Baby Friends

Recently, Aria's school set up a new system for sharing information electronically from teacher to parent. One of the things her teacher sent to me was a picture from Halloween last year, when Aria was 8 months old. Her teacher added the comment "Aria and Emma has formed a friendship over time and both are able to balance space and cooperatively play together."

Can babies really have friends? According to a recent study, they can before they even speak. In an article about this study, it describes some behaviors that are baby friend behaviors. One of them Aria loves to do "children pretending to hand another child a toy, only to snatch it away at the last minute". She does this with people, dogs--always with a friendly smile and sometimes with a laugh.

So, I guess I better get to know this Emma a little more, make sure she's not a bad influence...bad grades, drugs, hanging out with the older boys.

Ms. Carnivore

Now, I think I finally know why I was craving hamburgers (a food I never really liked) while pregnant with Aria. For Dolphin's birthday, we celebrated with a home grilled steak dinner. I thought I would try giving Aria a little tiny bite of steak. A good 3oz later, it was clear this girl is a carnivore. I could barely cut the rib-eye fast enough to keep up with her.

Boba Tea

This is what happens when you give a three year old caffeinated Boba Tea. He doesn't get caffeinated beverages. He drank only half of his strawberry boba team, but it was enough to make him crazy. Then, the crash after wards.

Addition Skills

A conversation with Xander:

Me: Hey, Xander, can you please give your sister a couple of those crackers? I think she would like some.
Xander: OK, here's 2, Aria.
Me: Thank you for sharing Xander. That was really nice.

A couple minutes later...

Me: Xander, can you give Aria a few more crackers? She wants more.
Xander: OK, she can have 2 more. She can only have 4.
Me: Thank you Xander. She really likes those.

It took me a few seconds, then I realized, he had just done addition.

Me: I think you just did math, Xander!
Xander then held up 4 fingers and counted them "1-2, 1-2, See that makes 4".

Now, is he ready to do my taxes for me? I really would like to delegate that chore!

If only it would last forever

Almost always, I look forward to my children growing and learning, moving on to the next stage in life. I'm not particularly attached to the infant stage, but Aria finally got me hoping it would last a little longer. We were all hanging out in the living room after the kids had their bath. Aria was oh so snuggly, rolling around, hugging pillows, playing with toys just being so darn cute. After a while, she just kind of laid down on the floor. I asked her "Aria, are you ready to go nigh-nigh?" She immediately got up and crawled over to my lap. The little girl actually wanted to go bed. Can we make that last until she is 18?

Chef Xander

Chef Xander helped me to make some pasta sauce in our new pressure cooker. He put a giant amount of spinach in there--good boy! He was quite helpful with stirring and adding ingredients.

We've really put this new pressure cooker to use since we got it. A few weeks ago, our rice cooker finally died after my attempts to repair it. After shopping around for a replacement, I opted for this all-in-one rice cooker, pressure cooker, slow cooker. The pressure cooker part of it is really rather cool. We've cooked northern beans (no pre-soaking), artichokes (only 8 min), sauces, chicken wings, and beef short ribs. Artichokes in 8 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes was enough to win me over.

Belated Happy V Day

It was a simple family Valentine's Day this year. Daddy brought home heart-shaped Chicago style pizza from Mangia Pizza.


Treat bags and moon pies from mommy.


Xander exchanged Valentines at school. I found this mostly annoying because it was really we parents filling them out. I feel like there should be some rule that you have to be able to write out the Valentines before you can give them to someone else. Anyhow, I didn't want Xander to feel left out so I did the darn things. One of this friends gave out 100 piece puzzles as her valetine. So, we put that together. Xander enjoyed it so much, that Dolphin got him a 300 piece one to start not next.

Traveling Aria

As I mentioned in my previous post, Aria and I just took a trip to attend my Grandfather's memorial service. Dolphin and Xander stayed at home as we were able to get tickets for the whole family on such short notice. The boys stayed home while we had our traveling adventure.

I picked her up for school Friday afternoon, and we headed to the airport. I opted for carrying her in my Ergo carrier instead of using a stroller. My primary reason is that I could count on her being content in the carrier. She loves being in there even though she's almost a year old now. The Ergo carrier worked out great. The security people even let me where it through the scanner, which spared me having to take it off and put it back on. Of course, it was lot of effort carrying around her weight, rolling a very full suitcase, and carrying the completed stocked diaper bag. I'm worn out just form this.

After the first leg of the flight to Dallas, I met up with my brother Chris. He was such a HUGE help. He installed the carseat in the rental, helped me carry my bags, booked a hotel for us, helped feed Aria, and drove us all around. So, after I got to Dallas, I was really glad not to be traveling on my own.

Aria was such a good girl for the whole trip. She slept for the long stretches both coming and going. She was only away for the two 35 min flights between Austin and Dallas. She was also reasonable behaved during the Memorial Service. Near the end, I knew she was getting hungry so I was so nervous she was going to be disruptive. We made it though.

Aria also enjoyed playing with some of her cousins. I think they are like 3rd once removed cousins, but I'm not entirely certain because I don't think I understand the whole "removed" and cousin numbering scheme. Even though they were a little older than her, they had a fun time chasing around Grandma's house. Aria crawling after them as they cried "Ah, the big baby's going to get us. Run!".

The only time Aria wasn't doing so well was when it came to sleeping. Poor Uncle Chris had to listen to her as we shared a room. Her schedule was so messed up from the traveling, and being in a strange hotel room did not help. It took hours to get her to fall asleep. Once she fell asleep, she was fine. It was just a huge pain both nights. Another reason, I'm exhausted!

We miss you, Grandpa Calvin

Last week, my grandfather, Aria and Xander's great grandfather, passed away. Grandpa Cal was an awesome grandpa. I hope some day that I will be just as wonderful grand parent to my future grand kids. Aria and Xander, you better have some!

This weekend, Aria and I were able to attend his memorial service. It was a very touching service and it was really nice to see so many familiar faces that we rarely see since we live so far away.

I just thought I would share here some of my memories of Grandpa Cal:

- He's literally the only person I have ever met in my entire life who has chewed tobacco. He gave it up a long time ago thankfully, but as a little kid, I always thought those little containers looked pretty cool.

- When he lived in Florida, he took us all on his pontoon boat from his backyard. How cool is that to have a boat in your backyard. I remember a small alligator jumped up in front of the boat. Yikes, gators!

- When I was a teenager, I thought I knew everything. Now, I know, in fact, that I do--JUST KIDDING. Back then, Grandpa Cal got into big arguments with me about politics. It wasn't the argument that was memorable as much as the fact that he was willing to argue with me. What a huge confidence boost that an adult was willing to go head to head. I now have to negotiate, debate, argue as part of my job on a daily basis. I'll thank some of that confidence to do so Uncle Cal.

- I REALLY never could tell if he was cheating at card/board games on purpose or by accident. Maybe a little of both? I'll choose to remember him as a master strategist. :-)

- The last time I spoke with him, he was in good spirits and totally has his wits about it. He was making a joke about how his kids (my parents, uncle) were making him broke. I think that when I leave this world, that's the way I want to go, too, full wits about me.

We love you, Grandpa Cal!

Building models

These were Xander's first attempt to build Duplo structures based off the examples pictures that come in the box.

The result (I think it's supposed to be a crab):


The inspiration:



A more complicated one, both result and inspiration:


He did very well with matching the colors and numbers of pieces. The orientation was sometimes a little more challenging. As you'll noticed in the last one, he did a mirror image with the slide. He built one more, even more complicated model, but it crashed as he tried to enhance it with more "decorations" before I could get a picture.

Tubes

Aria has very minor surgery to have tubes inserted into her ears this morning. She has essentially had an ear infection that has lasted 5 months straight. It wasn't always painful, there were peaks and valleys. During the peak infection periods, her symptoms were a cough, ear pulling, and sleep disruption. She's taken 5 antibiotics including the strongest oral antibiotic that they give to kids.

Finally, this month, I visited with an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist. The specialist offered the option of surgery which was 100% guaranteed to solve the problem or a month of antibiotics and steroids which might help. The antibiotic/steroid failure that I'd recently had with Copper was fresh in my mind along with the vision of forcing Aria to take MORE medicine, it was a simple decision.

Her surgery was scheduled for 6:30am this morning, which was a blessing. She could not eat or drink for 6 hours before the surgery. Had that been during awake time, I'm sure she would have been extra miserable.

The morning of the surgery my alarm didn't go off on time. Fortunately, I had packed up everything ahead of time. I basically changed her diaper and we both headed out in PJs. So glamorous! I wheeled her into the hospital in her stroller. I knew I would need to have my hands free for paper work. It turned out that I spent more time doing paper work than Aria did in surgery.

Aria made a lot of friends in both the waiting room and the pre-Op area. There was another little girl there, Hazel, who was almost the exact same age as Aria, who had the same purple blanket, and who was also getting tubes inserted. Aria was smiley at everyone, playing peek-a-boo, and waving. We had to wait a long time! It wasn't until 7:30am that the doctor arrived to do the surgery. By that time, Aria was positively starving. She kept signing for food and all the nurses and doctors thought she was blowing kisses.

At 7:30am, I handed her over to the assistant anesthesiologist, who had a nice warm blanket ready for her. She wasn't too happy about going with a stranger. Then, I had to wait in the waiting room for a brief 10 minutes. The doctor came out and reported he was done. He had found a lot of puss in her ears so that was further confirmation that she really needed the surgery.

In another 5 minutes, a nurse called me over to the recovery area. Aria was a little upset with the strangers as she woke up. As soon as they handed her over to me, she was fine. I put her back in her PJs, got her prescription for ear drops (Cipro--glad to know her ears are safe from a terrorist anthrax attack), and we headed to the car. I nursed her as she was starving and then go her in the carseat. She was out for a good hour. When she woke up, she was back to normal.

I hope this is an end to the ear infections and give Aria clearer hearing of sound.

Valedictorian

In January, Xander's class started a new Daily Sheet format. The Daily Sheet is a worksheet that both Xander and he's teach contribute to each day. Xander contributes tracing his first name as well as the letter of the week. He usually draws a picture on the back of the Daily Sheet also. He also contributes an answer to the question of the day.

The questions and answers are simple like:
What is a word that starts with "s"? Xander: Stick
What is something plants need to grow? Xander: Water and Sun
What do you do to make a friend feel better? Xander: Give them a hug.

The teachers contribute information on Xander's eating and sleeping a long with a behavior report card for 4 period through out the day morning, lunch, nap time, and afternoon. For each period, the teacher marks star for outstanding, smiley face for good with a little guidance, and check for poor choices.

Xander and I talk about the Daily Sheet every day. He loves to show off when he has a lot of stars or smiley faces on his sheet. He also very unhappy when he has check marks. Recently, the teacher used a check mark on another part of the sheet to mark that he had eaten all of his lunch. He made sure to explain at length that the check mark was just showing he ate lunch and not because he had made any poor choices. He takes these marks very seriously! Can you envision him years from now striving for that 4.0?

Vocal Adrenaline

Not just a fictional high school show choir anymore, vocal adrenaline seems to be the shots that Aria has been receiving lately. Her babbling occasionally sounding more and more likes words these days. A couple of her words:

1) "Dada" is a really good one...very clear and just for Daddy. "Mama", although usually pronounced "Mamamamamama" is also very good, too. One night this week, I heard over the baby monitor very clearly her calling Mama for her nighttime nursing. Mama tends to come out when she is sad and Dada, when she is happy. Go figure!

2) "Ball" is one that surprised me. I was holding her at a restaurant that had spherical light fixtures with Christmas ornaments hanging from them. All of a sudden, she pointed at one and yelled out "Bah" with such a voice of self-pleasure. Then, we had to point at all the other "Bah"s.

3) "Bye" was another surprise also. She's been waving good bye for some time. She through in a "Bah-ee". Her teacher looked at me and said "Did she just say that?" Yep she did. I haven't gotten her to say night-night yet, but she always waves nigh-nigh to Daddy. Although, tonight she blew him kisses, too. Daddy gets all the love!

4) She still does an "Ada" for all done, but mostly just uses the sign without any noise.

5) "Da"--can you guess what that one is? Dog. It's a popular word around our house.


So, those are the noises I've noticed. She's understanding more even when she can't really vocalize. It's such a thrill!

Noisy eater

If you have seen the movie "The Switch", starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman, there are a few scenes referencing about the noises that Bateman's character makes while eating. Aria does these noises, too! It's so silly. When she is eating something she really likes (usually some kind of pasta), she is full of "Mmmm" noises. I'll have to try to capture it on video as it is just SO cute.

I'm so in trouble

I went shoe shopping with Aria today. Oh my gosh. Little girl shoes? It is so hard to resist going crazy. Up to this point, I had resisted enough to have only bought 1 pair of shoes for her. Babies don't really need shoes, especially in warm Texas. That said, my baby is almost a toddler and the toddler class at her school requires shoes. So, there's my excuse! I manged to stick to only two pairs of shoes in progressive sizes. There is just SO much cuteness and sparkles available.

What did Aria think? She thought the shoes were awesome! I let her play with them for a little bit just to explore them a bit. Later in the day, I put a pair on with socks. She was all grins and kicking her little feet. We are definitely going to be a troublesome pair.

Canine Buddies

Aria seems to have a special bond with our dog Copper. That bond may have something to do with all the treats that Aria gives to Copper. You can tell Aira is full at mealtime because she starts handing bits of food to Copper.

They have had a hilarious time playing together. Aria found one of Copper's ring toys. She tried to put it in her mouth. I told her "yucky, that's for Copper-dog". She held it out for Copper, which Copper eagerly took. Aria thought it was hilarious. After that, they started playing with the ring back and forth. Copper would drop the ring, Aria would pick it up and hand it out for her. I'd tell Copper "ok" and she would take the ring. Aria would squeal with laughter even though she usually fell over with the momentum of Copper pull the ring out of her hand.

Xander seems to have established a bond with our other dog, Peanut. He loves to drag Peanut around, and for whatever reason, Peanut puts up with it. Peanut has even taken to sleeping in Xander's room which is very soothing for Xander at night time. Xander likes to give treats, too, but he is skilled enough that he can do the chore of feeding both dogs fairly well. Of course, it doesn't always go well. The other day, he spilled dog food all over the kitchen. The dogs were ecstatically nibbling up all the food...that's the good thing about the dogs. Food never lasts on the floor long.

School Days

Dolphin attended a parent teacher conference today for Xander. I was a bit nervous how it would go. As I pick the kids up every day, I get all of the little notes about Xander's behavior. He's had a few check marks lately so I was worried they were going to tell us Xander was getting into too much trouble. After the conference, which lasted a good hour, Dolphin reported that things were great and my worrying was for nothing.

Some of the things to note:
1) Xander participates really well in learning activities. He's always engaged and asking questions.
2) His best friend is Auggie, which we already knew. However, when Auggie is out sick, Xander plays fine with other friends, too. We know he's also very fond of Ryder and Dylan. I asked Xander once what he likes so much about Auggie. He says that Auggie likes to play pretend, which is Xander's favorite thing to do.
3) Xander's a bit of a stickler about the rules. Can you say "control freak"? He likes to enforce the rules on his class mates. Apparently, he's been doing the door warden job at school (keeping kids away from the door) very enthusiastically lately...almost too enthusiastically. I'm reminded of this as Xander is always trying to preach to me about "the rules."

Some areas of improvement:
1) He's a super fast eater so that he can get to playing faster. He needs to work on asking to leave the table.
2) He has a hard time being quiet at nap time. He doesn't much need a nap these days, but does need some quiet time. It's really hard for him to do. The teacher is looking at giving each kid a nap time toy bag that they can only have at nap time to help them keep quiet for the kids who do want to nap.