No becomes Yea

I remember my little sister saying 'yeah' a lot when she was around 2-3 years old. I would sometimes try to get her to say 'yes' but 'yeah' it was.

I'm proud to say that my little Miss C has moved from saying 'no' to things, even when she means 'yes', to 'yeah' sometimes.

Here's today's example:
This morning she asked to go "down" and pointed to the bed, which means go up on the bed. Once there she was jumping against the pillows. stopped. sat down. looked out the bedroom door into the living room and says "Doooo. Doo." I looked, expecting to see something Dora related but I couldn't see what she was pointing at. I said "do? do?" She smiles, points and says it loudly again.

I look again. Nothing makes sense to me.

I say "Carolina, I'm not sure what it is that you want. Can you show me?"

She just makes a frustrated noise and says the sound loudly again and points. I then say the noise to myself again and again and go. "OH! JUICE! You want the juice! I got it. Ok!"

She smiles, says "Yea!" laughs, says "Mama! Mama!" and claps her hands.

Hooray for Mommy for getting it right!

Very cute.

Counted to five all by herself, in Spanish

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that little Miss C surprised me in the morning by counting to five in Spanish on her own.

We weren't talking about numbers, even. She was babbling and then said "Uno?" so I repeated "uno". She then continues and I repeat after her: "dos", "tre", "quatra", "quatro".

Now I realize she didn't say "cinco" but she got the idea. So we can say she counted to four :)

Neat, right? I have zero idea when this kind of thing is normally supposed to happen, so I'll just assume she's smart and doing it in the normal range of things.

Like when she learns other words, she will do it one time with confidence and clarity and then that's it. It really is like her mind organizes the synapses for a moment, goes yup that's it, and then goes back to working on something else.

I know I could read a lot to figure it out but I'm trying to avoid obsessing. So I'll go without knowing and laugh more. Know less, laugh more. Seems to be working as Carolina and I have been having a grand ol time these past two weeks. Not every day but many big laugh moments. She has even had a bunch of playmates and was pleasant and fun and didn't get overly excited and start screaming or running around like, as my mother in law says about her, a baby on peyote.

Funnily enough she has been less interested in watching tv the last two days and wanted to play and read books more. Fine with me!

The first day without a nap

It's been an unusual day:
She's still teething, so multiple stinky poops are the norm and red cheeks. She is, also, incredibly pleasant and happy this week. Nice!

Today she didn't wake up until 8am, and that was only because I woke her. She did two poops (don't worry this is relevant) and ate a good snack of cheese, pear and small box of raisins. Then insisted on a bottle (formula, again relevant) and I put her down at about 1pm groggy.

For the next two hours, while I worked, she was intermittently chatting to herself and dolls and then quiet. So at 2.45pm I went in. The room stunk to high heaven. She was desperate for me to pick her up. She was adamant she didn't want me to lay her down for a diaper change even though she gave me the ASL sign for change diaper.

I took it off and she had a very definite rash in many places. It hurt her so much that when I took her to the sink to wash it off, she was nearly hysterical. I slathered on the diaper rash cream but she was still screaming and writhing. I got the diaper on and now it's lunch in front of Tinker Bell movie.

It was the dairy. Whenever she has had "too much" the poops got the vomit smell. Poor kid.

I feel horrible I didn't check on her earlier and yet she's fine. Clearly a little tired but really ok.

I hope it's an early night for her sake and she's healed by bathtime.

The poop burned! Good lord what a time being a little one can be.


PS Good thing she loves raisins. those and the blueberries are keeping her regular. And very, very happy.

day care, montessori pre-school and new york city

Holy crap. I've started to research day care in the city (Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan) and also look into Montessori for pre-school for Miss C. I knew that private school, and a good one that is clean, structured, responsible and well, elite (even just a little elitist) was expensive. I knew that private school can be as much as $20,000 -- but day care starting at over $7,000 for two half days a week?

My jaw hit the floor. It hurt. I then looked at other schools. I started to look in NJ. Not much better.

I should get a friend who's in education in the city because this is overwhelming and expensive. And there are WAITING LISTS for day care!

Good lord... I need a drink :)

In other news, Miss C has been having trouble napping. The other day she slept for nearly 3 hours, but all the days before and after, starting last Thursday/Friday, she's only napping one hour and having a heck of a time relaxing to fall asleep. Even with a bottle.

I'm perplexed. Maybe it's a phase but I sense something is up. She is more huggy than usual, which is nice, but she's also really, really into me holding her around naptime. If she gets up and is tired, like today, I must hold her for nearly 30-45 minutes before she feels comfortable for me to change her back to her clothes and walk around.

I'll figure this out but right now I'm stumped. Night time sleep is fractured with head banging.

Maybe she's just not getting enough exercise these days since it's been so very cold, wet/snowy, and otherwise unsuitable to going outside for play. Maybe it's just that simple...

I have been enjoying reading At Home by Bill Bryson. If you like history, well Western and in particular English and American history and knowing about how people lived before, this is a good read. I love all the etymology about words. Love it! Plus I got it from the local library, which is always nice to borrow books as our personal library is busting at the seems and there's no room for more books.