Just Like Mommy or Daddy???

Mommy


Hailey

Luke

Hailey

I think that she looks just like Luke these days, especially with that curly hair.

Hailey's Christmas Dance

Merry Christmas

Thanks, Fanara Family! I love my new bike. Mama said that I have to play with it outside now, but it was pretty cool to ride it around the house. I'm soooo good at it that I won't let anyone helps me anymore. I just speed around on my own. Now, if only I could figure out how to use the pedals.


Thanks, Auntie Ann, Melissa, and Joey. This Magna Doodle is super cool. One of my favorite things is to guess what Mama is drawing on it. It's amazing how well I can guess when everyone else can't figure out what it is she's drawn. Maybe we can play when I come to visit. Miss you guys!

We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and thank you for our wonderful presents. We haven't opened everything yet because we are savoring each and every new experience. We'll have some more pictures up here or on our Flickr site soon. Merry Christmas!!!!

My House Defies Newton

The first of Newton’s breakthrough laws of motion is “an object at rest tends to stay at rest; an object in motion tends to stay in motion.” It’s hard to imagine a time when that was breakthrough and even harder to imagine that I remembered that without looking on the internet (but I did for the most part, thank you 12^th grade physics).

Unfortunately, my house defies this law every single day. No, we don’t live in zero gravity; we live in zero sanity. I have tried to create a house where everything has a place, but on any given day objects move about seemingly on their own. I can’t imagine anything that could cause such chaos other than maybe a toddler. What else could create a scenario in which everything is tucked snuggly in drawers and cabinets one night and then within 24 hours, there’s a comb in the kitchen, a spoon in the bedroom, and a sock in the office. Well, that last one might be Luke, but still, those items do not belong in those places. I didn’t put them there. No rational person would leave their comb in the middle of the kitchen floor or move a baby potty to the center of the hallway where people need to walk. And yet, every day I fight the same battle with objects that seem to have been put in motion by some unseen force. At least I’ve learned to hide the objects that I need to find in a pinch, like keys, credit cards, makeup, and toothbrushes. I guess for the time being, everything else will be subject to unforeseen and unexpected motion.

Learning Lab

This child has become like a learning laboratory every minute. She doesn’t want you to hand her something; she wants you to hand her something and tell her its name. She doesn’t want to read a story; she wants to point to things in the book and tell you what they are. She doesn’t even want to eat; she wants to raise each piece of food in the air so that you can tell her it’s a bean or corn or whatever. She is supremely interested in everything around her. It’s kind of unbelievable how fast she learns things. Her favorite new words are octopus, your welcome, Julia (the little girl in her class), and yellow. Oh and did I mention that she sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star from start to finish. It’s craziness. Where did this little person come from? And where has my sweet baby gone?

School Update

Hailey is receiving rave reviews from her teacher, parents are stopping me in the halls to tell me how sweet she is, and she is eating and sleeping like a champ throughout the day. And yet, we have screaming and crying when I drop her off. The good news is that I can hear her stop crying by the time I reach the exterior doors now. It’s a step in the right direction. All in all, things are going about as I expected for the second week. Well, with one exception. Let me take a moment to tell you about Monday morning.

On Monday, all was fairly right with the world except that Luke was driving in separately (we normally carpool). So, I went to drop Hailey off by myself. No big deal except as I’m getting her out of the car, I inadvertently closed my thumb in the front door. Now, we’re not talking the tip of my thumb, like a normal person, but the area right below the knuckle. I’ve never done that before. Have you? I was so surprised that the door actually latched that I tried to pull my thumb out several times before it dawned on me to reach around and pull the handle. It must of have been really funny to watch. Anyway, the thumb is totally recovered now, but the whole scene was just ridiculous. There I was juggling a toddler and all of her crap in one hand and trying to open doors with a swollen, blue thumb in the other all the while trying not to lose it when Hailey started her screaming/crying routine. It was a bad scene, but I hope imagining how silly it looked gives you a chuckle. I’ll definitely be laughing about it for a long long time.

A Brief Interlude to Solicit Advice

I’m going to take a break from our Hailey School Saga (although it continues) to share with you a brief but amusing story from my own adventures. Yesterday, I decided that it would be a good day to try to get contacts. I’ve never worn contacts and hate having things near my eye so I can’t imagine why I thought this was a good idea. Picture me looking up at the optometrist approaching with this innocent little lens. Now picture the struggle that ensues as he starts prying my eye open to put it in. He keeps saying, “open both your eyes!” And, I would think to myself “they are open” only to realize that they were indeed clenched shut. This happened about 10 times before he finally got both lenses in. It was really an absurd scene. What kind of a moron can’t open her eyes I thought afterwards. Anyway, it was kind of like the Friends episode where Rachel has to put drops in her eyes.

So, the contacts are not at all as comfortable as I imagined. In fact, I found them totally irritating and itchy, but I’m determined to give it an honest try so I do not run home and take them out. On the contrary, one decided to fall out on it’s own (with maybe a little help from me rubbing my irritating and itchy eyes). At this point, I’m sitting on the floor playing with Hailey only to find this contact coming out of my eye ball. I swoop her up, run to the bathroom, and convince myself that I must immediately get the other lens out before I end up with migraines, eye infections, and other seemingly unlikely repercussions. Of course, as I’m fiddling with my eye in the mirror, Hailey decides that she should start sticking her finger in her eye. This, I thought, was a perfect time for her to go to bed. After putting her down a half an hour before her bedtime, I continued to struggle to get the lens out. It took about 10 minutes, which doesn’t sound like long; however, I was repeatedly poking myself in the eye during that time, which makes it seem much longer. Needless to say, I’m back to glasses today.

If you happen to be a successful contact wearer and have any words of advice, I’d certainly appreciate it. I have until Monday before I have to tell the eye doctor whether I’m going for glasses or contacts. You can imagine which way I’m leaning.

Hailey's Fourth Day Drop Off

I don't want to go to school today!

I'm really not feeling like smiling right now because I know you're leaving soon.

Fine, just this one smile, but then I'm going to scream again. Cheeeese!

A Rough Transition

Well, after her great success the first day at her new school, things have gotten a bit choppy. She’s definitely realized now that Mommy is going to leave her there, and she’s not really cool with that anymore. So, the past two mornings there has been much crying and gnashing of teeth at drop off time. Yesterday I got a report that she was “moody” all day. I saw a bit of that this morning when she was happy as a clam reading a book and then stood up and started crying for no reason at all. I finally caved and let her have her binky before handing her off to her teacher. I’m utterly depressed about the whole thing and missing her old daycare terribly. In my mind, I know that this is the right place for her to be, and it’s a great opportunity for her to get into a private school. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier at drop off time. At this point, I’m trying to will both of us to just make it through the week.

Working Already

When I went to pick Hailey up at school, she was being escorted around on a little truck by another little girl. She quickly relinquished her queeny position, dismissed her minions, and ran over to see me. I picked her up for only a few seconds before she started saying "down, down, down." She immediately went over to what was her favorite toy...a vacuum (she's clearly not my real daughter). It was several minutes before I could pull her away to go home. All in all, a successful first day!

First Day of New School

Today is Hailey’s first day at her new school. I’m very excited for her to meet new friends, but am also nervous, as any Mommy would be. She’s clearly the most advanced one in the class, and I swear I’m not being biased. She can eat by herself, say please/thank you, drink milk from a cup. These are all things that the teacher was astonished by, but I thought, “Hello! She’s 16 months old.” Then, I was telling other people at work about it, and they were astonished too. Is she that advanced?

I’m only bragging now because yesterday I was getting a bit nervous. Hailey was running around in socks and fell face first into the wooden leg of the chair. Ouch! She had a huge bruise under her eye. I mean, is that not just our luck? Her first day of school, and she has a black eye! Oh well. She recovered rather quickly, and I don’t think that anyone at school was really concerned, particularly because the bruise turned out to be tiny. Here’s a picture of the bruise from last night. I’ll try to take some more pictures when we go to pick her up. Hopefully, there won’t be any tears. There weren’t any when we dropped her off, by the way. She's such a star!

Mmmmm Dirt

When I was in Buffalo a few weekends ago, I read this great article in Newsweek about the increase in food allergies among young children. It’s a topic that I’ve been wondering about ever since our pediatrician gave us a long list of foods that I was not allowed to give to my child for fear that she might develop some type of allergy. I thought that it was a rather counter-intuitive approach because it seems to me that you should introduce foods earlier so that children get more used to different food. Then again, who am I to argue with modern science? So, I became a food vigilante, monitoring her every bite (well, not quite, but close).

Turns out, that this “introduce foods later” theory is not the only one out there. In fact, there’s some debate about whether that’s a more or less effective strategy. In addition, there are two competing theories for why food allergies have soared recently: 1) an increase in c-sections leads to fewer children being doused with the fluids from the birth canal (which have all kinds of crazy properties that we don’t understand), thus more immune system problems; and 2) we are too damn clean! I’m not going to touch that first theory, although I have lots of other reasons for loathing the current nonchalance by which women have c-sections these days. But, that’s a blog for another day. Besides, the scientists are pretty sure that the second reason (the cleanliness one) is more likely the culprit.

It makes perfect sense really. We deprive our children of every bacteria, of every germ, of every speck of dirt, and they don’t get a chance to really build up a solid immune system. So, their little immune cells (I’m sure that’s the technical word for it) start attacking “good” things like food. Kids in foreign countries and those who grow up on farms don’t have nearly as many food allergies as kids who grow up in our ultra-sanitized suburban homes. If you think about it, you might also realize that your friends and family who are the most clean are also usually the sickest. Ok. So, that’s a little anecdotal and not exactly up to my usual scientific rigor, but it’s true none the less. All of this is really just to give a big hooray for all of the Moms out there who, like me, say “well, a little dirt never killed anyone.”

Christmas Miracle

Craig’s List is just the greatest creation on Earth! I’ve been quietly searching around for a pre-lit artificial tree for this Christmas season, since real trees can be over $100. Little did I know that fake trees are a minimum of $250, and a good one can be upwards of $600. Who has that kind of money around the holidays? Certainly not someone who just came back from Italy! So, off to Craig’s List I went looking for a tree. I ended up finding a listing for a couple who was moving. They had many items for sale including a 9.5 foot pre-lit Christmas tree. It’s very “real” looking and fits our room perfectly. Total cost = $75. Now that’s what I call a Christmas miracle.

PS: I'm creating an Amazon wishlist for Hailey to make everyone's life easier, but it's not ready yet. I'll let you know.

Multi-Tasking

Killing Two Birds with One Tennis Ball

We all know that Josie, our loving border collie, has a bit of OCD about tennis balls. Turns out, Hailey really likes them too. This morning Josie was running around the house with a tennis ball until Hailey started chasing her and saying “doggy, ball” over and over again. I quickly told Josie to drop the ball and gave it to Hailey to let her throw it. Hmmm…entertain both of them without getting my own hand all slobbery from the ball. What a bonus! Unfortunately, my evil plan backfired when Hailey decided that she’d rather just run around with the ball. Being the good herder that she is, Josie trapped Hailey in the closet with no where to escape. Finally, Hailey surrendered and threw the ball. Two seconds later, Josie was delivering the ball back to Hailey’s feet. And so it began. It was at least 10 minutes of this back and forth before Hailey looked up at me with this look of confusion. It was if she was saying, “Seriously, this dog is crazy!” My sentiments exactly!

Bed Time

Hailey goes to bed at 7pm without a peep and sleeps until 7am. Ok. That’s what I used to tell people, and it was the honest truth. She was great about going to sleep; just hand her a blanky and binky, and she was out. All of a sudden, a few days ago with no warning, our fool proof system was suddenly shattered. I put Hailey down at 7pm, but it was almost an hour and two Mommy interventions later before she went to sleep. After several nights of different strategies, I finally just decided to just let her stay up until 8pm. She didn’t really seem sleepy at 7, so I figured we might be making a shift. Sure enough, at 8, she went down without a peep. I’m not sure if this is a permanent schedule change, but it’s nice to be able to spend an extra hour with her. Maybe she just wants a little extra Mommy and Daddy time. We’ll see.

Follow-up to Very Scary Christmas

I thought that I would provide a follow-up based on some research I've been doing about this whole chemical issue with children's products and toys. So, I present to you this list of companies whose products are less likely to injure, maim, or kill our children...

Playmobil – Given a green rating in a recent Green Peace study that rated the toy companies in terms of hazardous chemicals. Companies receiving a red (or bad) rating… Fisher Price, Playskool, and Vtech. For more information on that study, you look at the report.

Green Toys – This company uses plastics made out of corn. That’s pretty cool, but their product range is extremely limited.

Haba – Toys from Germany made from wood not plastics.

Healthy Child, Healthy World – This organization (which I’m sure I will be joining) helps to protect children from harmful environmental exposures. Also, includes a scary news report about some plastic that’s supposedly in all of the plastic bottles that we allow our children to drink from.

The bottom line is that Hailey is almost past the age where I would have to be hyper-vigilant about the chemicals in plastics because she's less likely to stick everything directly into her mouth. So, whatever damage there is from sucking on plastics, she's probably already suffered. However, I would like to get her some new stainless steel cutlery so that she’s not using plastic forks and spoons all the time. I’d also like to get her some non-plastic bowls, but I can’t seem to figure out what I can get that won’t break when she drops it on the floor. I guess I could start whittling her some out of bamboo, but in the meantime any suggestions would be appreciated.

New School

Well, Luke and I went to look at a new school yesterday and decided to enroll Hailey on the spot. They had only one space in her age group, and we snatched it up immediately. The school is about 6 blocks from my office and currently has care for infants up through 4 year olds. However, next year they are opening classes up to 2^nd grade. I’m really excited to put her in this type of structured environment where she can grow and advance through the classes. Plus, she’ll be with children who are all in her age group, which will be nice. I really don’t know whether or not this will help with her “no” problem or her general bratty attitude, but it doesn’t really matter. This is clearly the best place for her to be, and I’m thrilled that we were able to grab that spot for her. She starts December 3^rd so I will let you know how it goes!

PS: If you want a good laugh, take a look at Nikki's blog from today. If you want a daily devotional, read Katie's blog. There are links to it on the right. See, I'm cross-promoting.

Have a Very Scary Christmas

If you have 3-4 free hours on your hands, I have a challenge for you. Go to your local toy retailer (I wouldn't recommend Walmart for this one), take a stroll through the toy aisles, and find 10 toys that aren't made in China. I tried it tonight at Target. I was purchasing some toys for the child that we are sponsoring and thought that I might pick Hailey up some PlayDoh as a stocking stuffer. Grabbed the generic brand...Made in China. Found the real PlayDoh, Made in China. Found the toys for our sponsored child...Made in China. Started randomly picking up toys on all of the aisles and every single one was Made in China. People must have thought that I was crazy, but I was shocked!

Lucky for us, Hailey hasn't had any of the toys that have been recalled, but I still thought that it would be nice if we could limit our exposure to toys made in China just to be safe. HA! Hailey would never have another toy in her life if that were our plan.

At first I thought, maybe the recalls are reassuring because when you see the amount of toys that are out there from China, then you realize that relatively few have been recalled. If only we could assume that our efficient government was actually doing a good job of testing them.

So, in light of all this, I have a business proposal for you. Let's start a toy company where we make the toys from green materials, AND we make them in the good ole USA. Brilliant!!!

Easily Amused

Hailey is a mature 1 year old now, so you might think that she is getting very sophisticated in her taste for expensive, complicated toys. Nope, not at all. Hailey’s favorite toy is an empty bottle with a screw on top. Could be a 20oz Coke bottle, could be a small shampoo bottle, doesn’t really matter. If it has a lid, she wants to play with it. I can’t tell you the number of times that we handed her an empty Coke bottle in Italy and bought ourselves many more minutes of grown up time in a museum, during a tour, etc.

Here are a few pictures of her playing with an empty bottle this morning. She wouldn’t give it up, so we made it all the way to daycare before I could pry it out of her hands. That’s why I am making a call for any strangely sized or shaped plastic bottles with tops that you might have lying around your house. If you have time, please rinse them out and send them to us. I’m going to wrap them in a box and give them to her for Christmas. Seems like an appropriate gift.

Other things that Hailey enjoys: musical instruments (triangles, tambourines, maracas, cymbals…no drum sets, please), books (the cardboard kind are the best), anything she can push or pull around, winter PJs (18 months), pants or long sleeve onsies (18 months), etc. Just remember that she doesn’t need much; she’s happy with Tupperware and wooden spoons. There are other kids out there that need much more. So, if you feel like you want to buy lots of stuff, then please consider sponsoring a child through Salvation Army, the YW, etc. That's what we are doing this year. Or, you could give to Hailey's college fund.