Two Carolina stories from today

When she woke up at about 8am, which is about 30-60 minutes later than usual, she was in a very good mood. I went to change her diaper and her clothes, so to keep the good mood going I showed her one of her diapers that has a Sesame Street character on it with apples and bananas. (Yesterday, we were reading a book during dinner and the little girl said she liked Apples, and another page she said she liked Bananas. She also said she likes Cookies and Pizza and Sandwiches, but that's for another time.)

I said to her, "Look, it has apples and BANANAS!" (like it was the most exciting thing ever) And she smiles broadly. So I keep repeating "apples and BANANAS!" and she smiles or giggles. Then I say, "Apples and..." She goes, "anaNAS!"

It was very cute.

Then this morning at the park she was wandering around and more and more little babies started to arrive. (It was around the time just after younger babies wake up from their first morning nap.) She was starting to do things I normally say 'no' to -- so I knew she was starting to get a little tired. I suggested we go to the stroller for "a cookie and juice".

Like usual, she goes, "Cookk! Juze!" (cookk is for cookie)

I say we should go to the stroller to get "snack and juice" and she just runs off. She goes towards the park exit. I said again "The snack and juice is in the stroller. Let's go to the stroller." She's saying, "Juze! Juze!" as she keeps running towards the sidewalk, then takes a right turn and keeps going down the sidewalk.

Apparently she wanted to have snack and juice at home and was heading there as fast as her little running legs could carry her.

I grabbed her, got her in the stroller and headed to the store and then home with cookies and juice!

Lots of fun.

Speaking of food, we've finally gotten her the chewable calcium supplements that she needs. (The liquid one I bought last week was wrong. Sigh...) Still having trouble with milk -- broke out in a face rash last week. And I need a new toddler multivitamin. The one we have is the same as when she was an infant and it's not really all that complete. Any suggestions?

16 months old, what's good to do around here?

Today is Carolina's 16 month "birthday". Hooray!

I took her to a local playgroup in the basement of a church. We did a 'trial' today. It's 2 hours long and starts at about 9.30am. At just around 10.30am, when they just finished singing (for like 10 minutes) and just before they started snacktime, she was tired. Yawning, crying a little and walking for the exit on her own. Yes, she really was.

Snack consisted of a shot of apple juice, a sandwich creme cookie, a cheese doodle, 5-7 cheerios and 2 saltine crackers. I am not joking.

I wasn't going to let her have the cookie, the cheese doodle -- and with her being super tired, I just excused us and we went home. I kept her up for another hour with reading, and watching a little bit of tv since I didn't want another day where she falls asleep for an hour at 10.30am and then is WICKED exhausted by 6pm.

It seems that every day this week she is getting more picky about what she will eat. I know there must be new teeth coming in since she's still really gnawing on a lot of things, and sometimes doing so intensely with yelling, but I can't see any teeth just below the gums. I just go along with it.

Yesterday morning I thought I'd put my foot down and insist she eat her rice cereal with apples. Yeah. That went about as well as you'd expect. I've gone back to relenting to whatever she wants. That consists of hummus, frozen blueberries, puffy "greens" snacks and some Annie's honey crackers. She wants cereal and milk for breakfast, and yesterday was happy with a scrambled egg and a melted slice of American cheese.

Unfortunately she broke out into little pimples on her neck and back shortly after eating the egg, but, I guess, at least she ate it happily and it has stuff she needs.

I even peeled an apple, cut it in half, removed the seeds and center part and she ate it happily. It was like a teething toy AND food. Phew! At least I found something she likes in large size. She won't eat the apple cut into little pieces, but enjoys working on it large size. Ok!

I started reading Maeda's The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)and I think, besides how it's reminding me of a lot of things I knew and "forgot" in helping me plan my graduate program syllabus, I should use some of it for parenting. Ha!

It's a bummer that the local, but cheap (only $9 per session/week), play group is full of a LOT of toys that are all a little dirty and a little old, and in the basement of a reformed protestant church, but the not-local, need to use 2 metrocard rides, very nice, very clean and very well-maintained play center is very expensive (about $40 per session/week). I suppose you do get what you pay for.

We will probably join the local one for rainy days and on a day of the week we normally don't have anything planned. Registration is by day of the week, and the costs are different for each day.

I should stop complaining, at least we have options. And it's better than keeping her at home and having her insist on watching Dora for an hour. AND at least she gets bored with TV after about an hour and WANTS to run around the apartment. I play hide and seek with her too.

Going to buy some crayons and large size paper. See what kind of artwork she can make at this point. So far it's just been a lot of scratching back and forth by holding the pencil upside down. It's really sweet how she does it.

again, thank you, new york!

I am yet again glad to live in a large city with good public transportation, filled with otherwise friendly people. Carolina being entertained, even for a few, brief moments, is so very much appreciated by me. Especially on days when she's otherwise about to be at the end of her rope and we're 3 stops from home, it's lovely to have a complete stranger start to make faces, clap, wave or just make noises at her. Distract her from her teething pain or boredom or impending-sleep agitation. THANK YOU!!!!

She's really working on figuring out how to stand up from a dead sit and walk. She's cruising everywhere and she's gotten taller. Every time I realize she's gotten taller she's either standing under the kitchen table or next to the couch and I can see that her hands and head are now reaching higher and about to hit something that before was MUCH taller than she was.

Along with this growth, I believe, is the recent smattering of long naps. I keep waking her up early from her morning nap to go to a music class or some other thing we have. She gets at least an hour but she clearly could use some more. So I've been protecting her afternoon nap as much as I can.

I even left her with a babysitter twice this week. Two different women came over to babysit her. It went really well. The first two days I left her and she cried while I walked out the door. I just had to leave and make it quick. By the 3rd day, I was actually wishing I had the money for a sitter again since it was SO NICE to get out of the apartment and not have to worry about her being hungry, tired or entertained. Even though I was waiting in doctor's offices for appointments, but whatever.

Now, don't get me wrong. I do really enjoy traveling around with my little Monkey. In fact, she was great when we went in the boiling heat (because I thought that was a good idea for some reason) in her baby carrier to the Union Square Greenmarket this past wednesday. We got some SUPER tasty apple and lemon juice from the Red Jacket Orchards stand. I'm really looking forward to going back tomorrow to get the BIG liter bottle this time. Carolina enjoys waving and clapping at the stall owners and I like checking out the produce. Tomorrow it's supposed to downpour, so maybe not...

We're waiting for Papa to come home on Saturday night from his most recent business trip. Thankfully, she hasn't noticed that he's not come home during her bathtime and isn't there in the morning when she first wakes up after I change her diaper, like he usually is. So, she hasn't been complaining and we have been having a very good time indeed.

One of the local moms moved away yesterday which was a bummer since I liked her a lot and her son and Carolina are the same age by about a week, have been 'friends' since they were about 5 months old. That'll teach me to be friendly with people in the neighborhood ;)

She's still loving the blueberries and has started to indulge in strawberries. I bought a bunch at the local farmer's market and then I noticed she was getting little pimples on her face, neck and then one on her ear. It went away after about an hour and the one on her ear which had gotten pretty darn red went away overnight after I put on hydrocortizone for babies. It might have gone away without the cream. Who knows. So we have to avoid strawberries for a few weeks and then re-introduce them to see if it was heat rash (since it's been damn hot and we only got her an A/C for her room the last of the 2 hot days) or food rash.