On Numbers and Tumbling

Leah has perfected her somersault. Plus, she also surprised us today by counting to ten all by herself! She only does either when she's in the mood to perform. Here's what we could catch on video.

Why Mom is so tired

Here's my rising star modeling in some new duds (her first pair of Levi's--and they are too big). I think the hearts are a little reminiscent of the 80's, don't you? (Click the picture to see it bigger)

Now, don't let the adorableness of this little one fool you. Not long after these photos were taken and the said child was freshly bathed and dressed in the new fall apparel pictured, we sat down for lunch. Here are a few things you may not know about Leah:

1. She has recently begun announcing on an hourly basis that she is hungry and/or wants a snack. This may be due to the near expulsion of milk from her diet, or perhaps she's just growing.
2. She likes to feed herself. Let me rephrase that, she won't let anyone else feed her but herself.
3. She prefers insists on using a spoon and a fork, but owing to her lack of coordination, food ends up in her lap rather than her mouth most of the time.

For lunch today I served PB&J, a mozarella cheese stick, carrot sticks, water, and after all these items were served and disposed of she was still hungry and requested a slice of buttered toast. This is what Leah did with her food: spit out tiny bits of masticated carrot and refused to actually swallow any of it; made her cheese stick dance, pulled it into tiny shreds and threw it on the floor (she was mad that I peeled it into smaller peices and would have rather I served it as a single stick--who knows if she would have actually eaten it that way or not); dissected her sandwich so that she could lick out only the jelly, then ate the peanut buttered bread separately; licked the butter off the toast smearing it all over her face and by the time the butter was completley melted (and therefore no longer visible), she just threw it on the floor.

Meanwhile, since she wouldn't let me take part in the feeding process, I took advantage of her (contained) high chair time to do things like sweep up the past week's worth of discarded food and frantically scrub the grime off the floor, having surpassed my tolerance level for kitchen floor filth. I was planning to put her down for a nap after lunch and wanted to fully exploit naptime with my own overambitious plans such as putting away all our clothing that now rests in the clean laundry pile (at least its not a dirty laundry pile, right?) But of course, here I am ranting instead of folding and sorting.

But I was particularly flustered this lunch: she wouldn't let me help her be clean while eating and I knew she was wearing brand new clothes I didn't want her to ruin (enter salivated, orange carrot pieces and red, sticky jelly); I was sweeping the floor while she was throwing food back on the floor (enter cheese and toast); I was up and down from sink to floor with a rag scrubbing (with only one gloved hand so I could ration food to the child with the other) and getting lightheaded every time. For some reason, a certain song came to mind:

There is no end to filth,
There is no end to diapers,
There is no end to toddlers,
There is no end to this floor,
There is no end to [input task or state of being]...

Here is an isolated incident of Leah feeding herself with a spoon. She is actually fairly good at it. Only occasionally does she get it in her hair. Fortunately, she's gotten the message that if she takes off the bib, I take away the food and feed her myself.

A little something

Leah sitting in a doll stroller completely fixated by Nemo.

Hugs for everyone

We have recently begun the era of 2-minute Family Home Evening lessons geared toward toddlers. I realized as I organized my selected Gospel Art pictures that this was only the first of many. MANY. (I also realized that all those times we tried to have FHE as a childless couple were merely in order to produce the habit of Monday Family night so that once we did have children, we could teach them the gospel).

Our lesson was on being grateful for our blessings. I had selected a picture of the prophet, a picture of the scriptures, a picture of the earth, and nature, and animals, etc. I had excercised my crayon and paper skills to draw a picture of our house and a picture of a table plentifully spread with food. We went to the temple grounds to sit in the grass and play with the fountain as part of FHE.

The lesson went great. She paid attention for about 30 seconds, then I quickly summed it up out of necessesity and we were done. As we walked back to the car, I tried to incorportate how we can show that we are greatful for what we have. I said we can show we are grateful by eating the healthy food we are provided, giving our family members hugs, and by being nice to our toys, etc.

I don't know if it was related to our FHE lesson or not, but a few days later, Leah picked up a carrot during dinner and said "Hug! Hug!" and gave her carrot a hug. What a great way to be grateful!

Death of a Sippy Cup

This is what a sippy cup looks like after its been run over by a car:















As a follow-up to the on-going sippy cup war, Leah still refuses to drink milk from a sippy cup, but has been drinking chocolate milk in small amounts. What do we conclude from this considering this happened yesterday? Irony? Poetic justice? Casualty of war?

Peanut Butter, Please!

We recently purchased a package of generic cracker sandwiches. They were pretty gross to us, but our kid seems to like them! Yesterday I gave her some cheesy crackers with peanut butter filling. She dutifully set to work licking the peanut butter out of each and every single one, then looked up and proudly announced, "All done!"

Chocolate Juice

Leah wants to be a baby a little bit longer: sucking a pacifier at night and drinking from a bottle. That is until Thursday. For some reason, Thursday I decided to box up all the bottles and put them away for good. Since then Leah has refused to drink milk from a sippy cup, so of course she's not had hardly any milk at all; up until this point she was drinking 15-20 ounces a day, a significant part of her diet. I still want her to drink milk, of course, so I keep offering it to her in a variety of forms hoping she'll give in to the hunger. We've tried at least 4 different kinds of sippy cups, I've tried giving her a regular cup, trying it with a straw, offering milk cold and warmed, etc. So far the only thing that has remotely worked has been chocolate "juice" which she has taken a few tentative sips of from a regular cup.

It's now been two nights that she's gone to sleep on an empty stomach, and she's actually slept just fine. But I feel extremely guilty and cruel. I also need to be sure to give her plenty of other fluids so she doesn't get dehydrated. Perhaps my concern for Leah sleeping hungry was what initiated my dream about hytugit, for fear that she'd reach that level.

Any advice on growing up cold turkey?

All smiles

Airplane!
























Yum! Watermelon!


















Labor day. With new friend Max in the (wet) sandbox.