We are just returned from a lovely weekend of camping at Table Mountain in Wrightwood. There are many great things about this campsite (it's gorgeous, has great trails, is family friendly, the spaces are huge, etc. etc.), not the least of which is that it's only about 40 minutes from our house. Our last camping trip was at Lassen Volcanic National Park... 14 hours away. We did that when Mad was a wee baby of just over three months.
Camping with a three-month-old is pretty darned easy, especially if she's exclusively nursing. With a 16-month-old who's teething, not as easy. But Mad did a great job.
It rained all of Friday night and into Saturday morning. Most of that time, Mad was asleep, and Corey and his friend, Richard were in their own tent (gassing it up and laughing, from what I could tell), so no big deal. When she awoke, Mad found the tent was a fun novelty for quite a while.
Eventually we had to go out and play in the wetness. She liked it, except for when she'd topple over and get a wet pebble jammed in her hand (go figure). One especially fun game was to step down into a little gully, step up out of it and then back up until she was in it again. I just tried to make sure the larger rocks were clear of the area.
Our days were spent taking short carries. Any parent of a toddler knows what a "carry" is: that's when your kid says she wants to go for a walk, but three feet in she's standing in front of you with her arms up, saying, "Uhhhhhhhhp." And no, she doesn't want to do the uphills herself, thanks.
Yesterday while Tom and I were making breakfast, and the boys were off releasing the lizards they'd caught, Mad roamed our campsite. She drew the eye of a 21 month old little girl, Alana, who was walking by with her own mama.
Alana was a little intrigued by Madelyn herself, and more so by Mad's stuffed dog. Mad shared it with her twice. Eventually Alana's mom took it and handed it back to Mad. This did not make Alana happy. She's not a loud little girl, but one word was quite distinct:
"MINE."
Mad hasn't spent much time around her talking peers. All of her friends are her same age (no, really... Luke is four hours older and Samantha is five days younger), and the talking has been pretty limited.
So this is a little shout-out to Miss Alana from Orange County.
Thanks, baby, for teaching my daughter her first four letter word. Now everything is "MINE."
Showing posts with label toddlers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toddlers. Show all posts
Monday, August 24, 2009
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Kids, Swine Flu and My Hands, Oh My
Corey is continuing his streak of helpfulness and minimally abrasive attitudes. I'm beginning to hope that it's not about a honeymoon, but that perhaps we've hit the right combination of various therapies and living in a home where he feels safe. (I may be a little defensive here, but we were completely safe in our previous home. The only problems he encountered were during those middle-of-the-night jaunts.) He continues to be an amazing big brother to Madelyn, as well as a fine junior pet owner for Maisy. We've had her for a week and he's already given her two baths... on top of the one that the dairy kids gave her before we brought her home.
Mad, on the other hand, is where our eyes must constantly be these days. People hear that her birthday was on Easter and they ask if she's walking yet. Uh... yeah... she started walking at nine months and three days. At this point she no longer has much of that baby way of walking. She's beginning to master the heel-toe, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other method. We have gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. She refuses to crawl up them. She will either be carried or you will hold her hands and let her use your thighs as a head rest as she marches one foot per stair on up, thank you very much; the thigh-as-headrest thing is because she has to lean back at about a 45 degree angle to accomplish one foot per stair. She doesn't mind. It gives her a chance to look up and smile at you. Grandma Margaret suggested that we teach her to go down the stairs backward.
Yeah, right.
Today, for the first time, one of us left the bottom gate open. Each of us thinks we are the culprit. It was a little hectic because we were having my brother's family and our mom over for dinner. I was playing with Maisy when I heard this sound from Madelyn that was not a word, but the verbalization of "Oh, crap. Help?" I looked up to see her trying to walk down from the second step... in the same manner that she goes up. One leg was perpendicular to the ground and then she went over. I was on my way before she landed, but not quite close enough to save her.
Mad seems to like her injuries clustered over a single day, with long respites in between. Today, in addition to the stair scare (she was fine), she experienced these things:
Further indignities Madelyn suffered included not being allowed to go outside while Maisy was romping around out there.
Our old apartment was tiny, crowded with our belongings and cluttered. One of my friends who helped us move said sympathetically, "I've heard that larger places are easier to keep clean." I figured she was lying and wondering how long it would be before we trashed the next place. Turns out, it really has been pretty easy. Sure, we have a ton of unpacked boxes in the garage. A lot of them truly are kitchen items. Most of the cupboards are bare because I still haven't gotten back on the painting, and who wants to set up the kitchen twice?
***Niece Sarah loves the color, by the way. Yeah, she's cool. Super cool, in fact. She attends a performing arts magnet school for theater arts. They are performing Rent next months. This video was taken four days after the parts were cast. I know it's mature subject matter, but she can handle it; she's grown up with my brother. Sarah is the one in the dark jacket. The video quality is poor, so she mostly doesn't seem to have a face and then appears to have a moon face. In fact, she's quite lovely.
My point about our old place was that our new place didn't take that long to get ready today, aside from food prep and laundry, most of the tidying has been maintained. One of the bonuses about having guests (even Bro's family, for whose visits I feel almost no stress) is that I can convince Tom to get something else done before they arrive. Today it was the kids' shower curtain rod. Of course it's only important to Corey, since Mad is a bath girl. Poor guy hasn't had a bona fide shower since we moved in. Thankfully he doesn't mind baths. Tom had a lot of trouble with the shower curtain rod. It's a curved one, and anchoring it well took three or four trips to Home Depot. Corey could take a shower at home tonight, except that he went home with Grammy so he can go to church tomorrow (ahem... and play computer games at her place, let's be honest, shall we?).
While Tom did the shower curtain bar, I prepped the marinade for the chicken. It was a new recipe for Beer Lime Grilled Chicken that I'd gotten from an email yesterday.
You know how the news is all about washing our hands in warm water with lots of soap for at least 20 seconds because of Swine Flu? And how moms of babies may wash their hands more than other people because of diaper changes, etc.? And people who have a dog with round worm may be especially vigilant about soap and 20 seconds? And how no matter how bold the lettering on the pump declares that it's moisturizing, in fact it will dry your hands faster than anything else out there?
Imagine sticking those hands into marinade that included the juice from about six limes.
Yeah, that hurt! Still hurts.
I took part of a CPR/First Aid class yesterday (it was a crap class, so I left). The instructor did make one good point about why we should all use gloves when dealing with another person's bodily fluids: You probably aren't aware of every tiny little cut here or there. I guess she was right, but I can identify most of them now! My goal between now and Monday night's sign class is to constantly moisturize so that the raw meat look goes away, or at least starts to get better.
Mad, on the other hand, is where our eyes must constantly be these days. People hear that her birthday was on Easter and they ask if she's walking yet. Uh... yeah... she started walking at nine months and three days. At this point she no longer has much of that baby way of walking. She's beginning to master the heel-toe, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other method. We have gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. She refuses to crawl up them. She will either be carried or you will hold her hands and let her use your thighs as a head rest as she marches one foot per stair on up, thank you very much; the thigh-as-headrest thing is because she has to lean back at about a 45 degree angle to accomplish one foot per stair. She doesn't mind. It gives her a chance to look up and smile at you. Grandma Margaret suggested that we teach her to go down the stairs backward.
Yeah, right.
Today, for the first time, one of us left the bottom gate open. Each of us thinks we are the culprit. It was a little hectic because we were having my brother's family and our mom over for dinner. I was playing with Maisy when I heard this sound from Madelyn that was not a word, but the verbalization of "Oh, crap. Help?" I looked up to see her trying to walk down from the second step... in the same manner that she goes up. One leg was perpendicular to the ground and then she went over. I was on my way before she landed, but not quite close enough to save her.
Mad seems to like her injuries clustered over a single day, with long respites in between. Today, in addition to the stair scare (she was fine), she experienced these things:
- Got tangled up with Maisy on the back patio; fell over backward and bonked her head... hard.
- Purposely put a foot into Maisy's water dish and then slipped trying to make her get-away... twice.
- Stepped on a book and had it slide so far that she fell down sort of in the splits.
- Fell while carrying said book, thereby jamming it into her neck.
Further indignities Madelyn suffered included not being allowed to go outside while Maisy was romping around out there.
- Sampling a dirt clod and discovering that it's not as great as it looks.
- Being allowed out, but only while carried because she was in sock feet.
- Being forced to come inside from her wagon ride because she was strapped into the wagon and that's where her brother and Cousin Sarah pulled it.
- Sampling a bathtub crayon and learning that it, too, does not taste as good as it looks.
Our old apartment was tiny, crowded with our belongings and cluttered. One of my friends who helped us move said sympathetically, "I've heard that larger places are easier to keep clean." I figured she was lying and wondering how long it would be before we trashed the next place. Turns out, it really has been pretty easy. Sure, we have a ton of unpacked boxes in the garage. A lot of them truly are kitchen items. Most of the cupboards are bare because I still haven't gotten back on the painting, and who wants to set up the kitchen twice?
***Niece Sarah loves the color, by the way. Yeah, she's cool. Super cool, in fact. She attends a performing arts magnet school for theater arts. They are performing Rent next months. This video was taken four days after the parts were cast. I know it's mature subject matter, but she can handle it; she's grown up with my brother. Sarah is the one in the dark jacket. The video quality is poor, so she mostly doesn't seem to have a face and then appears to have a moon face. In fact, she's quite lovely.
My point about our old place was that our new place didn't take that long to get ready today, aside from food prep and laundry, most of the tidying has been maintained. One of the bonuses about having guests (even Bro's family, for whose visits I feel almost no stress) is that I can convince Tom to get something else done before they arrive. Today it was the kids' shower curtain rod. Of course it's only important to Corey, since Mad is a bath girl. Poor guy hasn't had a bona fide shower since we moved in. Thankfully he doesn't mind baths. Tom had a lot of trouble with the shower curtain rod. It's a curved one, and anchoring it well took three or four trips to Home Depot. Corey could take a shower at home tonight, except that he went home with Grammy so he can go to church tomorrow (ahem... and play computer games at her place, let's be honest, shall we?).
While Tom did the shower curtain bar, I prepped the marinade for the chicken. It was a new recipe for Beer Lime Grilled Chicken that I'd gotten from an email yesterday.
You know how the news is all about washing our hands in warm water with lots of soap for at least 20 seconds because of Swine Flu? And how moms of babies may wash their hands more than other people because of diaper changes, etc.? And people who have a dog with round worm may be especially vigilant about soap and 20 seconds? And how no matter how bold the lettering on the pump declares that it's moisturizing, in fact it will dry your hands faster than anything else out there?
Imagine sticking those hands into marinade that included the juice from about six limes.
Yeah, that hurt! Still hurts.
I took part of a CPR/First Aid class yesterday (it was a crap class, so I left). The instructor did make one good point about why we should all use gloves when dealing with another person's bodily fluids: You probably aren't aware of every tiny little cut here or there. I guess she was right, but I can identify most of them now! My goal between now and Monday night's sign class is to constantly moisturize so that the raw meat look goes away, or at least starts to get better.
Monday, March 02, 2009
I Had It Coming
... and I knew it, too! I called it 14 years ago. You see, Corey was the model baby. Born 24 minutes past his due date, learned to latch on the first time he tried it, mild case of jaundice, but nothing else to worry a mom throughout his infancy. The toddler years were peachy-keen, too. If he was heading toward something he shouldn't, I just turned him around. If he had his hands on something I didn't want him to have, I simply traded for something else. Of course, the past 10 years have been a roller coaster that hasn't always been exciting in a way one would like.
Madelyn, however...
Tom says she gets it from me.
I say he's absolutely right. I have an ability to focus on a goal and achieve it, big or small.
Tom says that's not what he's talking about.
Let's go back a little way, shall we? Not too far, because she's only 10 months old (oh alright... and a half). Tummy time is the catch phrase used to remind parents of newborns that babies still need to practice being on their tummies, even though they shouldn't sleep that way. Tom is a believer in practicing... anything. So Mad had lots of tummy time. In the beginning, she spent the whole time (a minute or so) yelling and trying to lift her head as far away from the floor as possible.
It has always been simple to tell that Mad's learning something new. Why? Well, because she always combines the learning process with lots of yelling.
Learning to roll over? Aaaaaahh! Now the other way? Aahh! (There's a learning curve, apparently.)
Crawling? Sitting up? Cruising? Walking? Yelling.
She's learning to talk now, so the yells are coming out in different ways. But for a girl who was born with a collapsed lung, she never was a quiet one. And hanging out at Papa's house all day isn't making her any quieter. It's like they're related or something (sort of a joke, sort of serious here... of course he's my dad, but he and I have no blood between us).
This weekend Madelyn grabbed my lip balm. I was holding her and the deal (I thought she understood) was that she could hold it as long as she was in my lap. "No deal!" she declared with loud bawling yells and lots of tears. I believe my daughter... six weeks from her first birthday... has had her first temper tantrum!
Yesterday evening we took her outside to enjoy the great weather before things cool off and the rain comes back. She walked back and forth on the sidewalk for nearly 45 minutes. When there was more falling than walking and we realized dinner time was upon us, I merely suggested that we go inside. "No deal!" she howled again. Tom decided to try things in a way I'm surprised I didn't come up with... he would let her walk in by herself instead of me picking her up.
Ten minutes later we were dragging a yowling, tear-drenched baby into the house. I believe she has had two temper tantrums!
I know I couldn't have handled tantrums from Corey back when I predicted that a second child of mine wouldn't be so easily managed. I was nearly a wee babe myself, so I am grateful that he didn't have them. And I'm so grateful to have someone to share Madelyn's with since she is clearly about to give us a real run for our money.
My latest goal? Not laughing while she's yelling.
Madelyn, however...
Tom says she gets it from me.
I say he's absolutely right. I have an ability to focus on a goal and achieve it, big or small.
Tom says that's not what he's talking about.
Let's go back a little way, shall we? Not too far, because she's only 10 months old (oh alright... and a half). Tummy time is the catch phrase used to remind parents of newborns that babies still need to practice being on their tummies, even though they shouldn't sleep that way. Tom is a believer in practicing... anything. So Mad had lots of tummy time. In the beginning, she spent the whole time (a minute or so) yelling and trying to lift her head as far away from the floor as possible.
It has always been simple to tell that Mad's learning something new. Why? Well, because she always combines the learning process with lots of yelling.
Learning to roll over? Aaaaaahh! Now the other way? Aahh! (There's a learning curve, apparently.)
Crawling? Sitting up? Cruising? Walking? Yelling.
She's learning to talk now, so the yells are coming out in different ways. But for a girl who was born with a collapsed lung, she never was a quiet one. And hanging out at Papa's house all day isn't making her any quieter. It's like they're related or something (sort of a joke, sort of serious here... of course he's my dad, but he and I have no blood between us).
This weekend Madelyn grabbed my lip balm. I was holding her and the deal (I thought she understood) was that she could hold it as long as she was in my lap. "No deal!" she declared with loud bawling yells and lots of tears. I believe my daughter... six weeks from her first birthday... has had her first temper tantrum!
Yesterday evening we took her outside to enjoy the great weather before things cool off and the rain comes back. She walked back and forth on the sidewalk for nearly 45 minutes. When there was more falling than walking and we realized dinner time was upon us, I merely suggested that we go inside. "No deal!" she howled again. Tom decided to try things in a way I'm surprised I didn't come up with... he would let her walk in by herself instead of me picking her up.
Ten minutes later we were dragging a yowling, tear-drenched baby into the house. I believe she has had two temper tantrums!
I know I couldn't have handled tantrums from Corey back when I predicted that a second child of mine wouldn't be so easily managed. I was nearly a wee babe myself, so I am grateful that he didn't have them. And I'm so grateful to have someone to share Madelyn's with since she is clearly about to give us a real run for our money.
My latest goal? Not laughing while she's yelling.
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