Random musical thought

I am sometime gripped by moments of clarity regarding this whole parenting thing. It's scary.

It came yesterday as we drove to a costume party. We have mercifully loaded a new CD for g containing a random assortment of kiddie songs, the Beatles, motown and broadway. (her old selection was driving us bananas since she insists upon listening to it the minute we open the car door.) I was struck momentarily with the thought that maybe we should start listening to classical music in the car. The popular belief has made its way around the mommiverse that listening to classical music is supposed to make a genius although recent research has debunked this totally. The myth persists though with the advent of Baby Mozart, Baby Bach, etc. I am sure that there is probably a grain of truth in there somewhere, not commensurate to the craze that has been created around it though.

So as my stream of consciousness continued on I280, I thought of my own passion for music. How despite any craziness in my life, music was always my home, always a "place" that I can go to. Then the big "duh" --- why was I going to try making them listen to music, though I appreciate, don't love? Why wouldn't I want to teach them how to tap into musical passion?

One day they will love their own music (maybe someday they'll be listening to some funky version of acid rap, who knows) but for the meantime, I held my g last night and rocked her in my arms to Moonriver.

Happy Birthday g!!!!

g turned 3 yesterday.

It doesn't seem like 3 years have passed but it has. It's been a wild ride but I wouldn't want it any other way.

s is not HAPPY!

I love this photo. Of course, s would really prefer not to be tortured by the clown wig.



(Thanks for lending it to her, Auntie E. By the way, good luck with the birth. Fingers crossed for a speedy l&d!!!)

g in Bermuda

Here is a preview of the video that will be shown at g's wedding someday.

Enjoy.

A Campaign for Real Beauty

I have been a big fan of Dove's campaign for real beauty. I love the images of real women on the billboards that I see, especially the Annie Leibowitz series on older women for Dove Pro Age.

Dove has decided to take it up a notch and speak to moms (and dads) about the other images our children see.

Watch this video.



I know I fret about having girl babies a lot. Parenting them has meant more definitive choices from the start. I had tried my best not to be rigid and yet not to play to any stereotypes. I sent g to gym class. Well now, she is also in dance class. She is more proficient in doing a basket hang from the uneven bars than she is with a plie. Hard as I have tried though, I can't seem to stop calling g beautiful. I know that she should be praised for kindness or for talent, but she is just 2 and she is my baby. She will always be beautiful to me. I guess as the years come, I will have to watch my words. Better yet, try to live a life that relies little on prettiness.

Hmmmm

This was going to go straight to the annals of "what were they thinkin'". However it has gotten me thinking. It is true that s is becoming really wild with her cruising attempts. Last night, she had slept without a sleep sack. When she awoke this morning, I caught her trying to make a break for it (ie climbing out of the crib). Is this a bonnet situation? Granted she has only fallen on her face once and usually when she tries to overcome an obstacle while crawling. Even then she was only barely 6 inches off the ground.

However there is a great risk when she is playing with her sister. g tries to carry s from one place to another and this often results in s falling or getting strangled (which is outside of the bonnet range of safety).

So I am on the fence as to the usefulness of this bonnet. If anyone else is interested in buying or reading reviews, here you go.

A Leap of Faith

I have often spoke about g & s and how dissimilar they are. One big difference is their eating habits, specifically s' lack of desire for food. For those who know g, that couldn't be further from her reality. g has always had a healthy desire for food. She was always easy to feed. s is almost the exact opposite. She is pretty finicky with food, liking one thing today and hating it tomorrow. So making her something to eat is hit or miss. Well, mostly miss. I can't help but be anxious about this though. She is a shrimp. She is barely 18 lbs which put her in the 0-25 percentile. I can't measure her height because she moves around so much. I just know that based on the hand-me-down clothing that she is wearing, she is a lot shorter than her sister when she was the same age.

I know that I can't expect that she would have the exact same appetite as her sister but I would like to see a desire for food. It is sometimes there. This weekend was a good appetite weekend. She ate and ate. However that was the end of that. She is done with food and today, she even refused to drink milk which she never had before.

The books and all these baby guides for picky eaters have all advised the same thing...that if the child refuses to eat, she is probably not hungry and that parents should just trust that she will know when she wants to eat. Parents should also trust that she will eat. That's the leap of faith that I am grappling with, trusting that she will eat when she wants to and not wrangle with her.

I will let go but it is difficult. She is so close to falling off the charts already. What my salvation has been is the pediatrician does not seem worried. No one else seems overly concerned but me. This is a comfort in a way. That her gains in weight seems to be sufficient that it is not a major cause of concern. Her seeming lack of an appetite more a worry for me than a medical problem.

Sigh....and the adventure continues.

g on the 'net

g is at that age when she frequently says the funniest things.

Today she took an old make-up case (the big ones that a make-up artist would be lugging around) that I had laying around for her to play around with. She asked me to get it and open it. I asked her why. She responded, "I need to check my email."

I didn't know that the case had a wireless card.

my little sous chef

g seems to be beginning a new phase in her eating life. She has begun to be a picky eater. She used to do this occasionally for a meal but is usually back to her old happy eating self by the next meal. However this seems to be going on for over a week now. Even Gmom wasn't able to make her eat.

I won't sweat it though. Her diet is still fairly healthy. She is just not eating bowls and bowls of stuff but she will eat as much as needs to make herself full.

To encourage her eating, I thought that maybe if she helped prepare the meal, she would be more inspired. It worked out pretty well. She ended up not liking the hotdog but ate the eggs (and a nice-sized bowl of rice). Earlier she already had a handful of tomatoes for a snack. Afterwards she had a plateful of figs for dessert.

I have to say that she really did a great job with cutting up hot dogs and beating the eggs for the "hotdog omelet". I gave her a kiddie "knife" from Ikea and she proceeded to cut them. She knew how to do it and didn't make a mess. Cracking the egg was a little more problematic. She cracked them properly on the counter corner but then she proceeded to crush it with her hand. I had to fish out some shells. She mixed the eggs rather than beat it, but not bad for a first timer and a not-quite-3-year-old.

Here are some photos. Enjoy.

Ber-meu-la!!!!

That's how it sounds like when g talks about Bermuda. We had just returned from the p&k wedding. It was wonderful. Everything was just perfect and g really liked bermeula. What's not to like? We arrived to slightly windy conditions. Upon arrival, we made a mad dash to the hotel. There was to be a sunset cruise that first night. It was set to leave at 6:00 PM. Our flight arrived at 5:10 pm. I had assumed we were not going to make it.

We arrived at the hotel close to 5:30 pm. We had no idea where to go for this cruise so we asked the front desk and the concierge. Both had no clue. G stood at the balcony of our room overlooking the bay and was taking in the gorgeous view when he noticed that there was a party boat docked at the beach. There was a bunch of Asians milling around it. G was convinced that this was the boat. So we put in a call to k and verified that we were looking at the party boat. They were already boarding. The race was on to get the kids' stuff together and run to the boat.

And run we did. We made it. Since we called, they held the boat just a little bit for us to arrive. It didn't help that we took the longest way possible to get down to the beach since we just arrived.



The cruise was lovely. g enjoyed it. She spent most of it shaking and grooving to the music. I have never seen her dance so much before, but this was just the beginning.



Wedding day was again another beautiful day. Sunny and breezy but not so much. We spent the morning swimming and doing a little sightseeing. We took to the caves which was nice albeit small. It was a nice 5 minute cave.



The wedding was picture perfect. g did her part as flower girl...well, sort of. She was moving along ok until she noticed her partner, d make a run for his mom. At that point she didn't know what to do, so she made a break for it as well. She streak across the aisle rather than doing a dainty little walk. At least she made it across. She spent the rest of the wedding playing with sand, totally ignoring the beautiful ceremony. I guess that is to be expected.

The reception was another story. g went nuts, dancing the night away with ys and k. She actually stuck to k for hours. k couldn't shake those kids!!! The dance floor was littered with kids. ~~~Video to come on this one.

no eatin'

I have to accept it. I have to accept that s is a squirt and that at the rate that she is going she will be a squirt. She and g are dissimilar again in that way. To this day, she rarely eats more than 4 oz of food at a sitting. More often her nanny would only feed her 2 oz and about an hour later would feed her the second 2 oz.

g at this point ate 4 oz a sitting and drank 8 oz at a time. s have at times drank 7 but we are surprised by that since it is so rare. A side effect of so little food means that she wakes up more often at night to eat.

I guess I grew in the school of thought that the happy eater is a happy child. This was further reinforced by little g who never had a problem eating. I thought I could just let go since it seems that I was the only person who had issue with this. The ped does not seem concerned.

I recognize that it is probably more my issue than it is hers. I think I will still have to move her towards having 5 meals a day instead of 10 but I just have to accept that will take time.

g's first daddy portrait

 

I was pretty amazed that she finally got it. I have been trying to get her draw something other than circles and lines for the last few days. Today after doing her usual cutting and pasting, she said she wanted to draw a picture of Daddy who she says she misses. I didn't even have to help her on this one...well, maybe a little verbal coaching. I told her to draw the head, then the eyes, then a nose, then a smile...you get the picture. She did it. She even drew in some glasses.

She loved her portrait so much that later on when I cut out a house and a little portrait of herself, she asked to cut out her Daddy as well. When we pretended that she was leaving her paper house to go to the imaginary park, she said that Daddy had to go with her and push her on the swing. Then Daddy took her home and put her in bed.

Awwww....shucks.

This is the picture of the "artist" and her work. This is also g's first picture with her "snazzy" new haircut. It's growing on me. I think the shape of the cut emphasizes her little chin. Cute.

Two Different little people

I have to get over the idea that I have one child in two bodies. I do in fact have two separate and very different little people. It is definitely not a case of one being better than the other. They are just different. After I had g, I was lulled into complacency. Though she was never an easy child, we have "figured" her out. We know what she liked and disliked, and mistakenly thought that most children (or at least my own future children) would like and dislike approximately the same things, that they would approximately have the same temperament, etc, etc.

Well, s took that concept and smashed that to bits. She has chosen mainly to do things her way. From the simple physiological standpoint, they don't look much alike. g had teeth at 5 months and had a few of them already by 10 months. s (at 9 months) finally sprouted her first set which have only begun to peek out. Where g is a voracious eater (her eating has become legend), s can take it or leave it. Today she might drink 7 oz of milk at a session, tomorrow she refuses more than 3 1/2. Solid foods is still a chore for her whereas g attacked it with gusto.

I could go on. I have come to this realization a little late or maybe I just refused to let go. Letting go has been difficult. I see g growing up so quickly. She is now almost 3. Her little personality is set. She is funny to talk to and she loves to be the comedian. Her stories are a little far fetched still but at least she creative. In a twisted way, I might be wishing to relive a little of g's babyhood again in s. I don't know if that is the case really but I have no choice but to see them both for who they are.

Van Saun Park

Otherwise known as the Bergen County Zoological Park. I got a tip from one of my mommy groups that this was a nice zoo to go to. I had pretty low expectations especially since after going to the zoo's website (or lack thereof). The website consisted of hours, ticket prices and not much else.

I figured it was pretty close to our home. At the worst case, we could all go to Ikea and try to get g into the ball pit again (she was less than an inch shy of the 36 in minimum.) I packed some snacks for g, some food for s and off we went.

At 10:30, the 2 parking lots closest to the zoo was already full. We got lucky and got a space just as someone was leaving. The zoo is part of Van Saun park so parking is not limited to zoo visitors. From reviews I have read online, parking seems to be a bad situation. On the bright side, there are many lots around the park.

The zoo was small as all the online reviewers had stated but it was really well maintained. Another plus is the train ride and the carousel. Both of which were very fairly priced ($1/piece) The carousel was a welcome surprise. It was really well maintained. The animals on the carousel does not look like it has been worn or weathered.



The only drawback is the food concession. There was a choice of hotdog or pretzels and that was it. There was a "roadside cafe" outside the zoo that has a slightly expanded menu (chicken fingers, grilled cheese, etc) but not that much more of an upgrade. My suggestion is BRING YOUR OWN. Everyone else seem have gotten the memo. There was more than ample picnic tables, benches strewn everywhere (inside and outside the zoo).



There were age separated playgrounds which was cool and a large area where people were grilling and throwing parties. I saw at least 4 birthday parties complete with man on stilts going on. There was also a clean bathroom for everyone's use. Nice.

Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better park experience.

More gratuitous photos:

g at the beach

This is g with her first sand castle. We had thought that the beach was going to be a bust since g doesn't like sand. Apparently what she doesn't like is sand IN her shoes. When she is barefoot, she doesn't mind at all.



g and the "big" waves

Potty Training (g style)

Just in case you have not heard...g is fully potty trained. I would like to say record time but I think that honor still belongs to D (S's son) who was potty trained in a day. g potty trained herself really.

Finally at 22 months, g decided to potty train herself. Gmom had been on a campaign to potty train her since she turned one. Aside from the physical impossibility of that, I really didn't think she was ready. Why physically impossible? The "official" definition of potty trained is being able to "say" or know that she needs to go to the potty, toddle to the bathroom, pull down her pants, do her business, wipe herself clean and pull her own pants back up. At one, she had just learned to walk and wouldn't have the balance to bend down and clean herself much less pull up her pants without tipping herself over.

Anyway, fast forward to 22 months, we have been doing a small campaign to convince her to go to the potty for a few weeks. She was never interested though. She has gone to the extent of even holding it until we put the diaper back on. This went on for a bit until we went on a trip with K's family. A, K's son, has been potty trained for a while. g noticed while they were playing that A wasn't wearing a diaper and K told g that she should tell me when she needs to go and that she doesn't really need a diaper. She took that comment and pondered.

She repeated that phrase for a few days. She also made a connection with Ikea's ball pit. There's a policy for that play area that everyone in there should be potty trained. So we have been trying to play this card for a while but she didn't seem to care much. Now she put K's comment and Ikea's ball pit together. Within days of our return from that trip, I decided that maybe she was finally ready. We used the pull-ups for a day until I realized that she treated the pull-up like a diaper. So that night, we went to Target to pick out underwear. She chose a Dora and an Elmo pack.

The next day we went cold turkey. She chose the elmo underwear. We expected that we would have to do a load of laundry every day, but in fact, she went to bathroom from the first day onward.

She has had a few accidents, mainly during wake up time first thing in the morning. Sometimes she doesn't quite make it and would drip a little but on a whole, she went in the potty for both #1 and #2 within a week.

YES!!!!

Speaking of Hershey Park

I usually post a review of any spot that the family c find ourselves in. However this time around, there doesn't seem to be much to say.

Short version: Not worth the trip until the kids are older.

Long version: We spent a few hours in Hershey Park. It was a nice ride and we made it there fairly quickly. After lunch, we started exploring the park and found that aside from handful of rides, there really wasn't much for the kids to do. By the time we had gone around searching for rides to take, it was pretty much the end of the day.

Nice thing though is the small zoo that they had in the premises. We also really liked the chocolate factory tour and of course, g loved the samples. This is one of the several "firsts" of this trip. This was her first taste of chocolate and she is hooked.



Here was her first solo ride. I thought she might freak out when the ride began but she handled herself like a champ.

This trip marked the first trip she has taken diaperless. Yep, our baby is potty trained. We had bought a travel potty for just this purpose but she didn't even need it. She went in the adults potty and never had an accident.

Aside from this, there was nothing much else for a toddler. Too bad.

Another gratuitous shot

I just got a new camera so there will be many gratuitous shots to come.

Here's one of s while we were waiting for her sister to wake up from her nap at Hershey Park.

My little squirt

Despite having thunder thighs, little s is still an ounce shy of 17 lbs, putting her in the 10th percentile. She's a shorty as well, measuring just 26 1/2 inches. I think she might have gotten my height. The ped doesn't seem too concerned as long as she is growing....I guess.

Yet again this is another departure from her big sister who never strayed from the 50th percentile. Little s reminds me constantly that she is very different from her sister. It is good that she is very much an individual. It can be difficult as well because just when I think I have gotten a handle on this mommy thing, s comes in and blows up all the rules. So once again as parents, we are left to make it up as we go along.

pulling, crawling, cruising

Just when I was beginning to worry that she might not be meeting all her milestone, s decided to pull them all out of her hat in basically the same week. She went from a cute smiling little lump who rolled from side to side to a crawling and cruising little dynamo. She loves this. She loves her independence. We have put down some alphabet mats on the floor and she just starts crawling away, gnawing at anything. Of course, she would not gnaw on the basket of teethers that we have purchased for that expressed purpose. She prefers the foam mat that she is lining the floor, the foam that is protecting her from the table corner, pieces of tissues that she finds on the floor. Yes, lots of fun.

This weekend we will begin the exercise of baby proofing. Video to come.