Halloween!

I think I consider this E's real first Halloween.  Yes, last year she won her first costume contest, but she didn't really react to the decorations and she was too shy to trick or treat past our 4 neighbor's houses.

Totally different this year.  E is in love with all things Halloween.  I decorated the yard with skeletons and tombstones and a flying bat.  I was a bit afraid that it would scare her but she was enthralled with them.  At first she called them "ooo,ooo's!" (monkeys) but corrected herself after hearing me talk about them and started calling them "skeltens!"  We spent hours "flying" around the front yard like the bat and making the bat fly by tossing it around the yard.  She also loved burying the skeletons in pine needles and singing "where or where did the skeltens go?"

Every time she saw anything Halloween related she gleefully pointed it out and shouted "pumpin!" "skeleten!" "wich!"  "pider!" "goes!" "bat!"  She is still obsessed with the laughing, light up pumpkin card from last year and is very proud that she can push the button herself this year.  We made a pumpkin for her felt board and she loved decorating it into a jack-o-lantern with black felt.

Unfortunately, Ken's job scheduled him to go to Brazil for actual Halloween.  But we didn't let that stop us from celebrating!

We went to her Little Gym Halloween Party this year, she didn't sweep the costume contest two years running, but that's okay, there was a SUPER cute SCUBA baby who won (and I'm totally writing it down so that I'll remember when/if we have another kid).  But this year she actually understood that she was supposed to play games.  She loved kicking the soccer ball into the goal and using the baseball bat (even if she used it more like an ax).  We did the dorky family theme costumes since we know we have very little time before she decides that's not cool.

We went to Houston Zoo's ZooBoo just before Ken had to leave for Brazil (as in we got home and he left for Brazil a few hours later).  It was a pretty toasty day so we nixed the full fur cat suit (especially since it sheds ALL over her.  When we left Little Gym she had hairy armpits, hair legs, black hair that stuck, clung and went everywhere)  While we were getting ready to go she asked to take Stitch with us. Lightening bolt moment!  We dressed her up in her green Hawaiian print dress and let her take Stitch along, instant Lilo!

She was fascinated by the dance performers who were dressed in animal costumes, some even on stilts.  She loved watching the other kids who were all dressed up.  She liked the pumpkin patch and painting the pumpkin with Daddy. We really only went to see the elephants and the komodo dragon, the rest of the time we spent watching other kids, but she loved it.

And then Daddy left.  And E was sad.   And E sang herself "Grown ups come back" to make herself feel better. And E spent the week saying "daddy go bye bye"  "Daddy in Brazil"  And E was naughty.  So much so that her daycare sent home a note that she wasn't following directions in class.  I asked her if she was said and she said "'es"  and I asked her why and she said "Dada bye-bye"  I think we are both glad Daddy is coming back tomorrow.  I told her she'd see him tomorrow when I put her to bed tonight and she got all squealy and giggly and super happy.  I'm excited to see how she reacts when she sees him tomorrow.

Despite the naughtyness, I tried to make today as good and Halloween-y as possible.  She had gym class this morning and we went out for lunch then she got to play on the playground.  While we were there another kid threw a toy car up the tube slide while a younger girl was sliding down and the car hit her in the face.  E got super concerned about "baby's cryin!"  E helped me get some ice for the other girl but spent the rest of the afternoon talking about "baby cryin!"

To help distract her we went to the grocery store and looked at pumpkins.  We decided to pick one up to carve while we we waited for time to Trick-or-Treat. She was not about touching the pumpkin guts at all.  She tried a few times but just wasn't into it "mama do it!"  But, when it came time to cut out the face much to my terror E wanted to help cut the pumpkin.  so we cut the pumpkin together (carefully!).  And then it was time to go Trick-or-Treating! E can switch between happy and chatty to clamed up and shy so I was worried about how she'd react to talking to complete strangers.

I'd planned to take her just to our 4-5 neighbor's houses and then come back...but E had different plans.  She LOVED Trick-or Treating.  She loved ringing the door bells.  She loved saying "trik-o-tree"and "happy haoween!"  We ended up going all the way up and down the block.  She loved, loved, loved it. Lots of people wanted to take pictures of E because she was so cute.  We were out pretty early so most of the costumes were not scary, we got to one house where she saw a scary clown from far away and as we got closer she started to cling to me and hide her face.  The person took the mask off when they realized she was scared but after that she kept asking about it. Despite the clown we spent over an hour trick-or-treating!

Then when we got back home all she wanted to do was pass out candy to the big kids.  We had to sit in front of the door and eat dinner.  She'd eat a few bites of dinner and then say "big kids knock door and byebye!" "big kids are comin!"
There were a lot of costumes she recognized and some that she (thankfully) mis-interpreted.  There was a big kid dressed up as Chucky who she called a tiger, and a girl carrying a baby doll that was bloody and mutilated who E just happily called a baby.

After she ate dinner, I let her pick a piece of candy from her basket to eat, and she picked the raisins.  Once she went to bed I switched out most of her candy for her favorite fruit snacks, pretzel packs and other healthy snacks....because, yes, I am THAT mom and she's only 1.

Overall it was a pretty fantastic day and the cherry on top is that  Daddy comes home in a few hours!

Imagination, independence, empathy and song

I drive the fire truck!

 We are in the midst of a phenomenal visit from Oma and E is loving all the attention!  She is going a million miles an hour and having a blast.  She's been doing some wonderful imaginative play and showing a great deal of independence, some surprising empathy and through it all there has been songs!!

E loves to play with her "babies" she swaddles them and feeds them milk and changes their diapers.  She also loves to cook in her kitchen.  Her current specialty is "yummy sauce"  which she makes by pretending to mix everything on her spice rack into a pot, putting the pot in the oven, then on the stove and stirring it then proudly serving it up to us and declaring it "yummy!"    

I climb the rock!

She also loves to play with her "people" which are little knock off duplo people.  We build parks, houses, zoos all sorts of wonderful things out of the duplos and she plays with her people.  She has little conversations between people, she has them play on the equipment at the park, the animals escape the zoo and have to be caught by the people.  It's wonderful.

I swing monkey!

Recently she watched an episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood where the characters hosted a birthday party for stuffed animals.  E was already obsessed with birthdays from reading her Elmo's Birthday book and singing to relatives who have had birthdays lately  but this took the obsession to a new level.  She has a birthday cake toy that she's played with a few times, but after seeing the cartoon she took it out, brought her monkeys to the table and then requested "party hat?" from me. We then had cake, sang the birthday song, played birthday games, and even wrapped and opened presents for the monkeys.  She was in heaven.   We have revisited the game several times.
She has been taking "friends" to the playground.  When she takes her monkey she makes it hang from the monkey bars and play.  It's adorable.

I play dragon!

E's most common phrase these days is "BABY DO IT!" usually shouted at the top of her lungs, hence the caps.  She is becoming fiercely independent.  She is most stubborn about brushing her teeth, getting into her highchair.  She will quite often work herself into frustration at whatever task but refuse help when offered with an indignant "baby do it!"  She also loves to help whenever she can.  She loves to help cook for real in the kitchen, so much that when I start cooking she will go to the dining room and drag a chair into the kitchen so she can stand on it to reach the counter to help.
She also likes to tout her accomplishments.  whenever she does something (and sometimes only midway through) she will shout "I did it!" with gusto.

I oo-oo (monkey)

 E is also showing a great capacity for empathy.  She has always been bothered when she hears other kids crying but her empathy is reaching new levels.  Last weekend gootball was on TV and a commercial came on where a toy robot falls down because it has a dead battery.  At the end of the commercial E started screaming bloody murder.  We didn't realize she'd been watching the commercial so it took us a while to get her to calm down to tell us what was wrong.  Eventually she blurted out "SAD ROBOT!" and we put 2 and 2 together.  It took showing her the first half of the commercial again on my phone to show her that the  robot was ok to get her to completely calm down.  Occasionally she will still get all flustered and sad and say "sad robot" and needs reassurance that the robot got new batteries.

Mew, mew, I'm cute and
I know it

We went to the Renfest to celebrate our 4th anniversary and took E to the joust!  She was very engaged until the lances started shattering and riders started falling off their horses, then she started flipping out, screaming bloody murder.  "SAD HORSIE!" thankfully the riders got back up and we were able to show her they were all okay.  We took her to a pony ride that day and she kept saying "no fall down" I had to show her that the horsie had a seatbelt to reassure her she wouldn't fall off the horse.  After that she rode the horse like a champ. She was the smallest kid there and on the biggest pony but she did great!

And through it all she sings.  When she sees a barn in a picture book she starts to sing "Old MacDonald"  When she has new food on her plate she sings "Try a little bit" from Daniel Tiger.  When she's bored she sings "Wheels on the bus"  When it's raining she sings "rain rain go away" and she sings, and sings and sings, and it is the sweetest sound in the world!

Not Enough....

Some days you just feel like you are not enough.

on those days....I write stream of consciousness blog posts at midnight.

It has been a month of stress, but today E didn't cry when I dropped her off at day care and when I picked her up she ran to me with such joy...and that is enough for today.

Moments

So this is just me writing out things I want to remember that I should put into some eloquent blog post about 20/21 months since I really haven't posted in forever...and yet this is what I have time/brain space for so hopefully it will suffice

E "cooking" in her kitchen, which consists of pretending to pour out all of her condiment jars into one bowl.  And then bringing it to me and declaring it "yummy sauce" and being SO thrilled when I pretend to eat it and ask for more

E singing "Old Macdonald had a farm" well enough that I was able to figure out what she was singing.  And singing it to her Abby Cadabby book on the page with the picture of a barn and a haystack.

E giving hugs to random kids at the playground or zoo.

E going over to a crying boy at the zoo and trying to comfort him.

E pretending to be a baby and asking to be swaddled up.

E playing "night night" with her baby dolls and her doggie, and the fact that she always covers up their faces with the blankets

E devouring spinach and chimichurri steak and detesting quinoa

E using her chopsticks to eat

 E getting so frustrated because she wants to be independent and "baby do it"

I call this painting
"Arctic carnage"

E being obsessed with Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and always singing "neighborhood" in the intro song when Daniel sings "could you be mine, would you be mine, won't you be my neighbor (hood)"

E being silly and flipping the phone around with Chichan on Facetime.  "silly chichan, upside down!" and just laughing and laughing and laughing with him.

E being obsessed with "meow, meow"s every time we draw I have to draw a cat...multiple cats

The fact that almost all animals are know by their onomatopoeia
"meow, meow!"
"woof, woof"
"hoo, hoo"
"awoo!"
"turtle!"

E being enamored with the elephants at the zoo.

E remembering her friends names from gym class, and being excited to see them

E putting her monkey boots on all by herself

E's stinky little toes, seriously, how does someone so small have such smelly feet?

E using the Daniel Tiger strategies if I sing her the songs.

E wanting to help cook so much that she drags the dining room chair into the kitchen and climbs up onto it

E getting completely into her highchair by herself

E spilling on the floor and then going to get a towel from the draw and cleaning up the mess by herself

E being so proud of being a "bi heper" (big helper)

Purple and rule number 1

*this is not a proud parenting moment.  But I'm trying to document the good and the bad.*

Purple is one of my favorite colors to dress E in. Today she was wearing a purple monkey shirt with jeans that had purple gingham cuffs and purple flowers.  I love purple.

But not the purple I saw today.

I was working in the kitchen, E was eating cashews and kefir at her kid table in the breakfast nook.
I was sorting rambutans to wash them when I heard a gagging noise.

I turned around to see E rigid, standing at the table her face turning a deep purple.

She has eaten cashews countless times before.  The cashews were pieces and halves so I didn't bother to break them up more.  It didn't matter.  She was choking. I broke Rule number 1.

Ensue baby Heimlich.  And terror.  And more Heimlich.  And more terror.  And so much purple.

I know it must have been only seconds before she spit out the cashew but it felt like an eternity.  There was so much terror.

I'll keep dressing her in purple, but I would really love it to NEVER see purple on her face again.

A picture of E at 20 months

Tonight's after dinner/bedtime went something like this:

E: all duh(hands her frozen yogurt stick to Daddy)
Me (cutting up a cheese stick for her lunch tomorrow): are you ready for a bath?
E: CHEE!  CHEE PEAS!!!
Me: Can you use your big girl words?
E: haaaaa chee peas
Me: okay (gives her the small end of the cheese I'm cutting up)
E (on the verge of meltdown): Uhside chee!  (uhside or "other side" is how she asks for something different)
Me: eat what you have before you ask for more
E: HAAA BIG CHEE PEAS!
Me: is your little cheese all gone
E: 'es
Daddy: is it all gone or is it in your hand?
E: han
Daddy: eat it all gone if you want more cheese
E (chews up the cheese, spits it back out for me to see, then resumes eating it) Haa big chee peas?
Me: is your little cheese all gone
E: 'es
Me: (checks) okay here's a big cheese for you! (gives her new cheese stick)
E: YAY! CHEE!
One minute later
E: All duh! (hands the cheese stick back to daddy, with one bite out of it...right of the middle)
Me: are you ready for your bath?
E: NO! NO BATH!  NO! PWAY?  PWAY? (on the verge of meltdown)
Me: It's not playtime.  do you want to go straight to bed or do you want your bath?
E: BEH PEAS!
Me: okay, do you want milk?
E: DADA MUK PEAS!

Fastfoward past milk and potty time (mostly because dada took that duty, pun intended)
Daddy: E come wash your hands
E (runs starkers out of the bathroom right to me)
Me: time to wash hands and brush teeth (picking her up and taking her back to the bathroom)
E: Hi Momma
Me: wash hands, brush teeth (putting her on the step stool)
E: peek-boo? (ducks down below the counter)
Me: peek-a-boo after teeth.  (picking her back up)
E: Baby do? (going limp like a spaghetti noodle)
Me: Momma ABC then E ABC.
E: NO! (drops limply to the stool)
Me: (guiding her to the floor and brushing her teeth laying down while singing the ABC song twice) Thank you for brushing your teeth

Take her into her room for pajamas.  Lay her down on her changing table that has a frog on it...
E: See Froby?
Me: after diaper and pajamas
E: SEE FROBY PEAS?!?! FROBY! FROBY!
Me: after diaper and pajamas
E: FROBY!? FROBY!?! (meltdown imminent)
Me: (puts on diaper tries for pajama pants)
E: Seelee mama (kicks wildly, trying to prevent the pants)
Me: (puts on pajama pants and top)
E: (giggling like evil incarnate and wiggling like an octopus in a sac)
Me: Love you, now you can see Froggy.
E: (rolls over and snuggles the frog on her changing table)
Me: (picks her up and hugs her) love you
E: Uhv ooo (hugs me tight and just happens to smack my glasses into my nose, very painfully)
Daddy: ready for lullabies and snuggles
E: NO! (squirming rampantly despite daddy's snuggles and calming song, manages to headbutt daddy across his nose, very painfully)
Daddy: goodnight. (puts E into her crib)

Cue the impending meltdown....13 minutes of screaming in the crib and then...silence.

E is very independent.  She wants what she wants.  Right now that's any phone or tablet, and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. (really shouldn't have let her watch it when she was sick)  She is very, very stubborn.  She already pretends to not hear us when we say something she doesn't want to hear.  She likes to have any modicum of control of the world around her.

She is also very loving and sweet.  She likes to be a "big girl" and use her big girl words.  She likes to help with everything from sweeping and mopping up spills to making dinner and folding clothes.  She uses her polite words more often than not.  She gives great hugs.  She loves to play with her duplos, especially the cat and dog figurine.

Big girl

Where did my baby go?

I'ts official, my baby is gone and despite the fact that she still refers to herself as "baby" has transformed into a big girl.  While a part of me is mourning the loss of the helpless baby most of me is reveling in the fun that is toddlerdom.  A song that keeps coming on E's pandora station has a lyric "How did you grow so big over night, how did you get so strong and bright, yesterday you were asleep in my arms, today you're growing off the charts, I'm so proud of you"  and every time I hear it I tear up a little bit (still going to blame the hormones)

This age is so much fun!  E is becoming more playful every day, she plays with her toys using her imagination.  Her favorites are her animals and her people and anything having to do with the potty.  Today she put her baby doll on it's potty in front of her alphabet toy and proceeded to show him alphabet letters while making peeing noises.

She "reads" her favorite books and sings along to more songs that I can remember.  Her favorite song is "Wheels on the Bus"  she will sing that song all day.  Her favorite book is her Star Wars Colors book, which requires me singing the Imperial march and the cantina song when I read it.  She loves, loves, loves Sesame Street (especially Count, Elmo and Cookie Monster) despite never seeing a full episode. She knows them from her books. She calls Count "Ah, ah!" which makes me laugh every time.  She sleeps on a nap mat at daycare.  She uses her potty fairly regularly.  She hates clothes, diapers, and car seats.  She has her security items (Ellie, her musical elephant, LinLin her stuffed panda, babypada, and Rexy her t-rex pillow pet that goes to day care with her).  She threw a fit when I washed her daycare blankie over the weekend.

She gets sad when people go away, even complete strangers like waiters and such; and likes to call for people or things "reesa? weh are ooo reesa?"  (she really likes our neighbor Ms. Teresa, and calls for her when we go check the mail, but she'll also call for inanimate objects the same way)

She's curious about the world. Her favorite things to say seem to be "isit?" (what is it) and "do?" (what is he doing) and "eredidhego?" (where did he go?)

fearless!

She loves to tell us what color things are and "count"  For a long time everything was yellow and there were always 3 of everything.  But she's getting better about her colors, there are still usually 3 of everything though.  She loves to climb, swing and tries to jump.  She's a very physical kiddo, but also can be very focused and still.

We went on vacation to California (eventually I'll post about that, I swear) and it was such a different trip than a year ago.  

She's starting to assert her independence more (ie. more temper tantrums).  Her most common tantrum currently is about going to school.  If I even mention school she starts whimpering or crying.  She's also starting to be picky about her food.  Tonight she had a full meltdown about eating, all she wanted was grapes and she made a huge show of spitting out her bite of quinoa.  Between that and kicking dada earlier in the evening, she ended up going straight to bed after dinner for the first time ever.  To be fair she was REALLY tired because she didn't nap at daycare so her behavior had an explanation, but there is still no excuse.  I know it's important to be firm and fair about these things but it's still hard.  Thankfully she went almost straight to sleep with only a few minutes of crying once she was put to bed.

 Thankfully the good days still outnumber the bad, and hopefully that trend will continue as we delve down the path of the terrible twos.

She's my big girl, and she lets me know in her own funny way.  Tonight at dinner she asked for my fork "mama fork?" so I got her, her own adult fork to which she proudly declared "baby big girl!"

Yes baby, you are a big girl; but you're still my baby.