16 month newsletter

Dear Beatrix,
Today you are 16 months old! To celebrate we went to the mall and bought you some new shoes. Apparently you now have the same sized foot as your average 12 month old. We're very excited! It's actually getting easier to buy you shoes. When you first started walking the shoes you fit were crib shoes which aren't so good for playing in playgrounds and such. But now you are firmly in walker shoes, hurray!

15 months!

Dear Beatrix,
Today you are 15 months old, and like every other month I marvel at how quickly time has passed!
This month you are making crazy connections with language. We use a lot of baby sign language and you have been making connections and forming 2 and 3 word phrases. Things like "more milk please", "strawberries please more", "baby please". Mostly you know to tag please onto anything, making your Mama proud, but I'm sure not making much sense to you at all. You also know "thank you" and are finally signing it regularily, although I might have to prompt you. Today you signed "bird" and pointed to one, which was a little shocking because it's not a sign that I use with you regularily. You are verbalizing a lot, with all sorts of consonants and vowels. Your favourite sound right now is "gno gno gno", and as always "mama mama mama!". It's quite adorable, please don't stop.
You seem to have decided that eating is no fun. I really have to work to get much of anything into you, but we work it out somehow. I can always get you to eat berries and other fruits, which is good, but I think it's giving you a bad diaper rash! Sometimes if I give you a fork or a spoon you'll eat, but not always. You've also seem to have broken up your love affair with peanut butter, which is also sad.
In other news your teeth are still all growing and are sharp as ever, and to my delight, you've learned that they're for biting! (But not Mama's fingers, which you don't) But I can give you food things and ask you to bite them. Like an apricot, or to my delight artichoke. We have so much fun with it. I put the leaf in your mouth, you clamp your wee chompers on it and I pull the leaf out all cleaned of it's yummy yummy flesh. Daddy think's we're werid, but I think it's wonderful that you love artichokes like me.
You continue to walk, and refuse to hold my hand, which is a little dismaying, since I need you to hold my hand in the street and in parking lots. I especially love your baby sprint. Oooo watching your wee little bum wiggle as you sprint to something, makes my day!
I think that you've become more imaginative with your toys, especially your dollies. I will find one in your potty, or having a nap on a blanket on the floor, or sleeping in a hammock I made for them. You like to brush their (non existant) hair and you try so hard to put diapers on them. Poor Shepard (the boy doll with the lamb) has been subject to your fashionista persona, he's often half undressed, his shirt just hanging off of his wee lamb.


more later mama's tired

509 Things

Remember this?
So I did it! Today I hit 509! I know I said I would do it in a month, but I didn't. I could have, but I didn't.
I was totally ruthless with my stuff, Adam on the other hand has a strong connection to a stained lab coat, a bright orange traffic vest and a too small suit. He insists to keep the first two in case he needs a costume and the suit because it will be better to have it altered than to buy a new one.
Let work on him together okay? A new suit that fits him is the best idea. Not one that fit him when he was prepubescent. However, I was able to throw away all of his horrible acrylic sweaters which made my skin crawl when I touched them.
On my side of the closet, it's nearly bare. I got rid of all of my work clothes, old dresses and anything that I haven't worn in a year and don't fit. I have lots of room to shop now, I mean Trixie's clothes are less cramped now.

Even after everything is all done and I've hit the 500 mark, there is still a lot of purging that can be done, so I'll make another goal of 200 things before the end of May. Let's see if I can do that! Same rules apply as before.

Also? I challenge anyone else to try for 100, I bet you can do it!

A day in the life....

Of Trixie.
Today was a good day, she woke up, and found the remote and pushed random buttons until she turned it on, then proceeded to watch PBS Sprout. (which we let her watch in the morning for a precious extra few minutes of sleep, it's the only TV we approve, it doesn't have a lot of scene changes) Anyhow, apparently she's figured it out.
Then this evening she peed in her potty which is good 'cause she's been on a bit of a potty strike. So we let her go diaperless 'cause she likes it and she has a prickly heat rash on her bum. About 10 minutes after the potty she wanders over to me and I get a poopy whiff.... And I notice that her socks are poopy. Oh dear. I called Adam over and we embarked on a poop hunt. Chachi was no help finding the poop. Eventually, I found the poop. She had stood in her pile of blocks and pooped.
Yeah, that's what I said.
Later at dinner we were eating cucumbers soaked in vinegar and she loved them, taking forever to get through one disc of a cucumber, then after finally finishing her second, she decided she wanted the vinegar. So I let her, thinking she'd stick her finger in it and then decide it was far too sour. Yeah, so uhm, no. She drank the vinegar, made a face and went back for more. (she never had more than a teaspoonful.)

Goofy goofy girl.

14 month newsletter

Dear Beatrix, the light of my life.

Today you are 14 months old! 14! It's a lot isn't it?
I feel that this past month was broken into 2 halves, the first was just you growing and being cute, cute, cute, with more cuteness. Then the second part? Holy crazy! First you learned to walk, and now you will do nothing but walk, unless that is if you are baby running. It's quite adorable, but because of your only walking rule you have hooker knees. They are rather bruised up and a little trashed! They don't seem to bother you though, and while I cringe and your knees take the brunt of a fall, you get up and wobble away. I thank a sorts of lucky stars that babies don't have knee caps! And the other crazy development of the last two weeks? Only you cutting a whole mess of teeth! As of today you have cut 3, nearly 4 teeth. Oddly the first two you cut were your top front teeth. You have quite the adorable little smile now, although I will always miss your gummy grin. Now when you give me your open mouthed kisses, they're not just slimy and gooey, there are little sharp bits that gouge into my cheek. See? The adorable that abounds? Cheek gouging kisses!
Earlier this month my older brother Rob and his wife Kelly and their son Liam came to visit us and you had a great time with them. Granted Rob and I don't know each other that well, we weren't raised together and didn't meet until our teens and then there was a long break where circumstances kept us apart, but now we're in touch and you have another Uncle and Auntie. Their son Liam, is only 6 weeks younger that you, and the two of you were the most adorable little partners in crime while we were dragging you two all over Northern California. I don't think that there have ever been two happier and better behaved babies, ever! Such little troopers, sitting in the car for long rides, taking all of your naps in car seats and waiting patiently while Mama, Daddy and Auntie and Uncle tastes lots of wines in Sonoma and Napa. Such troopers. You were rewarded though, we took you guys to lots of children friendly places and you and Liam had lots of fun playing. I think that you two will be friends for life, and that makes me so happy!
Your eating this month hasn't changed much, other than you love to dip stuff. I think your favourite thing to eat is celery sticks and hummus. You dip the celery into the hummus, suck it off, and repeat. Eventually you end up eating some of the celery, but mostly you consume hummus. There may have even been a time where you might have drank some hummus... clearly I shouldn't turn away from you! You still get a couple of bottles a day, but I only give them to you when you're about to go to bed and when you wake up in the morning. I am not too keen to take them away from you. If I were able to breastfeed you, I wouldn't be weaning you anytime soon, so I see no reason to take your bottles away. I do find it amusing though how you get so confused if I give you milk in a sippy cut instead of a bottle. If you're a little cranky you will absolutely refuse to drink your milk until I put it in a bottle.
Your pottying has taken a bit of a back seat to your walking. But Daddy and I are still determined. I have been known to let you walk around naked so I can plop you on the potty regularly, and you have been known to reward me by peeing on the floor. You're so precious! Like a flower.
You love to play with your dolls, and you have 4 that you really love, Baby, Dolly, Shepard and Other Baby. As you can see we're real creative with the toy's names around here, however you do know who's who and you'll being me the requested doll. You also give love to Duck (Donald), Dog and I'm teaching to disregard Elmo, who's eyes you like to poke at. Daddy and you still play with your blocks and demolishing towers is still a favourite game. I continue to buy you too many books and you continue to read them all, which makes me so happy. We always have a big pile of books on the floor for me to trip on, but you spend a lot of time surrounded by your books, so I don't get upset.
In terms of the words you have, you say "Mama:, "Dada", "BAAAA" which is ball and always shouted, I've heard you say "Chachi" and "cat". You still say "duck" and various other words that I can't remember, along with all sorts of singing and yelling which is mostly what comes out of your mouth, and always in a happy way. Your signing has taken off. While the sign for 'milk' seems to have dropped off your radar in favour of "AHHHHH!" and pointing, you do sign 'more', 'cheese', 'cookie', 'thank you', and rarely 'please'.
All in all I'm realizing that toddler hood is pretty amazing and I love to see you explore and create the world around you!
Love Mama