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.

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?

She's a great dancer, and likes to play with other kids

Two things I learned about Carolina this week are:
1. She likes to dance, and has a good sense of rhythm. She prefers music with a Latin beat. Seriously. (Our first indication was a trip to Vallarta in Feb 2009 before she was born, and we were in the Cuban restaurant where they play really great music. She was kicking me like never before. She was our 'tiny dancer'.) She was rocking out to a Ricky Martin song today at the local Gymboree.

2. She likes to play with other kids. Now I knew this already but I had no idea how much now. We've just started a discount/trial month at a Gymboree on the UES (got it through groupon.com. She's in a play/movement class once a week on an afternoon and we go to the gym when they have 'open' sessions twice a week in the early morning. During today's open gym, she was so very very disappointed when we had to leave. She was playing 'catch' with an older boy by rolling the ball between them. She was very interested in playing with a 4-year-old girl who was running around, throwing herself on the mats, and jumping up and down. Carolina tried to keep up with her for a bit, then looked at me a little confused. I smiled and said "Go ahead. Keep going." And she smiled and kept trying to keep up, but she couldn't.

She climbed on everything and was seemingly very proud of herself for being so independent. I have to say, I was impressed. I try to usually keep back and let her do her own thing when I can. She almost didn't need me at all. Woo hoo!

Food, these days, is another matter. Her pickiness continues. I've been given some very helpful advice to give her what she likes and wants, instead of what I want her to eat. This has turned out to be surprisingly healthy, for the most part. Yesterday she ate her first (whole) navel orange, and today her first (entire) peach.

Today at lunch after her nap was pretty funny. She took a few bites of the cod I was eating, then didn't want that. I gave her a bunch of peeled grapes cut up from her snack before nap and after about 10 of those, she was done. So she was pointing to the blueberry muffins on the table, which are next to the peaches I just bought yesterday. I decided to give her a peach instead of the muffin she wanted. She cried, very loudly, with tears when I put a few small cut up pieces of peach on her high chair tray. Carried on like it was the end of her little life.

At one point she threw her head back and opened her mouth widely while wailing, and I put a piece of peach in there. She closed her mouth as she brought her head down and had no choice but to taste the peach. She stopped crying immediately, made a few contentious noises and then ate it. And grabbed the rest on the tray with gusto. She then pointed to the counter where the rest of the peach was and started to make a fuss that she wanted more. This resulted in her eating the ENTIRE peach.

The crying and carrying on is exhausting for me to listen to but, really, I'm glad we now have more food on her "approved" list, which includes:

1. blueberries
2. hummus
3. spanakopita (Greek spinach pie)
4. raspberries
5. peaches
6. grapes, green ones
7. cherry/grape tomatoes (although they frustrate her since she can't eat the skin but she loves the taste and that they are juicy in her mouth.)
8. rice crackers (the Mum Mum kind)
9. Graham crackers
10. broccoli (sometimes)
11. caesar salad dressing (not a meal but as a topping. I hate giving her this one since it's so salt/fatty so I don't unless I'm desperate.)
12. squash/zucchini (sometimes, and only with something else like spanakopita or hummus)
13. navel oranges
14. strawberries (but they seem to give her less than a handful of  little pimples on her face every time)
15. Berry flavored "fiddlesticks" (rice crackers in a stick form she can easily hold)
16. Cheerios cereal
17. Life cereal


Of course there's cake and apple/cherry/blueberry/orange juices on the list but above is what I can get her to eat. MOSTLY without fuss.

With fuss, recently, there's chicken, fish, beef. I'm working on getting eggs into the list and watching her face breakout/not since earlier in the year she loved eggs but they gave her the same thing that strawberries seemed to. I'll try it again.

And in terms of naps, she's almost solidly a 12pm-2pm girl. Sometimes takes until closer to 12.30 and sometimes only until 1.30pm but I can mostly get her to take her nap on schedule, which is nice. For me.