A spoonful of Independence

Eliza (suprise, suprise) really likes to be independent when she can be. She also likes to be helpful. Lots of times when we can't get her to do something, if I rephrase it like, "Eliza? Can you please help Mommy *_________*" then she's likely to actually do it.

So she's combined her drive for independence and helpfulness and now feeds herself. She barely ever lets us spoon feed her things. I don't really mind, though, even though it sometimes means that she's eating cottage cheese with the spoon for the first few minutes and then converts to eating it by the handful afterward. At least it's her and her bib getting messy instead of me!! :)

Here's Eliza eating some oatmeal. Sooo exciting (for me, but probably not many other people).


Last night, Eliza was really funny at dinner. I was eating some broccoli. I hadn't offered any to her because I haven't been able to get her to eat any in forever. But she was next to me and looked in my bowl, GASPS, and goes, "Oh, WOW! Boccoli!!" and ate the rest of it.

How funny is that?

My New Favorite Meal

High in Fiber, almost fat free, lots of opportunity to satisfy the munchies.

I hate making myself lunch or eat at all before like 4pm, even though I try to force myself.

So popcorn it is! with some skim milk on the side.

*don't worry. I don't actually think this is a healthy meal.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

I signed Eliza up for her first gymnastics class this winter. It's called Peanut Butter and Jelly gymnastics, hence the title of this post.

It's been even more fun than I could have imagined. It's especially been great for cold winter days to have a huge indoor area for Eliza to go wild in.
They have the class set up in a huge gym. They fill about a 1/4th of it with giant mats and plush tunnels for the kids to climb on, through, over and around. Then they also have dozens of balls and hula hoops for the kids to go to town with.
It's a very unstructured gymnastics class for kids ages 2-4. We snuck Eliza in early, but don't worry, she totally holds her own. Anytime a kid even remotely bumps her, she shakes her finger at them and says, "No, no, Baby!" She's obviously an only child. We're still working on her social interaction skills.
The other room they have is the tumbling room. It's covered in mats and has stuff like the spring board and balance beams. And guess what? Eliza totally rocks the balance beam! I wish I had a picture of it, but I'm supporting her at her waist with two hands as she goes across (so no free hand for camera shooting).

Eliza in the tumbling room. She was obsessed with this yellow ball for like 20 minutes.

At the end of the class is parachute time. Each of the kids and their parents grab a handle and "shake shake shake" and watch the balls bounce around in the middle. And then of course, we then lift it high and then kids get to run underneath. Eliza LOVES this part. It's like a GIANT blanket to hide under. It's hilarious to watch her crawling under there.Unfortunately we only have two more weeks left. :( It's gone by wayyy too fast.

We also have Eliza in a Mini-Mozart class on Friday's that Steve takes her to during his lunch break. It's a very fun class too. They do drawings on a big mural piece of paper that they tape to the wall because the instructor says that studies have shown that children draw differently when there's music playing. They also have tons of fun instruments to play with and different colored sashes to dance around with.

It's kind of funny to see the difference b/t the parents who have their kids in gymnastics vs. music class. The gymnastics parents in general look pretty fit and sometimes seem to be having as much fun as their kids. There is one dad who spends most of the time throwing footballs into one of the corners of the gym while his four year old runs around elsewhere. The music class has umm... more creative, laid back seeming parents. But I guess I'm making generalizations.

We do the classes just through the local rec. center, Carver's. It's only $35 for 12 weeks of classes. Sooo worth it to me. I'm hoping to get Eliza signed up for a Creative Movement and music class for toddlers this next round. It was full last time.

Fun times!

Everybody wants to be a Cat! (we recently watched Aristocats on youtube)

This is our sweet Kitty, Finnegan. We got him just about a year ago now! I can't believe we've had him that long. We adopted him from the SPCA.

He has brought so much fun and joy to our household! Especially to Eliza's life. He's the closest thing she's got to a sibling-haha.

When we we're trying to decide on a cat that would be good for us, we brought Mika and Eliza to the "adoption room" at the SPCA and tried to see how he would handle a nervous dog and a "handsy" toddler.

He did fabulously. We thought he was a girl because he was soo pretty and was in a pink cage and his cage was mislabeled. Oh, well. Lots of people still call him a she, but he's alright with that. People do that to Mika too.

Finnegan is an extrovert kitty (my friend who pet-sits for us when we go out of town calls him a cat-whore) and almost immediately jumps in visitors' laps. (We lock him up lots of times to avoid this for non-cat enthusiasts and allergic people.)

He LOVES to snuggle up in your lap or by my side when I'm sleeping. He's always up for a cuddle, which reminds me a lot of Steve- hehe. Hopefully Steve's not embarrassed by me saying that. Actually, when I think about it, most of the things I've said about Finnegan are pretty similar to Steve, except for the whole 'jump in stranger's laps thing' and being mistaken for a pretty girl - haha! But we've joked about how many similarities there are b/t Steve and Finnegan (always thinks they're hungry, gets up in the morning with Eliza, hates water in their faces, likes to claw the carpet (jk!)).

He's almost always up for a game too and is very playful. Definitely a must for a house cat. No one wants a grouchy kitty.

He also kills bugs for us, which I love, but also kills the shrews that he finds around the house which is kinda sad to me, but I guess I'm glad they're not in my house or whatever.

What's the BEST about him, though, is that Finnegan is a very loyal devotee to Eliza.

Every day when Eliza wakes up from her nap or in the morning and starts crying or making noise, Finnegan comes to us MEOWING very loudly to let us know that something's up!

This was pretty annoying when we were trying to sleep train Eliza and still in the mode of her crying herself to sleep, and now it's annoying when Eliza wakes up at 5am and cries for a little while (and would normally, eventually roll over and go back to sleep) but Finnegan starts letting off his meow sirens. Steve especially HATES this.

BUT I think it's sweet that he's so devoted to Eliza.

He lets her tackle him and give him big suffocating hugs. His favorite place to nap is in her room. He loves to "share" her crackers, which I think is gross, but Eliza thinks is hilarious.

And the best is when they play together:

Me Talk Pretty Someday

So last night during bath time, I was dumping water on Eliza's head, which she hates, of course. And after every dump, she would make the sign for sad and cry, and say, "Baby sad." At first I thought she meant like her baby doll or something, but she did again each time I poured water on her.

Good communication skills, albeit in the third person. But I'm also impressed that she's so in tune with her emotions! Instead of doing the sign for hurt, she did sad (which looks a lot like the hand gestures you would use during the song 'If you're sad and you know it, you can cry! Boo-hoo!).
Luckily, she cheered up quickly after the pouring and scrubbing was over and spent the rest of bathtime squealing, giggling, chattering to herself, and swimming tadpole-style with her hands supporting her and her legs trailing and kicking behind her. Very cute.

She also can now say Bubble Bath, which is really cute.

Her vocabulary has really taken off lately. However, what's hard is that lots of times she is trying to tell us things, and we have NO idea what she's talking about, which makes her REALLY frustrated. Like just a little while ago, she was saying something to me that sounded like "Ga-go?" and Steve was like, "You want a taco?" (joke) and I was like, "You want Totoro?" and she kept shaking her head. We still have no idea what she wanted. Good story, right?

Some words that Eliza has mastered (verbally not just signs), that we CAN understand, though, are:

Foods:
1.Food
2.Strawberry- "aberry"
3.Banana- "Nana"
4.Apple
5.Snack
6.Candy- "andy"
7.Cheese
8.Eat
9.Juice- "oose"
10.Soup- "Poop!"
11.Mac & Cheese- "Mopas cheese"
12.Cup
13.MEAT!
14.Hot dog- "Ot Og"
15.Cracker- (but she usually signs it)
16.Water- "Wawer"

Animals:
1.Animal- "amimal"
2.Cat or kitty
3.Dog
4.Mika- "Ika"
5.Beaver
6.Octupus
7.Vole
8.Fish
9.Duck
10.Frog
11.Bear
12.Monster (that's an animal, right?)
13.Pig
14.Horsie
15.Owl
16.Oh no! Bug!
17.Ant
18.Bird
(and the sounds that accompany them, except for things like beavers where we're not sure what they say...)

Body Parts:
1.Nose
2.Arm
3.Legs
4.Belly, belly button- "Utton"
5.Hands
6.Eyes
7.Neck
8.Hair
9.Head
10.Bum
11.Knee
12.Chin
13.Feet
14.Toes
15.Back
16. Smile
17. Teeth
18. Tongue

People/Family:
1.Baby
2.Eliza- "Iza"
3.Me, my- as in "MY momma" or "MY doggie"
4.Momma
5.Dadda
6.Oma (her favorite and first to master after M and D)
7.Grandpa- "andpa"
8.Grandma- "andma"
9.Robby- "Obby" (we have Robby's mission pic on our wall and she loves to point to it and say 10.Rob's name"
11.Kate
12.Boy
13.Girl
14.Man (but most kids are babies and most men and women are mommas and daddas. We're working on that)
15.Friends- "ends"

Miscellaneous:
1.Bubble bath
2.Car
3.Go
4.Play
5.Ball
6.Blanket
7.Bed- "Ed"
8.Oh Yeah!
9.Hello
10.Hey
11.Bye, Bye
12.How are you- on the phone
13.It's Ready! (usually referencing a meal)
14.Park
15.Where Are you?- "Errarr you?"
16.I don't know- "Io know"
17.Movie- "Oovie"
18.TV- "E-V"
19.One, Two
20.Owie
21.Hurt
22.Outside
23.Up, down
24.Book
25.Seat
26.Bowl
27.Basket
28.Moon
29.Ride- "Ide" piggy back rides
30.Look- "I looke" at the camera
31.Totorro
32.Bambi
33.Yucky
34.Backpack
35.Bag
36.Shoe
37.Shirt, pants, coat, hat, bib, dress, socks
38.Poop (the real kind, not soup)
39.Potty
40.Tree
41.grass
42.plant
43.dirt
44.Most letters of the alphabet if we say them first
45.Numbers 1-10, if prompted
46.Wee!
47.Hot, cold, Brr
48.Toy
49.Bow- Hair bow
50.Dance
51.Draw!
52.Sleep
53. Snoring sounds
54. Please, thank you
55. Sad
56.KISS
57. Love you!

So about 150 words!! Exciting.

She kinda speaks a form of Pig Latin because she leaves the initial consonants off of most of her words. Pig Latin's cool, right?

She's also doing a great job of combining these words into more phrases, which is very fun and HELPFUL!! Like "Play Cat?" or "Dog sleep?" or "Momma, eat cheese please?" or "Thank you, Dadda!"

I doubt anyone actually would read through all of these, but it's a fun chronicling of Eliza's steps since this is our online journal of sorts.

p.s. Who got the Dave Sedaris reference in the title?

Valentine Vignettes 8: Sneezes of Love

Eliza has started counting. She loves her animal counting book that she got from her Aunt Abby for Christmas, and now she counts as many things as possible... She's got one and two down pat and sometimes she chimes in with a four or five or maybe even a 3. I was changing her diaper at church and she looked at some writing on the changing table and started pointing out the numbers that she saw on it. Later that week, I had her at the Vet's office with me, and she saw a sign and she started pointing out the letters on it. She likes it when I wear shirts with words on it b/c she'll sit on my lap and point them out. She has a preference for vowels, though, it seems.

Eliza likes to pretend to sneeze--"Ah-choo! Ah-choo!" She'll do it like a hundred times in a row. She also has learned to say bless you when we sneeze, which is fun, but my favorite thing is that she now says "Love you!" to us. Melts my heart.

Valentine Vignettes 7: Blanket Statement

Eliza is obsessed with blankets, especially hiding under them. We'll be playing downstairs and she'll suddenly say, "Bid? Bid?" So we'll run upstairs to the bed and she'll say "Bangket!" which means blanket.

Sometimes she says "Mama bangket!" which means Mama needs to hide under the blanket with her. Other times she'll jump under the blanket by herself and say "Way-AH you?" which means "Where are you?" then jump out and yell "A'BOO!" which means "Peek-a-boo!" And of course jumping on the bed is fun too.
Eliza loves "rides." She calls them 'ide. She loves to climb on one of our backs while we run around the house, bumping up and down and spinning in circles. Oddly, she's often very quiet during rides, not giggling or screaming but with a big smile on her face.

Valentines Love!

I wasn't organized enough to request work off for Valentine's day/night. So on Saturday morning-ish, we decided to go classy, and hit up the local IHOP, Dad-style!!!! ;) My dad's one of IHOP's top 100 fans, I think, and I think Grandpa's close up there too. What's not to like, right?
Well, Eliza didn't agree. She's still fighting a yucky cold with a bad cough and stuffy nose. At least she's not feverish anymore. So she wasn't in the best of moods, but we enjoyed a scrumptious brunch anyways.

We just tried to laugh off the interruptions and tantrums during our Valentine's "Date" when Eliza screamed and started busting out the tears when we tried to wipe her face, change her diaper, or not let her pour the syrup on the bench.

She made it through a good half hour of breakfast, but she wasn't hungry (might have had something to do with the PB&J sandwich I gave her a 1/4 of on the drive over. Smart, right?), so Steve and I then tagged team for most of the rest of the breakfast, letting Eliza wander outside in the bushes (this may not sound fun to you, but it's a blast for Eliza) while the other parent ate.

We would wave to each other through the window.
So not the most romantic of circumstances. But that's parenthood, right? And it was nice to have a "Family date" too! Don't worry, we KNOW that we're supposed to get babysitters and have couple dates too.

Steve was sweet and surprised me with a yummy steak dinner during my dinner break from work at 8:30 and had made a yummy steak and au gratin potatoes and broccoli and gave me a back massage before I went back to work.

I gave Steve a Pinneapple (a manly form of flowers, no?) some of his favorite candy and a mini strawberry cheesecake. Trying to buy his love!

(This is Eliza's camera smile. We say, 'Liza smile with your mouth! and she does that. Funny girl!)

And the most important part of Valentine's Day, is, of COURSE, the celebration of my MOMMA's birthday!

She's such a giver that she always sends us Valentine gifts on HER birthday. She always made Valentine's day special for us.

I remember coming home from school or soccer in high school and going into my room and finding cute new valentine socks lying on my bed or a new belt or festive red t-shirt, just in time to sport on Valentine's day. And it didn't stop after I moved out. Her valentine's day care packages have been the BEST!

I love my mom.

I treasure the intimate relationship we share.

It's quite a novel thing to be able to maintain such a closeness even though we haven't lived nearby for about 6 years now. I depend on my several-times-a-week phone conversations with her to keep me going. Right before and right after I had Eliza, mom put up with me calling her every day for advice, comfort, friendship, nursing wisdom, and self-esteem boosters.

When I haven't believed in myself, especially as a mother, my mom believed for the both of us.

She's my best friend and has probably done more for me than any other one person in my life.

And my love for her and appreciation and understanding for how much she loved me has grown immensely deeper since I had my own daughter and have been trying to learn how to be a mother like she has been for me and my sisters and brother.

I am so grateful that my mom is my best friend.

She has done so many amazing things with her life. I respect her as a ...

Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, a faithful wife, devoted daughter and sister, selfless mother, hardcore athlete, dog trainer, a mighty woman, dedicated member of the church who never stops improving,
who has the vivacity, energy, and work ethic of a true heroine.

I love you, Mom! Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine Vignettes 6: Strawberry Fields Forever

This story is less interesting and can be summed up as Eliza loves strawberries.

I was shopping with her at our yummy local produce shop, C'ville Market. Eliza was actually being a good helper. I told her we needed apples and bananas, and she kept repeating the words "Appus! 'Nanas!" and then she was pointing them out when she saw them. Then I'd ask her can you choose an orange for me? She'd carefully pick out an orange and then throw it behind her into the back of the cart. She did the same for our pears and lemons and limes and zucchinis too. She tried to do it with our bean sprouts too, but that was a little less successful.

Anyways, I was picking out some grapes and Eliza caught sight of some strawberries. I hadn't planned on getting them because they weren't that great of a price, but Eliza was able to grab them into the cart with her and was not letting go. "She kept saying, "Aberry? Aberry?" and signing please over and over. So after that she wasn't happy until we got through check out.

Once I finally gave her a strawberry, I have never seen someone sooo excited to eat anything in my life. She was like squealing with delight! I'd ask her if she wanted more, and she'd like yell yeahhhh back to me.

"All Gone!" (I did her hair while she was trapped in her chair and distracted by her strawberries.)

We picked up Steve after that, and he told me that one of Eliza's other books has featured strawberries recently. Steve was reading it to her for bed time stories and it says, "Alexis likes Strawberries." And Steve would asked Eliza, "Do you like strawberries?" Apparently Eliza enthusiastically kept answering with a, "YEAH!" and would shake her whole body with excitement. So apparently she was living out her bed time story at the market and had been anticipating this strawberry reunion for days now.

I spy...

Valentine Vignettes 5: Totoro! Raar!

Eliza's learned the names of some of her favorite movie characters (besides Elmo, thank goodness). She now can request Bambi by name also, Ernie from Sesame Street, and other "amals" or animals. And she keeps surprising us with more that she knows from movies we've shown her and books we've read to her. Sometime this last week, she apparently learned to recognize a "beaver" and a "vole" thanks to our latest library book and "octopus" from the Wonder Bear book and can actually say those words really well!

The other day, though, she found her old baby monitor and was talking on it like a phone (which isn't that unusual, anything rectangularly shaped with buttons on it gets used as a phone- remote, camera, gameboy, etc). Steve and I started listening to what she said, and it went like this, "Hello? Oh, hi Totoro! RAaaar! Bye, Bye." For those of you who don't know us well, My Neighbor Totoro is one of the best movies ever, animated by Miyazaki. We had no idea that she could say Totoro or thought he was a friend who would enjoy a little chat on the telephone.

In case you're interested, here's a youtube trailer of one of our family favorites. It was actually the first movie Steve and I watched together, on the first day we met... thanks to Katy!

Valentine Vignettes 4: All Done? Not Quite.

Another funny Eliza story is from last week when Steve was changing one of Eliza's dirty diapers. She was struggling with a rash, so Steve decided to give her some time to "air out" before he put another diaper on. He told her, "All done," and had her stand up. She looked down and touched her bare waist and gave Steve her infamous angry eyebrow look, then lay back down on the floor for him to get the job done right!

Crime Spots

I was perusing our local NBC 29 website and found the "Crime Spots" map. It showed all of Charlottesville and lists all the crimes and arrests that have occurred in the past 2 months. You can click on each one and it tells you what crime occurred there.

Not only are the icons bizarre, but it kinda creeped me out to know what kind of stuff is happening like 2 blocks over from my house. Apparently the Burger King that's like 2 minutes away from us had an attempted robbery just 2 days ago! That's wild!

And what does "FRAUD-FALSE PRETENSES/SWINDLE/CONFIDENCE GAME" mean? Apparently, this "crime" occurred just 4 blocks down from us, but I have no idea what that means. Seriously, Confidence Games are against the law?

This website is just one step less creepy than the sex offenders websites but a lot more amusing because of the cartoon depictions of the hard-knock crimes. It kinda makes me feel like I'm in a Batman version of Charlottesville, but maybe I've just been up too late...

Valentine Vignettes 3: Kleenex

Sleepy Eliza after Breakfast.
Notice she has one pacifier in her mouth and one in her hand with her juice.

Eliza's memory has also developed a lot it seems. She especially employs it in her playtimes and mostly when playing with her favorite thing in the world, "BABA's!" Or her pacifiers. She hoards them and will hide them in little nooks and crannies and then come back to them later.

One morning when we were in New York City, Steve was trying to get Eliza ready to meet me after one of my meetings at Fordham. They were all set to go except he couldn't find her baba anywhere. He said he looked in the usual spots, under the bed, crib, couch, bathroom, bathtub. Finally, he remembered that he had seen her playing with a kleenex box earlier out of the corner of his eye. It turns out that SHE HAD PULLED OUT ALL OF THE KLEENEX FROM THE BOX, PUT HER PACIFIERS IN THE BOTTOM OF THE BOX AND THEN PUSHED THE KLEENEX BACK IN ON TOP OF THEM! We got really lucky that we ever found them again! She's sneaky when she wants to be!

Sticky Eliza pictures

Eliza loves to help me cook and bake, especially desserts. Tonight we made some peanut butter cup brownies.

Eliza specializes in "stirring" and sampling, as you can see. She's a pretty cute cook!

Valentine Vignettes 2: Sticky Fingers

This one makes her seem a little finicky. But Eliza HATES having her hands dirty. Or her feet. It surprises us because she doesn't really mind if her face, hair, clothes, or diaper is dirty, but she can't stand it when she gets a drop of jelly on her thumb. She'll pause midway through a meal with a, "Uh-oh!" and hold out her left hand for us to wipe off for her. She'll whine until we clean it.

Valentine Vignettes 1: Prison Break

Eliza's gotten so big! Steve and I can't believe it sometimes.

She's got some very quirky habits, though, that have developed recently. I've been slacking on the blog, so I have a lot Eliza updates to share. So for the next 8 days, we'll publish one Eliza story each day. It'll be our Valentine's/President's Day present for everyone! So here's our first vignette:

One story of Eliza's cunning ways is from this Sunday at church. There was a nursery prison break-- I was in the hall outside the primary room, when I heard some kid screaming, I turned to see like 5 kids busting out of the nursery doors and both nursery leaders, already with crying kids in the arms, trying to grab the escapees back. Eliza caught sight of me and took off RUNNING down the hall towards me. She managed to dodge both leaders outstretched arms, weaving away just in time to run past out of their reach.

The nursery leaders were relieved when they saw me and let me know that she had a dirty diaper anyways. I took Eliza's hand and herded her into the primary room, where Steve was with our Valiant 9 class and the diaper bag. As soon as Eliza walked into the primary room, she saw Steve and clasped her hands together with glee and burst out with this crazy, loud laugh (Steve says it was maniacal). Our primary president later told us it looked like she was celebrating her success at beating the system!