Thursday, January 10, 2008

an s update

s new stats:

@14 months
weight - 19.1 lbs - around 10th percentile
height - 29.13 inches - around 25th percentile
head - 18.11 inches - around 50th percentile

I should stop obsessing about s's weight. I thought that if she gained a little in percentile that I could finally let it go. It's hard, very hard. Well, for one, she didn't gain in percentile. She is a little below 10th percentile which she once was. However she did gain everywhere else. I got upset with her this morning because of food and intake.

I looked online today and found this Nutritional Guide for Toddlers where they listed a standard portion size for 1 year olds. I discovered something that I probably subconsciously knew....that g is the ODD one. Based on this guide, s has been eating more than what is required. I have just been so used to g eating her adult-sized portions that I felt that s was always starving when she probably wasn't.

Though it is true that she is more picky than her sister was, she is not as picky as some of the horror stories I have read online. s loves flavorful foods. She does not like bland, but if she's hungry she will eat a minimum amount of food in order to satiate herself and then she'll start to reject. However if it is something she likes, she will definitely eat more and be easier to feed.

Armed with this new knowledge, I will try harder to let this go PERIOD For the record, the pediatrician has never expressed a concern, has not recommended that we start replacing milk with ice cream or anything like that. I am just going off the deep end about this rather than letting her be herself. The stress of this is probably not helping her feel excited about meal times.

I guess that is the price of being second born, there's more to live up to.

Updates...Now reading this article makes me feel extremely guilty about literally trying to shove food into her mouth.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Going Light Green

I know I am joining the green "revolution" rather late but I have always been reticent about joining in what is being touted as a "big deal" (or at least I try to be .... see post on bisphenol bottles). Anyway the past is the past. Now I am trying to figure out ways to go green without a complete overhaul. Thus light green.

Some thoughts for those who want to go "light green"
1. Avoid buying individual containers of anything (ie juice boxes) Buy a safe plastic sippy or a stainless steel option and just refill. This will save money as well since you "pay" more for individual packaging.
2. Cut down on paper napkins. Apparently doing this will save a whole bunch of trees, even if you cut down your consumption by one napkin a day. I have decided to use washcloths as napkins for the kiddies. It actually is gentler on their faces. Just dampen and clean that ketchup stain off their little chin.
3. Saving "graywater" for reuse. This is a cheapskate thing that I have been doing for a few months now. Since the kiddies have fallen in love with baths, I have been saving the bath water to use to flush the toilet. The combined amount is almost enough that we don't have to use the flush mechanism on the toilet.
4. There's the obvious "use compact fluorescent bulbs"
5. For my daily x cups of coffee, I still use a paper cup because no "normal" mug will fit under our office machine. I have made an effort though to reuse the same cup for the whole day rather than getting a fresh one each time.
6. When I do the wash, I wash everything in cold water. One good side effect - less shrinkage.


Some things that I am not ready to try yet:
1. Unplugging all electronics that are not in use. I would just hate losing all the clock times and the settings. Though I do unplug chargers.
2. Using a cloth (non-plastic) grocery bag. I need those grocery bags for my garbage. So I guess I do recycle them.
3. Signing up for Greendimes For a $20 fee, this service will stop 70-90% of the junk mail that comes into your homes. I have heard about this but have not been able to find any other reviews of it. So I am skeptical.

Of course, for more ideas on green living, there's treehugger

Any more tips are welcome.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Liberty Science Center

Thanks to Mr. GS, we got into Liberty Science Center for Free. Well, thanks to Auntie K too.

The LSC has been under renovation for almost a year and has opened sometime late in the summer.
 


The kids had a really great time. The place is really set up for young kids. There are quite a few interactive exhibits like the skyscrapers exhibit where bigger kids can walk a beam (with safety harnesses, of course), maneuver a small crane trying to move small part of earth from one pile to another.
 


There was a cool Hudson river exhibit. There was just a lot of fishes but the cool part is you can navigate a small underwater camera through a large aquarium. You can see on the video display what you are focusing on (or trying to focus on).
 


There was also an iExplore exhibit for the younger kids where most of these pictures were taken. It was great to just let the kids lose throughout the entire area.
 
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On the whole, it was great to get out of the house. There was a lot of open space there for the kids to just meander for a bit.

Some tips:
Come early.
We were there at around 10:30 and noticed that there wasn't a lot of cars in the parking lot. I just thought that maybe the place wasn't so popular, but the crowd began to build around noon. By the time we left at 2:30, the place was packed.
Bring a lunch. Although I have to say that their cafeteria has a lot more choices than most, it isn't a cheap place to eat. One entree and a sandwich with one drink came up to almost $20. At the very least, bring stuff for the kids.
Try to use the corporate discount.

Friday, January 04, 2008

Time Out New York Parents Choice Awards

This is for some of the local moms who might be looking for tips for things around town.

This is the results of a readers' poll taken by TONY for the best playground-shoe store-clothing store-salon-etc around town. All for the little people in our lives.

Travel Toys

If you have been reading along, thefamilyc is planning our migration back to the motherland (well, my motherland) in a few weeks. So I thought I might put the question out there for what toys should I bring for amusement for my 3 and 1 year old.

Any ideas????

Thursday, January 03, 2008

The S word

I am unsure as to how to react to this. Gmom had started calling s stupid. I am not sure of the exact context since she is speaking cantonese, but I think it has to do with s not being able to listen, eat by herself and speak clearly. She says (progressive tense intentional since she has done it more than once) this usually when she is trying to urge g to do something, calling her smart and then comparing her to her one year old sister.

Far be it for me to say that g is not smart which I think she is. I don't think that it is good nor is it a fair comparison. I admit to doing comparisons but usually I contextualize it as g being the big sister needs to help s out on things. Like, "you can pick your toys. s needs help picking up her toys because she is still a baby." or "you can use your words. you have to help s learn words so that she can tell us what she needs."

However it really hurts me to hear her call s stupid for not knowing a word or mispronouncing something, as in she would say "te te" or jie hie (mandarin for big sister). She knows exactly what she is referring to though.

How would you react? I have asked G that if it comes up again that he should tell Gmom that she shouldn't use that word. G doesn't think it's a big deal since that is how he was raised. I don't think I want to raise them like this.