Alice Lately

Note: I began this post on June 28 when Alice was 13 months old. I am picking it back up today at 16.5 months old and will post my new commentary below the original section that I wrote. Kind of fun to read back on what she was doing a few months ago. I should blog more! (duh).

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June 28, 2012

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a toddler on our hands! To use the cliched line: "How did this happen??" It truly does seem like just the other day when my water broke on the dining room floor and next thing you know (uh....not really, more like 18 hours later, but whatever) we were holding our precious, healthy newborn daughter in our arms.

Out to dinner at the Groveland Tap on Alice's 15 month "birthday"

The most striking thing about raising a child to me is the dichotomy of emotions it presents. This year I have experienced the most blissfully happy feelings I could ever imagine - happiness on a level I never knew to exist before. I have also felt the depths of terror and fear (when I dropped Alice at 8 weeks old and she was admitted to Children's overnight with a minor concussion...I still need to blog about this because I have a lot of emotions that I haven't dealt with entirely yet about this experience). Largely though, this year has sparked the greatest amount of personal growth in my life in such a relatively short time frame. I never really used to feel like a grown-up even though I technically have been for almost 15 years. But becoming a parent? Instant  adulthood. I've definitely aged this year, but I like to think of it as wisening up, not just getting older.

Playing with a toy she had just stolen from the poor little boy in the background. She is a stinker!

Alice is such a delight and a joy to be around lately. She is a very Type A child and thrives around other people and especially kids. She is a mover and a shaker. She wants to touch and handle everything and climb up, on and over everything else. I like to tease Aaron that this is all his fault because I was truly a very shy little girl who didn't really push any boundaries, and he was known as the neighborhood rabble rouser. But truthfully I have so much admiration and respect for Alice's daring little personality. I feel like she is already someone that I, myself, would aspire to be. I love the confidence that she has in herself and her abilities, and I see it as my job, as her mother, to help her hold on to that into childhood, her teenage years, and adulthood.

Weirdo!

She is very vocal lately and it has become a lot of fun to ask her to repeat words that you say, because a lot of the time she actually will! When my dad was on his way over this weekend to introduce us to his new puppy Daisy, we practiced saying "puppy" and she would repeat it in a soft whisper like "pup pup". When you ask her to say something she gets this look of concentration on her face and sort of stares off into the distance as I imagine she is trying to process the sound and regurgitate it to use.

Here's a list of many of her vocabulary words lately:

• Mama
• Dada
• Up
• Nummy Nummy Nummy (when you ask her if she wants "num nums" at meal time)
• Hi (but it's more like "Hiiii-iiiii" with the first syllable at a higher sing-songy tone than the second syllable)
• Yep (I can never tell if this is intentional but a lot of times when we ask her a question she will respond with what sounds like "yep" and it's hysterical)

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October 10, 2012

Picking up where I left off...Alice truly does become more and more fun as each month goes by. But with that fun comes a whole new load of challenges. As any parent of a toddler will attest, they are stubborn little creatures! Lots of things have become a "battle" now, including changing her diaper (the only time she will actually lay down when you change her is first thing in the morning -- otherwise she is standing up); meals (nearly impossible to find something she will eat a lot of unless it is a PBJ); and bedtime (ALWAYS says "nooooo" when you ask if she is ready for bed -- even as she is rubbing her eyes and yawning over and over).

Does NOT want to go to bed

One of many meals she didn't eat. How she continues to gain weight I have no clue.

We took two trips away from Alice this summer - one to Oregon/Washington for 5 nights and one to San Francisco/Berkeley for 3 nights. Both were for good friends' weddings and we were so happy to be able to attend. It was nice to have a little break from the routine and get to pretend like we lived our "old life" for a while. I was done breastfeeding/pumping as of the end of June, so it was also very nice to have my body back and not have to coordinate a pumping schedule into our vacations. Alice split her stay with mine and Aaron's parents both times and seems to have done really well. I won't lie though and say that it was "easy" to leave her - especially for the longer Oregon trip. I was absolutely dying to see her by the time we got back.

This was how we left her before our Oregon trip -- happy in the high chair at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Alice loves to be on the go and is extremely "busy" even for a toddler. This became ever so apparent to me when I brought her to the Red Balloon for story time and to meet Curious George a month or so ago. ALL the other kids were sitting and listening attentively to the story teller but Alice got up twice and marched right up front to try to climb all over the story teller's chair and table she had set up. We had to go play in a different corner of the store until the story was over. I know she will grow out of this phase and actually this experience really validated me for feeling so worn out from parenting a lot of the time. I have my hands full!

One seemingly peaceful moment caught on camera at Lego Land

She jabbers and jabbers ALL THE TIME and I can't even keep track of how many words she says. She comes up with new ones all the time and she will pretty much attempt to repeat anything we ask her too. Right now I'm working hard on "Love you Mommy". Ha. It is funny to me the words she does say and the ones she cannot (or just will not). There are only two other kids at her daycare. One is Brogan - 2 years old - and he has been there since she started in April. They are really good buddies. She will NOT say his name, not even attempt a "B" sound. But a baby named Madeline (pronounced Mad-uh-LINE like the French girl from the books) started in August and Alice says her name all the time, including a very elaborate tongue roll. It may be just the fact that I think she is somewhat intrigued with Baby Madeline but to me Brogan seems easier to say, no? She also has yet to say Tammy, the name of her daycare provider, but says Tammy's kids names repeatedly (Liam and Grace). She says "Papa" for Grandpa but no attempt at saying Grandma yet. She just started saying Leigh and Al for her auntie and uncle but no Brooke yet for her other auntie. She will say "Day-dee" all the time for Daisy, my dad's dog, but no mention of Karma (her own dog). The cat is simply "Dee" (presumably for the last syllable in the word "Kitty").

She says "please" all the time and is really beginning to understand that it will get her what she wants, even after she was already denied sometimes. Apparently Aaron's dad didn't know she knew that word until just the other day when she was trying to play with a broom at their house that he didn't want her to play with. After he kept denying her she finally said "PWEASE" and shocked him so bad that he handed the broom right over. It is really just too darn cute when she says it.

I caught a wild hair and took her to the Gopher football game on my own in September. She did really well for the first quarter, started to climb the seats halfway through the second quarter, and we left at half time.

Alice is really good at entertaining herself through play. We try to interact with her a lot but also to leave her alone a lot to experiment however she would like. Some of her favorite things to do are to empty and refill a laundry basket or any kind of bag or receptacle; play with her toy kitchen; move magnets from the fridge to the dishwasher and back; pull her toy lawnmower up and down the block; read books; do stickers; stand on her rocking chair and smirk at us; play "Peekaboo Barn" or "Peekaboo Trick or Treat" on my phone; and hug/sit on the cat. We get out of the house a lot to do things with her because our house is tiny and I feel like she gets easily bored if we are just sitting around home for too long. We go to the Children's Museum a lot, and go to the Riverview Cafe for breakfast a lot on the weekends so she can play in their kid's area - although she generally ends up just doing laps around the whole restaurant.

At the Children's Museum on one of our first visits after we got our membership

Out to eat at Which Wich

Visiting the ducks at St. Kate's

Older photo at Choo Choo Bob's - look at that baby pudge!!

Her daycare situation is fabulous and we feel so fortunate that we found Tammy to take care of Alice. As I mentioned before there are only 3 kids there right now total so Tammy is able to do things outside of the house with them sometimes. She took them to the Minnehaha splash pad several times over the summer, to story hour at the library and at the Red Balloon, and to an apple orchard last week. She goes there M-Th and Aaron's parents watch her on Fridays. The only tricky part about Tammy is her hours - only 8 am to 5 pm. Aaron is able to drop her off every morning but the afternoons vary. My mom picks her up on Mondays, Aaron's mom picks her up on Tuesdays, and I shifted my work schedule on W-Th so that I can pick her up on those days. I do miss having daily contact with Tammy because I feel like I don't always have the best idea of what all is going on at daycare, so I tend to chat her up lot on the days I do pick her up, so I can get as much info as possible. All in all she seems to be really thriving there, so that is all you can ask for.

I really relish the moments where Alice will let me snuggle her now, since they are becoming few and far between. Sometimes she will sit on my lap while reading books, but sometimes she just wants to sit next to me. She will always snuggle in during bedtime (which just consists of me singing "Barbara Ann" to her over and over until she points at her crib and asks for her "bed"), so I cherish that time. I know she still needs me, but she is becoming so independent at the same time and it's very bittersweet. :)

Cannot BELIEVE how much she looks like Aaron :)