friends, family, and fun

We made one last summer trip home to Louisiana last week to catch up with friends and family before the craziness of school and work starts next month. It was a whirlwind visit as usual, but everything well as smoothly as I could hope for. We left Houston around 10 am on Friday, hoping the strategic timing would allow us to miss both Houston morning rush hour traffic and Baton Rouge afternoon rush hour traffic. Great idea in theory, but nothing ever runs according to schedule with a toddler. By 11:30 we were both hungry so against my better culinary judgement, we stopped at a McDonald's ONLY because it had an indoor playground. Otherwise I would never ever set foot in that establishment. (If you haven't read Fast Food Nation do yourself a favor and read it. You too will never again want to consume a McNugget after you've been enlightened with the details of the manufacture, marketing, and distribution of overly-processed chicken parts.) Luckily I had packed a sandwich and mandarin orange cup for her lunch, so it was only my health that was being compromised by our restaurant selection. She gobbled up her lunch and then spent a good 20 minutes playing on the playground. This was probably the highlight of her day, and I was glad to let her stretch her legs even if it meant a delay in our travel itinerary.

On Saturday we met up with several of my landscape friends from college for a toddler playdate. All of these kiddos are within 5 months of age, 3 of them (Liam/Caroline/Nolan) being born within 4 weeks of each other! It was our first time to meet Liam and Nolan in person, and I was curious to see how Caroline would play with all these boys. I saw firsthand how boys and girls are definitely very different! She mostly avoided them, not wanting to instigate a conflict if she reached for a truck or other toy.

the dirt pile was a big hit with the boys

water break! there was frequent stealing exchanging
of sippy cups going on.

the tractor was another big hit with the boys.
Caroline barely even looked at it.

Nolan tried his hand at driving the tractor

Liam and Charlie supervise the tractor operations.

what a bunch of cuties!

She loves slides in any form, so Charlie's hill slide was a big hit in her book. Love this wonderful little outdoor playscape!!

In true toddler style, the only way we could get all of them to sit still for a decent photo was to bribe them with snacks. 

everyone smile and say 'crackers!'

The rest of the weekend was spent lounging around with family, just hanging out. We went swimming in Mama's pool a few times and played at the neighborhood playground. Aunty Em and Mama came over to visit quite a bit, and Caroline especially enjoyed when Emmy brought Kline along!

trying to commandeer Aunty Em's phone

Showing off her boots to Mama!

going for a stroll with Emmy and Kline

Not sure what happened here but it must've been funny!

playing at Susu's house

the electronics queen, zipping through Susu's ipad

sporting her Louisiana style

"higher, higher!"

On Tuesday we loaded up and headed back home, this time without a stop at McDonald's playplace. So instead I took her to the giant indoor playground as soon as we got back in Houston so she could run around and burn off some energy. This time, she finally mustered up the courage to attempt tackling the giant alligator slide. She had been eyeing it all summer long, wanting to try it but definitely feeling intimidated. Finally today she asked 'up? up?' so I lifted her up and let her begin the steep climb up the ladder.

She would only proceed all the way up if she knew I was coming with her, so we both climbed to the top. This was no small climb for an 18-month-old! And then we slid down together, and repeated the process over and over and over. She loved it!

Next week will be the beginning of our big transition...she starts school on Tuesday! I'll put up another post with all the details of our new school orientation and 'meet the teacher' day!

leaps and bounds

We've been making excellent progress in the medical/eating issues department within the last few weeks. I have slowly weaned Caroline down to one dose per day of Reglan (originally she was taking 3 does per day), and thankfully her appetite has remained steady. Better than steady in fact, it's great! Lately she has developed a legitimate, honest-to-goodness appetite! She asks for food, she shows an interest in what I'm eating and asks for some, and she even asks for seconds (or thirds!) at mealtimes! This is an incredible feat. For the past 18 months mealtimes were a constant struggle....bottle refusals, solid food refusals, and even when the medicine was working she was cooperative about eating but not exactly enthusiastic. Now she's enthusiastic. It's as if somewhere in side of her a flip was switched and now she's catching up. Ever since the beginning of August I've noticed 2 milestones- she isn't waking up crying at 3 or 4 am anymore, and her appetite is definitely much better. Check out some of the things she's eaten lately (most of them for the first time):

steamed broccoli
cooked carrots
'sloppy joes' made with ground turkey and lentils
cucumber and tomato salad with italian dressing
kale
chinese food (mongolian beef)
spinach ravioli lasagna
pizza


It helps when we all eat meals together, and we all eat the same thing. For some reason whatever's on my plate tastes infinitely better than whatever's in her little bowl, so I usually end up giving her some of mine. Even if we are both eating identical PB&J sandwiches, she wants mine. This has forced me to eat healthier myself...instead of putting a pile of cheezits next to my sandwich I have to put sliced banana, because I know she's going to want whatever I have.

I believe that some of her medical issues are starting to resolve, or else she's getting old enough to manage them reasonably well. Answered prayers!! She's eating food, happily and enthusiastically! We're weaning off the endless medications! We're off the second-house-mortgage formula!! (Fun fact- the money we'll save by NOT buying formula every month will pay for almost an entire month of T/Th daycare.) I feel like, for the first time since she was born, I can finally truly relax and not worry. This is such a tremendous burden lifted. I am 100% comfortable about going back to work, because she's not so medically-challenged anymore and I know she'll be fine with her caretakers. Many of my friends with kids her age are mourning the end of the baby stage, but in our case, we are celebrating new beginnings. Her infancy and babyhood were full of challenges, but I think we've reached a turning point and from here on out we'll be good to go!

So for the next few weeks we'll just be cruising along, making the most of our time together before we start the next chapter. I'll be on fun-outings overdrive, trying to cram in 'one last trip' to the zoo/splashpad/playdates/children's museum/playground while I still have ample free time. (I know Caroline is certainly enjoying our jam-packed itinerary...every time I take her somewhere, at some point during the outing she will stop whatever she's doing and just run over and hug and kiss me, grateful for the fun time!)

Lovin the fishies! Nevermind that they're
man-eating Pirhannas....

The best way to appreciate the underwater sea life!

First ride on the merry-go-round at the zoo

kiddie waterpark heaven! We found the
BEST splash pad for toddlers!

the times, they are a-changin

Can you believe my sweet Petunia is 18 months old already?? There is no trace of a baby to be found...she is ALL toddler now, and reminds me more and more of a little kid each day. She cracks me up with her funny gestures and movements (like randomly stopping whatever she's doing to go into a headstand), and drives me crazy with her total defiance of whatever rules I'm trying to enforce. (Like running and jumping on the couch. I tell her to stop and sit and she just looks at me, and then takes off running and jumping again. We have a lot of work to do in this department...) 18 months seems to be a very big transition age, with all the joy and frustration that comes with change. Here's what we're working on right now.

Potty training
I know she's too young to embark on full-fledged potty training, but I figured it couldn't hurt to start working on the basics. Earlier this spring I taught her words for all of the, ahem, potty activities and she quickly caught on. She now is happy to announce to the entire world when she's ready to have a bowel movement, so I bought several little pink pottys to keep on each floor of the house. When she makes her grand declaration I instruct her to go poo poo on the potty, and she toddles over to her little throne and settles in with some good reading. I don't actually take the diaper off; I just want her to get in the habit of going over to the potty when she's ready to deliver the goods. We've had a decent amount of success in this endeavor, and today I noticed while I was in the shower that she took herself over to her potty and had a seat. Sure enough, when I got out of the shower, a foul stench greeted me and I realized she had done what she needed to do.

But of course, we've had our fair share of 'learning experiences' along the way. The other night while she was taking a bath she stood up and announced 'poo poo.' Evening is not her usual pooping time, so I wasn't sure if she really meant it, but figured I'd humor her. I took her out of the tub and plopped her on the big toilet just to see what would happen. Nothing. So I put her back in the tub, and the entire sequence repeated itself. "Poo poo." On the potty. Nothing. I finally decided she was just  having fun with the word and we proceeded with the bath as usual. I got her out and toweled her off and asked her to pick out some PJ's, and the next thing I know I look over and she's crapping on the carpet. Guess it was not a false alarm after all. We called in daddy to assist in the cleanup of 'code brown' while I finished getting her dressed.

Lesson learned: shit happens.


Language
Her verbal communication and comprehension is really taking off now. She still understands more than she can speak, but it's nice to be able to talk to her and know she absolutely 'gets' it. We flip through her picture/words book and I can ask her to find the iguana/bread/blue jeans/blueberries etc. and she can point to the correct item. Animals are her favorite....she loves to point to the right animal, and then make its corresponding sound. She can identify all the parts of her body (although still having a hard time with 'elbow'), and now she's starting to point out and say the parts on all her stuffed animals. This impressed me, that she could make the connection between human ears and floppy dog ears or pointy cat ears...even though they don't look the same, they are still ears. She is also a big fan of waving and saying 'bye bye' and 'hi' to every single person/dog/inanimate object we come across...so cute.

With the advanced comprehension comes frustration when she wants something and can't correctly convey what she wants. There's quite a bit of screeching and repeating (with increasing decibels and urgency) when she wants something and I have no idea what it is. I'm pretty fluent in her baby babble and can sometimes decipher what she's trying to say, but when I can't, look out. Hysterics will follow. Same thing when she wants something and I know perfectly well what it is (makeup/tv/my phone) but I'm not giving in. The frustration is apt to boil over into a hit or bite. Apparently I am the only one she does this too; she hasn't attempted this behavior with Nana or her daddy. Lucky me.

Eating
We're in the midst of some pretty big food transitions right now....saying bye bye to formula in favor of milk alternatives, and adios to the bottles in favor of sippy cups. I fully acknowledge that we are quite a bit late in the game to start this process...most babies make the switch right at 12 months. But with her solid food refusal last spring and the weight loss, the bottles and formula were the only thing standing between us and complete starvation. So I kept her on the formula and bottles, desperate to keep her from losing weight. She's been doing much better with solid foods since we started Reglan in June, so I decided it was safe to start the process now. I started by mixing pediasure or almond milk or soymilk with her formula in her bottles. She was drinking it just fine, so we slowly worked our way down to plain old soymilk. No problem. She had been drinking juice out of her sippy cup just fine for months, so after the soymilk transition seemed settled, I joyfully packed up all the bottles and nipples and bottle brushes and bottle sterilizer and bottle drying rack. HURRAY!! No more bottle washing and all the hassle that goes with it! For 18 months we had been hand washing and sterilizing and drying bottles every.single.day. So I was delighted to pack those suckers away. But Petunia was not at all in favor of this transition...even though she drinks juice just fine from sippy cups, she does NOT like drinking milk from sippy cups. After 2 days of her barely drinking any milk and me freaking out about dehydration, I ran to Target and bought pretty much every single sippy cup they had, desperate to find a style that she would drink milk from. I've had some success with one soft-spouted style that I jammed an ice pick in to make the holes bigger. We're also working on using utensils and plates and bowls. She's pretty good at getting the spoon/fork with food into her mouth, but not so good at actually getting the food onto the utensil. It's a joint effort.

seriously...every single cup Target carried...and she'll
only drink milk out of one of them

Independence
She is definitely flexing her independent muscles quite a bit now. She does not want to be held or carried; she wants to walk by her big-girl-self. She does not want to sit in the shopping cart buggy, hence I either have to strap her in with the germ-filled buggy cart straps (oh the horror) or let her sit in the large open basket area. Which quickly becomes a game of her standing up and attempting to lean over and grab something and topple out, and me attempting to bribe her into staying seated. (Playing with my purse and keys is always a sure bet.) She is curious and fearless, totally delighted to take off running away from me in pursuit of whatever has caught her attention. In the right setting this is a blessing- she will happily keep herself engaged in playing and exploring. In the wrong setting this is exhausting. Which is why I'm most excited about the next big transition, which is....


Me going back to work
After the perfect job opportunity fell into my lap recently I decided I could not pass it up and have decided to return to work part-time! Which means Petunia will be getting an even bigger opportunity to increase her independence skills! I will be working Tues/Wed/Thurs, so she will go to 'school' from 8:30-5:30 on T/Th, and she'll stay home with a sitter on Wednesday. I have loved loved loved being home with her for the past 18 months, but she's getting to a point where she will definitely benefit from being around different people and different settings. And I will benefit from getting to use my degree and my license and my brain again! As much as I loved being home with her, there was always a corner of my soul that missed the projects, the professional colleagues, the satisfaction of working on a job well done. I never had any type of plan about when/where I would return to work, so when a friend approached me asking if I would consider working for her firm even just part-time, my ears perked up. She and I have been in discussion all summer working out the details to suit both their needs and mine, and we've reached a great arrangement. So starting in September, Petunia will be meeting new friends and new teachers, and I'll be meeting new bosses and coworkers and colleagues. Exciting!!

And last but not least...a little lagniappe. Photos from a recent trip to the children's Nature Discovery Center. The perfect place to introduce my Petunia to the wonders of nature that inspire me in my profession on a daily basis.