Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Elektra is standing!

Over the weekend, Steve and I worked on teaching Elektra how to stand on her own. And now that she's done it a few times (we stand her up, making sure her feet are flat on the ground, and then let go of her until she sits herself back down), she's now starting to let go of things on her own.

It's only a matter of months before she walks now!!! Oh boy will we be in trouble then!

DJ have booger!

On the way home from daycare on Tuesday, DJ said to Steve,

"DJ have booger! DJ have booger!"

pause....

"Daddy take booger!!"

...pause as Daddy tries to retrieve said booger from DJ while driving because DJ was making a huge fuss about it....

"DJ have 'nother one! Daddy have booger!"

DJ was apparently rubbing his nose and managing to retrieve at least 3 boogers during the commute home... LOL!!!

The Birthday Girl and her Big Brother

We took some pictures tonight of the kids, since it's Elektra's first birthday.


DJ giggling at Elektra


Elektra giggling at DJ



A rare picture of the two kids smiling at us!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELEKTRA!!

At 1:59PM today, Elektra turns 1. I can't believe a year has gone by already!!

As seems to be tradition, my kids go to the pediatrician on their birthdays. Elektra went this morning, weighing in at 20 pounds 14 ounces, and 29.75 inches long. That means in the last three months, Elektra gained about a pound and a half and grew an inch and a quarter.

The doctor found her healthy and has restricted her diet to no shellfish until she turns 2, and no peanuts until she turns 3. She starts whole milk whenever we're ready. Being that she's been snaking DJ's sippy cup whenever possible, I don't think this transition will be too difficult!

Much to her dismay, however, Elektra received 4 shots (she wailed, but was done 15 seconds later) and had blood drawn. Why did she have blood drawn? Because the Socialist State of Maryland requires that she have a lead test because she lives in a house built before some date (1972? I dunno.). Let me tell you how much fun it is to try and draw blood from a 1 year old. It was so much fun with DJ that I couldn't wait to do it again with Elektra. Really. I mean that. Honestly. Yeah Right. Next time, I'll eat a pound of calves livers for a day to not do that again. Yuck. This is no slight to the poor people having to draw the blood, trust me. I don't envy their job one bit.

The birthday girl fell asleep in the car on the way back to Eleanor's, but refused to sleep for a morning nap once we got there. So Eleanor and Sonny have a very tired birthday girl on their hands.

Happy Birthday, Elektra! We can't believe our little angel is already a year old... !!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Fussing over food

Elektra has started fussing over food. It's not that she's rejecting food because she's being a very picky eater. It's that she's rejecting food because she wants what we're eating. A couple of examples:

1. Last week, when I was off with the kids, Elektra fussed(fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuss!!) when she didn't have a sippy cup like DJ. As soon as she got a sippy cup (of water), she quieted down.

2. Earlier this week, Steve was feeding DJ some chicken and rice, and Elektra wanted no parts of what Steve was trying to feed her. Instead, she quieted down when she finally got some of DJ's chicken and rice. Luckily, DJ was on his supermodel diet, so he didn't mind sharing.

On the other hand, she doesn't fuss if what we're giving her is something she wants which is either baby cereal (sometimes doctored with applesauce), or perceived grown up food, even if it isn't what DJ is eating. She was eating pieces of a chicken breast I'd roasted while DJ had a quesadilla and she didn't fuss once about it.

Eleanor has since started feeding her for lunch what she feeds Grace and DJ for lunch. I figure may as well get her used to it now!!

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

No portraits today

Unfortunately, in the locale where we were to meet Kathie Jones, the photographer we commissioned to take DJ's pictures last year, it was raining this morning.

I had the kids dressed and ready to go (hair even done!) as it hasn't rained here since sometime last night. Unfortunately, the weather is calling for rain the rest of the week, so we had to reschedule for the end of the month when I'll be off again during the week. Kathie has weddings and such during the weekends, so it's hard to schedule her on those days. But maybe scheduling the photo shoot later may give us some Fall colors as a back drop!

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Huge lunch today!

DJ was eating rather sparsely over the last 4 days, though this wasn't a surprise to us.

A few weeks ago, every meal, he couldn't eat enough (almost). Being a food vacuum is his standard indicator of a growth spurt. After the growth spurt, I noticed his Toddler 2 size shorts are no longer big on him. They are "just right" leaning towards too small! That said, it would be negligent of me not to cite The Shrinking Machine (the dryer, as my mother calls it) as a contributor to the small size of DJ's shorts (and clothes in general), but The Shrinking Machine alone cannot account for shrinking speed...

Anyway, after DJ goes through the food vacuum stage, he then goes through the super-model diet stage, being picky and eating very little in general. That's where we are now. We figure he self regulates well enough, so we don't worry about it and simply prepare less food at each meal.

This morning, DJ only wanted Kix cereal ("in a bowl") for breakfast. Turning down "can cakes" (pancakes) or waffles is non-existent so when he turned down both, I didn't think anything of it since he's on the super-model diet. But he kept asking for more and more Kix, eating a total of 3 whole bowls before I stopped him. Granted Kix are mostly air and don't fill up anyone, but I should have figured that lunch would mean he'd be starving.

At noon, I asked DJ if he was interested in some lunch, and he answered yes right away. I gave him a list of things from which to choose: hot dog, ham, cheese, roast beef, quesadilla. He picked ham at first, and then he said quesadilla. Ok, I thought, I'll put a little ham in his quesadilla.

Little did I know just how hungry he was. Besides his immediate want to get into his high chair, I couldn't make the quesadilla fast enough. He ate the entire ham and cheese quesadilla, then asked for ANOTHER quesadilla. I suggested ham and cheese instead, and he ate another half a slice of ham and a full slice of cheese. At this point, I offered him a banana. He ate the whole thing. Then I offered him a peach. He ate all of that, too. And then he had two small helpings of Nilla Wafers Minis, and a whole cup of milk. Hello hollow leg for food.

Elektra was not to be outdone. She had Cheerios, a half a slice of ham, she shared my stuffed pepper filling, some roasted bell pepper, a bowl of yogurt, and two and a half ounces of water from her sippy cup. In fact, she was fussing in her high chair - despite having Cheerios to keep her busy - because DJ had his sippy cup and she didn't. She quieted down immediately upon receiving her sippy cup of water.

We spent an hour eating lunch together. Now the kids are playing and will be going down for naps in about 20 minutes or so. I'm hoping they'll sleep like rocks since they ate so well!!

The next American Idol...

... DJ!

Went I went into his room this morning, DJ was singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Of course he doesn't know all of the words, but he had the tune down well enough to be recognizable. The singing has been going on now for about a week, although I did hear him start to sing when we were at the beach back in July, but it didn't last more than a breath so I didn't think anything of it. Now DJ sings with regularlity, and songs include Twinkle Twinkle, the ABC's, and Ring Around The Rosie.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Elektra stands

Elektra can stand unassisted if she's not thinking about it. So to get her to stand, we have to distract her and while standing, let go of her. Yesterday, she was focused o getting a spoonful of crumbled feta cheese in her mouth, and Steve let go of her. She stood for nearly 5 seconds! I guess we'll just have to distract her more often!

Elektra's first word

Elektra has been babbling for quite a while now, with various consonants and sounds. Ma ma and da da have come out, and once or twice we think she's tried to say "da da" in conjunction with seeing Steve. But it hasn't been consistent. I have noticed that if I am changing her and Steve is in the room and I say "da da" to her, she will turn and look at Steve very specifically. It's hit or miss with ma ma.

I have also asked her to say "DJ" and that also comes out at "Da Da". She only seems to say that when she is imitading you, not unprompted.

Yesterday, however, she was in her high chair, dropped her bottle onto the floor and said, "UH-oh." And she says that regularly, so I think that is her first word.

Clean up

When DJ wakes up from his nap or overnight sleep, he typically pitches all of his crib toys out onto the floor in his room. Yesterday afternoon was no exception. When Daddy went in to go get him, DJ said,

"DJ make a mess!!"

"Yes, DJ did make a mess," Daddy replied.

"Daddy clean up DJ mess!"

Pause.

Daddy found this enormously amusing, and did whatever he could to hide it. He said instead,

"DJ clean up DJ's mess!"

And DJ helped throw his crib toys back into his crib. Way to walk into that teaching moment, DJ!

*MY* _______ !!

This morning, Elektra had taken a toy from DJ, and DJ protested by coming to us. "TOOL! TOOL!" (meaning, he wanted his plastic screwdriver back). When he didn't receive an immediate response, he went back to Elektra, snatched the screwdriver out of her hand and said very authoritatively,

"MY TOOL."

Let the My and Mine era begin!

Thursday, September 03, 2009

More teeth!

As you know, Elektra has all four of her top front teeth coming in simultaneously.

I suspected some bottom teeth were coming, too, but I couldn't really tell. Then last night, as only Mommy can do, I stuck my finger on her gums (hoping she wouldn't bite me with those new top teeth!) and voila... I found that her right bottom incisor has poked through!

Talk about getting her teeth all at once! Maybe she'll actually have a mouthful by the time her birthday comes!

Follow up to the $1M for Iggy Rescue blog

An update on the $1M for Iggy Rescue blog post:

After 3 weeks of trying to get Luther into the semifinals of the cutest dog competition by winning one week's worth of votes, http://www.cutestdogcompetition/ changed the rules. No longer did it tally votes by unique IP addresses, but it required you to register email addresses to vote.

Um... changing the rules to a contest for $1M in the middle of it?! Something stinks of fixed... and I don't mean the spayed/neutered kind....

The IG community took it in stride and after that week, we still had Luther in the top 5 dogs. However, Luther's owner decided to withdraw Luther from the competition, citing the irregularities, inconsistencies, and just plain old rule changes to the contest making the contest, in her mind, illegitimate and unfair.

I don't blame her. It became clear that the contest organizers had not thought this all through very well. Last I checked, whenever you dangle $1,000,000 in front of the general public, people are going to whatever they can to get it. So you'd better have thought of every scenario and have an answer to it BEFORE it happens. These people running the contest clearly didn't do that.

The IG community was saddened at Luther's withdrawl, but supported Luther's mom's decision whole heartedly. It really did stink like wet dog...

And then last night, I received this email from Luther's mom:

Alex Tabibi, CEO of Dog. com and a bunch of other domains, is paying me $500 for my analysis of the problems with the Cutest Dog Contest. I got us the money without Luther's winning!

Cool? I know!!!!!

Luther got a prize for us after all, in a roundabout way! Goood boy.

- Barb and Luther, Cutest Dog in MY house anyhow

Brinkhaven Cairns Possum, Tiger and Woody and a passle o'puddytats


And of course, Barb has donated it directly to IG Rescue, as she promised from the very beginning. Hooray for IG Rescue! And despite all that, Luther was still in the Top 10 dogs of Week 4 of the competition. Good boy, Luther! Reaffirms my faith in "good things coming to good people."