Mmmmmmm.....

Eloise amazes me a lot lately. I swear she picks things up like crazy. And I realize all kids do. I'm not applying for a MENSA kids membership. Don't worry. I'm just saying, she picks up on things very quickly and coming from a parent with zero experience, I find it all fascinating. For example - and thus today's post - when food is discussed as in "Eloise its time for lunch. Let's get into your chair." Or reading a book where bears are eating "sweet sugar honey cakes" she announces "Mmmmmmm......" at just the right time informing me that she completely understands that all food is yummy. Amazing. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, I can understand. She lives on a food schedule and so I know she understands what each of these meal times are and yes, they are yummy. But with the amount of books brought into and out of this house and the fact that in each instance where food is mentioned she says "Mmmmmmmmm.....", now that's pretty amazing to me.  Again today, after the "honey cakes" reference, we were reading another book about mangos. I can tell you right now, she's never eaten a mango. I've never eaten a mango. Yes, she knows it must be yummy because as I'm reading she says...."Mmmmmmmm...." How is that possible?? Amazing.

Also, in the food category, the Monkey is now officially a mustard fan. Her Aunt Corinna is going to be really proud. My only hope is that Eloise's love of mustard grows as strong as Corinna's who can say that at one point in her life she's traveled to Napa Valley to attend the National Mustard Convention. Only Corinna. Her passion for an under-rated and yet quite delicious condiment is really impressive.

Ok, so for today's pics... I tried my best to capture the Monkey and her mustard-fest. I even snapped some pics of her taking each piece of hotdog, dipping it into the mustard and then eating it.  But of course, the dipping pics didn't turn out. Ugh. Regardless, here's our girl getting right into some mustard action. "Mmmmmmmmmmm.....!!"

"More, please!"

Friday's update

Today was finally the Monkey's 15 month Drs appt. The one they rescheduled on me and then I missed. Yes, today was the make-up match.  Here are some stats..

Height: 30 1/2 inches - 25th percentile. She's shrinking!  No, not really. And I've said this before, the "lie the child down on the table and bust our the yardstick" measuring technique really doesn't seem accurate to me but whatever. It's what they do.
Weight: 24lbs 1.5 ounces - 70th percentile.
Head Circumference: 47 cm - 75th percentile. And the head keeps growing. Lol!

The Monkey's in perfect health. We met with the head nurse practioner today - we flip flop between Judy Osbourne and Dr. Amy Ryan and today's appt was with Judy - who said Eloise looks and sounds great. She's right on track with where she should be developmentally. She's growing in a "great trajectory" according to her chart. She's on schedule with all of her shots - 2 more today.  Hep A and the Flu shot (I went ahead and got her the Flu shot, which includes H1N1 in this year's batch. Smart.)  My concerns about her eating and her teeth were null and void.  Eating - she's just a typical 15 month old. She'll eat when she's hungry and I'm not to become a short order cook, which I'm not (mostly). I only freak out and start whipping up 10 meals when she's literally consumed nothing in a day (which has only happened once).  Otherwise I offer her 2 or 3 things and if she doesn't eat, we move on.  As far as her teeth go, Eloise wants to brush them herself and that means they aren't getting brushed. I let her play with the toothbrush for a bit but then I try to run interference so that I can get in there and actually brush them. Problem is she locks that little mouth shut. I've gotten creative though and we now brush them in the bathtub at night, which is helping. She's distracted and laughing and I can give those teeth a few good swipes.  The morning brushing is still a challenge as my independent little Monkey wants to take care of her teeth all on her own. I'll keep working on it.

All else was good with the appt. It was at 8:30am so both of us rolled in there in our PJs. I feel like an 8:30am appt doesn't require a change of clothes.  And so PJs it was.  Oh one other tid bit from the appt. Eloise is drinking too much milk. Still. Agh!  She went from 60-64oz (I know, that's crazy) to 30-32oz after I dropped her and now they don't want her to have any more than 16-20oz in one day. Unreal. The one thing I know - no matter what - that she'll consume and they say she's still drinking too much. Also, I'm to change her to 2% if I want. She's not overweight and there's "much debate about Whole Milk vs. 2%" so really it's up to me. I'm going to change to 2% after this last gallon is gone.  We'll see how things goes as far as dropping the daily ounces because she really drinks her milk. (or as she calls it, her "Dorrrrrrrr" because she gets milk in her Dora cup.)

In other news.....our yard is getting completely dug up today, new soil is being put down and then seed and straw to follow.  Laaaaaaa.........aaaaaahhhhhh!  FINALLY we are getting our much complained about yard fixed. I've promised to be this neighborhood's all-time best waterer with my double-watering-shift-per-day when Mike's out of town and I swear, if it kills both of us, this yard will be plush, and green, and beautiful in no time.  Now a little bit of praying that we lose this insane 90+ degree weather so the grass actually wants to make an appearance and we're good to go.  Next on the yard list......getting a tree planted in the front yard. We're making progress, people. We're making progress.

Tomorrow is the 5K for the little girl with cancer. I'm a pinch miffed by the packet pick-up times and locations but somehow I'll make it happen. I have 2 options. 1) Drive to nearly the South Carolina border tonight sometime between 5 and 7pm and pick up my packet.  Which means I need to drive at least 45 minutes to the burbs to pick up my race number, and really that translates to 45 minutes plus all of the additional minutes I sit in rush hour traffic on a Friday night.....all during the exact same time I typically feed Eloise, bathe her, and put her to sleep. OR.......2) I get the packet tomorrow morning before the race starts sometime between 6:30am and 7:30am, which is also not convenient because as I've said before, I clock my pre-race time to the minute so that I don't have Eloise in the stroller for too long.  Major sigh on both of these sh*tty options.  I'm torn on what to do because sitting in rush hour traffic with a baby who will have had to eat an early dinner and go without a bath and possibly be put to bed after her bedtime sounds just as bad to me as running a 5K with a straight-backed screaming baby who wants nothing more than to NOT be in a 5K race strapped into a jog stroller.  Can someone just Star Flight that race number to me, PLEASE??? Thanks.

Ok, so I believe that's it for this Friday and our update. The Monkey is sleeping and when she gets up were going for a brutally hot run (the only time we could go today).  Have a great weekend!

And......we have a baby gate

Laaaaaaaaaaaa........ahhhhhhhhhhh!!  Did you see the sky just part? I know, it's a miracle.  We now have a baby gate.  And it's one that fits!  Laaaaaaaaaaaa........ahhhhhhhhhhh!

In other news, I completely forgot about the Monkey's 15 month Drs appt today.  Oospy.  I'll have to call tomorrow and grovel a little and get this one back on the calendar.  Unreal. I haven't missed one yet. I guess I was due.

In the food category, I'm starting to get creative with Monkey and mixing fruits and veggies in with other items to get her to eat them.  So far, it's not really working.  And I'm cooking quite a bit.  Agh. I'll keep trying but as of now the only thing she's liked that I've whipped up to "trick" her is the pumpkin bread (who wouldn't like a little cinnamon spiced pumpkin bread to kick start the fall??).  Meanwhile pumpkin really packs a punch of super great nutrition so I'm going to load this little girl right up with it.  The mega delish home made mac-n-cheese I made today was a no go - with or without steamed broccoli or cauliflower mixed in (and I can't say I blame her because I hate both but again, I'm not going to put my weird food-isms onto my daughter. I pledge.). Tomorrow I'm whipping up another batch of my meatballs and maybe I'll throw something crazy into those litte guys. Carrots?  I'm not sure.  She actually eats the meatballs so I can't screw with them too much without her noticing.

In running news....I've made a decision to run a 1/2 marathon coming up on 11/6 here in Charlotte.  This all stems from this crazy idea I had to run a 1/2 last weekend and I chickened out at the last second.  I'm just not ready quite yet so in hindsight it was a good decision but I was really ready to just throw myself in there and see what happened.  Anyway, instead of running the full-blown 1/2 on Saturday, I instead ran 12.5 miles sans the jogging stroller and I felt really great.  I'm going to add a long run to my Saturday's from now until 11/6 and that'll be what I need added to my weekly running to get myself ready for that distance. I'm really excited about it!  Oh, and I'm sure you can guess but I'll say it anyway, that 1/2 marathon will be without the Monkey.  I could never expect her to sit in the stroller for that long. She'd freak out on me. Lol.  But we are gearing up for another 5K this weekend in of all places....the same corporate park where I used to work. Not looking forward to the tree-less, hilly terrain but it's for a really good cause. The race is being held for a little girl who has cancer. The story will tear your heart out. That little girl is a fighter and so the least we can do is run a measly 3.1 miles in her honor and try to help contribute to an extremely worthwhile cause.

I think that's it for now.  Off to find more recipes to fool my Monkey into consuming something other than whole milk, grilled cheese, apple sauce and cinnamon toast. (a girl after my own heart with that love of carbs she has.)

"Your 15-Month Old: Your Picky Eater"

Since Eloise was conceived, I've signed up for so many "tell me how to be an awesome parent and while you're at it, tell me what to expect with Eloise now" emails, I can't even count.  I just checked my email this very second and saw this...."Your 15-Month Old: Your Picky Eater"....and I have to say, they've nailed that one right on the head. And check this out....here's the intro. Completely. Spot. On.

...You might be feeling like a short order cook these days. Toddlers are picky eaters. One day they'll eat nothing but noodles, the next day they hate noodles. And just when you think you've cracked the code, your kid will pull a hunger strike and refuse to eat anything. It's enough to drive you nuts. But don't let it!

Is it like I write for this company or what???  I guess I best be clicking on this article to discover if there are any new tricks to the trade that I hadn't thought of. 

More from me later and hopefully some pics. I haven't taken pics in forever!

Monkey's bag of tricks

Eloise's bag of tricks is bulging so I must share. She can now officially eat with a fork (yes, I need to get her a child's fork vs. a small grown up fork), she can tell me what her favorite letter is, and she will retrieve things when I ask.  I can't say which is more impressive so I tried to get videos of most of them. You can see those in the above links.

Let's start from the top....fork and spoon eating has been the name of the game around here for several weeks. She loves her monkey bowls so they are really helping our training. I put whatever it is she's eating into one of her monkey bowls, hand over the fork or spoon and see if she can do it by herself. She's still a little young to do the entire "feed yourself" motion all on her own but this week, she displayed some seriously impressive fork eating, thus the video above.  I stab the pasta, she takes the fork and eats it. Repeat.  Mucho impressed, Monkey girl!

Also, the Monkey has learned one letter - the letter E.  And according to her Elmo doll, E is for Elmo. But not around here. E is for Eloise, of course.  Not only is she telling me her favorite letter but she also points it out when she sees it in books and as the video shows, on her bib.  Love me some Letter E!

Last on the list is our little Monkey retriever.  She's very good at this category and I have to say, it's a pinch addicting to use as a parent. If you ask Eloise to go and get something, she's nearly always accurate in getting it and bringing it back.  Now I'm not saying Mike's asking her to get a beer or something. We're talking about toys, play shoes and the like.  I keep her shoes in a bin in the back room. She's gotten really good at sliding the bin out of bench, digging inside and finding the right pair of shoes.  Now we do this religiously when we go outside to play. "Eloise, go get your play shoes."  She scurries over to the bin, pulls it out, digs around and poof, 2 matching play shoes appear!  I actually was pretty impressed by this action because she has quite a few pairs of shoes in this bin yet she finds one play shoe, finds its mate and then brings them to Mommy.  Once again, way to go Monkey girl!

The almighty bottle and some book recommendations

Bottle weaning is killing me!!! Ok, not really. The almighty bottle is actually proving to be much easier to break than I thought. As I said yesterday, I stopped any and all daytime bottles and as of today, she no longer gets her "after breakfast" bottle. The toughie will be weaning the night time bottle. I may give it a whirl tomorrow because the day time has gone off without a hitch.  What did I do? I just put milk in a sippy cup only and she was fine with it. I still don't give her cold "right out of the fridge" milk yet. I do warm it up just slightly or let it sit out so it's room temp but either way, she drank from the sippy all day, no issue.  Yes, it's me who misses it more. Clearly.  Gone are my little 5-10 minute breaks throughout the morning and day when she'd snuggle up against me and quitely enjoy a bottle while I recharged my batteries. Now we're full on all day. She's "wide open" as one of my former (southern) bosses would say. Wide open! (insert southern drawl to truly get that one across.) It fits perfectly here because she's truly non-stop these days. Hence my bottle addiction.  Anyway, this really has been a much more pleasant experience than I imagined. And perfect timing with shutting down the breastmilk operation because that is almost officially done. I only ever pump if I'm completely dying uncomfortable, which has only been maybe once every day and a half or 2 days. That to me means I'll be packing up this pump in a week or so. Awwwwweeeeesome! I can't tell you how nice it will be to no longer be tethered to that thing. Hooray!

For today's playdate (I told you I was really cranking it up this month) we met at the Chantilly Park for "Mommy and Me" class. It was hosted by some local organization that has a studio on Tyvola. But for today, they came to us and set up shop in our park. I thought it was pretty cool. They danced and marched with the kiddos. Blew bubbles and gave them all ribbon sticks to play with. It went on for about an hour and apparently, they'll be back if enough of us enjoyed it. Other than the gnats swarming all of our heads, I'd say today was fun and we'd do it again.

For pics today, I share two "must have" book recommendations for the kiddos.  First is a book called "Trucks" as seen here when Eloise opened up some birthday gifts from Mommy and Daddy. She LOVES this book (and saved me from the traffic jam we were in coming home from visiting the Proctor twins.) It's officially called a "slide and find" book because the Monkey can slide open and find 4 different kinds of trucks per page. For any kid as obsessed with trucks as Eloise, this book is a big hit.

Next follows suit with Eloise's (new) obsession with Curious George. She realizes that he looks just like her monkey lovey (is what I surmise) and therefore, she loves him. And it also may or may not be helping the situation - her Dora the Explorer sippy cup has Dora on it, of course, and who is Dora with?? Her monkey, Boots. To Eloise, everyone has a monkey in their life.  My mom got Eloise the next book and at first I was afraid to give it to her because it has paper pages. She's learning to be gentle with paper pages but every once in a while she has a crazy streak and therefore, I'm afraid the book will be the casualty. As of now, this particular book has weathered the occasional Eloise storm. And what book is it??  Curious George's Big Book of Curiosity. This one is really cute and is a fantastic picture book with all sorts of fun stuff to look at. George is of course all over the place as is his frog friend that the kids can find hiding on each page. Every few pages is dedicated to a new theme and labels every thing on the page for the kiddos to learn. It's nearly one of my favs, I love it so much. Eloise cruises on over to this book multiple times per day and will spend at least 10 minutes with it each stretch therefore, the Monkey and I highly recommend this one!

Apples

The Monkey really likes apples. And she's liked them every time she's had them unlike a lot of other fruit. Bananas are hit or miss.  Same with grapes, strawberries and I guess watermelon after she destroyed a piece at the pool the other day. And I don't mean "destroy" like she gobbled it down. Rather she ate a bite or two and then decided it was better to waste by making a perfect mess on the hot pavement for the ants to creep in and devour. (sorry Erika:)  But apples, no wasting done here. They are too delicious for this Monkey.

She's not partial to apple sauce or just plain apples. She likes them all. Per my previous post about the high chair circus side show, the other day the Monkey and I were looking at her "B" is for Bear" book and as you can guess, "A" is for Apple, that I like to bite." So when we read this, I often grab an apple (yes, plays right into the side show, I know) and take a bite. Point to the apple, say apple....yada yada. You get the point.  Well she's been reaching for the apple and so recently I handed it right over. What did she do?? She took a big bite right out of the side of it. That's my girl! Supervision is obviously at play here but she's getting closer and closer to me being able to simply hand over food and she'll eat it.  (vs. throwing it on the floor, or me taking a perfectly good food item and tearing and/or cutting it into 17,000 small pieces.) I'm always a fan at finding stuff the Monkey can take on by herself. Apples might be a long way off but she's getting there. In the mean time, every time I have an apple, she and I will share it:).

The monkey bowl

We had a little bit of fun with food today. Eloise received a monkey tray from Aunt Liz, Uncle George and Cousin Maddie awhile back and on their last trip, they gave her the matching monkey plate and bowl. They are all three very cute. Today the Baby Whisperer told me if you serve Eloise food in her monkey bowl, she laughs hysterically. So of course I had to bust it out and give it a try. Watch her peeking into the bowl. Laughing non-stop. Exhibit number 1.

After she devoured the first part of her meal I cleaned her bowl and filled it with yogurt so we could do it again. The yogurt didn't go over that well but the monkey did so I handed over the bowl and let her go to town. And Exhibit number 2 in my usual paparazzi style play-by-play. (a bath immediately followed.)

Friday's update

Big week with baby news as Cousin Chloe made her debut on Tuesday. Then yesterday, my friend Megan announce nugget #2 is coming in mid-October. I love baby debuts and baby news!!  As far as Monkey updates - I only have just a few.  She continues to crawl head down and I actually got it on video. Here she is zooming across the kitchen and back and then at the end she has a complete meltdown for no apparent reason. That's my girl!

We've added some new things to her diet - she's now regularly eating grilled cheese sandwiches and also couscous either plain or added with one of her "meat mixes", as the baby whisperer and I call the foreign jars of ground meat that I select from the organic aisle. Organic or not, that stuff is Gross - capital G.  Sorry Monkey. But you love it and it's good for you.

Tomorrow Aunt Liz, Uncle George and Cousin Maddie come from NY.  We're super excited for them to see Eloise again. She'll have to show them all of her latest tricks. She's developed many since they last saw her. They are on their way south for Spring Break and are passing through so we can all get together. We're all looking forward to seeing them!

We missed music class today but when I tell you why, you'll be as happy as I was.  The Monkey was still napping!  Yes, I know these 75 minute naps are few and far between and yes, I know we paid for music class and should not be skipping it but in this house, we don't wake the baby from good naps.  Or really, we don't wake the baby from any nap.  If she's sleeping, we leave her be.  And with that, it meant we missed music class.  I put her down at 9:45am and she didn't get up until 11:01am. (music class starts at 11am.)  To make up for it, we went to a playdate across the street and had a really fun time. The mom group in this neighborhood continues to impress me. I feel really lucky to have this group of girlfriends and babies so close by. It's something I had no idea we had and now that I know we do, I'm so thankful!

Ok, enough yammer from me. Happy Friday! Mike is sadly traveling for business until tomorrow - who works on the weekends???  Mike does. But it's because he's super dedicated and because he's the best Dad and Husband he could ever be. Thanks honey!! We miss you and love you!

Check out this super sweet picture of Todd and Chloe. Ahhhh.....I could eat her up!

Friday's update

First off, Graham keeps me on my toes with the Friday song so here it goes. Who doesn't love this song?? While you're enjoying this tune, I'll carry on.

Let's start with today and back track. The Monkey was acting very bizarre most of the day and I couldn't figure out if she was getting sick or what. She slept 12 hours last night (awesome), took a great morning nap (55 minutes) so I was none the wiser until we got to music class. She's typically very curious and wonders around, interacts with the instruments, the scarves, balls, etc. but today she didn't want me to put her down and she barely played with any of the activities. She even busted out that pout face and bottom lip and cried a few times. That has never happened in music class. So we snuggled up the entire class and then bolted as soon as it was done. I was afraid she was getting sick and we were also nearing her next nap time so I wanted to get out of there and get home so I could get her down with no problem. Which I did. She went down for the nap fine but then only slept for 25 minutes and refused to go back to sleep. The rest of the day we spent snuggling because, again, she wouldn't let me put her down. She didn't have a fever. Her appetite was fine and so I couldn't figure it out. She then took a late afternoon nap, which she hasn't done in weeks, to make up for that 25 minute joby and out of nowhere, come 6pm...she was back to the regular Eloise. How strange! She not only wanted down but she was all over this place playing with everything. I'm hoping this was just a fluke and that she's not coming down with something. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Speaking of tomorrow and this weekend, we're busy. Tomorrow am, Florida Tile Charlotte is having a "sidewalk sale" and so Mike, the Monkey and are going to head over to see the crew. It's open to the public but they expect current customers (builders, tile contractors, etc.) to be the ones who swoop in and get tile on the cheap. But for any of you weekend warriors looking for tile or tile laying equipment and materials, stop on by. They are cleaning house so there should be lots of deals to be had. Here's where they are located. (click on "store locator".) And there's more scoop here.

Then tomorrow afternoon the Monkey and I have a play date set up for 4pm with some friends. Very much looking forward to some good catch-up sessions here. And also, we're heading to a park we've never been to so the adventure of discovering a new place will be fun.

Come Sunday, we are going to another Charlotte Checkers game at 2pm. This might just become a regular thing for us. It's such a great outing for the baby and the games are fun (even if I don't watch the game). It's a great arena and we have a good time. For those in the area, I highly recommend going to see a Checkers game.

Ok, let's now back track on this week. The Monkey and I had a great time visiting Paige and Nicole on Wednesday. I forgot to mention (thankfully we have "Friday's updates", right?) that Miss Eloise LOVED Nicole's dog Charlie. It was seriously the cutest thing she did this week (aside from kissing me on the cheek, of course). Charlie is an enormous dog. Like probably would have had 4-5 inches on Jack. Seriously. And he's a total lover. He’s such a great dog! He was outside and the screen door was closed. Well, apparently Mr. Charlie poked through that screen a little while back and although I'm sure he got into trouble for his bad acting, I loved it because it allowed him to poke his head in and give Eloise sniffs and kisses. Envision this....Eloise was on the inside. Charlie was on the outside and the two were facing one another with just the screen down between them. Eloise then threw her hands up into the air while Charlie would bob his head in and out and in and out putting his nose right up to the Monkey’s face. She was a complete giggle-fest! Ah, I swear it.....SO stinkin’ cute! We need to get another dog. I don't know when but we need one. This little girl needs a doggie around here! Thanks Nicole - great seeing you guys!

Food - Eloise tried grilled cheese this week and it went over ok. She'd eat it and she seemed to like it but she definitely didn't go to town on it like waffles or some of the other foods that she definitely enjoys. This time I used provolone, a nice mild cheese, and like I said, she was just "whatever" about it. Good that she didn't flat out reject it, I guess.

Also, and my final note for the evening, the Monkey is pulling up on everything. Like everything! The shower glass, the window sills, appliances, the ottoman, the sofa, the chair, the bar stools, her mommy, her daddy, her baby whisperer, the front steps, the stairs inside, the side table, the console take, the music table it's non-stop around here. As a tribute to Eloise's fantastic pulling up performance this week, here are some pics...

Almost a cruiser

The Monkey is officially pulling herself up on furniture and nearly cruising. She'll take a tiny tiny step but really mostly she just stands there. It's very impressive how far she's come so quickly. She went from sitting to crawling to standing all in what seems like 2 months. Amazing.  Here are some pics of my little girlfriend in action...

The legs are officially now on the music table. She pulls herself up on here too.

Here she is singing...

And this week she tried home made beef stew for the first time.  As shown by the pics, you'll see she really enjoyed it.

"Ahhhh.....

....yeah!!"