it) out of identifying letters everywhere we go - on storefront posters, road signs, T-shirts, stickers, and of course books. She loves to watch the youtube video of Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing the "African Alphabet" song (she points to the laptop and says, what else? "A"). Occasionally she will mis-identify something as "A" that is not a letter - e.g. a diamond pattern on a toy she has, or the picture of a lightning bolt in a book. But pretty nearly all the time she is right.

So here I offer pictures of the walking baby, taking off after her alphabet book:

Viva el Peru!

In Peru, everyone is celebrating the Veintiocho de Julio - 28th of July, Independence Day.

Lima, near the Plaza de Armas

Cusco, Plaza de Armas