The Nose Nos!

My sweet, angelic AK has a troubling new activity. She sticks things up her nose.

Not just her finger - which is bad enough - but her food. Peas, corn, whatever is handy. Last night I caught her trying to put a piece of grape tomato up her nose. I thought I had stopped her, but after tilting back her head and recognizing something red a bit further up, I realized I had only caught the second piece. Fortunately, my pinky finger is small enough and the nail on it is long enough that I was able to drag the tomato back out.

AK thought this was so funny and entertaining. She then tried to shove an entire meatball up her nose while I watched. Fortunately the meatball was way too big. Some time later, well after the girls were done with dinner, she sneezed. As I approached with a tissue she held out a slimy, snot-covered piece of tomato.

The Hoos and I are at a bit of a loss in discouraging this behavior. We yell at her and tell her no, but it doesn't really resonate. I am hoping this doesn't mean I have to watch her like a hawk whenever food is around, because, to be honest, meal time typically means "free time" (and by "free" I mean time to pee, or prepare lunches, or get my dinner in the oven).

In positive news, we don't need no stinking BuhBee in our house! Friday night I resolved to hold out and not give AK her paci. Since then we have been pacifier free. Bed time takes about 10 extra minutes but the challenge has been the morning. We used to be able to give AK the paci and get an extra half hour of sleep. Saturday she was up at 6:50 and insistent on starting her day. Sunday was a more reasonable 7:30. Hopefully by next week she will be sleeping until closer to 8 on the weekends.

Food for Thought

Like many of my friends, I struggle on a daily basis to get my kids to eat. As a friend recently posted on Facebook, "Why do I feel like Monty Hall at dinner time?" I try to limit the choices and always have favorites on hand, and still I end up with wasted food and a feeling of frustration. I know that in the end, my girls are healthy and growing and getting the nutrition they need; but that isn't the case across the country.

Many parents don't have the ability to give their kids options or dinner at all. Times are tough and more and more people are finding it difficult to put food on the table. This exacerbates my guilt about wasting uneaten - untouched! - food, but feeling guilty isn't enough.

ShopRite, my parents' favorite grocery store, has a program called Partners in Caring dedicated to helping get food on the table for those in need. As part of this program, they have put out a call to bloggers to spread the word about hunger. In addition to highlighting participating bloggers on boxes of Honey Nut (or HoneyBunny as LP calls them) Cheerios, General Mills and ShopRite will donate one box of cereal to a food bank in ShopRite’s trading area for the first 30 people who comment on my post.

I have never had 30 comments, but now would be a great time to beat my record! I highly encourage any of my lurkers and all of my regular readers to leave a note about what they do or plan on doing to help get food to the more than 35 million Americans that live in households considered “food insecure,” including 12.4 million children.

I participate in nearly every food drive I encounter, from the girls' day care center, to my office, to my in-laws' synagogue. This year, for the first time, I dedicated some of my weekly shopping budget to exclusively buying food for donation. With grocery stores constantly having 10 for $10 sales, I don't have to set aside a lot of money to have a big impact. I have also blogged before about my frequent donation to the Norwalk Emergency Shelter, which provides assistance and a soup kitchen for those in need locally.

What are you doing?

Munch-chi-chis

In our house, a lot of life revolves around food. Who wants what snack, who is going to want what for dinner, you know, typical obsessive-compulsive food disorder. What I didn't realize is that AK has already become accustomed to this lifestyle.

The other day we were in Whole Foods and I grabbed a bag of Veggie Straws to put in the cart as a "special snack."*

As I put the bag in the cart, AK started freaking out. She was no longer content with the Cheerios her sister was doling out from a baggie she had found in my pocketbook.

She is ONE YEAR OLD, has had veggie straws maybe three times in her life and yet SHE RECOGNIZED THE BAG and became insistent, to the point of annoying the entire store, that she needed a veggie straw right now.

LP was no help. She was excited at the prospect of me having to open the bag of veggie straws in the store, knowing that once open there was no going back and both she and her sister would be able to happily munch away. In fact, to speed the process, she started to casually dump Cheerios on to the floor one at a time in a way that she thought was secretive.

Yesterday, AK's daily sheet said, "Please consider sending different snacks for AK. She is no longer content with the [school provided] Cheerios and throws them on the floor."

*"Special snacks" are a mommy's best friend. Basically, they are a form of bribery, "LP if you are a good girl, what special snack do you want me to put in your lunch box?" If she isn't being good, we can threaten to remove the special snack and we usually end up with a much more agreeable child.

The Family Meal

The Hoos and I have been contemplating dinner lately. We are trying to determine the point at which it becomes imperative that our entire family sits down for dinner together.

Currently the girl eat dinner together at 6. AK usually eats leftovers from the previous night's dinner; LP eats some of those if we are lucky, but more likely she eats some sort of pasta accompanied by the same side of fruits and veggies her sister is eating. After they are done and I clean them up, I prepare the grown-up dinner while they play

The Hoos gets home around 7 and we sit down to eat closer to 7:15. AK will sit in her high chair at the table with us and play, and LP with likely sit at the table with food she pilfers from our plates or some new munchie that she goes and takes from the fridge or the pantry. We do try to get LP to try our dinners to get her interested in new foods without me putting in the effort to make her an individual meal and have it tossed because she doesn't like it.

I know that many people insist that their kids eat the same meal they eat. It does not really seem feasible in our situation. Either I will have to have lots of meals premade that I can pop in when I get home with the girls at 5:30 and the Hoos and I then eat AK and LP's reheated leftovers or we eat lots of take-out.

For now the situation works for us. I am hopeful that at some point we will all be able to eat together at 6:30 sometime in the coming years. Ideally before they are fifteen and too busy with their friends and after school activities to sit with us at all.

So Much Pressure

Now that I have more then two people reading my blog - thanks Mom and Dad! - I feel an obligation to attempt to post every day.

Therefore, because some of you love me so much that you check back at ctworkingmom.blogspot.com several times a day - again, thanks, Mom and Dad! - all of you have to suffer through not-so-interesting posts.

Here goes:

Food Bites. Yesterday I learned that AK loves peas and is an expert at picking them up in her little fists and squeezing them into her mouth. The day before I also determined that LP is not the only member of the family that absolutely loves Magic Pop rice cakes. If you haven't had them, they are awesome; larger, lighter, sweeter versions of those dense styrofoam hockey pucks that were all the rage in the 80s. They are great for infants because they literally melt in your mouth.

Potty Time. I spent part of last night free-handing a drawing of a toilet onto a large piece of cardboard. The Hoos will be cutting a hole in it and it will be a star attraction at our upcoming potty party to celebrate LP's potty-training success. She is still a superstar, wearing diapers only to sleep, and we are very proud of her. I love not having to carry around multiple sizes of diapers during the day so much that we will start training AK tomorrow.

Your Turn. Dudes, you all make me feel guilty for not posting daily, and yet when I offer up enticing prizes for posting a comment, only Di and Lori respond (love you girls! gifts will be forthcoming). I know that I have other readers lurking out there - and not just the ones that stumble here looking for the translation of Les Zombies Et Les Loup-Garous (the zombies and the werewolves if you must know). In fact, almost 30 of you actually have me on your feeds. I feel super cool, but would feel so much cooler if I knew WHO YOU WERE.

He's Going to Kill Me

I don't usually write about the Hoos, but this post is really more about me than him.

For anyone that knows me and the Hoos personally, this isn't going to come as much of a shock - the Hoos is a slim guy. He comes from slim stock - his parents both have slight builds and good metabolisms. Many people aren't so lucky.

Recently some folks have commented to the Hoos about his weight. When he tells me and checks to see if I notice him looking different, my immediate reaction is to be defensive, "You tell them I feed you, don't you?!" Horribly, my concern is more that people will think I am a bad wife and don't take care of him.

I swear I cook dinner five or six nights a week. And lately we always have some sort of baked good in the house that LP and I whip up. Okay, maybe some nights we only have a starch. Or, like last night, I only make soup (homemade vegetable) and cheesy bread to accompany leftovers (lemon chicken from Sunday and baked ziti from Saturday) which likely isn't as filling. Okay, and we eat a lot of chicken, turkey and fish because I don't eat red meat (although I do buy the Hoos and LP steak a couple of times a month)...

You know you have mental problems when you start thinking of ways to make meals more fattening. Not that I would do it because the only one that would gain weight is me!

Speaking of eating - AK is on finger foods. She loves Cheerios and last night downed the pastina I mixed in with her mooshed up veggies!

Speaking of Eating

The Neverending Growth Spurt

Any time there is a change in AK's eating or sleeping patterns I attribute it to a growth spurt. But, really, if it was a growth spurt every time, the kid should be about four feet tall by now.

This past weekend was wonderful in terms of AK's sleeping - she was up only once Friday and Saturday nights, at 2:30 and 4 respectively. This is AWESOME. I thought we had achieved a sleeping milestone. And I thought the solid food was really making its mark - she now has cereal (rice or oatmeal) and fruit (peaches and pears so far)twice a day. I was wrong.

Since Sunday I have been up twice a night, around 12 and then again sometime between 3 and 5. This SUCKS. Especially since I have to get up at 6:30 to get ready for work.

But then, I think about how I get to give her fuzzy little head extra kisses when I get up. And about how I get to hold her close and huddle together under a blanket so we can keep each other warm in the middle of the night. And I am (at least a little teensy bit) thankful for our extra time together. Whatever gets you through the day, right?

Conspiring during nap time

Knick Nack PakNak

Last week I received word that I had won PakNaks from the WMAG Review blog. I had never heard of them before, but PakNaks are these adorable little vinyl creatures that you can use to customize your kids' lunchboxes and backbacks. I guess sort of like those doo-dads that people stick in the holes of their Crocs. But way cooler.

When they arrived in the mail earlier this week, I told LP that she had a letter. She loves getting mail (who doesn't? The "ping" of a new email message isn't quite the same as ripping open a package or envelope). When she saw the PakNaks she was really really psyched. Each creature has Velcro on the back and comes with the "opposite side" Velcro patch that you can attach to whatever you want to adorn. It took a lot of physical strength to restrain LP from decorating herself with the PakNaks. We ended up putting three (Manfred, Isaac, and Tabby) on her lunch box and one on AK's (Ralph).

LP told me that she couldn't wait to show Miss Louise. And the Hoos reported that she was passing around her lunch box at school the next morning to show all of her friends the animals.

Speaking of lunch boxes, today AK's lunch box contained a box of rice cereal! We gave her her first spoonfuls Wednesday night and I had to cut her off! I wanted to make sure it didn't have any adverse impacts before giving her a full feeding's worth. Of course, LP insisted on helping me feed AK despite the fact that she was didn't want to hold the spoon still long enough for AK to get the cereal off of it and refused to stand in AK's line of sight. Poor AK was confused by the spoon full of mushy cereal coming at her from behind and quickly disappearing.

Yesterday morning and last night AK almost finished the allotted servings of cereal. And her big sister said, "I'm so proud of you [AK]." Too cute.

The Evolution of Advice

Yesterday AK had her 4 month check up. As expected, she is fantabulous. She is 13 pounds, 11 ounces and 24.5 inches long. She will be starting cereal this week: 1-2 tablespoons mixed with an ounce of water.

According to LP's baby book, at her 4 month check up she weighed 16 pounds, 1 ounce, and was the same length. She also started cereal at this point, 1-2 tablespoons mixed with breastmilk.

According to my baby book, I was 13 pounds, 1 ounce and 24 inches long. And eating chicken and veal.

This Little Piggy...

...already drank all three bottle of milk I sent in to school, and it is only 2 pm!

A Genuine Genius?

It continues to amaze me how much LP picks up from the world around her. We can say a word once and she might repeat it back right away. Or she might hold on to it and use it again - appropriately - when the time is right. Some examples:

• If she sees that the bird feeder is empty, she will say "seeds", put on her coat and pick up the 10 pound bag of seed and attempt to walk out the door with it.
  
• Last weekend we took her temperature (rectally) a few times since she seemed to have a cold. Later in the day she pulled a chair up to the counter, got the thermometer down and attempted to take Baby's and Moo's temperatures (again rectally)...after feeling their keppes (heads) and telling us they felt hot.
• Pulling the blanket over her head and calling out "Nooooo" when the Hoos tries to get her up in the morning. And when he says "Do you want to stay in bed?" and she responds "N...Yessssssss."
  

And then there are some times that I am just not sure what she is thinking...

In case you couldn't tell from my post yesterday, I wasn't feeling great. I was tired, cranky, and have a cold. To say my butt was dragging by the time I got home at the end of the day would have been an understatement - more like, I needed a forklift to drag my butt around.

As I tried to get LP to eat some dinner, she was either challenging me at the wrong time (acting her age) or trying to lift my spirits (acting wise beyond her year). Maybe to her taking a mouthful of water from her sippy cup and slowly spitting it out all over herself is some hysterical new comedy routine? And perhaps asking for more tortellini and when I return to the room with a new plateful, spitting out a chewed one and them mooshing it up in her hands and sprinkling it all over the floor is performance art?

Another day of mommyhood. And yet I am still loving every minute of it.

Chocolate=LP's Valentine

When I was growing up, my Daddy was always my Valentine. I remember getting a little heart ring from him one year and another year I believe I received a wind-up alligator that played "My Funny Valentine". While Daddy was my Valentine, my grandfather, Poppy, was my secret admirer. For as long as I can remember I would get a small flower basket delivered on Valentine's Day from giver unknown. More likely my grandmother ordered the flowers and did all the work, but when I discovered in my tweener years who was behind the flowers, it didn't make sense to me that my Valentine would be a girl.

Now that LP is a lovely little toddler, it is her turn to have Valentines. The Hoos picked a card up from the two of us for her (even though we forgot to actually give it to her on February 14th...oops), and she got cards in the mail from both sets of grandparents and her great-grandparents. And Will, a boy in her class, gave her a card with a cat on it. Talk about being loved!

And, despite feeling all of this love, at 21 months she is pretty much oblivious to the fake holiday. At least that was until we made Daddy brownies. Now I think Valentine's Day might be her favorite day going forward.

And Yet...My Arse Grows

Today is another Monday that we sent LP to day care. Once again, being alone in the house makes me highly productive. Especially, I think, my fat cells. Despite the fact that I am going to the doctor today and getting weighed I still felt the need to enjoy mucho mucho carbs, because, well, I could.

Wouldn't it be nice if Mommy junk eating and calorie burning was measured in errands?

Consumed	Calories
Strawberry frosted donut	-10 since consumed while shopping
Onion roll with lunch	-10 from packing, carrying and dropping off clothes to Goodwill an hour before
Rolls at Bertuccis (Sunday lunch)	-10 because sat next to and monitored LP during meal
3 hard pretzels as after-dinner snack	-2, had to clean up crumbs from both me and LP when done
Snapple iced tea	2, burned most while chasing after LP in furniture stores

The Stay-Puff Marshmallow Woman

I spent yesterday home with my sick little LP. Seriously, if she didn't have the tell-tale red "smudges" under her eyes, you wouldn't know the kid was sick. She ran around like a crazy kid for most of the day. It was like a typical home day with her, the only exception being that maybe I coddled her a bit more. Okay, a lot more, I spoil her.

When I was pregnant with LP the Hoos and I would joke around about who was going to be who in the "good cop, bad cop" routine. It was supposed to be that he was the softy. This is totally not the case. Some examples

1. Breakfast
Me to LP: "You don't want to eat breakfast in your booster? You want to walk around with your mini-pancakes in your hand while you watch TV? Okay."

The Hoos to me: "You know, she sits nicely in the booster for me. You really shouldn't do that."

2. Dinner
LP: Decides she is done and starts picking food up by the handful from her plate and throwing it.

Me: Takes her plate away.

The Hoos to LP: "LP, NO! We do not throw food."

LP: Laughs.

3. The Potty
LP: "Pee! Pee!"

Me to LP: "You have to pee? Okay, let's go." Take her to the potty, remove her pants and diaper.

LP: "Book?" walks away, bottomless, to find a book.

Me (chasing after her): "Just one. Okay, two. C'mon, honey, you have no diaper on. I don't want you to pee on the floor."

LP: Returns to the potty, sits for two seconds and decides she has the wrong books.

Repeat earlier dialogue at least once.

LP: Finally pees on the potty. Last night this was AFTER her bath. I would think she would pee in the bath instead, but whatever.

The Hoos, same situation: "Do you have to pee or not?" After a minute he puts her diaper back on.

The only anomaly of this whole situation is that LP cries when I yell at her and typically laughs at the Hoos when he does. Maybe I am unintentionally playing mind games with her...

hmm...new mommy strategy...maybe I should write a book.

Food for Thought

Last night I was talking to a friend about her toddler's refusal to eat. He is drinking milk by the gallon, but refuses most solids, berries being one of a few exceptions. I can relate. LP has moments where she refuses to eat whatever I prepare, no matter what it is. I have a hard time discerning if she doesn't what to eat that item at that particular time (sandwiches) or if it is never to be presented to her as a dining option again (peas). If I try several days in a row and the item still gets flung from the heights of the high-chair, I usually give up.

We also commiserated over the fact that as they get older, our babies don't like being treated likes babies when it comes to food. Chunks of banana will not suffice when a whole banana could be nabbed. Bibs are no longer tolerated and if they can in any way avoid the high-chair, they will. At this point, LP only goes to the high-chair when she is hungry and I am not yet preparing her dinner. It is her way of communicating without words.

Last night, LP took this to the nth degree. First, she refused to eat a slice of meatloaf I had cut for her. She instead wanted to pick at the whole mini-meatloaf (thank goodness I made two mini-meatloaves instead of one big one) with her little fork and fingers. Then, she insisted on eating while standing up on a kitchen chair with the meatloaf tin precariously balanced on the counter. This way if she didn't like the bit she had just picked off she could fling it into the sink (admittedly this was better for clean-up). She did end up eating more protein than I might have expected, but we both ended up wearing a lot of ketchup.

In case I wasn't jumping through enough hoops to accommodate my little munchkin, today's New York Times further lays on the guilt. Apparently, being a picky eater is genetic. I am not sure if this is better or worse than thinking it is my cooking.

Setting Limits

I just looked at the Dunkin Donuts Web site and discovered that my favorite new treat, the white hot chocolate, has a whopping 13 grams of fat per serving when you get a medium. I guess if I replace breakfast with a beverage this might work...like SlimFast...but with chocolate....

Wenderina, you don't want to look up the Mocha Frappuccino on the Starbucks site....

Weighing on My Mind

At least once a week when I am out running errands with LP someone will comment, “what a big girl you are!” Invariably they are not saying this because she is doing something that makes her seem wise beyond her 15 months. Every time I respond with “yes, she is very healthy”. And each time I wince on the inside.

Let’s get something straight, LP is perfect. And she does have rolls on her arms and beautiful, soft pudgy cheeks. But she is not overweight, obese or bigger than average. In fact, we had her 15-month check up today and she is exactly average in both weight and height, falling at the 50th percentile.

Babies come in all shapes and sizes. And by definition they have baby fat. They need fat for their brains to develop and so they can grow up big and strong.

LP weighed 7 lbs, 15 ounces at birth and had gorgeous round cheeks and chubby little arms and legs. She was (and still is, really) the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my entire life and not a day goes by where I do not remark to the Hoos about how gorgeous she is. I am tired of being questioned about her weight and from here on out I am going to make an effort to stop letting it be a topic of conversation.

And people wonder why teenage girls have complexes about their weight...

Another Transition

I am currently in the process of moving LP to cups instead of bottles. This is requiring a lot of patience and tough love. When I went to the pediatrician for LP's one-year check up, she asked if baby girl was drinking from cups. I was just happy to have her weaned! But the doctor is right, we don't want to be having the conversation about moving her to a cup when LP is two.

Last week, on the days she was home with me, I started giving her milk in a sippy cup while she ate and when she was done eating, I would try to get her to drink from the cup. She would typically only drink an ounce or so. I would then pour the rest of the milk into a bottle and hand it back to her; she would drain the bottle.

This week I started only giving LP milk in a sippy cup during the day. If she drinks it, excellent; if she doesn't, fine. This is horrible from a mommy perspective, especially since it is growing increasingly warm out. I don't want my little buggaboo to be thirsty, but I can see any other way. Before bed I still give her a bottle with her last milk of the day. I am trying to figure out if she is gaming me, holding out to drink until she gets her bottle at night. Next week we go all cup all the time.

Any one else have experience with this? Any tried and true methods for getting babies to cups?

How Do You Measure an Eternity?

The Hoos has three "events" this week for work. Starting last night he has activities to attend after work, meaning he won't get home until after I have already put LP to bed. This doesn't happen often, but when it does it reminds me how fortunate I am. I don't think I would survive as a single mom and my hat goes off to those of you that pull it off and make it look easy.

Most days I wake up at 6:30, am out the door by 7:15 and work until 4:30. I pick LP up around 5:30, run any necessary short errands and take her for a walk. I then give her dinner and prepare our dinner. Usually when our dinner is simmering away, the Hoos arrives home and scoops LP into his arms. He takes her upstairs while he changes out of his fancy work clothes so I can clean up a bit and get the table set. After we eat dinner, we work as a team to bathe LP, give her her last bottle and put her to bed.

When the Hoos is not home and I don't have relief things are quite a bit more hectic. Of course, the weather has been cruddy, meaning we can't walk; add this to the fact that LP is trying out the new "one nap only" rule and crankiness abounds. To ease the dinner prep, I had picked up a rotisserie chicken at Stew's. I served bits of chicken, sweet potato chunks, watermelon and grapes to LP. After downing everything except the chicken, she proceeded to throw the protein off of the high chair tray - as if its mere presence was offensive to her. Of course, as I am picking bits up from the floor, she continues to chuck them, often hitting me in the head in the process.

This is not to say that we didn't also have a good time. We did manage to play and read a few books and climb the stairs several times. And on a practical note, LP did get a bath and her lunch did get prepared. But man, someone needs to conduct some research to explain how time can fly and crawl at the same time.