Letter figure it out

Recently I bought Baby B some foam alphabet letters that are intended for use in the bathtub. I thought it would be a good way to practice learning her ABCs while having fun. They already performed a wonderful duty in helping get her past a temporary bath and shower strike a couple weeks ago. Every bath and shower since buying the foam letters has gone extremely well, just as before.

So last night was bath night, and we were playing with the letters. I laughed as Baby B handed me a yellow D, noting that she gave me the letter that my first name starts with. Baby B leaned over again, and the very next letter she picked up was handed to The Husband…and it was the first letter of his name. We looked at each other and laughed it off, knowing it was quite a coincidence, but a fun one.

I laughed and said, “Okay, Baby B, now can you find your letter?”

And I’ll be damned if she didn’t lean over instantly and correctly pick up the first letter of her name and stick it on her chest…from among the two complete sets of alphabet letters and one set of numbers floating in the tub.

From 62 objects in the bathtub, she handed my letter to me, The Husband’s letter to him, and picked out her letter — all consecutively and probably within a span of 20 to 30 seconds.

The Husband and I looked at each other, temporarily not sure whether we had a supergenius on our hands or if coincidence can really be that crazy. We know, of course, that it was a complete coincidence, but even that being the case, it was very bizarre indeed.

Little Miss Bossy

Ah, the bossy stage of toddlerhood. It has found us. When Baby B wants something to be done, she makes it known.

Last night it was just me and Baby B hanging out before bed. She declared that it was time for me to go “nigh-nigh” and would put her hand on my shoulder to guide me onto the floor. But it wasn’t enough to be lying down; she insisted that I lie down on my belly specifically. “Nigh-NIGH!” she’d proclaim as she urged my shoulder downward. Just for fun, I’d pretend to not understand what she was talking about and make her give me the instructions again. She brought over a blanket for me, followed by a pillow, then took them away as I was getting comfortable.

I started to get up, but she insisted I stay there. She proceeded to climb onto my back, stand upright, and jump off, usually landing on her butt on my back and sliding down my side to the floor, but sometimes landing fully on her own two feet on the floor. (And being the Mother of the Year award winner that I am, I kept letting her do this over and over, probably 20 times. Hey, at least I made sure we were in the middle of the floor so she wouldn’t take a tumble into furniture.)

Another tale of bossiness comes from bedtime the last several nights. Baby B will take The Husband’s hand and make him lie on the floor in her bedroom on his back. She’ll get him in position, then come for me next. She’ll lead me by the hand and put me on the floor, signaling that I should lie right beside The Husband, also on my back. If I pretend to not understand what she’s talking about, she’ll get bossy and insistent. S

She goes through a few adjustments to make sure we’re in the desired position, then walks around to our heads and reaches down for our hands, holding my hand with her left hand and The Husband’s hand with her right hand. She then positions her right foot squarely in The Husband’s chest and finds the best place (“best” in her opinion) to stick her left foot on me. Sometimes it’s the chest, sometimes it’s the tummy. She then takes two or three more steps on top of us, using our hands to steady herself as she walks toward our feet. This usually ends with Baby B taking a misstep (while still holding our hands) and falling onto one or both of us, with all three of us laughing like kids. She’ll then walk back to our heads and start the whole thing over again.

At some point we’ll have to work on the bossiness thing, but for right now, as long as it’s bringing us some harmless laughs, we’ll enjoy it and let her be a normal toddler.

Cool running

I’m blanking out on Baby B stories at the moment, so I figured I’d give an update on my race training since I hadn’t done that for a while.

My 10K race is three weeks from tomorrow, and I definitely feel prepared for that. My weekday runs are at 5 miles (Tuesdays), 3 miles (Wednesdays), and 5 miles (Thursdays), and they don’t increase in distance through the rest of my training; I’ll stay at those distances on those days. My long run (on Sundays) will be at 9 miles this weekend and will continue to increase roughly a mile each week until the half-marathon on November 1. I really feel like I could do the half-marathon right now, but I’m glad I still have 5 training weeks left.

I do not run non-stop on my runs, but generally I pause to walk briskly about every mile or so for approximately 30 seconds (enough to catch my breath after going uphill) and typically manage anywhere from a 10- to 12-minute per mile average on both shorter and longer runs. (Pretty good for me!) My average time per mile has decreased by a couple minutes in the past few months, so it’s wonderful to see some improvement.

As of right now, I’m thinking my time goal for the 10K will be an hour an 15 minutes, and my time goal for the half-marathon will be 3 hours, though I’ll decide for sure right before each race.  I think that should be pretty realistic, though, and will give me a little padding for fatigue.

The weather has been perfect for running over the past couple of weeks. The hot and humid days of summer seem to be in the past, and I’m greeted each evening with clear nights in the mid- to upper 60s. Just a touch of cool in the air, but still warm enough to wear my summer running clothes. When I’m out on terrific nights like these, I can’t believe all those hot/humid nights I was actually out running over the summer. I’m not sure how things will go once the weather gets cooler since I’m used to running in shorts and a t-shirt and won’t be able to do that if it’s truly cold. I’ve got some warmer clothes ready, but I’ll also need to work it out so that I layer and can shed some clothes if needed since I’ll get hot when running. I’m sure I’ll figure it out quickly. I just hope the temps don’t dip below about 40 degrees; that seemed to be my minimum temperature that I could stand to be out running in when I started back in the spring.

When I think back to when I started running in the spring, I’m definitely impressed with how far I’ve come. One-mile runs used to be quite the challenge, and now my shortest run is at 3 miles and I’ll be running 22 miles this week. (Who am I??) I’ve enjoyed this challenge, but I can say that I’ll be hanging up my running shoes for a while once the half-marathon is over. I’m not ruling out some kind of further training in the future, but at this point, I feel like I’m going to get what I need to get out of the Indy race and don’t have a desire to either complete another half-marathon or attempt a full marathon. I can see possibly doing some 5Ks from time to time, but at this point I don’t see wanting to do the serious training for a longer race anytime soon.

It’s been helpful to run on a specific schedule for training purposes, but I do look forward to going out for a run (probably not until next spring; I’m not such a good cold weather runner) without a specific route in mind, just taking turns wherever I feel like it as opposed to following my route to make sure I get the distance I need.

Apparently I inspired The Husband with my running, and he’s doing a 5K race tomorrow morning. I’m so excited to go downtown with Baby B and cheer him, just as he’s done for me all along. 🙂 (Good luck, baby!)

Trashy stickers

One of Baby B’s favorite things right now is stickers, or TITCH! as she calls them. Another one of her favorite things at the moment is throwing away things in the trash. So, being the efficient toddler she is, she has combined two of her favorite activities into one, and it goes something like this.

She’ll come to me and ask for a TITCH!, patting her arm (where we put the stickers on) to get her point across even more effectively. She’s so happy to receive the sticker that she smiles real big, looks at it for a few seconds, then makes a beeline for the kitchen trash, lifts the lid, and puts the sticker in there. She then runs back to me and starts the process all over again. “TITCH!” She pats her arm. I give her a sticker. She runs back to deposit it in the kitchen trash. She returns and asks for another. You get the point.

We try and convince her to look at the sticker, to show the other parent, to put it on her shirt — anything! — but the only thing she wants to do with them is throw them in the trash.

Good thing we usually just give her the crappy free stickers we received in kids’ magazine offers and other junk mail (hey, she doesn’t know the difference…and sometimes they are cute).

Wordless Wednesday: Wherever I go, I know she goes

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This post is brought to you by the color yellow

Did you know that every shirt Baby B owns is yellow? And did you know that our carpet is yellow? And did you know that every toy that Baby B owns is yellow?

Well, that’s what Baby B would tell you, anyway. Apparently her favorite color is yellow because every time we ask her what color something is, that is always — and I mean always — her first answer.

And apparently her favorite letter is O. We practice the alphabet several times a day, including in the car on the way home from daycare, and here’s how the middle of the alphabet always goes:

Me: Can you say K?

Baby B: K

Me: Can you say L?

Baby B: O

Me: Can you say M?

Baby B: O!

Me: Can you say N?

Baby B: O!!

Me: Can you say O?

Baby B: [silence]

Yep, the moment she’s supposed to say O, she clams up and doesn’t say it anymore, despite it being her letter of choice for the past three letters.

Oh, and in case you’re keeping track, her favorite number seems to be 2. *shrug*

What a prick

This morning was our appointment for Baby B to meet with the allergist for allergy testing to see if a food sensitivity or allergy is the cause of her diaper issues. Thankfully they sent us the new-patient paperwork in the mail, so I didn’t have to worry about recalling and writing medical history information (for her and for me and The Husband) while trying to watch her in the waiting room. We had about a five-minute wait, during which she occupied herself with a toy desk and some books in the kids’ corner.

We were taken back to a room (I think our first exam room without any sort of exam table in it) and the nurse took Baby B’s blood pressure for the first time ever (she did so well!) and got her other vitals. The nurse explained an overview of what would happen with the testing, then she left to get the doctor, who came in soon after.

We went over Baby B’s history and why we were there today, then she explained a few more things about the testing. It was the standard skin prick test on her back, and she tested one of the “needles” (it’s plastic, so not really a needle) on the back of my hand so I’d know what it would feel like. Both she and the nurse said Baby B might have some discomfort from it, but not really pain. They both said usually the hard part is keeping them still and confined enough to do the skin pricks, but it’s not the actual pricks that bother them.

We went over with the doctor what Baby B does and does not eat to determine some foods that we thought would be good to test, and then she left to order the serums, and the nurse came back with a tray full of them. In the meantime, Baby B played with all of the fun toys they had in the room. (They even had a TV with a VCR in there, as well as some videos for them to watch, though we didn’t do that.)

The nurse came back and I took off Baby B’s shirt, then the nurse made some markings with a pen on Baby B’s back to indicate placement of allergens. (That tickled her and she kept getting wiggly when she’d try to mark on her back.) They had two controls: one that would definitely test as positive, and one that would definitely test as negative, so they were able to compare how Baby B reacted to each of the allergens tested in relation to the positive and negative. (What looks like a positive on one person might actually be a normal reaction for another.) 

Baby B then sat in my lap and I had to confine her while she did the skin pricks. As expected, she found it a little uncomfortable but mostly she just didn’t want to be confined. From start to finish, I’d say it took about 5 minutes. The nurse set her timer for 15 minutes, left the room, and I had to keep Baby B occupied so that she didn’t touch her back against anything. They asked if she was allowed to have a sucker to help occupy her hands, so I said yes. The nurse seemed surprised when I said that was actually Baby B’s first sucker. (Turns out that didn’t last very long because she’s a sucker biter, it seems, so I had to take away the pieces that I judged to be potential choking hazards.)

The nurse came back in after 15 minutes and got out a ruler to measure the bumps. They record both size of the redness and the degree of redness in the bumps. The doctor came back in to go over the results with me, and she said she didn’t see any indication of food allergies or sensitivities in the 20-some foods we tested. That’s good news, of course, because I was really dreading something like a milk or wheat allergy that would be difficult to manage (especially considering her food pickiness), but that now leaves us back at square one in figuring out what is causing Baby B’s diaper issues. I still need to see if I can get her appointment for that moved up, because otherwise we’re just in wait-and-see mode until January (when the appointment is currently scheduled). We’ll continue to cut back on her fruit intake to see if that helps, but so far it hasn’t done much in the past two weeks.

Sit!

I’ve made a reasonable — not perfect, but decent — effort lately to curb my use of swear words around Baby B since she parrots nearly everything we say and do these days. But I’m learning that no matter how much we clean up our language, there will always be some things that she says that end up coming out sounding bad.

I think I recently mentioned that one of her favorite things to do lately is make us sit. She’s so insistent bossy about it, smacking the seat or floor beside her with her open hand to indicate she’s serious about this command, and she doesn’t let up until we amuse her and sit.

But the funny part is that she doesn’t just proclaim, “Sit!” It comes out as “JHIT!” which of course sounds like a word I’d rather not have her calling out emphatically around other people.

But alas, that’s what she does. “JHIT! JHIT!”

And have I mentioned that the few times she’s said The Dog’s name, it comes out sounding like the name of the primary boy part? Yeah, that wasn’t very good planning, huh? 🙂 Let’s hope she keeps calling him “dog-doh” indefinitely.

I can’t wait until we’re at the dog park one day and she addresses The Dog and tells him to sit. We’ll know what she means, but everyone else in the area will hear, “Shit, Penis!” Oh boy!

Meet our new friend, The Shadow

I think we’re on our way to have the shadow issue under control. We’re not there quite yet, but we’re employing some good techniques to manage it.

I think our success (so far…knock on wood!) lies in two areas: 1) acknowledging the shadow before she notices it herself, and 2) acting casual or excited about the shadow instead of acting like it’s something to be worried about. I was nervous regarding the first point; I almost didn’t want to draw attention to The Shadow if she was nice and calm and hadn’t noticed it. But I’m finding quickly that she’s more receptive to playing with The Shadow when I’m the one who notices it instead of waiting for her to become alarmed by it.

So far we’ve tried to have a lot of fun with The Shadow. We wave to it. We make it clap. We dance with it. We tickle the shadow. We give it high fives. She’ll even kiss The Shadow (inside the house) if we ask her to. She’ll still have moments where she gets scared of it, but then she sees us greeting The Shadow excitedly and eventually comes around herself. So far we haven’t had another moment of paralyzing fear like we did earlier in the week. I know we’re still not quite past this challenge, but I feel like we’re tackling it in a productive way.

Wordless Wednesday: A day in the life of Baby B

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Lurking in the shadows

A couple months ago, I wrote about how Baby B had noticed her shadow while we were at a local park and how she didn’t care much for her new friend. After that one day, however, her shadow went largely unnoticed.

Until last night. When we had a major freakout on our hands after she saw her shadow in the living room and then in her bedroom.

We’re not talking that she just didn’t like it. We’re talking paralyzed with fear, crying her eyes out, a look of sheer terror on her face, and begging us to come rescue her. Of course we know it’s silly, but she doesn’t know that right now. Yet as I was taking my turn with Baby B buried in my chest, I looked at The Husband helplessly and said, “I have no idea how to deal with this.”

Just when you think you have things figured out, they go and throw you a curveball. I definitely didn’t see this one coming.

I pulled out my trusty “Happiest Toddler on the Block” book because I’d remembered a chapter on fears. I was back at square one after checking out the book, however, because the fear issue isn’t addressed until the three-year-old section of the book. Which is fine, except most of the methods of dealing with fears that are suggested are geared more toward a child who can communicate and reason a little better than a 19-month-old can.

I consulted Dr. Internet after she went to bed and came up with a few suggestions, including making shadow puppets, playing with flashlights, and befriending our shadows. I also saw that it’s key to not cross that line between comforting her when she’s scared and comforting her too much so that it validates her fears, which I imagine is an easy line to cross when all you want to do is make her not scared.

And all I want to do is make her not scared. But I know I have to go about that in a way that she learns for herself that shadows aren’t scary, not in a way that she learns that Mommy will always come rescue her from whatever is scary.

Toddler tales

*Baby B is making it clear that some things have to go her way, and with minor things we do amuse her and let her win those battles. One example from this weekend came from our trip to the park. We romped up a little hill to an area with some trees and a memorial to a horse that had died. Baby B sat on a 2-inch deep edge of the memorial stone because her butt is tiny and can fit there. She looked at The Husband and started patting the stone to her left until The Husband sat down. I knew my turn was coming, but I tried to get out of sitting on that tiny edge (because my butt needs more than 2 inches, thank you very much). My plan didn’t work, however, and Baby B insisted that I sit on the edge to her right, where she was patting the stone next to her impatiently. How could I not indulge her that?

*When I was making dinner last night, Baby B was standing at the front screen door looking outside with The Dog next to her. When The Dog would decide to leave, she would take a few steps away from the door and say in a stern voice, “Dog-DOH!” and point toward the door, making it clear that she thought The Dog should be there at the door with her. (Bossy much?) A few minutes later, I heard some singing, and I tiptoed over to find her singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” except she was just singing, “Head, toes, toes” and doing the body motions that go along with it. I may be mistaken, but she may have been trying to teach The Dog how to do it.

*Also before dinner, Baby B decided to feed The Dog his uneaten food (it’s been a while since she’s done this). At first he was cooperative, but then The Dog decided he didn’t want to eat anymore. Baby B knew this, so what did she do? She started doing some of the same things we do to her to try to get her to eat when she’s being picky: She’d hold the food out, say “mmmm!” and open and close her mouth like she was chewing, trying to encourage him to eat.

*Before bed last night, Baby B placed a pillow on the floor at the foot of the bed then asked to come “Uh! Uh!” (up) on the bed. She scooted on her butt to the edge of the bed and slid down the foot of the bed (with me right there just in case) and landed on her butt on the pillow. I let her do this a few times, then she started patting the pillow and looking at me expectantly, wanting me to do it, too. I figured this was a good chance for me to show her that she could get hurt doing it, so when I went down, I purposely landed on my knees and started acting like I was hurt, grabbing my knees and saying, “Ouchie! Ouchie!” Baby B still asked to take another turn. She slid down and immediately started doing the same thing I’d been doing, grabbing her knees and saying, “Ouchie! Ouchie!” — even though she’d landed square on her butt. LOL

Boy, that was a good dream

If I could choose the sex for a (theoretical) second child — and I know that I have no guarantees of a second child, nor the ability to make this choice — I would choose to have a girl.

There, I said it.

It’s not very PC to say that you prefer one sex over another, because all anyone ever wants is a healthy baby, and the sex shouldn’t matter. And, really, it doesn’t, and a healthy baby is the most important thing. I would be more than happy with a boy, and having one of each would be a neat experience; so many people try over and over until they have both sexes. But if I did have the ability to choose, I would pick a girl to complete our family.

I think I came to terms last night with the idea of a boy, though. I had a dream that I’d just had a baby and (for some reason) didn’t find out the sex beforehand (so not me). The baby was born and I forgot to ask what the sex was. Later I was snuggling with the baby on my chest, and I tried feeling through the diaper to see what we were dealing with, and I concluded it was a girl. Others around me snickered and sort of whispered among each other, “She’ll find out later!” but I didn’t pay attention. Later, I was changing a diaper and quickly learned that I was dealing with a boy instead of the girl I thought it was.

I woke up from this dream and I can’t really describe it, but I felt a great sense of calm overcome me as I processed the dream. I feel like this was a way for my subconscious to accept the fact that I can be 100% happy with raising a boy despite my (probably silly) apprehensions.

Would I still choose a girl if I could? Yes. But it felt good to know that with either one next time, I win.

Life as we know it

Here’s a glimpse into Baby B’s life right now:

Eye color: dark brown

Hair: She finally has some, though it’s still in the ultra-cool baby mullet style. At some point we’ll get it evened out, but she doesn’t have much hair on the top/sides yet, so that’ll wait.

Hair color: This can vary. Sometimes it looks coppery/dark blonde. Other times it’s closer to a light shade of brown.

Clothing size: Either 12 months or 18 months. She’ll probably be solidly in 18 months as we go into the fall/winter. We probably need to buy some long-sleeved stuff soon because if we get hit with cool weather, she’s not going to have anything to wear.

Diaper size: Size 3 Cruisers or Baby Dry (we can’t really tell a difference)

Shoe size: Her walking shoes are size 5, but we got them a little big to grow into, so I’d say she’s closer to a 4 in reality.

Bedtime: 8:30 p.m.

Wake-up time: 6:30 a.m. on weekdays. On the weekends, she sleeps until 8:30 or 9 a.m. on average.

Teeth: All four canines are right at the surface, about to pop through any time. Once those are in, we’ll just be waiting for the 2-year molars.

Breakfast: Yogurt with fruit mixed in, and some dry cereal on the side. She likes to dip the cereal in the yogurt first.

Lunch: Allegedly she eats well at daycare. At home it’s not as consistent.

Dinner: Hit or miss. Sometimes she eats well, and sometimes she doesn’t.

Current obsessions: Ducks, babies, ducks, shoes, ducks, watching babies on YouTube, ducks, diving onto pillows and pretending to go night-night, ducks

Favorite animals: DUCKS, doggies, elephants, lions

Favorite words: nooooo, baby, MORE!

Vocabulary: I’d say she has 80-100 words that she can say that she knows the meaning of.

Body parts she can identify: head, hair, nose, eyes, ears, cheeks, tongue, mouth, lips, hands, boobies, bottom/butt, belly button, knee, foot, toe

Books: She LOVES books. She’ll either bring us books to look at with us, or she’ll stand or sit and flip through them herself, studying each page carefully.

Favorite color: Apparently it’s yellow. Every time we ask what color something is, her first answer is always yellow. Unless, of course, we finally point to something yellow. That’s the one time she chooses not to answer yellow.

Favorite foods: Any fruit, frozen green beans, corn, Nutrigrain bars

Least favorite foods: Any meat

Favorite song: “Grand Old Duke of York”

Making a splash

I could have been upset that, despite getting nearly no rain all summer long, we had a major downpour that started right when it was time to pick up Baby B earlier today.

I could have been upset that, despite the fact that I was using an umbrella, my shirt and jeans were soaked, heavy, and made me feel itchy.

I could have been upset that, despite the fact that the rain let up a little when it was time to leave daycare, Baby B decided to plop down in the middle of the (thankfully not-heavily-traveled) street because she no longer wanted to be holding my hand, getting her butt wet in addition to the bottoms of the legs of her pants.

I could have been upset at any of those things. But we got home and I thought to myself, “Why should I act like this is a bad thing?”

So I got Baby B out of the car, and we proceeded to splash in the puddles in our driveway and on the sidewalk since we were wet anyway. This is one of Baby B’s favorite things to do, but most of the time she wants to do it when we’re going somewhere and she can’t really get her clothes wet, so I can’t usually let her do it for more than one or two good stomps.

But sometimes you have to let kids be kids. And sometimes, as adults, it helps to turn on the kid mentality when it comes to these things.

So we splashed.

And we giggled.

And we were wet.

But boy did we have fun!

Wordless Wednesday: Heading toward fall

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Too brain-dead for a creative title

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I’ve had two 15+ hour days at work so far this week, and it’s only Tuesday. Things should slow down after Wednesday or Thursday.

I did want to mention that we met with the pediatrician this morning. All of Baby B’s stool tests came back negative (as expected), but she’s not quite ready to call it toddler’s diarrhea yet, though she did think cutting back on fruit was a good idea just to see if it helps. She wants to send us to an allergist first to rule out any allergies (have to set up that appointment once I have time), then we have an appointment set up with a pediatric GI doctor just in case the allergy thing comes up negative. That appointment? It’s set for January 2. Um, yeah. January. Of 2009. Yikes. There’s a chance we can get it moved sooner once they look at her case file, but that’s the preliminary appointment date for now.

I’m off to get a backrub and go to sleep. I’m beat.

Dirty diapers bite

Mom lesson #231: If you’re going to do poo-poo voodoo in the car, roll down the windows FIRST.

This reminder brought to you by Baby B’s mom.

So Baby B is still having diaper issues, except this time, we’ve got pretty much whole chunks of food (beyond just corn) that are appearing. (Sorry, I’ll try to make that as graphic as I get in this post.) The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Baby B hasn’t really had too many truly solid diapers since starting finger foods; they’re of, let’s just say, a less-solid consistency. I just thought that was her norm, but with daycare threatening that they’re supposed to call us to pick her up if she has X number of loose diapers in X amount of time, I called the pediatrician to make an appointment to talk about what’s going on. Her last stool cultures a month ago came back negative, but they ordered another one to test a few more things.

The doctor’s office called me yesterday around 11 a.m. to say they wanted to do the sample. I called daycare and asked them to keep any dirty diapers she might have so we could get the sample down there on Thursday. Usually she has a dirty diaper in the afternoon, so I thought that’d work well. Guess who didn’t have a dirty diaper in the afternoon? No problem, I thought. She is guaranteed to have a dirty diaper after breakfast on Friday, as she does every single morning. Guess who didn’t have a dirty diaper this morning? Yeah. So we sent Baby B to daycare and told them to call us if she had a dirty one. Naturally, just 20 minutes after I got to work, they called and said that we’d hit the jackpot, so I had to leave work, assemble the samples into the various containers, and drive to the lab. Thankfully the daycare teacher gave me a set of gloves, and I got started with the samples in the car. Without rolling the windows down first. Yeah, bad idea! After gagging, I rolled down the windows and circulated the bad air out of the car. The smell, thankfully, did not linger.

I think she has something called toddler’s diarrhea, which she seems to have nearly all the symptoms of (I will spare you the list). The only problem is that this is something that most commonly happens because the kid drinks too much juice, but Baby B doesn’t drink juice. She does eat a lot of fruit, so perhaps that’s the issue. We’ve cut back on her fruit intake this week, but so far I can’t tell a difference. Toddler’s diarrhea is diet-related — it’s not caused by a virus or bacteria –with the solution being to give a higher-fat diet. Of course, she hasn’t been diagnosed with this yet, but I’m almost willing to place a bet on this being her diagnosis. And I dread having to limit her diet, as she already limits it so much because of her picky eating. But we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it after we see what the doctor has to say on Tuesday morning.

We’ll also be addressing the biting issue (again) with the doctor, as Baby B has had at least 4 incidents this week at daycare, two last week, and she got me hard (enough for bruises) on each of my shoulders. My suspicion is that it’s teething-related; her top two canines are just about to pop through the surface, and her last round of biting happened when she was getting her one-year molars.

Her past two days at daycare have been better, but we need to see if there’s anything else we should be doing. I think we’re doing well in approaching this, but it can’t hurt to at least have some reassurance from the pediatrician. I feel like we need to do what we can because at some point the daycare is going to say that enough is enough and kick her out if we can’t control her biting. On some level she does understand that what she is doing is wrong. She gets upset if we tell her that teeth are not for biting, and she’s got a book about biting that we read every night, then she flips through it and says, “No! No! No!” while pointing to the kids biting. I really don’t know that they’ll have anything else to suggest, as we’ve done a good amount of research on this issue ourselves, but it can’t hurt to address it while we’re there anyway.

What does Momma say?

The most-overheard question in our house this days is: “What does ____ say?” and fill in the blank with any animal you can think of. For a long time, whenever we’ve pointed to a fish in a book and ask, “What does a fish say?” Baby B would say, “Momma!” before making her fish lips. We’d laugh and say, “No, fish don’t say Momma!”

Fast-forward a few weeks when we were putting a swim diaper on Baby B. I saw Nemo on the front of the diaper, and without showing it to her, I asked her out of the blue, not really expecting an answer, “What does Nemo say?” I was definitely surprised when she did her fish lips immediately, since we’d never taught her who Nemo is; she must have learned that at daycare because it’s never come up at home.

Well, two days ago we were eating dinner and asked her what a fish says. Again she said, “Momma!” before doing her fish lips. The Husband suddenly realized that she was saying Nemo, not Momma. We laughed and I asked, “Well, what do mommas say, then?”

Without missing a beat, she put on a serious face and proceeded to cross/fold her arms in front of her on her chest.

Oh. Well. Hrm. I guess Momma says that sometimes. Er, quite a bit, it seems, if it’s enough for her to notice.

The Husband and I started cracking up, and I had to leave the room because I was laughing so much. Poor Baby B must’ve thought she had done something wrong or was in trouble, because she immediately burst into full tears, and we had to explain to her that it was good and that she’d made a funny joke!

Later that night, I decided to ask her again to see if her initial answer was a fluke. “What does Momma say?” I asked.

She folded her arms on her chest again.

I think Momma needs to work on something else to say!

Wordless Wednesday: Zoo should see the fun we had!

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Brewing up some fun

Everyone survived The Trip! And we even had some fun to boot. Quite a bit of fun, actually.

The trip to Milwaukee began after work on Thursday, when we drove to Indianapolis and spent the night there before tackling the rest of the journey. I was nervous about the driving part just because I wasn’t sure how our multiple kid-related stops would affect the length of the drive, but we did pretty well and still managed some good breaks along the way. The best part of the drive up was the little playground at the Wisconsin welcome center on Friday, which was a great idea that I think all rest areas should have. The Husband sat in the backseat with Baby B for the entire drive, which I think was the secret to our success, as this allowed him to entertain her and also retrieve dropped/thrown items that might cause a mini-tantrum otherwise.

We arrived shortly after 4 p.m. local time on Friday, and Pen Pal and Her Husband won over Baby B very quickly because they’d brought over some toys from their five-year-old niece, including an awesome doll stroller and a baby doll that she loved pushing around the house. Of course we’d brought a few toys, but it was nice to have other — and new — options to keep her interest.

On Friday morning we went downtown to the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum, which was wonderful. The other children’s museums were awesome, but this one might have been my favorite, especially considering the price (just $6). Although they had an infant/toddler area, the whole museum included things that were appropriate for Baby B. I think the main difference was that this museum didn’t focus as much on science learning but instead about everyday kinds of learning. The best part was the tiny town they had, complete with a news studio, a bank with drive-up ATM, a mechanic’s shop, a post office, and a grocery store and deli. Each of these locations had working phones that called the other places, so parents and children both were getting into character and playing these imaginary townspeople roles. When I was in the deli, I answered the phone and took an order for a cheese sandwich on white bread. Baby B robbed the bank at the drive-thru window (but it was all caught on the security camera they had). She also sent some packages from the post office and did the grocery shopping, then we reported the news (ironically about her bank robbery!). We had a blast!

We had perfect weather all weekend (yay!), so after the museum, we took a walk along the lake to take in the city’s special weekend event, the Harley-Davidson 105th anniversary celebration. Motorcycles were everywhere, and it was fun to feel the rumbling of the bikes as we walked the area. We didn’t make it back to the house until after 2 p.m., but Baby B did great considering she hadn’t had lunch yet and was overdue for her nap. We’re very fortunate that she seems to roll with the punches when we’re out of town and adjusts well to change.

On Sunday morning we made our way to the Milwaukee County Zoo and spent about five hours there, again with Baby B adjusting to a much-later-than-usual nap. We went to the Cincinnati Zoo back in June, just as she was becoming interested in animals (other than her favorite — dogs), but this time she was visiting as a full-on animal lover. (Obsession, anyone?) She enjoyed nearly all the exhibits, but I’d say her favorites were the gorillas and the lions. With the lions, she was dancing and stomping her feet so excitedly (and roaring, too) just watching them give themselves a bath. Oh, and she really seemed to like the elephants, too, as we walked by their enclosure several times, and each time they came in sight, she made her little elephant noise before we’d even ask what elephants say.

Unfortunately, our visit was a short one and we had to drive home on Monday. We did the drive in just one day on the way home, and we ended up with about 10 hours from start to finish (not too bad!), which included an hour for lunch at a sit-down restaurant.

I would have to ask Pen Pal to be certain, but I’d say the trip was a success. Baby B was on her best behavior nearly the entire time, and she only played shy for less than 5 minutes and then she was completely her normal, silly self. We had plenty of time to hang out with her, but we also had the evenings to ourselves as adults without Baby B since she was in bed. Normally at home we have to use that post-bedtime time to catch up on chores around the house, but we didn’t have to do that while away, so we gained some free time.

We have a couple of single-night trips coming up in October, but our next full-weekend trip will be for my half-marathon. As we were driving through downtown Indianapolis on Monday, I realized that exactly two months from that day I would be back in that very city to run my race. I can’t wait!