Happy Halloween!

Halloween is coming! But...

We have our little pumpkin (really, it's little. not even very carve-able) and a ghost decorating our front porch, and we found some adorable accessories for R's cat costume--she's going to be soooo cute!--but I just haven't been that into Halloween this year. I've actually been more focused on Christmas.

This is new for me. I'm not usually into the Christmas mood this early, and I'm definitely not one of those Christmas-all-year-round kind of people, either, but right now, all I really want to do is talk Christmas gifts. Anybody else out there know what you're getting your child for Christmas? (How about about you guys, A&M and Surf&Cali--what are you getting for our little nephews??)

So far, J and I have gotten R a Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere Chair (with the navy gingham slipcover), and we also want to get her some accessories for her doll. Part of me is tempted to get her a new doll but she really doesn't need one. We're also toying with the idea of making her a combination dollhouse/bookcase. I found a few plans online that look cute and hopefully aren't too hard. When Grammie and Grampie come visit next weekend I think Grampie will help us figure out the plan. Maybe. (Right, Grampie?)

We'll see. We haven't decided on any of the little stuff yet, so I'd love to hear other ideas.

So, what do all of the rest of you have planned?

Our little ghost

So, R's Halloween costume has been completed - and no, it's not a sheet full of holes. But maybe we should have gone the ghost route? She's been getting into this game of peek-a-boos. I know, she came a little late to it, as I know her peers were covering their eyes at half her age. But the way she does it is so distinctly R. She puts her hands over her face and sometimes she closes her eyes and other times, she's peeking in between her fingers. Then she waits. We watch. We wait. She waits. Then you hear, just barely, as if she's muttering to herself, this little "boo." And her "b" sound is a little different. Kind of like the spanish "v". A little bit of a "bvoo." It's short. It's quiet. And then the hands come out, and you see that all the while she has this impish little grin. Of course, we respond with our own "boo!" or "gasp!" or "There she is!" (this last after going on about looking for R while her hands cover her eyes). And she smiles really big and puts those hands right back up in place. What an excellent little ghost she would be.

She will in fact be a cat for Halloween. And a fine cat she will be. If you ask her what the cat says, she will often tell you "maow." She also says and signs cat and she loves to follow our own cats around. Not to mention she has taken a liking to her tail (if not her ears). So she will be a natural as a cat. I have no regrets.

But then again. We bought a stand-up ghost decoration for our porch at the last orchard visit and R really loves pointing at it and saying "bvoo" or when I tell her what it is "goad." Maybe we'll have to cut some holes in a sheet after all.

(She also likes to say hi to both the cat and the ghost).

Maybe we should have gotten the stroller?

Before they left, GiGi and PopPop gave us some money to get a little something for R. J and I had been talking about possibly getting R a stroller for her doll, and GiGi and PopPop suggested that that we pick one up for her.

On Sunday, J and I made it to Target, but instead of getting the stroller, we got this little high chair for her. We thought she would have a lot of fun feeding her doll and putting it in and out of the high chair, since she already does this with her regular high chair.

When we showed it to her, though, all she wanted to do was push it around.

(Fortunately, that's not the only thing she's wanted to do with it--she has fed the baby a whole mess of times since yesterday.)

Photo Shoot

J and R and I had a family photo shoot about three weeks ago. We went to a local park and got some photos taken of us just goofing off and being together. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the time we spent outside. We'll definitely have to go back there and just let her run around and enjoy the trail.

GiGi and PopPop

GiGi and PopPop spend every winter down in Florida, and on their way down there this weekend they made a pit stop at our house. Boy, R has been eating up all the attention!

This was a rainy weekend here and she's been cooped up inside. But it's a lot easier to keep her entertained inside with GiGi and PopPop here. Because of the rain, we didn't get to show them as much of the city as we might have liked but we had a terrific dinner at the local vegetarian-friendly restaurant on Friday and then tonight we took them to the oldest restaurant in town and had some pretty good traditional American food. They're heading out early tomorrow morning, and R will definitely miss them after they leave.

A recent purchase

Our rental house is getting pretty cold now that the temperature is dropping. I'm not sure the house is well insulated at all. The floors, especially, are quite cold, so we needed to get some slippers for R.

She currently owns the cutest pair of bunny slippers ever, given to her when she was still a newborn by my friend D's grandmother, and, even though they say 0-6 months, they still fit on her feet. A little tight, but they fit! Unfortunately, they don't have any traction, and she slips (ha-ha, slips, get it?) all over the place when she wears them.

We just ordered a pair of these, in size 3/4, in pink, of course, and then a pair in 5/6 in the light blue, just because I wasn't sure how long the 3/4s would still fit, but was pretty sure the 5/6s would be too big. I hope she likes them.

She probably will. She likes just about anything that goes on her feet.

151 posts

I just realized today that my last post was my 150th blog post. Seems like a lot, doesn't it? Especially when you realize I've been posting at the rate of more than 1 post per day for the last 4 months. Whew.

I've been having so much fun with the blogging, though!

It's fun to hear from folks who read the blog and enjoy the things I put up on here, and it's fun to show off some of the things that R does. And it's fun to solicit feedback and opinions about stuff.

So here's to another 150 posts. (Oh, and another milestone this blog passed recently was having more than 2000 hits-- I think today we're up to 2010 visits to the blog!)

Reason #2,567 I'm So Glad to Have Family Visit

My mom, while watching me give R a bath and futilely try to get her to tip her head back so I could rinse soap out of her hair, taught me how to hold her kind of lying down in the tub to get her hair rinsed.

These are the things you learn simply by hanging out and watching people do stuff. I can't wait for more family to visit! GiGi and PopPop are coming this weekend and Grammie and Grampie in a couple weekends.

This is exactly why we made this move. So awesome.

Grandma and Grandpa's First Visit to Town

My parents came to visit this weekend. Some highlights of their visit:

We took R to another orchard. It was a lot more crowded than the first one so we didn't let her run around at all. My dad and I got caramel apples, mmm!
My parents and I turned into witches.
My mom and I picked out some awesome--awesome-- cupcakes from this adorably cute little shop downtown and enjoyed them for dessert on Sunday.R wore a brand-new outfit and had fun putting rings on her feet.

A comparison

Me between 14-16 months old:
A couple recent photos of R:
Some photos of J (we're not exactly sure how old he is in these photos, but we're guessing close to a year):

J had better enjoy this while it lasts!

Just watch.

Where's your nose?

I think she found it.

Night Fairies and Imps

Remember that contest I won? We just got the painting! It is so awesome! I am really impressed with the detail in this thing-- it's only 5x7 but there are so many little touches to all of the different elements. My favorite feature is the long eyelashes on the flower fairy faces.

Here's a link to a picture of the painting on Penny Pickles' blog.

Oh, I just love it! I love the way the colors pop, and the fact that it's a night time scene, and that all the details make it so fun to look at. I have to confess that seeing a picture of the painting isn't nearly as good as seeing the painting in real life. The paint has this awesome texture that makes it really interesting to look at and that doesn't show hardly at all in the picture.

We haven't decided where to hang it in R's room yet. The walls in this house are kind of tough to nail anything into so we've really had a hard time hanging things up. I'll post pictures when we finally do get it up, though.

See R Run

Last month, we had to get R some new shoes since her little pink Stride Rites were getting too tight and very hard to put on.

I'd been wanting to get some See Kai Run shoes since falling in love with this orange pair of sandals earlier this summer. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get them because the smallest size the shoes came in was a size 3, and R wasn't anywhere close to a 3 when I was looking. I ended up getting a pair of adorable sandals from Target in a size 2, but I still secretly wanted the orange sandals.

When I went shopping for new shoes for R though, I had to pass over the orange sandals once again. As cute as they are, it's simply going to be too cold for her to wear them anymore this year (although I am secretly tempted to buy them in a larger size and hope that they fit R next summer, since they are on sale now!)

Anyway, even though I successfully resisted the orange sandals, I did satisfy my craving for some See Kai Run shoes, and I'm so glad I did. I *LOVE* them. I love them actually even more than the two pairs of Stride Rite shoes she's had. The See Kai Run shoes are softer, easier for R to move in, and because they're wide in the toe, I don't worry as much about toe compression as her feet grow. And. AND. They are SO totally cute!

Here she is wearing her See Kai Run "Elias" shoes. They're completely awesome, aren't they? We love them. (And if you're curious, the size fives we got are these ones.)

"Macaroni and Cheese"

J dug around and finally unearthed our art box--the rubbermaid container that has our assorted art supplies, including my 64-crayon box of Crayola crayons. So we introduced R to coloring.The finished product, hanging proudly on our refrigerator!

As an aside: While R colored with J, I amused myself by reading all the different colors on the crayons. (R is looking at "Macaroni and Cheese" in the picture below.)
What I'm going to say really isn't news, since I bought these crayons like 10 years ago or something, but it's been a long time since I paid attention to the names of the colors. A lot of them are different from the ones I remember from grade school. There seem to be a lot more colors named after things, (i.e., they're not actual names of colors) such as "Dandelion" and the aforementioned "Macaroni and Cheese." And there were a slew of names that, I guess, were just meant to be clever, like "Purple Mountain's Majesty" or "Mauvelous" or "Tickle Me Pink."

Honestly, if it were up to me, I would just as soon call the colors an actual color. Light Purple, Mauve, and Pink all seem to me to be perfectly fine names for crayons. Do I sound like a fuddy-duddy here? I feel like my age is talking or something! But I just don't see what you gain by calling a crayon "Purple Mountain's Majesty."

She kept it on...

...for about 10 minutes!

On Sleeping: A Few Thoughts

Some of you may remember our sleep experiment, where we tried putting R to sleep a little later in the hopes that she would sleep a little later. Overall, the experiment was kind of a failure. We often didn't put her to sleep that much later than her usual time since she was usually so tired by the time 6 p.m. rolled around (or even 5:30 p.m. for that matter) that keeping her up was mostly an exercise in dealing with a really really unhappy baby. And it didn't really result in her sleeping much later.

However, over the last few days, she's been waking up between 5 and 6, and today, she didn't get up until almost 6:30. As J put it this morning, why couldn't she sleep in this late on the weekend?

Anyway, my new theory is that she was waking up so early because she was so snotty and because she wasn't sleeping well with her colds, and that now that her colds seem to have gone away, she may fall back into a more regular sleep routine which (we hope!) will involve sleeping in until 5:30 or later.

I'll keep you updated, especially since we're still trying to push her bedtime back a little due to daylight savings time ("Fall Back") coming up soon. I don't think we could handle a 5 p.m. bedtime because it makes dinner and bath way too early.

16 months

Dear R,

Your sixteenth month has served as a reminder that it is not always easy to be little. You have gotten to the point where you want to do and try so many new things! But you can't always figure them out. You howl in frustration if you can't open something, if something doesn't move the way you want it to, or if we hide something from you that you can't have.

To be fair, though, some of your frustration has been compounded by the two rather nasty colds you got this month. With one, we took you to the pediatrician and got you on antibiotics for the first time in your entire life, and with the other, we dealt with rivulets of cream-colored snot oozing out your nose nearly non-stop and clogging your nostrils when you woke up in the morning.

Mama and Daddy are both breathing big sighs of relief now that you are sleeping much better without those colds.

We've had so much fun with you this month! You love to put things inside other things-- this might mean filling up a paper bag and carrying it around your shoulder, or dumping out a bag full of blocks just so you can put them in a different container, or pulling out one of your little felt purses and stuffing whatever you can find into it. You repeatedly fill and empty all kinds of containers. You have learned to try different angles and directions in order to make something fit. You don't just try to fit your toys together, though. You also love to make yourself fit into little places, squeezing into a variety of hiding places--most often behind furniture, under your bed, or under the table.

We finally hung some photos in our dining room, and you wave and point to the 8x10 photo of you while you are eating. Your favorite toy is still the doll you received from GiGi and PopPop. All of your dolls and teddy bears regularly get fed and their hair brushed, teeth brushed, and noses wiped. We can't wait to see what you'll learn to do with them next.

Love,
Mama

A Beautiful Fall Afternoon

The weather was gorgeous today so J, R, and I went to a local orchard. We thought we'd get some pumpkins, apples, and cider, but it turns out all we bought was an apple cider doughnut for me. The doughnut was awesome. But we still want to pick up actual apples and cider, so we're going to check out a different orchard next weekend when my parents come visit.

R loved all the animals. There were little baby goats (so cute) and she spent some time dancing to the little chickens' cheeping (although the video doesn't really show her dancing).

Funny thing, though. Probably the one thing she enjoyed most and got angriest about us not letting her do more of, was playing with the gravel on the walking path. Go figure!

Self-Portrait

Bye Bye!

R has had a major runny nose for the last week or so and she's been a little bit unhappy.

The other day, J was going to take her with him to the store to pick up some diapers for day care, but she got pretty fussy and sneezy right about the time he was gearing up to go. So I said I would just keep her home while he ran to the store.

R had other ideas.

As soon as he walked into the living room to walk out the door, she ran up to him and asked to be picked up.

Then, as he was walking and about to put her down, she says, to me, in a chipper little voice, "Bye bye!"

So J took her to the store with him. She was very excited about that.

I got new glasses

Japanese socks

My friend M picked up these socks for R when she went to Japan for Christmas last year to stay with her husband's family. They were way too big for R's feet for a long time but lately they've been fitting really well! Here she is modelling them. When she has these particular socks on, she's always pointing out the toe straps on the socks. Aren't they cute???

Toothpaste

Yesterday I took R to the natural foods store because it's the closest grocery store to us and we needed to pick up a few things, including whole milk for R and some more fruit and fresh veggies. I had intended to stop at Walgreens on the way back home but decided against that plan because of the hassle of carrying all the groceries plus pushing the stroller. So I just looked at the natural foods store for infant toothpaste to see what they had, and found this stuff: Weleda Children's Tooth Gel. We've only used it once, but it seems fine so far. R wasn't nuts about having her teeth brushed, but we'll keep working on it and eventually she'll probably like it.

Those of you who brush your baby's teeth, do you do it 2x a day, after every meal, or just 1x a day? Our pediatrician seemed to say it was fine to just do it right after nursing before bed, but I'm not sure if we should be doing it at other times of day, too.

And, while we're talking about teeth, R has eight teeth now! Four on top and four on bottom. No molars yet, as far as we can tell.

Sleep Experiment: Mornings 3 and 4

For the last couple of mornings, R has been waking up after 5:00. We've been inconsistent at getting her to bed close to 7, though. It's safe to say that it happens between 6 and 7 but it's still often closer to 6 than to 7. I dunno. We're not that great at precise timing, and we've been so busy the last few days that I feel like I can hardly remember when what where.

We also haven't had a chance to look for infant toothpaste yet but I plan to look tomorrow while R and I are out and about.

Feeding the Baby: A Photo Essay

Ok, Baby. Get all buckled in!
Wait a minute. You're a little too high. C'mere.
This spot is better.
There you go. Mmmm, food.

15 month check-up

R had her 15 month doctor's appointment today. I couldn't go, but J took her and reported back that he really likes the doctor. Yay, that's a relief! She got her first dose of her flu shot, and we have to go back in a month to get her vaccines and the second dose of the flu shot. She weighed 21 lbs, 9.5 oz (25th percentile) and was 30.5 inches long (50th percentile). The doc pronounced her perfectly healthy, and she's hitting all of her developmental milestones. We just have to start brushing her teeth with an actual infant toothpaste-- we'll look into getting that very soon.

Sleep Experiment: Morning 2

Ok, the sleep experiment isn't going that well. Mostly because R really wants to go to bed shortly after 6. She's so ready, that trying to keep her up longer is an exercise in her being really really unhappy until I just nurse her and lay her down.

But the good news is that today, even though she went to bed at 6:15 last night, she didn't wake up until 5:30, which is actually pretty close to perfect timing in the morning, especially when I'm up at 3:30.

So we'll just have to see what time she gets up tomorrow. Here's hoping it's 5:30 again!