I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes

Happy 2018!

... See, this is why I never post, because all I wanted to do was make some quick notes about the fun things from the past month-plus. And by the time I get it all out, it's taken like 3 hours (cobbled together in 10-minute chunks).

Nevertheless... ( December 2017 highlights )

We didn't actually go see Wonder Woman last Sunday when we had the babysitter. The morning of, as we were getting ready, Etrace said "I don't think we're going to be able to enjoy a movie if we're listening every instant for the phone to ring," so we shifted smoothly over to Plan B and went on a lunch date in the courthouse square in Crown Point (barely 5 minutes from the babysitter's house).

There's a fancy steakhouse we'd been wanting to try, but Google said they didn't open til noon and we had arranged to drop Aria off around 11am. So we first tried to go shoe shopping (also closed Sundays, alas), then went for donuts and coffee at the local donuts-and-comics shop, like ya do. (Etrace: "Dessert first?" Me: "This is breakfast! Then we'll have lunch!" They were quite good donuts, especially when surrounded by Star Wars and Marvel paraphernalia. Would nom again.) Next, a nice grownup lunch where we actually got to chat about things other than our child in a leisurely fashion. And then we browsed the Antique Mall next door for another 20 minutes, until I got too antsy and we headed back to get her.

We got back there right around 2pm, and all of them (mom, kids, and Aria) were playing contentedly with blocks on the living room floor. Aria jumped up and ran to the door calling "Mama! Dada!" and then remarked, perfectly calmly, "You came back!" Amanda said Aria was perfectly fine the whole time and never got anxious in the slightest. Really good to know.

The next few weekends are pretty busy (nephew J's birthday and, oh yeah, we should try to hold a garage sale one of these Sundays), and then my mom will be here July 22-29. Maybe *she'll* be willing to watch Aria solo for a couple hours one afternoon/evening....

ETA: While I'm here, I should note that Tuesday was July 4, and after a quiet day at home, we went over to Etrace's cousins' house (also in Crown Point) for a small toddler-friendly cookout and fireworks. Aria was way more interested in the swingset, sand table, playhouse, and toy cars (the ride-in kind) than in the fireworks; maybe next year. Myself, I had never seen home fireworks that actually go *up in the air* and explode like real grownup fireworks, so I was impressed! I said to Etrace that we never had anything like that growing up, all we ever got were the little ground works like snakes and sparklers and smoke bombs and camellias; he said "That's because that's all that was legal in Indiana until 2006." That explains that! We bailed out at 9pm to take Aria home to bed, but driving home we could see other people's home fireworks displays all around us. It reminded us of arriving home from our roadtrip honeymoon 3 years ago on July 4, seeing fireworks all along the horizon for the final several miles as we drove north up I-65 at twilight. <3

Etrace says Aria is getting steadily... not what you could call "worse", but more of a handful, more rambunctious and wanting to get into everything and create chaos. He is worried she's bored. I don't think it necessarily means she's bored just because she suddenly likes to methodically dump out every one of her toys (or books from the bookcase, clean diapers from the basket, etc) onto the floor and mess them around. That's a way of entertaining herself, right? Better than endless hours of Elmo videos (which she will beg for if not distracted by sufficient mess to create).

Basically, the operative principle nowadays is "what can we do to tire her out today??" ( Read more... )

I took Aria to shul this past Shabbat, and when we pulled up I said "Do you know who we're going to see? Danielle!" (her adorable little buddy, age 3.5) They weren't there yet, since we actually arrived close to on time, but then every 30 seconds Aria said "Where Danel? Where Danel?" SO CUTE. Danielle's equally adorable mom J (who is also the Hebrew school principal) commented approvingly on how well Aria is suddenly talking. She also mentioned they have a Sunday morning synagogue preschool class -- separate from the Federation weekday preschool which is never going to be practical for us -- and they normally start at age 3 but she thought Aria would do fine if we wanted to sign her up this fall, especially since Danielle will be in the class. "Oh, and it's drop-off!" MAGIC WORDS. Anyway, they have a sign-up/meet-the-teachers day in August, so we'll see how that goes.

Potty training! ( You've been warned. )

( language and social stuff )

A year and a half! It's already mindboggling that two years ago I was pregnant and one year ago we already had a sturdy infant in place of a tiny newborn.

Pediatrician says: height 33" (85th %ile), weight 24lb 14oz (60th %ile), head circumference 90th %ile. Everything looks good.

We are finally seeing that first real blossoming of vocabulary. ( food, clothes, shapes, and the requisite animal noises )

We really ought to take more video of her at this stage, but it's hard because when I bring in the iPad -- or even the regular camera -- she immediately grabs for it and wails if you hold it out of her reach.

I feel like there were some other developmental things I meant to note, but I can't think of them. She can drink water from an open cup now, when she wants to; but I only give her an ounce at a time because (a) she has trouble regulating how much to tip into her mouth without choking herself, and (b) most of the time she's more interested anyway in dumping out the water and smearing it around her tray, and/or piling bits of her food into the cup. Apparently she's our little raccoon.