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.

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.

The first cold

Sunday, Carolina woke up with a fever of 103 degrees and all night long had a totally stuffy and runny nose. We went in to her cries for a few hours, every 30-60 minutes until about 3.30am Poor thing couldn't breathe! I never thought I'd be able to shove those bulb things up her nose to get out snot, but I did -- again and again. She hates it but it's got to be done. Anyway, after some Tyenol and a lukewarm bath (per her doctor) but no soaps... her fever went down to 98 and then back down to her normal 97-ish. We kept her pants off all day and she was able to nap a little. By about 4.30pm she was EXHAUSTED. So we did a quick dinner, quick bath and bottle then bed.

Anyway, during the day and mostly during eating she started to make this fish face. The last time she made faces anything like this was about 3-4 weeks before her bottom two teeth came in. We can see, definitely, both her upper front teeth and at least one others on the top. I'm certain there must be more the way she shoves things in the middle and back of her mouth. So I guess we'll be seeing more teeth shortly.

Also, she was tired and not her usual active self but she still crawled around and tried to climb up on things. She was just less aggressive about going back to places we said 'no' to. I swear, she'll be walking any day at this rate!

By today her top two teeth are poking through the gums, ever so slightly. I'm pretty sure this cold is more about teething than a real cold. She's pretty congested but it's only a stuffy nose, it hasn't (thankfully) moved into her chest. She's only this afternoon getting her interest in eating back. She downed 1/2 baby bowl of rice & carrots and then killed 5oz of formula before bed.

She's actually in bed now. She's totally awake but she's there. It's early even for her, but she was crying and rubbing her eyes. The only thing missing was hiccups and it was all her 'tells' she's ready for bed. But just like last night and the night before, I go in there with her bottle. She's relaxing and when I put her into the bed, she's UP!

I'm ready to roll, Mommy.

Good lord she's exhausting. The moment I expect to get a break, no way!

I was hoping to get a break to visit Sang yesterday but he's sick. Got a wicked cold from his brother who was sick last week.

I'm really sick of Queens most of the time, at least this part of it. It's like the subburbs of the city. It's architecturally boring, the 7 train trellis makes it noisy and dirty, there's plenty of ethnic food but there's a TON of crappy food. The supermarkets are overpriced, it's a righteous pain to get around the bus and subway with a stroller, and we're inside a lot of the time now.

I'm equally sick of having an apartment with a dark living room and dishes to clean ALL THE TIME. At least we have a newly refinished bathtub and newly painted walls. I still think the bathroom is icky but at least it looks less so. Really, my problem is not living near anyone to visit... except Sang... Who is actually a great friend to visit during the day since he still hasn't found a full-time job and is also at home. Of course, once he gets a job (and I hope he does soon) he, too, will be too busy for a daytime visit. Good thing Carolina likes Sang.

Once I get some more sleep and she's over this cold, I'm sure my anti-Queens rants will stop. But this week I'm really frustrated and stressed.

So I'm looking into other classes for Carolina. She should really be around other babies. It's just surprisingly hard to get playdates sometimes. Also, I'm at a loss for how to tire her out. There are "movement" classes but most of them are in Manhattan and the one that other moms recommend in Jackson Heights is on Saturdays, and she already has swim class on Saturday morning.

Once she's older, like 12-18 months, there are more classes. Actually for the 18-24 month set there are a ton of things to do, so I'm told.

End rant here.

Oh good lord. It's nearly 6.30pm and I haven't even begun to think about what to make for dinner. shite!

It was all going surprisingly well when it changed

So we went to a friend's house last weekend and it went surprisingly well with Carolina. She napped, TWICE!, for an hour each time in a room she'd never been in before. Man that was great. She was pleasant and enjoyed being around people. I left, surprised and hopeful, that meant our flight on Friday morning would go swimmingly well. Or at least better than I had previously expected.

Then last night happened. Poor thing is really in pain from teething. Those blasted teeth just won't pop through the skin. They keep threatening. She's been basically moaning in pain (and yes, I've given her everything I can aside from a baby-sized shot of whiskey) since last night. She slept for 3 hours, then 2 then up every 90 minutes. Then about 4am and before 5am, got up twice.

Ismael tried to calm her down, I tried to boob-calm her. Yeah, not much. More pain medicine. Yeah...

So about 5.30am I stayed in her room with her on the spare bed in there. I got her to relax and fall asleep and kept popping the chupon in her mouth when it would fall out and she'd try to crawl away. Until it fell out for good and she was asleep. She woke up about 7.30am and looked worse for wear -- but as always, did her best to smile.

She was up for almost 2 hours, as usual, then an almost 2 hour nap. Had trouble with falling asleep for nap #2 and is still sleeping but for only about 20 minutes so far. She already yelled out in a bit of pain since falling asleep.

So we're nearly done packing. Weighed the suitcases and aren't in danger of exceeding the 1 checked bag of 50lbs or less. And I'll be armed with everything I can think of to help her get through the flight.

I've already had one nightmare about the TSA person telling me I can't keep the bottle of Tylenol I have. And I have some good telling off lines in my dream, of course I can't remember the snappy comebacks while awake. But I'll throw out everything we have that remotely resembles liquid as long as I keep the infant Tylenol. Because, seriously, the homeopathic stuff is helpful to a point but I'm not sure it isn't the cause of some recent bouts of "constipation" she's had. And when she's really going for it, the stuff she likes least (Tylenol and baby Orajel) are the things that make her stop hurting fastest. Or at least stop crying, screaming or moaning.

I keep thinking she's experienced the worst of it, and it'll pass soon. And then another day comes and she gets pain she hasn't had before.

At least I'm over my cold. If I was sick AND she was teething AND we were on a flight when she was at her worst, I don't think I could handle it as well as not being sick.

All that aside, I think as usual she will surprise me on how she does on the flights. It might be better or worse, but it'll certainly be different than I can imagine. It always is...

Now I just have to remember to pack the passports and we'll be all set.

But on a happier note, my little Carolina was having a wonderful time yesterday afternoon with some other babies in the neighborhood at a mom's house near us. There were about 6 of them at a playdate. She was the smallest and youngest, but she sat up for about 15 minutes (first time ever!) because the other ones were sitting and crawling and I could tell she was very calmly showing them she could do it too.

As you can see in the photo, she was really sitting in a 'good girl' pose. Super cute! Sometimes she REALLY reminds me of my sister. This photo is one of those times.

After this picture, she let me know she wanted to stand up. So I helped her. She then "walked" towards one of the other little boys who was standing on his own. He leaned towards her, she put out her hand, he put out his hand and then they held hands in mid air for a second. He started 'talking' to her and she made just one little noise. But otherwise, she was totally silent. She's really more of an observer, so I was impressed that she was making 'contact'.