Random Thursday Update

The sleep schedule seems to have been working somewhat. I think part of the issue is that we need to also get Daddy on a good morning schedule. The days when Holly wakes up early on her own are the ones where she is down for a nap on time, rested for therapy, and the day goes smoothly. Days when she sleeps in and Daddy hits snooze, so she doesn’t wake up early, her whole day is off. She refuses her first nap, and ends up only taking one for the day. Sometimes I am able to get her down, if I try early like at 9:30, other times she fights it, because she has been resisting sleep all day. But even on the bad days, she has been in her crib asleep by 11:15 the lasted every day for the past week, maybe a little longer. I think since last Monday we started. And two nights she was asleep by 9:30 and a few by 10:00-10:30.

She has woken up twice though in the middle of the night, and her sleep is not always restful. Yesterday she needed a bottle but most of the time it’s her pacifier, or Mommy to rub her back for a minute. I know this is totally taboo, but we took one of her very flat and soft quilt, put it in a pillow case, and are using it as a pillow. She loves this and has been sleeping so much better. Her head is slightly elevated, and it sinks in just a bit and is very comfy. This I think has really improved the quality of her sleep.

On Monday we went to the parent’s class, but the Babysitter never showed up (sigh) so the parents each took turns, 15 minutes each to sit in the room with them. It was a bit of a mad house tonight, with quite a few older kids. It seems that everyone saw how calm it was last week and thought it would be great to bring their kids. Since Holly was only 11 months she came into the classroom with us. This was a bit amusing. She certainly had her way with the room. She crawled all around, dragged her toys all over the floor and was a bit of a menace. It was cute though; the other parents liked her, picked her up and rescued her when she was getting into trouble. There was a 7 week old there too and her mom put her down for a moment to write something down, and Holly made a B-Line for her. She Sooooo Wanted to see the baby, and play with her. The mom said it was ok, as the baby has an older brother, so she is a tough little girl. Holly lost interest s soon as I let her touch the baby, especially because she didn’t like me telling her gentle. The class was another introduction, getting to know ourselves and each other class, next week we get into the knitty gritty and talk about development and behavior specifics, but I don’t mind easing into it.

Holly is really making an effort to communicate. We played a rattle game on Monday. I would shake a rattle and then she would. I would shake two and she would shake two. She would chew on hers, so I would chew on mine and then she laughed at me. She would then quickly shake it, and I would follow. We had so much fun going back and forth. Well that night she had a communication with Daddy, through blowing Raspberries back and forth with each other. They did turn taking and volleyed back and forth for quite a while, like a whole little conversation in her language. It was so darn cute@!

On Tuesday Night we went to maybe our last Baby Brigade. Holly was such a good girl. She needed to be changed twice and had a bottle, but other than that she played in my lap. Crawled around my shoulders, snacked on pizza crust and had an ok but well behaved time. We saw Revolutionary Road. It was good, but it was really depressing. I can sum it up like this…. “It was about the endless, empty, hopelessness of it all . . . Life, in Suburbia, in the 1950s.”

Today’s session with Sally was a push. Holly didn’t wake up early, and didn’t nap, so by the time Sally arrived she was pretty cranky. We did some stretching, and we played with the pop up animals, although Sally’s can be opened by prying the top up, and well, Holly figured that out. So Sally has to tell her no and prevent her from opening them that way. Of course, she would find a way around doing it the “right” way. Last week Holly had some cool new toys, like a bag of little pillows that were all different textures, like corduroy, or stain, or shiny. There were several, ohh and fluffy, like a lamb. But Holly wanted to et them after feeling them, so we ended up taking them away, it’s not like it was something that would be easy for Sally to clean. Sally brought the Sensory Evaluation today for us to do, but Holly was so cranky that we decided against starting it. Hopefully we cn try again next week.

My mom arrived, we went to go and pick her up after Holly’s PT Session. She was waiting at baggage so once I got on the road; it was a super quick trip. Since I was all the way over near the San Francisco Airport, I decided to buy a High Chair from Craigslist. It was a Chicco Sahara, which I almost never see posted, but the seller was far away, but close to the airport. It is the one that Tracey and Lucian have, and Tracey did a lot of research on High Chairs, and said it was the best. I have been looking at them and really liked it but couldn’t make up my mind, because it retails for $139.99 and I could get a high chair for half the price, and didn’t know if I would use the features, 7 heights, 3 recline positions, super small fold, and two separate over the top clean off trays. Well I ended up getting it for only 60$ I was so excited it was like over 50% of the retail price. We tried it out tonight for Dinner, and Holly is still a little, little in it. The regular seat feels a little reclined so I needed to put a pillow behind her to get her up close to the table tray, so she wasn’t still dropping food onto her lap, but mostly I loved it. I like the features and it folds up small and is easy to clean, plus it will be wonderful once she begins to feed herself.

After that we went and picked up the Veggie box and then headed to Babies-R-Us. We got Holly a bunch of new Pajama’s, as she is growing out of the ones she has, fast. Then we took the plunge, and I finally got her a car seat, well Oma got her a car seat for her Birthday. Originally it was between the Britax Roundabout or the Maxi Cosi Priori, which is the same brand as my current car seat. I didn’t expect them to have that one, but they did, and I ended up not liking it. It was not very different from the car seat she currently has and when completely upright she is still pretty reclined. Well we needed some help to figure out how to do some stuff, and the Manager came over to help us, and he really recommended the Boulevard. This one was more expensive, but it went up to 65 lbs instead of 40. It also had a lot more head cushions, and comfort padding. After debating back and forth with all the pro’s and Con’s we went with the boulevard. But I think it will be really nice and last us a really long time. The Cashier recognized me, because I am in there all the time, and I forgot my coupons, and she and 15% off of one item coupon that she gave me, so all in all we saved like 45$ I was so excited, as that really made a difference in the price.

We went to a really fun play date over the weekend “Wine & Cheese” with Rhonda, Ryan, and Teagan. And then on Tuesday we went to Chloe’s. But since I have so many pictures from both of those, I will make them a separate post later.

Eleven Months and Counting!

Well I haven’t posted a substantial blog for a few days, so I have a bit to catch up on. Monday was therapy with Katie. I was teasing her about how my blog was “all” about her, but then prefaced, “ok maybe just once a week”. But on Monday we had an amazing session. Holly had woke up late and I was so worried about her session thinking she would never take a nap before her session, but Alas I was able to coax her to sleep around 11:45 and she did sleep for 45 minutes. It was just enough time to refresh her and keep her in a good mood for her entire session.

Before it starting I was thinking to myself, I really would like to work on some fine motor skills, because we spend so much time dealing with the High tone issues at both Sally and Katie’s sessions it would be nice to do something different for a change. We are coming up on our 1 year review and Katie is working on her report so we were testing some skills to see where Holly is developmentally and with her goals and milestones.

One of the things we did is check to see if Holly could find something under 1-2-3 “screens” we used handkerchiefs and Katie’s cell phone which was something Holly was very motivated to get. We would put it down, and then cover it one at a time with each screen. First only one screen, to see if she would lift it to get the phone. Then we would put that one back and cover it with a second, but not let her lift both at once, she could only lift the top one, and then the next. At a certain level the child will give up when it’s not under the first “screen” or play with the screen instead but holly lifted all three screens very determined to get the phone.

We also played with the peg and peg boards. To see if she would pull the pegs out of the board and put them back in. She did pull several out of the peg board. She did not put them back in, but we don’t expect her to be doing that yet.

Next I was showing off Holly’s new “In” skill. Katie has been working on that with her for a few weeks. She isn’t consistent with it. She does it with the specific box and balls that she learned but not with every object and container. Though she is expanding and now putting other items in the container too. But then we tested a different “Box” and she didn’t get it at first. We gave her emerging status on that. We then used the “cups” that go inside each other. Nesting that’s the word I was thinking of. After showing her a few times she then would put 1 cup into the other. She was very skilled at pulling the three cups apart but needed a little coaxing to put one cup back in. She also tried to put the bigger one into the smaller one, and then was confused when it didn’t work and banged on it trying to make it fit, which was very cute. So we were really pleased with her progress on that.

She is not rolling a ball back when it is rolled to her, but she does watch it when it gets rolled and will follow it sometimes and then play with it when she is done chasing it down, and she is throwing toys, which oh joy, is a developmental milestone I am supposed to be excited by. Actually I don’t really mind at all. Especially when they are none dangerous soft toys like the balls from her pit. I just make Joel crawl under the table and collect them at the end of the day.

Let’s see, we tested to see if she would pull something to get to something else. She is so “mobile and active” that it was hard to really tell on this one. There was a little ducky on wheels at the end of a string. A few times she did pull the string to get the duck, but more often than not she just reached for the duck directly. But she likes to move around, and it is quicker to just lounge for the duck, so it was hard to tell if she really understood that pulling the string would get her the duck. Ideally she would be sitting in a restrained way and there would be a cloth and a toy out of reach on top of it. Then we would test if she knows to pull the cloth to bring the toy closer. I think I will try and set this scenario up later this week if I remember.

She is not stacking donuts yet but she is making attempts. She pulls items off the stacker and then “tries” to put them back on but misses getting the stick into the hole and the donut falls. She has got it a few times but that is the exception not the rule. We played with “choking hazards” very little spiky glittery balls to see how she reacts to the textures and to see how her pincer grasp is, when we tested this a few months ago she was using a raking grasp to pick them up, not she is using a pincer but it is not an advanced one yet.

She doesn’t quite get pulling yet. We have these oblong shapes that click into each other top to bottom and can be pulled apart. She is very intrigued that I can hand her a chain of 4 as a single object and then I can bend it and it becomes two separate objects but she doesn’t get that she can pull them apart. I think this may be a tone issue, as we would love to get her to do it, as a chance to get her to stretcher her arms apart and we do this as a passive movement exercise but she doesn’t do it on her own yet.

At first she was only putting the large balls into the box, but then as we continued playing she started putting the blocks in too. Katie wanted to see if she would stack the blocks but she was not really into that yet. Katie had a block in front of her and was trying to get Holly’s attention on it so she could watch her stack it and Holly lounged forward before she could grab it and urgently put it “in” the box. It took us both by surprise and was so hilarious. She was very please with herself, so of course we had to applaud her.

I think she will get the stacking thing soon. She used to immediately knock down blocks when I stacked them, now she watches them and me and even makes an attempt to put a block on top of another, or on top of the box, I think if we keep playing the stacking game it will come along soon. I think I need some bigger blocks that are easier to stack too.

She is now starting to watch when I scribble; when we tried this a few months ago she was completely not interested and kept trying to grab the paper and pen. We have these cool round crayons for her once she is ready, but for now she is much more interested in chewing the plastic round holder part so I have to take them away from her when she tries to eat the crayon part. But today she did watch me draw with them at least for a few moments,

Oh, and she also played with a single toy for 3 or more minutes which is a shocker.. Well no I lie, she flips through her books for a few minutes at a time, but she often goes from one book to another so even though the “page turning” activity is several minutes, it is not usually a single book. But Katie had a shape sorter bucket with a lid that was the shape part and it had a blue handle and she just wanted to investigate the little bucket. She turned it every which way and moved the handle over and under and side to side for several minutes until she had completely examined it.

I wish I had gotten pictures of all these various activities but I never think to take them during our sessions. If Katie brings all of her toys over again on Friday I will try and take some pictures. I think our biggest delay is language. I am still going back and forth with regional center to get services. They sent me a packet called “It Takes Two To Talk” Which is part of the Hanen system. I already had the infant baby one and I think this was from the toddler one. It did have some good suggestions, many of which we are already doing. However, I don’t think the language issue is with receptive communication but rather a tonal muscle thing. I think she has trouble making her mouth make the shapes needed to make certain sounds. She really only makes B, G, M, L Rarely, A, I, E, P Rarely. She does not make D, N, T, C, F, H, R, S, W and she should at this point in the game be able to make many of those.

I am going to try and get an Eval at the mind institute when I go at the end of the month and see what Dr. Hagerman’s Speech therapist says and what suggestions she has, but particularly because it took me a good three months to get her to eat and another to have a coordinated chew I think there are tone issues in her facial muscles, and those are the types of things a Speech Therapist works on at this early age. The other thing I might try if my insurance doesn’t cover it, or if I can’t get an appointment to see her at Davis is see if I can get approval through Regional Center for just an Eval and “Training” session to get the therapist to work with me on what I should be doing with Holly re: Oral Motor for the next 6 months until she qualifies.

Receptively I think she is also starting to pick up on some signs. We use Eat, More, All Done, Play, and Change pretty regularly now, and her mood, expression and verbal response changes when we use them. For example if she is whining and we say and sign “change” she stops wining and ready’s herself to be picked up and changed. When she is done eating and whining and I say and Sign “All Done” she smiles and gets excited and starts to pull off her bib. But she hasn’t really made any attempt at expressive signing yet, at least as far as I can tell. I think this might be a tone issue also, though I hate to sound like a broken record and blame everything on that, but because she is so tight I think it might be difficult for her to make some of the “fine” movements needed to sign. I also think I might not have the eye to notice if she is doing them in her “own” way. Joel thinks she has a sign for pacifier, so when she does it I give it to her, so maybe he is right.

Oh that reminds me, I am not sure if I mentioned this previously or not but Regional Center denied me for Respite Services. It was funny reading the email which basically said, we totally think you need a break and time to yourself but all 1 year olds take constant care and supervision and there is nothing special about Holly;s care that warrant respite at this time so we hope you will consider getting a babysitter on a weekly basis for yourself. I had to laugh. I wasn’t really expecting it and I can always reapply later, but in the mean time I am working towards joining a babysitting co-op babies group. You have to be recommended by one mother and affirmed by two others, so I have been attending play dates with the group getting to know the babies and mom’s so that once I know them a little better I can join.

This is ideal for me. I would love this. I think paying for a sitter would be so hard for us, because I don’t have a personal relationship with someone who Holly knows who could do it and that I trust, other than my friends who are Mom’s and Dad’s. So what better way to save money and get a night out then to have Holly spend a few hours playing with a mom and baby she knows and recognizes? She would be comfortable with this person because prior to babysitting we would have had play dates together and she would get to know them, you can’t really do that with a regular babysitter. It’s not like they come over for free for several hours to get to know your kid before you will be willing to leave them alone. Also, since I am home all day with holly I would welcome another baby over anytime to play with her, so I think it will be easy for me to rack up babysitting points to spend.



So back to my update. I don’t remember much more from Monday. I think Holly went to bed around 11:30 and I was exhausted and followed suit. Tuesday she woke up really early at like 8:30 so she ended up being very tired by 10:45 and fell asleep for a long nap until 1:00. I tried to feed her before her nap but she refused the bananas looking at me like, “Mom – Where is my Yogurt” well mom hasn’t had time to go to the store, so she had none. She did however eat the bananas and some Squash for lunch after her nap. I opened a jar of Peaches the other day and I have been giving her a bite every meal like 6 times now I think and she pretty much hates them.


I tasted them, which is a rarity for me, I usually make Joel do that, and I liked them, but Holly, she is apparently not a southern girl, and didn’t want anything to do with them. In fact now I am giving them to her towards the end of the meal as the few times I started with them she was so suspecting that each bite would be peaches it was a bit of a battle to get her to eat more than a few bites. She has caught on that I trick her and after a few bites of something she likes I sneak in something else. Now she is catching on and checks the color of the spoon, as I usually use a different spoon, or in some cases the color of the food, or makes me put it against her lips to get the flavor before she opens wide. I guess I should be pleased she has the cognitive ability to figure out what I am doing and creatively working against me, but that doesn’t make feeding her any easier.

Tuesday night was baby Brigade and we went to see Gran Torino (more on this later) and during the film she was getting fussy so I gave her my pizza crust and she spent several minutes happily nibbling on it. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.

So after lunch I was torn between going to Studio Grow or Costco. In the end playing won out, really because I wanted to selfishly tire the child out so she would be complicit during the film later that night. We had a wonderful time though, except when she was hurting herself. She is fine, but has a little scratch on her forehead. She was standing against a plastic child’s table playing with some magnetic triangle blocks and she pushed the table and it slide under her weight and she scratched her head on her way down on the edge of the table. It took off some skin and that little spot was very red but she didn’t “bleed” I rushed her to the front and got an icepack but that just pissed her off more, I don’t know if she didn’t like the cold, or if the pressure was sore but she didn’t want the icepack on her forehead. I kept it on a few minutes and then intermittently put it on again when she was calm, but that would immediately upset her again. I knew she was ok though, I used the “Cell Phone Test” and upon handing her my phone to play with she immediately stopped crying, so I knew it could not be that bad.


She ended up bumping that spot a second time, a tiny bump that she would never have noticed and has done hundreds of times standing up using the top of a bench to pull herself up, but I guess because she was sore in that spot she cried immediately, but again the cell phone calmed those tears right away.

Other then this minor incident we had a wonderful time. We ran into Kareem and his mom again, he was the little boy born exactly 24 hours before her in the same hospital. We were talking about birthday parties. I am inviting 7 new baby families to Holly’s and I realize it is a party more for her mommy and Daddy then for her, and that I am breaking the Guest per Age rule, but I am OK with that.


Kareem’s mom is inviting 60 people though, so I don’t feel like I went overboard. Her party is outside and right now she doesn’t have a back-up plan, so I hope it isn’t rainy. My back-up is moving inside from the backyard. It might be tight, but if people sit on the floor with their babies we will have room for everyone.

At Studio Grow Holly did the cutest thing. There were older kids playing in the ball pit and they were throwing the balls out. She was very intrigued with this and crawled all the way across the room to stand outside the pit and watch them. Then she decided to crawl after the ball’s and put them “In” the pit. I was so proud. I pointed at one and I said “Holly do you want to put the red ball in” and pointed to the pit and she took a scoot to pick it up then went to the pit and put it in. I was amazed. She only did this like 3 times, and I am sure it was quite by accident that her desire to throw the balls “in” lined up with me telling her to do it, but it did impress the other mamas.

Today at studio grow we played with the 2-D magnetic wall blocks and the 3-d magnetic building blocks, we played in the climbing structure. There was a mini ball pit inside one of the tubes that she had fun with. We rode the “roller coaster” and cruised around all of the climbing cushions and watched the other babies and kids play. Later we were playing with Kareem and she was very intrigued by the older kids dancing in the next room and she crawled over to the doorway and watched them. When they were done she tried to get one of the pom-poms they were using but Mommy took it away. Then Kareem came and joined her and they played with all of the musical instruments. They were very intrigued with that bin, as it was new to them and filled with toys they had not explored before, so they had a good time with that, lots of shakers and bells, a triangle and xylophone and tambourine.

Time goes pretty quickly at Studio Grow, and with Holly’s head bump I ended up feeding her two bottles, one because she was hungry and later a second to sooth her from being tired and hurt, so by 6:00 she was exhausted and ready to go. I was able to sing to her and keep her awake until we got to Daddy’s work and we went inside to visit his co-workers while picking him up, and then on the way to Baby brigade she fell asleep.


It alas was a short nap, maybe 30 minutes as she woke just before the movie started. But since she had a long day she was much more subdued then last time, and I think she quite liked eating my pizza crusts. They were soft and bready and I took off the pieces that had sauce on them so it wasn’t acidic. I was mad because we got there 30 minutes early so we could ensure a couch seat but there was a new mother’s group there and all of the couches were already taken which is pretty amazing. Our seats were ok, comfy chairs, but not as much room to let Holly climb all over us when not in the couch. The mom’s I think had gotten free passes from the same new mom’s group I am a member of, but they are in the “baby” group, the one Holly and I have “graduated” from, and they were all so so so cute. There was a 2 week old and an 8 week old, many many very little babies.

Apparently they have family night on Sunday where we can bring toddlers, so in about a month… WOW yes Exactly a Month, since today Holly is 11 months old; we will “graduate” into that group. The movie was much better than I expected. Clint Eastwood’s character was so offensive, but in a very real, I know there are people like that way and his character arch through the movie is amazing, he changes but doesn’t really, it was good. I really enjoyed it even though it wasn’t on my list of movies to see and I recommend it. After the movie it was raining, and Holly really enjoyed that. Even though it was cold cold cold, she was so intrigued by the rain on the car while we drove home. We got home at 9:30 but she was wide awake and played on her own till about 10:30 and then got clingy and was hungry and by 11:00 I was able to feed her and coax her to sleep.

This is street sweeping week. “My” car was dead. I tried to take it to the movies this past weekend and it didn’t start, so last night we jumped it, and it started as soon as the cables were connected so it wasn’t too dead that Joel told me to only drive it around the part rather then run it for 30 minutes like I wanted too. So when I parked it on the other side of the street I tested it and it didn’t start. We were supposed to jump it again tonight so I could move it back for street sweeping on the other side tomorrow but because of the rain we didn’t so it is Joel’s job to wake up in the morning and jump and move it. Let’s hope all goes well. I guess then this weekend we can jump it again and I can take a drive to let it charge up. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the battery, we just haven’t driven it since before Christmas because we forgot to move it during street sweeping last month and it is very cold, so I think it should be fine, but I am thinking about selling it again, which I don’t want to, I don’t think I will get nearly as much as I paid for it, and I am attached, but I am contemplating. I think I will decided in the next two months once I see if I can get a car seat to fit in the back.

Well this is a long post I better get off to bed now.

Sunshine

Sunshine
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

The title of this post is quite optimistic I had a pretty bad day, but it was good in the middle and ended well.. So lessons learned. It started off with me being very tired and waking up and sitting on the couch and hearing a loud noise and suddenly remembering it was street sweeping and realizing this meant two.. yes two 35$ tickets. It was already 10:00 Holly woke up late and the sweepers usually come earlier so we didn’t even bother to go and look.

Then I check my email and see that my neighbor had send a message that he came over and knocked and rang the bell to remind us but didn’t know if we were asleep or out but perhaps the email would reach us in time. Alas, no I thought. Strike two. How did I not hear my obnoxious door bell this morning?? So then I hear something and look outside and don’t see the tickets. Well on Joel’s way out he wanted to put a sweater in the car so I just assumed he grabbed the tickets off the windshield. Yes… Strike 3. 20 minutes later I hear a very loud noise and it is the street sweeper coming by at 11:00 and there are two shiny tickets on the dash.. What are they doing coming at 11:00 when for the last 4 years they almost always get her before 9 AM? I actually had 3 opportunities to move my car this morning and was either too dumb or too tired to realize it at the cost of 70$ lesson 1 learned.

Well my afternoon got better. Not before Holly took an only 30 minute laugh giving Mommy no respite this afternoon we headed out to SadieDey Café.. I am trying to get into the habit of Calling Tumble and tea this, as that is the new name. I don’t like it but I guess it is sticking and I have to get used to it. We were meeting an old colleague of mine for lunch and she agreed that a Play café would be ok. I figured we would have much more of a chance to talk if I could let Holly run around and play instead of trying to constrain her in a high chair at a real restaurant.

We had a great lunch and I we had lots of time to catch up. When I first arrived I was the only person in the Café which is a little eerie since it normally has a ton of gremlins running in every direction but alas it was like 80 degrees outside and the workers said that sunshine is there enemy, on a nice day everyone goes to the park. They were even thinking about closing early. I suppose I could have taken Holly to the park, but later the other moms agreed that she is too little, I mean not too little to go on walks and play “some” at the park, but I am not ready for her to be crawling around in the sand and dirt on all fours and put it in her mouth, whereas the Café was a safe place for her to let out all of her energy and explore.

By the time my lunch was over there were many other kids there, three specific babies Max, Zia and another little girl all had fun with Holly. I admit with my friend as a distraction I was a bit neglectful and told the other moms that Holly is very social and friendly and they could feel free to move her is she gets too “in their face” when playing. They were all very excited to have their babies play with her though and from my seat at the table I watched as she touched their faces and arms and they all crawled on top of each other and it was great. Without me hovering the babies were able to work things out on their own, I supposed I am a bit extra careful afraid she might scratch or accidently hit someone. She actually did “hit” one little girl with a toy, but she was ok and it was more like she put the toy down on her and she didn’t like that.

Also Holly was a very good eater. For lunch she had ½ a container of green beans and a whole container of banana orange. So my friend was getting ready to leave and I sit over by Holly and the other Moms and one asks if my bag is in the Cubby. I say that it is, it’s the yellow one, and they report that the woman by the door was just rummaging through it. I jump up, run towards the door, check my purse, see all my cash is missing and block her from leaving while I call over the employees.

She is immediately confrontational and whips out a wad of cash with 50’s and 100’s and says I have all my own Money, why do I need to take yours.. Is this your money? And then accuses me of racial profiling. Sigh…. All I know is that the cash was gone and someone said they saw her in my bag, so while the staff try to detain her and call the cops I go and talk to the witness (other mom). She said that when she went out to put her money in the meter she saw her standing by the cubby looking into the bags (plural) and that her purse was also in the same cubby as mine. She assumed both her hers but thought it was fishy when she was still standing there when she came back. Then when the woman went to go she only took one bag, so then she realized she must have been looking through someone else’s.

I checked and my Credit Cards and IPod and other stuff were all still in my purse, so it was only my cash. Sadly I don’t even know how much it was.. It may have been as little as 30$ but as much as 80$ I had a lot of 1’s like 15 and some 5’s and 10’s. I don’t think I had any 20’s. I had planned on putting more money in my purse before leaving the house but didn’t, so I am grateful of that. So the thing is, she was smart. Only taking cash there was no way to prove if it was mine or hers and the staff couldn’t force her to stay though they tried. It took like 20 minutes to even get through to the cops and she was gone by then, and it was maybe 90 minutes before I left and they had not shown up, so I wrote down my contact information and my statement and left it for them to give to there local beat cop when he came by the next day. The guy who works there said he has seen her before, but as far as he knows she has never done anything like that before. The sad thing was she had her little boy with her, which is why no one though anything of it, but he looked like 8 which is a bit old for the place. She said she was there picking up the local free parenting magazines and there is a sign that clearly states to keep your valuables with you, so it was my bad. I am too trusting and should have known better. I am there so often and leave my stuff there all the time, but I guess I have learned better. It ultimately just makes me sad.. Less angry about losing 30ish dollars but Angry that I have to worry now every time I am there about my stuff.

So today was a BAD money day for me. But I tried to brush it off and not make it ruin the rest of my day. Later I went to pick up Joel and we went to Baby Brigade. Holly was zonked in the car after playing for like 5 hours but by the time the movie started she woke up with a vengeance. I actually fed her pears and some more green beans while watching the movie, while she sat in my lap, which I think is impressive. She is starting to out grow baby brigade… So I know why the age limit is 1. That doesn’t mean Joel will get out of going again during the next two months, But I am second guessing letting her sleep on the way. I guess I hoped she would sleep longer, like half the movie. But she wanted to be the center of attention so instead of crying like the other babies she just wanted to talk through the whole movie squealing during all the most inappropriate times I just had to laugh.

Oh and we saw 7 Pounds. It wasn’t good, but I enjoyed it, so it wasn’t bad. I had the heartfelt reaction it was hoping for. It was a very good premise, but I felt like with a better writer and maybe a more Indy feel it could have been much much better. I think I lost my brain for the day, or maybe this heat is just getting to me, but I ordered a small pizza for dinner so I was still really hungry and filled up on Popcorn instead of real food, but Joel said he was full so that was good. Holly’s energy didn’t diminish when we got home and she played and played. She then got very cranky very quickly and cried a lot when Joel tried to put her to bed. She drank 1 bottle but it didn’t make her fall asleep, and she just kept crying so I had Joel make another and that did the trick, she drank ½ of it but then woke up like 3 more times, so I had to hold her and rock her for a little bit before she was really down for the night. She was so sweet though that I didn’t mind, but I think her agitation really got to Joel, she hasn’t been this cranky for a while. I think it might just be growing pains. She ate almost 3 containers of food, and a yogurt today, But I think that if we hadn’t gone to the movie she would have gotten a bigger “food” dinner and it might have made a difference, but she has to learn to adapt, and we need to practice filling her needs when we do things like go out, so I didn’t mind practicing feeding her at the movie.

One cool thing that happened is we ran into this couple that we had met several months ago, and they remembered us as the little girl with the triangle toy. It was the toy that taught Holly how to sit up on her own, and I had brought it to the movie once and told them about it and explained how it would help their little guy learn to sit, and they reported back that it actually worked like a charm and they have told like 3 other friends to get that toy. So thanks to Tracey who got it for Holly to begin with. It’s great, she still plays with it.

Alas, it is late and I must go to bed. Tomorrow … Well today.. is a new day. Let’s hope for winter to last more than 3 weeks and for a cold front to hit us. Anyone who thinks global warming is a myth can come visit me.

Gopher

Last night Holly was a firecracker. W was a long movie, and I was sorta bored, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exciting either, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers, and that’s what was playing at the baby brigade. It was well written and acted.. I was shocked that Richard Dryfus played Cheney, and it was neat seeing current event people being depicted in the film.

Holly had however taken a nap just before the movie, and then ate in the car on the way over. Starting at 6:15 seemed to mess up a lot of people and everyone arrived late, I think they ended up delaying the start a few moments, but we got good seats and for the first 30 minutes or so of the movie Holly was chill and hung out sitting in Daddy’s lap, but then I guess she had looked around the room, looked at the big screen, adapted to her new environment and was bored, so then the climbing began, and for the next maybe 2 hours, as it was a very long movie, she didn’t sit still. She looked over my shoulder and climbed up the mommy, then she would lounge back towards the daddy, and she would twist and turn and play with toys that she would toss to the ground for her own amusement. She had fun.

After the movie we went over to star bucks with Dave, Tracey and Lucian, so we could visit with them for a few minutes, we stayed about an hour. We set up by a table that had a half wall against it, and Holly was sitting on the table with her toys, so she of course immediately decided she would try and climb over the wall and like a little gopher tried to flirt with all the other patrons. This picture was actually taken by someone having coffee who thought she was too photogenic to ignore, and he emailed me the photo. She was very cute and such a hyper happy baby, you would think she had a coffee herself.

Lucian was very sweet, he was all bundled up in cute brown overalls and a blue hoodie jacket, and he is getting much better at sitting, if you prop him up he will stay sitting for a while and hold himself. He is such an observant laid back baby, watching every move that holly made, and trust me there were hundreds. Holly had a bottle and Dave and Tracey wanted Lucian t watch her drinking it, as he is still not Happy with a bottle, so he was very intrigued and watched intently. Joel got to hold and play with him for a little bit, he is very cuddly. I am hoping before they leave for the Holidays we can get together at a time when Joel can get on the floor and play with both babies, I think he would really like that, he doesn’t often get a chance to see Holly interact with other babies, and Joel likes to play with other babies too.

My little bundle of energy fell asleep in the car on the way home, and we carried her up to bed. And fast asleep she stayed until 7am this morning. We realize we are so lucky to have such a good sleeper on our hands and hope it stays that way.. She seems to play hard and sleep hard.

This morning she woke up and played with Daddy until about 9:30 and then took a nap with Mommy while Daddy was in the shower and off to work until about 10:30. Then Simone the Psychologist / therapist from through the looking glass (regional center services) came over. I hadn’t had a session with her since before I went back to work, even though I did email her when I quit my job, but since we had just done Holly’s 6 month review she had to do a report, and I am supposed to see her at a minimum of 2 times a month. I want to try and do once a month, but I figure maybe one week she can meet with me and then the other week meet with Joel, as she is supposed to be providing services for both parents. We had a nice chat, and she enjoyed watching Holly play.

This afternoon after story time, we ate Garden Vegetables, which had Green Beans, Carrots, and Spinach in them. I gave Holly about 1/3 of a container, and she ate all that I set aside for her, so I think I might give her a second serving of food tonight. Then we played in her crib a bit. I relaxed on the rocking chair chatting with my mom, and watched her; I wanted to see how she would act in the new environment. Right now she is in the bouncer, for about 20 minutes but is getting fussy, so I am off to play with her some more.

Later – So we went out this afternoon to pick up our Veggie box, We visited Daddy and he came with us, so that he could go get it and carry it to the car. Holly fell asleep during our outing, so Mommy read her magazine in the car and let her Nap, but she woke up by 5:30, but not for long, she had a yummy 6 ounce bottle and fell back asleep in Mommy’s arms… What is a Mommy to do? Take a nap.. and that I did. Now its 8:00 Daddy is home and getting dinner ready and Holly is up for a few more hours to play, she is quite refreshed.

New Week

Yesterday was a quiet laid back day. Holly was little miss energizer Bunny. She had her regular session with Katie, and Katie brought a colleague of hers Kristy to meet Holly. In comparison it seemed like Kristy was man-handling Holly, she was really getting in there trying to stretch and move her around to come up with ways to get her to drop her shoulders, relax and work her back muscles and extend, ideally we want her to do something like a backbend, but forward, keeping her hips planted.

I was shocked that Holly did not protest, she continued to be a very busy bee, and would not sit still for the entire 90 minute session, she would not be deterred, she wanted to crawl and climb and stand and reach for toys and twist and turn and she was on the go go go… and didn’t let Kristy get in her way. They were in awe with not only her energy level, but how cute she was trying to engage them, and how strong she was picking up toys, but more than anything else her determination. She is a girl who works and plays hard, and the moral of the day, is no one will stop her from doing anything, she will find a way…

I wonder where she gets that level of determination from…..

She took a brief nap after Katie and Kristy left, but not for very long, before she was at it again. We had a fun time playing and then ate some pears. She seemed to like them much better this time and ate 2/3 of a small container. Later she took a longer nap and that gave me a chance to read and comment on a WASC Report I am reviewing for a new program in Aviation at a school. It is nice to have a little bit of Professional stuff to do, a few hours a month is just perfect. I had been putting of the report for like a week, and it was due Tuesday at 8am, and I wanted to finish it before Joel got home, as it was our Anniversary.. 10 years married, and 15 years together.

I pre-ordered from Home on the Range 0 we still have a gift card from there that I have been using up, and they delivered chicken parmesan for me and pot roast for Joel. When he got home we decided to all sit at the table and eat, we are supposed to be socializing Holly to eating, so we put her in her little read chair and I gave her a Barley teething biscuit.

She seemed pretty interested in Joel’s food, and he had some potato, so I decided to give her it to try.. It was hilarious, I am a bad mommy for tormenting my little one, it was “spicy” Joel said it had some clove and cinnamony flavor, but was mild… Well, it was too much flavor for Holly. She picked it up, put it in her mouth, then made the most yuckiest face and grabbed it out of her mouth and threw it down, then tried to use her tongue to get the taste out of her mouth. I gave her the Barley biscuit back and she was happy, but I didn’t take the potato away, and she tried it three more times, I guess maybe she thought it would be different, and it probably was a little less each time, but it was really funny watching her trying to suck on it. Joel thinks I am going to traumatize her and make her not like stew like Mommy… I told him he has nothing to worry about she will like stew just fine. I am really looking forward to Thanksgiving and giving her all kinds of new foods to try.

She went to bed at 10ish and then Joel and I had Apple Tart with Coffee ice Cream and caramel Sauce and had a quiet night watching some tv and went to bed early. We talked about maybe doing something exciting for our big 10 year, but really a quiet night with the family was just what Joel wanted, he is so happy with me and Holly, he feels like his life is complete, and it was a very content filled night.

We decided sometime next year when someone comes and visits we will go away for a night and let them watch holly, but for now an evening together with her, is all that we need.

Today Holly had Pears with oatmeal, and I gave her a slice of apple to chew on. I think she liked the apple. Tonight we are going to Baby Brigade to see W. I should be getting ready to head out, so I have to go… It was a quiet day.

Happy Girl - Busy Week

So it has been a few days since I have updated, we have been having a good week so far. Today, Tuesday was a long day, in the morning we went to the pediatrician to do the second half of Holly’s flu shot, I was amazed at how good she did, she cried for about 30 seconds, gave me a kiss and was fine. Since it was just a little pin prick, and the fluid going in was less than other vaccinations, it wasn’t so bad. I wish they were all that easy.

Next we had to go to the lab and do my post partum glucose test, yeah I know it’s like 4 months overdue, but it takes 2 hours and it is hard to find that much free time, since my insurance is changing I wanted to do it before the current one expired so there would be no hassle. It took 30 minutes before they would even see me, and then they did the first blood draw, then I had to drink the yucky sugar water, they only had orange, and sit for 2 hours.

We did take a walk to the park across the street, I was trying to get Holly to go down for her nap, but she didn’t want to fall asleep and I was using too much energy burning off the sugar, so we went back to the lab. She did eventually fall asleep, so I started Eclipse, the third book in the vampire series I am reading. We then did the next blood test, and holly was still napping, I didn’t want to wake her by transferring her into the car, so we went back to the park and I read for about another hour while Holly napped. She hadn’t taken a nap that morning, so she was really tired.

After she woke up we headed over to tumble and tea, so I could eat lunch since I had been fasting for the blood test, but they were closed, they normally close at 3:30, but recently sent out an email that they were extending their winter hours to 7:00, when I got home I realized the new hours were not going to start until November. So we hung out at the house and played for an hour, until it was time to leave for the movie. It is baby brigade night, and we went to see Appaloosa.

It wasn’t like I was super looking forward to the movie, it’s a western, it was mildly entertaining, but not great. I mainly went because Joel was out of town, he was doing a presentation at Sonoma State today, and didn’t get home until 9:00, so it was nice to have dinner and a movie. Holly had fun playing, and seeing her friends, Ila was there and we met a new baby who was 5 and ½ months old whom I saw drinking a sip of water from its dad’s water bottle, I was very impressed with its sipping skills, and had to go introduce ourselves, and ask how old she was.

Holly fell asleep on the way home, but then woke up around 9:45, so Joel got to feed and change her and play with her for a few minutes before she fell back asleep.

Monday was another super busy day, in the morning I tried twice to feed holly Carrots, which she is supposed to like, on the second try I added in a spoon of oatmeal to thicken it a bit, but she is getting really good at keeping her mouth shut and not getting any bites, and now she is using her tongue to push the food out. In the afternoon we went to pick up some craigslist items, I got a cool 11x17 white board with calendar squares on it, it will come in handy for doing monthly calendars on shopping, feeding Mack, and other stuff like that. Then we went to pick up an exersaucer, it was only 25$ and it was the ultra evenflo, so it had like 8 toys on top, it is very cool and I know Holly will love it.

Then I decided to head out to Costco, I decided to join and get a membership so that I could try and save some money by buying in bulk, specifically a friend told me that formula was cheaper and in a larger container, so I was excited by that. They also have discount gas. Costco parking is always a zoo, so I was waiting for a spot for like 10 minutes, since they don’t bag your stuff it takes a while to unload into the car, and it was an older couple, so I am waiting and then realize there is a car in the other lane waiting for the same spot, I try to get his attention, and begin to park, the guy nearly hit me rushing into the spot and taking it, then the guys yells out of the car.

So I decide to get another spot, I see another old couple a few cars down, so I pull up to wait, which puts me behind this guys car, so then he gets out and yells at me, and says maybe if you would get your blinker fixed people would know your trying to park. Well I had honestly forgotten that the blinker was broken, but still he didn’t have to freak on me, I thought about yelling back, but just said, I have a 7 month old baby, and can’t live without my car for three days, he throws his hands up and goes back into his car and sits there, after I park and get out of the car and walk into the store, he is still sitting in the car, so I am not really sure why he had to rush to steal my spot if he was going to just sit there.

Inside Costco I got my membership, and they let me put Holly in the photo, so it was quite cute. Then I went shopping, and it was a bit overwhelming, Joel didn’t want me to get too many perishable bulk items, so they wouldn’t go bad, and I was still going to the regular store, but I somehow ended up spending over 200$ I did get a lot of stuff and I was able to get all of it into the cupboards so that was good. I was able to get a bunch of staple items, like pasta and formula, and I did end up getting some frozen chicken, it was so much cheaper I couldn’t pass it up.

Next we stopped at the bank and deposited my last work check, I had been holding onto it since the 10th and this was my first chance, and then we went to Luckys and did the rest of the grocery shopping. It was nice to have the fridge full again, we had pretty much emptied it before going out of town and hadn’t had much time to fill it since we got back, then I went and picked up one more craigslist item, a kids guitar. It was only 8 dollars, Holly is way too little for it, Joel doesn’t think she will be able to use it until she is like 4, but still it was so cheap and I know I want one, and couldn’t help myself. I am going to stay off craigslist for a while; there is so much good stuff on there.

Sunday was a very laid back day. I don’t think we left the house. Joel was working on a script for a contest, and we basically just hung out and played all day. He made a pot roast, and he basically just told me how wonderful his weekend was. I don’t think we really did anything special, but just spent the day together.