A girl and her horse

A girl and her horse

Peach Fuzz Update

Peach Fuzz

Car time

We spend a lot of time in the car as a family (we all commute into the Big City together, which is something of, say, a challenge with a toddler).  I was one of those people who swore I would never, ever feed my kid in the car.  Let’s just say that lasted maybe part of the first commute, if that.  I think we stopped for something for her to eat or drink, and ever since then, I was more than willing to throw food at her.

The mornings are usually good times:

I get a kiss goodbye, and usually a happy baby:

But in the afternoons, usually food is called for, to prevent screaming.  After a 10 hour workday, I am usually ready to do ANYTHING to stop the screaming.  Actually, it doesn’t take much: usually graham crackers will do the trick.

Let’s just say I vacuum the car out a LOT.

Curls update

I love, love, love her curls – when they’re wet, I put baby hair product in them and twist them with my finger, in the hopes they’ll survive the night’s sleep.  Usually they’ll frizz out, but sometimes they hold:

And here she is with her new chair from Target:

It is absolutely amazing

How did the 4 pound, 12 oz little thing turn into a sometimes-angel – sometimes-tantrum-throwing toddler? What’s next, kindergarten? Soccer practice? Car keys?!! Unreal.

It is going to be so weird to go to Europe for a week and come back – she’ll probably be working on her dissertation by then.

Peach fuzz

Her hair is unfortunately as fine as mine, but it’s definitely curly!  I am trying to find some sort of baby hair product that’ll encourage those curls to stay.

If anyone’s out there…

I apologize for the complete lack of posts of late.  I’m usually so tired in the evening that it’s all I can do to make/eat dinner, play with the baby, and then bathe her – let alone doing anything like, say, cleaning or laundry or whatever.

Sweet landmark

Peach is doing a lot of chatting and singing.  She makes soft words that tumble out of her in streams; sometimes recognizable (“Dada, Mama”), mostly not.  She loves to sing in her carseat while we’re on our way into work.  She’s actually a shy speaker, much more comfortable in her room with us than she ever is out in the big, bad world.

Tonight, Matthew left the room, and afterwards she said, “Ba ba” (we’ve been working on “hi,” “bath,” “night-night,” and “bye-bye”) and then waved; it wasn’t directed at Matthew, just a recognition that he had gone and what the appropriate phrase and hand gestures were.   I hadn’t realized she was grasping that sort of abstraction yet.  I don’t know why I always feel so surprised when she hits one of these landmark phases, but I am, and there you are.

Peach Pits

The day after her first birthday, our little girl has the trots.  She’s been excluded from daycare – lucky us – for tomorrow, and will be allowed to return Monday (good for me, because it’s my first day of work at my new job).

I just had to wake her up to change a blow-out diaper – she was so unhappy, and it was so unpleasant.  Sheets have been changed, PJ bottoms are changed, and she is all decked out in Desitin.  We cuddled and she cried piteously, and I fed her a little bit of a bottle.  We seem to be very good at stopping her up on the weekend by forgoing the table food and giving her grated cheese and her bottle (yeah, we can be lazy on the weekends), that I’m hoping it’ll straighten her out quickly.  We tried to give her some cut up bananas at dinner, but it would go in her mouth, start to disentigrate, and then she’d spit it out.  (Can’t blame her: I’m not hot on bananas unless they’re appearing in banana bread.)

Good times, yes?   At least we have her 1 year appointment scheduled for tomorrow – no panicked calls to the pediatrician necessary.  Whew!

Another Milestone

We had our first temper tantrum at a restaurant today.  Nominally, this was because Daddy didn’t let Peach pull a bowl of rice into her lap, then tried to take a glass of ice water away from her.  Really, it was because she was exhausted and we pushed her too far by taking her out for sushi.

Daddy gulped his sushi and took Peach out; I finished my plate and paid.  She was still screaming when we pulled up in our driveway.   It was a very loooooong drive home.