Becca's life

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:13:38 GMT

Iris's favorite word is 'baboon' pronounced "Aaa-BOOON!"

This is our last weekend in Santa Rosa. I'm slightly sad, but full of plans for when we get back to California. I think I've figured out how to have a room for Iris, an office for Ben, and a place for guests when we have them (which we will in November, if not sooner).

Food goes quickly when there are 15 people to eat it.

Iris Update

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 05:24:14 GMT

Since I haven't written for a while here is what Iris is up to. She...

Just got 2 more teeth (lower incisors) for a total of 12. Her gums are swollen where the canines are coming down, but they'll probably be another couple of weeks.
Is so clingy! She asks for "Becca", "nurse", "up", and "hold" all the time. Fortunately, she's stopped biting when she nurses, although I can often feel her top teeth and see the imprint of them when she pops off.
Has started liking car rides better. She sometimes climbs into the car or asks to take a ride. She can be happy and awake in the car for an hour or so now, and she'll reliably fall asleep if it's near her nap- or bed-time. Unfortunately, she gets carsick on twisty, curvy roads.
Is learning names; she knows Becca, Ben, Iris, Stefan, Ariel, Charles, Susan, Eric, Jean, Arthur, and Rudy (our neighbor across the street). She also likes when I show her photos on the computer and we name the people and animals in them. It's interesting to see the workings of how she identifies people. People with curly hair are often "Stefan" or "Ariel", and old men are generally "Charles".
Is still phone-obsessed. Pretty much anything can be a play phone if she holds it to her ear. She often asks to talk to Stefan or Susan.
Points out dozens of "hurts" every day. Since she still falls fairly often, she usually has a scrape on at least one of her knees. And there are sometimes a bug bites or splinters. Mostly she just wants me to kiss them better, and often she kisses them herself afterwards.
Is starting to have favorite foods - she asks for yogurt, cheese, milk, berries, bananas, crackers (which are usually tortilla chips), raisins, cookies, onions, tomatoes, pickles, and avocado frequently, and will pick those foods out of dishes and eat them first.
Seems to be making progress on the potty-training front, although it's verging on an obsession sometimes. She'll stand up and announce each turd as she poops on her potty, and then get back on to do more. Sometimes she asks to go potty, but more often she tells me her tummy hurts, and then I know it's time. She likes wiping, whether or not she needs to. While we were at a farm the other day, she took great interest in pointing out every instance of cow poop she could find.
Is starting to like longer books. Her current favorite is "Wild" aka Where the Wild Things Are, which she asks for at least a half-dozen times a day. She also likes the Dr. Suess Foot Book ("Feet") and The Cat in the Hat. I don't think she gets the whole stories, but she seems to understand what's going on on each page.
Loves pushing around the stroller. She's been known to borrow other babies' strollers on occasion (the little umbrella ones are easier for her to manipulate compared to the slightly larger one we have).
Has started using verbs - Running, Bounce, Walk, Ride, Swim, Splash, Dropped it, Broke, Eat, Read, Dance, Hold, Nurse - generally to announce what she's doing, or what she wants to do.
Is also starting to use adjectives - Heavy, Fuzzy, Hot, Cold, Soft - but I'm having a hard time getting her to understand that "heavy" doesn't apply to all rocks and that not all food is "hot".
"I see you!" is her only sentence so far, but she uses it a lot when she's sort of hiding. It's adorable.
Has learned to get real quiet and hide in the closet to do top-secret things. This is much sneakier than the previous maniacal giggling.
Is learning to tickle people. She touches them on the belly while saying "tickle tickle". This is more cute than effective.
Knows some colors: blue, orange, purple, brown, and pink. Strangely, she tends to confuse red and green, although she shouldn't be color-blind.
Is totally blonde because she won't keep a hat on and her hair has gotten sun-bleached. She's also getting freckles on her face. I keep her inside during midday, put SPF 45 on every morning (me too), and use the sunshade on the stroller.
Has been starting to learn letters and numbers, mostly due to Ben's teaching. She can reliably identify O, S, C, and 8, and seems to be learning Q, M, W, X, 7, & 9. This is just at the level of identifying the symbols, not understanding which letters make which sounds or how many 7 things is. She's also saying "two-two" to indicate more than one of something.
Sleeps sometimes. Naps are great (and usually in the stroller after a short walk), but nighttime sleep is crap. I've been pretty tired out, and I'm so grateful for the couple hours that Ben takes her out each morning.
Loves drawing with pens and crayons. Restricting her to paper is tricky!
Announces when she's making a mess, and then will help clean it up.
Is turning into a water baby. The first time we took her swimming at the lake, she was really into it, until she fell into the water while wading and got scared when her head went under. For the next couple of weeks, she'd just wade cautiously around the edges or sit on the pier and stick her feet in. But the last couple of times, she's gotten bold again, and will jump off the pier into my arms and ride on my back while I swim. She also was able to climb the ladder out of the water and up onto the pier.
Likes to ride on my back like a monkey. She'll come up behind me and say "mungee" and cling onto my shoulders and waist. She can actually stay on without me holding her, although I'm too scared to move my hands more than an inch away.
Desperately wants an older sibling. She loves playing with slightly older kids when she gets a chance and will chase them around.

Santa Rosa

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 05:18:48 GMT

Things I like about Santa Rosa:

The lakes. They're spring-fed and each has a different character. Park lake has lifeguards, a diving board, a big waterslide, a beach volleyball area, and picnic areas. Blue hole is very deep and cold, and draws lots of scuba divers on the weekends. Twin lake is further out and much quieter. I haven't made it out to the others yet.

People are friendly, especially our neighbor Rudy, who brings us food (we reciprocate) and introduces us to people.

The rainy season is in the summer, rather than the winter. Even though there's less rain overall, it's at a much better time for gardening. And I love the thunderstorms.

It's quiet and there isn't much traffic in town.

Almost everything is in walking distance.

It's not as built-up and full of strip malls as practically everywhere else. There are lots of motels, gas stations, and fast-food places near the interstate, but the rest of the town isn't like that.

We've been seeing a lot of Ben's family, which is really nice.

Houses are much cheaper than in the Bay Area and have much bigger yards.

Lots of people garden. Peppers, tomatoes, grapes, apricots, apples, potatoes, onions, sunflowers, lamb's quarter, and amaranth grow well here. (The last two are edible weeds.)

Our car has been getting really excellent mileage when we've driven anywhere - at least 33 mpg, and as high as 38.2 mpg. (This is a 17-year-old Civic with 211k miles on it!) You have to drive a long ways to get anywhere else, but it's all really easy freeway driving at 75mph with hardly any traffic. Albuquerque is about a 2 hour drive, Las Vegas (NM) is about 1 hour by car.

It's nice and warm in the summer. It's usually about 90° and 50% humidity here during the day, and it cools off appreciably at night. Laundry dries really quickly out on the clothesline. Swamp coolers are quite effective, and more common here than A/C.

The schools don't look as much like prisons as the public schools in the Bay Area do.

Things I'm not so fond of:

Goat-heads, sand burrs, cockleburrs, nightshade, tumbleweed, etc. The weeds are all really prickly, and I'm always getting stuff caught in my feet because the only shoes I brought were sandals.

We're pretty much the only people who walk anywhere around here. The sidewalks are a little weird for walking, because the curbs don't always come down at the corners, although they do at the driveways. But people seem to know who we are because, "Oh yeah, I've seen you walking around here."

The one grocery store here doesn't have much in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables. It also doesn't have good sales, tofu, good-quality ice cream, or good bread. This is inconvenient for this visit, but probably would provide additional encouragement for me to garden and cook from scratch if we were here long-term.

We don't have good internet access right now, and my cell phone doesn't work out here. Again, this is an inconvenience now, but things could easily be worked out if we were staying here.

Driving is currently the only way to get anywhere out of town. Although Santa Rosa is on an interstate highway, Greyhound doesn't stop here. There are freight trains, but not passenger rail. People kind of save up errands and get things for their neighbors when they go to the city (or a bigger town).

There isn't Thai, Indian, Japanese, etc. food here. There aren't the fabulous Chinese vegetarian cult restaurants. There's fast food and New Mexican food. While I like cheese enchiladas, chile rellenos, and guacamole, I also really miss the other stuff. I guess it makes it that much more of a special treat. :-/

This whole area is one of the worst for sunburn in the U.S. It's fairly high altitude (4600 feet here), and Ben and I both burn easily and have family histories of skin cancer.

We don't have many friends here, and I miss people in California and on the East Coast.

Briefly

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:17:23 GMT

I'm in New Mexico with Ben and his family. Things are going well, but the internet situation here is that there is dial-up and I only get online for about an hour once or twice a week. I'm reading a lot of my friends page, but not posting or commenting.

Let me tell you, internets...

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:13:37 GMT

So last week, my boobs hurt most of the time from a combination of biting and the abrupt cessation of nursing on Iris's part.

By the end of the week, I'd stopped producing so much milk, and was feeling more comfortable most of the time.

Then Iris got sick yesterday, and slept and nursed off-and-on throughout the day, and constantly from about 9pm through 4am. The only reason she stopped around 4 was because I couldn't take it anymore and woke Ben up to take care of her for a little while. Then more nursing and squirming from 6:30 until 8:30, when I woke Ben up again. (Even when she doesn't bite, I often feel her teeth these days. I know that's not supposed to happen, but I don't know how to fix it.) Nursing when you don't really have much milk is no fun. Instead of suck, suck, suck....ahhh milk, she does suck, suck, suck, sucksucksuck, there must be milk in here somewhere...sucksucksuck. After a while, it gets to be on the edge of my pain tolerance, especially if I'm tired.

On the bright side, Iris's fever is gone today. And two nights ago, she slept through the night (10pm-6am, then 8am) for the first time in 7 months!

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:51:54 GMT

Iris nursed a bit the past couple of nights when she woke up, but hasn't nursed during the daytime at all. She says, "Nurse" and grabs at my shirt. But then she giggles at my breasts and points to them saying "nurse" and sometimes kisses them or rubs her nose on them very gently. It's sweet. Other times, she asks for "nurse" and when I unfasten my bra she shakes her head and turns away saying, "no, no, no" softly and sadly. :-(

I've been having to pump twice a day, and so Iris is drinking a couple of small cupfuls of my milk. She calls it juice. I guess even though the daytime nursing is ending very abruptly, the amount of breastmilk she's drinking is going to decline more gradually. I've been giving her the cups of milk during the time that used to be her morning nap, and we cuddle together and look at books.

I don't know. This just wasn't what I'd expected. I walked at least 5 miles today, mostly to get Iris to sleep. Pumping sucks. My boobs are sore. It's harder to comfort Iris when she melts down (which she did spectacularly today upon waking from her nap). I'll be glad when we're both more used to this.

In non-Iris news, I cut off a lot of Ben's hair today. What's left is so thick and curly. Mmmm....

Weaning?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:15:08 GMT

If you'd asked me a couple of weeks ago, I would've said that I expected to still be nursing Iris for at least another few months, and trying to get her down to just a couple of times per day by her next birthday.

The past week though , and especially the last couple of days, Iris has been biting almost every time she nurses. This gets her an, "Ouch! No biting! No! That hurts me" and then I hide the boob and put her down for several minutes. I also tried reminding her to nurse gently, and showing her what I meant with her fingertip and my mouth. Last night, after a long day with no nap, I just couldn't get her to nurse without biting, so she ended up going to sleep without nursing. There was a lot of crying in bed with me, until she finally got so tired that I could just carry her around and she fell asleep in my arms. She nursed in the night and early in the morning, when she was really sleepy.

She's been biting a lot lately - her hands, toys, my nose, maybe it's teething related - she's got 4 top front, 2 bottom front, and the first 4 molars.

Today's nap was in the stroller, which seemed to work pretty well. She's asked a few times to nurse today, but either nursed a short time and then bit or said "No, no, no", waved her hands, and shook her head when I got the boob out. I gave her a cup of cow milk this afternoon, and she drank it quickly and asked for more. She's also been eating and asking for food a lot more than usual. We all went for a walk this evening with Iris in the ERGO, and that got her to sleep pretty quickly.

For now, my plan is to offer to nurse Iris when she asks, end it if she bites, and pump if I get uncomfortable and give her the milk in a cup.

Anyone reading this who has nursed a toddler - did you encounter problems with biting? Did that end nursing, or was the biting problem resolved in another way? Does this sound like weaning or a nursing strike? Any advice?

Happy half-birthday!

Wed, 28 May 2008 23:46:17 GMT

Iris is 1.5 years old today.

She's still talking up a storm. She's probably got over 100 words, the vast majority of which are nouns. There are a few verbs (nurse, kiss, excuse me, and walk) and adjectives (soft, hot, smooth, and heavy) and whatever parts of speech "yes" and "no" are. Iris uses words mostly to point out things or tell me things she wants (food, pen, phone, coffee, etc.). She sometimes uses multiple words to describe things like, "cat, cat, Guido, soft, leg, cat, feet, cat, nose, nose, tail". But in those cases, the only relation between the words is that they all apply to the same object. No sentences so far.

She has 10 teeth - four on top and two on the bottom in front, plus the first four molars.

She weighs 27 lbs even and is 34.75" long. This puts her at about 85th percentile for weight and well over the 95th percentile for length, which is about where she's been for the past year.

She eats like crazy some days, and hardly anything at all others. Fruit, yogurt, granola bars, avocados, butter, chocolate, juice, and cheese are her favorites (some of those she doesn't get very much). Bread, rice, beans, tofu, eggs, and non-leafy veggies she'll eat on days when she's eating a lot. She still doesn't do raw leafy veggies.

She still nurses several times a day, and a lot for about an hour in the morning before getting up. Unless she's really sleepy, she's been biting while nursing lately, which results in an immediate end to nursing.

Dislikes: nail clipping, going home from the playground, baths or showers (although she LOVED showering with me at my mom's house), the pediatrician today (she cried so hard that her face has lots of little red spots where she broke blood vessels.

Favorite objects: cell phones, pens, knives, her big stuffed elephant, toys that make music, magnets, toothbrushes (but only adult toothbrushes)!

I'm feeling rather burnt out on parenting right now. Iris is a delight, but I miss the days of not having to be responsible for someone else most of the time. I have jury duty tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it.

The state of our garden

Sat, 24 May 2008 18:25:44 GMT

smws did an awesome job with our garden while we were away. He got a bunch of horse manure (from the stables up in Tilden park) and wood chips and improved the soil with them.

Ready now:
Mint* and lemon mint, rosemary*, sage*, oregano, chives, arugula, fava beans, nasturtiums (the flowers are good in salads), spinach, chard, garlic*, dill, strawberries, and snow peas.
* I'm drying these things for future use.
We're getting lots of the herbs (except dill), nasturtiums, and arugula, and fair amounts of peas and favas. The fava beans are much smaller than ones I've bought. I'm not sure if this is due to the poor soil or the variety. At any rate, I grew them mostly as a green manure, so it's fabulous that we've gotten food out of it too.

Growing, but not ready to harvest:
Tomatoes, carrots, basil, parsley, beets, blackberries, blood oranges, radishes, bush green beans, cantaloupe, sweet peppers, lettuce, salad mix, and a lone sunflower.

I've planted more seeds, but I don't want to count anything until they start to grow.

More baby pictures

Wed, 21 May 2008 05:46:48 GMT

	Hunting for Easter Eggs
	On the phone Iris is obsessed with phones.
	I don't wanna be a microbiologist! It was a sad, clingy, teething day.
	Flower Iris loves to smell flowers with her nose, whether or not they have any fragrance.
	Shorty She's really only short in comparison with my male relatives.
	Clothesline with a view My mom's house has a gorgeous view.
	Feeding herself Yogurt with frozen blueberries was perhaps not the wisest choice of food to give Iris.
	Dress-up Hats (and anything can be a hat if it's on your head) and shoes are 2 more Iris obsessions. Toothbrushes and toilet brushes round out the list.
	playing piano
	early start Playing with Ben's XO laptop.

How does your garden grow?

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:20:46 GMT

Well, actually my mom's garden...

I planted flowers between the back fence and the blackberries this week. It's a big area, and it took a while to clear all the weeds out. There are 8 marigolds I started from seed and transplanted, and then seeds for poppies, more marigolds, coneflower, cosmos, hollyhocks, primroses, and zinnias.

We're still getting a few spears of asparagus, there are a bunch of leeks (but they're on the small side- we've eaten all the big ones), and there are garlic chives, lemon thyme, and green onions. The butterhead lettuces we transplanted from cell packs are small heads now, and I'll probably start using them for salads soon.

The first planting of radishes is taking off, and there are lots of little seedlings of mesclun, beets (both red and yellow), spinach (both crinkled and flat-leaf), and broccoli raab. I thinned the beets and radishes late last week. The others don't look like they'll need thinning.

The raspberries my mom transplanted before leaving are taking off - all of the canes have bunches of leaves.

The carrots aren't really coming up yet, even though it's been about a month, but they're usually slow, I think. The peas (both snap and garden) had pretty spotty germination, so I planted more in the rows a couple days ago. The bush beans have been germinating and getting their leaves eaten right away. I'm not sure they'll make it.

I put in another planting of radishes, carrots, and mesclun yesterday - it's about a month after the first planting.

There are a bunch of seedlings growing on the glassed-in porch: heirloom tomatoes (from a mixed pack, so I don't know what type), cucumbers, basil, and a couple mystery plants in small pots (they're either peppers or eggplants). In smaller starting trays, there are squash (2 types) and melon (3 types), and I started one more tray with cabbage, dill, eggplant, peppers, purple basil, pumpkin, and a few more tomatoes.

The daffodils have pretty much stopped blooming. I've been deadheading them the past few weeks, and yesterday I dug up bunches of bulbs from a couple of the biggest clumps. The little bulbs got replanted into the gaps in the border of daffodils that line the backyard.

Hopefully my mom will have a nice summer of vegetables. We've certainly been enjoying the fresh asparagus, beets, beet greens, leeks, and herbs, as well as frozen bell peppers, blackberries, and basil pesto the last few weeks.

It's nice having so much space available for growing things. And it's wonderful to get rain during the growing season. :-)

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:40:20 GMT

More new Iris words: boat, dock, baby, all gone (with sign), Becca (sounds more like caca), mama, block, soap, banana (just "nana"), knife, excuse me, night-night, nipple, socks, shirt, moo (like a cow), bunny, apple, toast

First two-word phrase (where she also uses both words independently): "coffee cup!"

I keep trying to ask her new things, to see if she can put words together and understand new sentences or whether she understands words we say but that she doesn't (yet). Today, I asked, "Can you nurse your doll?" She picked up the doll, brought it to me, and said "nurse". Also, even though she doesn't say "yes", she can bring you Yes the Bunny. (My mom was trying to get Iris to say something other than "No", and gave her a stuffed bunny, which my mom named "Yes the Bunny".)

Sorry if this isn't quite as exciting to everyone else as to me. :-)

Language explosion!

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:04:11 GMT

More new words: flower, floor, potty, diaper, poop, coffee (eep!), cup, juice (sounds a lot like her "shoes" though), nurse (often sounds like "nose", and she seems to use it as a noun meaning "breast"), ear, mouth, egg (plastic Easter eggs are fun), mole, spoon, door, outside

It's crazy how fast she's learning words at this stage. I don't mean it as "my kid's a genius" or anything, but she's just so much more verbal than she was a couple of months ago.

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:00:28 GMT

Iris at 16 months

Loves:
dogs - I'm surprised she isn't the least bit scared
climbing stairs
raspberries (the fruit) alomg with most other types of fruit
raspberries on the belly, both giving and receiving
chocolate. I feel like such a bad parent for giving it to her, but I do generally give her what I'm eating, healthy or not.
trowels. She carries them around and digs in the garden.
phones and TV remotes. She carries them aroun up by her ear and has conversations like "Hewo! He-wooo! Mmmhmmmm."
me. I'm glad for that, but I sometimes wish she'd find somebody else to cling to.

Hates:
baths and showers
having her nails cut
the car seat (although she's getting much better on short trips)
being held by anyone other than me
being put down

Words:
dog, woof, cat, fish, duck, goose, nnnn (neigh like a horse - she sticks her tongue out and shakes her head), croak (means frog)
food, yummy, mmmm
nose, belly, shoes/ feet (one word for both), eye, hat (and pats her head)
up
light, ball, doll
no (response to all questions), nonononono (unhappy no)
hello, bye-bye (waves)
The above are words she has pretty solidly. Ben thinks he has heard some others like moss, grass, daffodil, penguin, and baby.

New Abilities:
walking on bouncy surfaces (like the bed)
eating with a fork or spoon. it's messy.

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:38:30 GMT

This birth story (told from the perspective of a doula), reminds me a lot of Iris's birth. I didn't have the induction, and Iris never got stuck. The descriptions of the wonderful support during labor, the friendly and helpful OB and hospital staff, and then the abrupt transition to on-her-back, legs-up "purple pushing", and the OB yanking out the baby and then moments later, the placenta, were exactly what we experienced.

I guess a lot of what I'd read about hospital birth made me leary of interventions during labor, and I felt relieved that nobody pressured me to get medical pain relief, or use pitocin to speed up labor, or stay in bed the whole time. But I didn't realize that despite having pretty much what I wanted during labor, it didn't mean that the rest of it would go how i wanted it to.

I don't know. At the time, I was just so tired and so ready to be done. I felt like my legs were about to give out, and I don't know if I could've handled squatting or being on all 4s. I was glad to focus on the counting and pushing and have someone telling me that I was doing a good job and making progress (and showing me the head in the mirror). I was NOT happy with Dr. Bighands pulling Iris out though - there's barely room for a baby there! Of course it would've been fine by me if Iris were in trouble and just needed to get out as quickly as possible, but that wasn't the case.

I was just struck by how this seems to be standard procedure. Before reading the story linked above, I guess I felt like what had happened to me was kind of a fluke, and that the OB who delivered Iris just sucked. I had attributed it to the doctors' shift changing, since the female OBs I'd seen during pregnancy and earlier in labor seemed nicer and were supportive enough of me having an unmedicated birth.

I guess I've got a bit to think about if I ever get pregnant again.

another little landmark

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 05:26:21 GMT

So far, Iris has generally used words only to point out things that are exciting (fish, dogs, cats, lights, balls, ducks, shoes, and hats are the big ones) or to tell us "No, no, nooooo". Today though, she learned to ask for food, by saying "food" and touching her mouth.

Picture post!

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:35:52 GMT

	Oooo dirt! Iris loves to garden
	I caught you a mouse, but I ate it. I think this one will be going in Iris's graduation slideshow some day.
	Iris and Sophie Getting to hang out with the puppies really made Iris's day.
	Colin, Bina, Iris, and Sophie It's so nice having some of our extended family living nearby. :-)
	Isn't she cute? anemone and her adorable Helen came to visit.
	Veggie pirate smws designed and printed that shirt himself. I love it! (The "YARRRR!" is just backwards by accident - at first I thought it was a joke that I was missing.)
	My brother's dog Goose Isn't he a gorgeous dog? (There's a patch of fur missing on his back now from some veterinary treatment, but it's growing back).
	Iris walking She was still a little wobbly, but getting the hang of walking when I took this one. Now, just a few weeks later, she's walking all of the time, and not falling nearly as much.

growing up

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 04:30:58 GMT

We got Iris a toddler bed which converts to a twin bed off of Craigslist. It's set up (in the smaller configuration) in our room, right by the foot of our bed. Iris is sleeping in it by herself right now. :-D

In the past couple of weeks, she's also gotten her first hard-sole shoes and her first training pants (they're like diapers, but less absorbent and they go on and off just like underwear with no snaps or velcro).

Also, she can really eat fruit. We went out to brunch with some friends the other day, and she ate most of the fruit garnish on my plate, her plate of fruit, and some of Z's plate of fruit that he didn't feel like eating. That was one of those rare days when she only nursed 2-3 times. For some reason, she seems to eat much better in restaurants than at home. She nurses more at home, and much less when we're out. I'm not sure which way the cause-and-effect goes.

We're going to be in Maryland for most of this spring, and my mom signed Iris and I up for storytime at the library. It's run (I think) by the same woman who did it when I was small.

15 months

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:42:20 GMT

Iris is 1.25 years old today. :-)

At the pediatrician, she measured 32.75 inches long, and weighed 24 lbs, 13 oz. She's continuing to get bigger, but much more slowly these past few months since she's been having cold after cold. Evidently she's also slow in getting teeth - lots of toddlers are working on getting molars already at this age. I think I actually laughed aloud at that one.

She got vaccinated for MMR, but not Varicella. We'll see if she has a reaction next week.

Funny

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 04:44:10 GMT

Iris has learned the word for litterbox: "NO!" She walks (!) over to it, points, and says "NO!" very sternly.

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:29:17 GMT

I'm so frustrated with the food co-op I joined.

I've been doing childcare as my once-a-month work shift. The first time there was a sick kid there, whose mom denied that she was sick. Yesterday was the second time. Iris was sick, so I left her home, with bsittler and smws. I got there, and there were 4 kids (ages 3-8) playing unsupervised in the kid room. Three of them belonged to the woman who started the co-op, and another was just there because her parents were doing something else (not co-op related). A few minutes later another mom dropped her toddler off and showed me where her food and milk were and told me when to give them to her. She started to leave the room and her daughter cried for her and clung to her leg. I offered, "Well, since my daughter is home sick, we could swap and you could hang out with your daughter while I stock shelves or whatever." She laughed, and said, "Um, no. I'd rather not do that. Don't worry, she always cries like that at first." I was kind of taken aback by that, but I guess I shouldn't have been. Usually there are supposed to be 2 people doing childcare during a shift, but the other person just didn't show up or find anyone to cover. And someone (not one of the parents) had the nerve to complain that I wasn't playing with the kids interactively enough. (I was playing with the toddler the whole time, and just kind of keeping an eye on the older kids because they seemed to be having a good time playing together.)

I think the co-op is just not going to work for us anyhow. It's $250 for us to be members (some of which is refundable if I quit). It costs $4 for me to get there. And workshifts are 2.5 hours, plus another 2 hours round trip of travel. The food costs more than in supermarkets, and there are no bulk bins, refrigerated or frozen foods, or fresh produce.

Also, I'm slightly offended by comments along the lines of, "Oh, your daughter isn't in daycare yet?"

Little bits

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:17:10 GMT

Iris seems to be getting more teeth (7 and 8), so she's been super-clingy-fussy lately.

I think I'm over this last cold, just as Ben is starting to come down with it.

I made Thai curry in the crockpot yesterday, and tonight's dinner will be chili. It's really nice to get dinner mostly prepared at 9am and just have that done for the day.

After a couple of weeks of nice weather, it's raining today, and rain is predicted for the next week.

I started our 3 sisters patch by amending the soil with compost, making hills, and planting corn. There are little sprouts coming up in the bed of greens and the pots of herbs. I also found some chard growing in the compost pile when I turned it, so I stuck those in the ground. They were stumps of chard root with very colorful pink or yellow sprouty tops. I think half of my garden gets its start in the compost pile. :-P

I have to work a shift at out co-op today. Bleh. Fingers crossed for no sick babies.

Random cute thing

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:46:35 GMT

Iris's favorite book is Animal Sounds. She has started making some of the sounds when we read the book: the frogs say "croak croak", and the crow says "caw, caw". But the best is the page with the bees who say "Buzzzzzzz, buzzzzzz". Iris goes "Plllbbt, Plllbt!" (blowing raspberries).

So far, I'm really liking this toddler thing. Interaction is cool. :-)

Conversations with Iris

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:40:55 GMT

Typical conversation with Iris:

Iris: (points) "Ooooo, cat!"
Becca: (ascertains catness) "Yes, that is a cat." or "No, that's not a cat. That's a person."

Repeat dozens of times per day.

Homegrown meal #4

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:22:08 GMT

	Veggies Onions, garlic, chard, spinach, beets, carrots, rosemary, and thyme. Some of these were picked before maturity, because I'm about to turn over the beds and re-plant them for summer.
	I can has carrots! Iris helps harvest the veggies.
	Roasted Root Veggies Beets, carrots, onions, garlic, rosemary, and thyme from the garden; potatoes and olive oil from the supermarket.
	Sauteed Greens Homegrown beet greens, chard, and spinach.