Portraits slideshow

I found a way to share a slideshow of the family portrait session we had taken a week and a half ago. I love how the pictures turned out but they charge too much for the digital rights.
SLIDESHOW LINK

I'm not sure how long that link will work but I think it'll work for 90 days from the session. And I think it uses javascript, so some browsers might have difficulty viewing it depending on settings.

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours, have a Merry Christmas!

Rose Petal Cottage

Here is Sasha in her Rose Petal Cottage while her dad was assembling it.
My husband is amazing when it comes to assembling stuff, and it took him barely 15-20 minutes to assemble the house AND all the additional toy sets that came with it. I think I read somewhere that it takes like an hour to assemble. This included the stove, sink, washing machine, table and chairs, and the whole house.
A special "thank you" to Mike, my husband's relative, for the Rose Petal Cottage set. It was his gift to Sasha. She LOVES this little house set.
She spent the whole evening in it. It has doors, so Sasha was in and out of the doors all night. She loves to point out the windows. She pretended to cook us some oatmeal, she took off her sweater and "washed" it in the washing machine. She is constantly rearranging her furniture just-so. She constantly (yet forcefully) invites her big sister to come in the house then kicks her out again.
Definitely her favorite present.
I didn't realize that I didn't take a picture of the full set all assembled, mostly because Sasha started playing with it all even before assembly was completed.

Opening Xmas Presents!

Playing with her new "My Little Pony" while opening gifts.
Reading a book that came with one of her presents.
Sasha wanted to stop and play with each and every gift as she opened them, so opening presents took her a while. She got some really great presents this year!
-A wooden puzzle with airplane, helicopter, firetruck, car, boat, train, and ambulance pieces that make noises.
-A My Little Pony
-A wooden doll dress up set
-A Rose Petal Cottage playhouse
-A Rose Petal Kitchen Sink
-A Rose Petal washing machine
-A Rose Petal table and chair set
-A Rose Petal stove
Basically, the full Rose Petal Cottage set. She actually got two Rose Petal Cottages, because I ordered one from Amazon.com before I learned that someone (Thanks Mike!!!) had also got one for her as a gift. I couldn't cancel the order in time, but that's okay. We can take one back and she can pick something else out. Great minds think alike :)

Ready for Christmas

Sasha is ready for Christmas!
She has a pile of gift-wrapped presents in the living room (Thanks Mike!), and those presents have her full attention. My husband wanted us to put the presents out to steadily pique her interest, and his tactic has definitely succeeded.
She likes to pick the presents up and shake them. She grabbed one present and was walking around the house with it. I asked her what was in it. She had a look of deep thought cross her face. She shook the present, listened to it, thought some more, then knowingly announced "It's candy!". She nodded to herself and continued to walk around with the present again.

We've been talking to Sasha about Christmas, and Santa and presents. She seems to understand somewhat. The other day I asked her if she wanted presents and she nodded and said "Mmmm-hmm", which means yes. I then asked her what she wanted to have inside her presents. She thought for a few seconds and said, "A house please". She's been in a house playing mood lately.

Portraits

Thumbnails only from the family portrait session the other day.


And yes, that is a wrench in Sasha's hands. The photographer had a toy wrench among her props. Once Sasha saw that, she grabbed it and wouldn't let it go.

Fun and games

Sasha has been so fun to be around lately. I can't keep up.
Her pretend play cracks me up. Yesterday, she renamed us all. She now insists we call her "Wow Wow Wubbzy", her favorite tv show character. My husband she calls "Fix-it", which is what she calls the "Widget" character from Wow Wow Wubbzy. Her Mom (that's me!) is now Walden, and Cassie is renamed "Daisy", also from the same show.

She is always in my closet, pretending that it is her house. It's a nice little hiding spot for her.
She's been more affectionate than usual with me. Lately, she gave most of her affection to my husband but she seems to be making up for that with extra hugs, kisses, and snuggles. It warms my heart to see her charge at me from across the house to hug me as she yells "I GOT YOU!".
Her vocabulary is really growing! Full sentences and she's constantly amazing me with new phrases.

At the mall yesterday, my husband went into the Apple store to drool over laptops and computer stuff, while the girls and I went to pick up our family portraits. Sasha noticed he was gone and started asking me, "Where's Dad go? Where's Dad go?". Her sentence syntax amused me. But it was neat that she was able to ask a question about someone not present.
We still have plenty of times where we wish she could communicate to us what she wanted. Temper tantrums and fits are still a constant struggle in our household and we're often mystified as to what she wants. Soon though, she'll be able to tell us what she's thinking.

Getting ready for a winter storm

We're expected to get about a foot of snow tonight, and it's supposed to snow pretty much non-stop for the next 4 days. As I type this, it is snowing pretty good outside. So I do believe that Cassie will have a snow day today. I will still have to work, but otherwise we will probably be holed up in our apartment for the next few days.
Not that it's much change. This winter we've been mostly hidden away indoors anyways. Just now we don't have a choice. I do worry that we could lose power or cable or internet connectivity. That shouldn't be much fun.

These storms should keep me very busy at work as well. They're calling for extra help so I might have to work some extra hours. Our workplace is very prepared for the storms. They've purchased some groceries and even some toiletries in case we get stuck at work for a while.

Family portrait day

Good news: We got our family portrait taken today at a local photography studio. They turned out great! Tons of awesome pics. Cassie was looking great with her hair and makeup, and Sasha was as cute as a button.

Bad news: They want over $500 for digital rights to the pictures. You'll never see them online. We could only afford to purchase one picture, printed on paper. And we won't receive those for 2 weeks.

My little 2-year old is rarely dressed appropriately for pictures lately, and she was looking cute so I tried to take some pics of her. She is completely non-cooperative for a camera when mom is on the other side of the lens. The only way I got any pics was with her on her bike.
So I've got these from today:


She was not sitting still in these pics. She was riding her bike down the hallway and laughing at mom trying to take pictures. It was funny to her because I had to jump in front of her, snap the pic, then dodge her riding her bike so she didn't run me over. It's not easy keeping up with a 2 year old sometimes.

Today, she's a dog

Everyday, Sasha pretends she is a different animal. Today (at a local asian noodle restaurant), she was a dog. Sorry for the annoying mom-voice.

Little Dancer

I got a few pics off my camera. This one is at least a month old but I had to post about it.
Sasha loves two songs by Feist. There's that "1234" song, and another song called "I feel it all".
In this picture, Sasha is dancing to "I feel it all" while watching the music video on my computer monitor. In the video, Feist dances around with a big stick. Sasha ran and grabbed her toy broomstick so she could copy the dance moves properly. She's dancing in front of the computer and swinging her stick around with the music.

Then once the dancing was done, she played a bit more with her broom.
Yeah, no pants. I'm lucky to get her to keep any clothes on her at all some days.

Sasha's christmas gifts

I found a GREAT deal on Sasha's christmas present.
As I had mentioned in a previous post, Sasha's been very interested in creating little "houses" for herself. She hides herself in boxes and laundry baskets and under blankets.
So I was considering getting her a Rose Petal Cottage. It was a bit on the expensive side, at $79.99 so I had decided not to get it (money is tight). But Amazon.com has it on sale for $29.99 so now she's getting it!
Earlier today, I got her a puzzle and a wooden Melissa and Doug dress up doll. So I think I'm done with her christmas shopping.

Sasha's house

Laundry baskets and boxes make the best toys for two-year-olds. Lately, Sasha loves climbing into and out of them. She turns them upside down and hides under them, or climbs inside and lays down in them.
My husband makes little makeshift forts for Sasha out of boxes, pillows, chairs, and blankets. Sometimes they are simple little constructs, but sometimes they're quite elaborate. Sasha has a blast with them. She loves to hide inside them for extended periods of time, and pretends they are her house. "Sasha's house!". He puts a pillow and blanket inside for her to get herself all cozy too.
----
Today Sasha was sitting at our computer desk, nicely drawing on a piece of paper. She kept saying "directions! directions" as she scribbled away. I found it amusing. I wonder what her directions were for :P

Interesting age

This past week or two, Sasha's made some great leaps in her ability to communicate. It also seems like we're seeing a lot more of her little personality come through, although it could seem that way because of her improved communication.
Her words are clearer. Her sentences are a little longer and more complicated. And she sometimes talks about random things unrelated to the situation before her.
I was a little worried that her speaking skills were a little behind. Perhaps it's because her older sister Cassie was such a precocious early talker. It's hard not to compare children. It also doesn't help sometimes that I hear about some really good talkers on an online message board about children Sasha's age that I frequently read. But I shouldn't worry. She's average as far as the milestone charts go, and I think I am probably comparing her to some really precocious kids.
We know she understands a lot of what we say. She's got a good comprehension vocabulary.
Like I said, Sasha's really talking more lately, especially when it comes to expressing what she wants or doesn't want. That child is quite opinionated!
She's also been tempermental. She seems more prone to tantrums and more likely to throw herself to the floor in little fits for trivial things.

She seems to be testing us. She's getting into everything that she's not supposed to, then gets mad when we shoo her away or take contraband items away from her. As parents, we now sound like broken records: Sasha! No Sasha. Don't touch that. Get down from there. Now. Sasha get down. Sasha no!
I guess this is the terrible twos.

Snowy walk

Earlier this week, it snowed outside. Actually, it's been snowing almost all week. But after the first snow this week, a cold spell hit the area, with frigid temperatures in the single digits (Fahrenheit).
Fortunately, before the frigid temperatures came our way, I was able to take Sasha outside for a little explore and a walk to the local 7-Eleven. It happened on Tuesday. It was a nice and warm 34F degrees, and the snow had started to melt a little. There was still plenty of snow for Sasha to inspect. I re-introduced Sasha to SNOW. I let her touch it and try to play with it, but she didn't like how it made her hands cold and wet so she wasn't interested in it for long, other than to remark on occasionally and to let me know that it was white.
The walk was fun for us. The local 7-Eleven was only about a block and a half away. I had to explain to Sasha about streets and sidewalks and cars. And how to be careful of those cars, especially when crossing the streets. For now, Mom or Dad have to carry Sasha when crossing the street.
We made it to the store. Sasha's been a little ice cream fiend lately, so I figured I'd let her buy two cartons of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. She proudly carried her ice cream to the cashier's counter and purchased it. She also carried that bag of ice cream the whole way back home.

I'm glad we were able to get her outside, if even for a day, before the cold snap. We're now stuck indoors until it gets warmer and stops snowing so much.

So much fun!

Here's one of Sasha's phrases. I have no idea where she picked it up!
"SO MUCH FUN!"
She says it when she's having fun. It cracks me up. Like she'll be jumping on the bed yelling "SO MUCH FUN! SO MUCH FUN!".

When Sasha plays ball, she kicks the ball around the house and chases it yelling, "I DID IT! I DID IT!". Again, I don't know where she got that. Is she mimicking something she saw, or is she really encouraging herself?

Frog

Yesterday, I noticed Sasha was hopping around the house saying "Ribbit! Ribbit!". She's been doing that increasingly lately. I joked with her and asked her if she was a frog. She looked at me funny, thought a second, then said "uh-huh".
I didn't think much of it until a little later. I called to Sasha, by her name, as I always seem to be doing lately. She sternly responded by patting herself on the chest and saying, "NO! Frog!".
She kept this up all day. She gets upset with us if we call her Sasha. She is now Frog.
Cassie finds this very amusing.
There was a break for an hour yesterday evening, when Sasha was playing with her toy doctor set. She no longer responded to Frog nor Sasha. "No! I Doctor!" she corrected. But once she was done with her doctor set, she was back to Frog.

This is a first for Sasha. Pretend play? She's always played with her dolls in a pretend play sort of manner. She mothers them. But I think that's a bit different. That was more like mimicking than pretending. I suppose now that I think of it, Sasha first started giving her dolls voices a week or two ago.
Something interesting is happening in her little head.

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my family and all the love we have for each other. I feel truly blessed to be so loved and to have so much love for them.

For thanksgiving, I had to work night shift. I still managed to make a full homemade turkey dinner, with gravy, stuffing, garlic smashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and corn. All homemade except the stuffing, and it was all very good.
I wrapped the turkey up in bacon! It turned out really pretty, and tasty too. Sasha loved the bacon.
So I made the dinner and zonked out to sleep for the day. I mostly like the left-overs anyways.

I miss my mom. She usually does the Black Friday festivities with my daughter Cassie. Cassie was also nostalgic for some Black Friday shopping. It was hard on us this year, not having her around. My mom was always the one who got into the holidays while the rest of us were bah-humbug.

THAT phase again.

Well, there won't be many pictures attached to blog entries for a while. Sasha is in a phase. The moment she wakes up, she runs into the living room and takes off all her clothes and diaper. If we put clothes on her, she takes them back off again. She does some cute things, but I'm not taking any pictures until she keeps her clothes back on, hehe.

She's a real talker lately. She's got some catchy phrases that she says.
- She'll kiss us and then look us right in the eye and say "Much better?". If she thinks we have an owie, she'll kiss it for us and ask us "much better?".
- When she rearranges something she says "perfect!" and nods approvingly to herself.
- She still knocks on the front door and then frantically yells, "Pizza! pizza!", as if that will bring the pizza man to us.
- She doesn't say "no". She says "no thank you". Terrible twos aren't nearly so bad when the toddler is so darned polite while being contrary.
- Starting today, if we say "Thank you", she'll respond, "you're welcome".
- Anytime we hand her something, she says "thank you".
- If she wants something that we have, she'll try to grab it from our hands and say "thank you?". Sometimes "thank you?" is a request for something, hehe.
- She always tells us "I love you!". She pronounces it "I la you".
- She loves to try to help us wash dishes. She pulls a chair up to the sink and stands on it while watching me wash, and she hands me dirty dishes and says "wash dishes?".

Blurb!

I previously mentioned how I was turning this whole blog into a printed book. I've kept this blog updated for so long that I thought it would be neat to have a printed copy of it. But Blogger will only display my posts in reverse chronological order, which is a horrible way to read or print a book.
Enter Blurb blogbooks. They have an app that you download, and their app "slurps" your whole blog up and turns it into a book. It's very easy to use and customizable. I used this app, played with this blog for a few weeks. And finally, when I had a product that I was happy with, I purchased one soft cover book copy.

It arrived today! And I have to say I am SO happy with the final product.
I have a picture of it above, taken with a crappy cellphone pic so it's all crooked, blurry, and the pic itself has lighting issues because the cover is glossy. So don't let the crappy pic confuse you. It's amazing. I am a very satisfied customer. The book is gorgeous. The pictures turned out great. The fonts, the paper. It is truly a professional looking book.
This would be useful for more than just blogs. Perhaps a photo book or a printed scrapbook. Or for someone who would want to write and sell their own book. The sky is the limit.
I just wanted to say that I am personally satisfied with the service they provide and I recommend it to others. I get no paid referrals. I'm just an ordinary working mom with a baby blog.

Tulaut

There are a few words and phrases that Sasha says that I just don't understand. One of those phrases was "tulaut". It was a word or phrase that Sasha says a lot, and I couldn't figure out what she meant when she said it.
My husband figured it out and translated it for me the other day.
It means "Too Loud".

And actually, that isn't surprising. I've been meaning to post something about little miss Sasha's noise sensitivities for a while.
This child is VERY sensitive to loud sounds. If something is too loud for her, she will cover her ears and complain. This happens many many times a day.
The fire engines from the fire department across the street are Too Loud. The refridgerator is too loud. The coffee maker is too loud. The bathroom fan is too loud. The noises that echo in the parking garage are too loud. Building construction is too loud. The neighbors above us dropping objects are too loud. The neighbors next door who crank their music to obscene volumes are too loud.
Everything is too loud.
Poor girl was just traumatized earlier this week when the building's fire alarm system kept going off at random intervals. She still complains about that.

The other oddity is her insistance on falling asleep with her ears covered. I can't remember when she started with it, but it's been this way for a long time now.
I know it is strange, but we don't complain because she does fall asleep relatively easy for a child her age. Either my husband or I have to lay down next to her and we have to put our hands over her ears for her. She will fall asleep. If we do not put our hands over her ears, she will grab our hands, put them over her ears, and strongly clutches our hands with her hands so that we can't pull away. We can remove our hand once she is finally asleep.
(Her sleep routine is actually a bit more complicated than that, but that's for another day. Deviations from her routine means no sleeping Sasha.)

This is how she's been for quite a long time now. I'm surprised I haven't gotten around to writing about that until now.
She's just got a weird thing about her ears and noises. Her little ear fixation.

What a brilliant idea

We order pizza maybe once a month or so. I never really put much thought into what pizza delivery must look like from the perspective of a two year old until yesterday.

Sasha went to our front door and started knocking on it, then yelled out to my husband and I, "PIZZ-DAH! PIZZ-DAH!". She then tried to open the door, hoping to see a pizza man.

Whenever the pizza man comes, he knocks on our door and voila! Pizza. So apparently Sasha figured she could get the pizza to arrive if she knocked on the door. It must seem so random to her, to hear knocking at the front door and see someone hand us some pizza. Usually, I do yell "pizza is here!" when the pizza man arrives, because I am expecting the pizza delivery man.

Sasha dear, I wish it worked that way. I don't dare tell her that we have to call the pizza man first, otherwise I fear she may just do that.

Ouch

Okay, I warn you in advance, this post is a bit disgusting and graphic.

Really, skip it if you're squeamish.

Sasha, our picky little eater, doesn't really eat many fruits or vegetables. She loves her rice, her goldfish crackers, and can't live without her chocolate milk. There are some other foods she likes, but most are not fibrous or bulky foods.
So she's always had a little bit of a constipation problem. Usually her poo is like little bunny turds. Sometimes I wonder if her chronic constipation might be the cause of her umbilical hernia.
Anyways, she had the worst case of constipation that she's ever had in the two years of her little life this weekend. It was horrible. I was worried that I'd have to take her to the emergency room before she did herself some damage. I do hope the trauma of it hasn't scarred her. It was that bad. I was so afraid she'd rip herself open or do some physical damage to herself, and she was screaming for what seemed like an hour. She was trying to pass a poo the texture of sawdust, but it was so big! Too big for her little butt. I thought she was going to rip her butt right open, poor little thing.
Her dad had to intervene. It was unpleasant, to say the least. All the while, he comforted her as best he could to try to reduce the trauma of it.

Immediately after the incident, I went to the grocery store and bought her some prune juice, some prunes and raisins, some apple juice, and some children's yogurt drinks. She's been actually doing well with eating them. The next day, I purchased some children's chewable probiotic tablets. I'm hoping that those items, if she consumes them, will help her with her constipation issues. For now, I'm taking milk out of her diet. She's drinking the prune juice and apple juices.

Any other advice on constipation, please, I'm all ears. I prefer preventive maintenance rather than go through all that again.

She hasn't gone potty since then. I'm worried about her. It's been two days. She's been eating well though, with a good appetite. I won't stop worrying until she goes potty again.

Doc Visit

Tuesday morning, Sasha had a follow-up visit for her flu shot. Apparently the first time a young child is given a flu vaccine, they split the vaccine in half. She received the first half at her two-year exam. Her Tuesday appointment was for the second half.

As we drove to the doctor's office, I explained to Sasha that we were going to go visit the doctor. "See doctor!" she repeated. She remembered the doctor from her last visit. I told her that the doctor would give her a small owie but that he would give her a bandaid. She said "owie" and "bandaid".

My husband and I were glad to see that the doctor intended to investigate our concerns about Sasha's belly button before he would give the second shot.
Sasha burrowed her face into my husband's shoulder when the doc first entered the room. This was the male pediatrician. There are two pediatricians in this office and Sasha is usually really bashful with the male doc. But eventually she warmed up to him and she did really well! She let him examine her belly button. She let him listen to her breathing and heart with the stethescope. No complaints. He also looked in her ears.

He told us that she did indeed have an umbilical hernia. That it is okay that it showed up so late in her life (usually we hear about them showing up in newborns or before age one). Usually umbilical hernias fix themselves. With female children, the doc says he prefers that umbilical hernias should be left to heal themselves because if they are surgically repaired, they can cause problems later when a female child grows up and becomes pregnant. The repairs are stronger when left to nature to fix. He said that an umbilical hernia is not like a regular hernia. There is rarely any danger in them.

The pediatrician then left and the nurse came in. The same awesome nurse Sasha had last time. There is something special about this nurse, in that Sasha immediately warms up to her like an old friend. Sasha said "hi!" to her. She willingly laid down on the exam table to let the nurse give her the owie and bandaid. Sasha demanded her band-aid after the shot.
Then we were done! I was very impressed with how well Sasha did. There was almost no fussing, other than the wimpers during the shot itself, which is to be expected.

Halloween: This year and last year

Halloween this year:


And last year:



Same costume, but one year apart

Happy Halloween!

Today Sasha went trick-or-treating.
She's been very interested in the candy lately, especially the candy I intended to pass out to trick-or-treating visitors. So when I told her about trick-or-treating, she was all for it.

She liked her lamb costume. It's the same costume she wore last year and it still fits well. Last year I had to sew modifications so it would fit, so this year all I had to do was rip the modifications out and it was good.
The first few doors we trick or treated at, Sasha seemed a little confused. But once she got the hang of it, she was a pro.
Our area had a trick or treating time from 3pm until 7pm, and people with candy to pass out were supposed to put signs on their doors so that the kids knew which doors to ignore and which to knock at. There were not very many signs, sadly.
So we walked around looking for the signs. When we found one, I'd point at it and tell Sasha it was okay to trick or treat there. She'd knock and I'd remind her to say "Trick or Treat" and "thank you".

If someone didn't open their door fast enough, Sasha would impatiently start yelling "OPEN! OPEN!" at them.

She didn't always say "trick-or-treat" but she always said "thank you candy". I'm glad for that. She's always polite anyways.
She loved all the attention too.
We didn't get much candy. Not as much as I usually got when I was a kid. There were so few homes with candy that it wasn't worth it to keep going for long. It was more than enough candy for her though.
Sasha got to eat a bunch of her candy. A lot, actually. She ate some suckers, some smarties, some Milk Duds. I forget what else, but it was a LOT of candy for her.

I know she had a great time. I have a feeling she's going to want to do it again tomorrow.

Belly button update

I called Sasha's pediatrician about my concerns about her belly button.
The pediatrician is again unconcerned and does not want to see Sasha about it. She says it does sound like an umbilical hernia, but that umbilical hernias usually go away by age 5 on their own? I questioned whether it is concerning that it seems to be growing in size. The pediatrician says no, it's not concerning. Umbilical hernias can grow and shrink in appearance at times and it is nothing to be worried about.

Belly Button

Not sure what's going on with Sasha's belly button but I'm becoming concerned.
She used to have a plain old normal belly button. A regular, ordinary innie.
Over the past few months, it grew and turned inside out. It started popping out. Her abdomen is distended.
At her 2 year appointment just 2-3 weeks ago, I asked her pediatrician about it, and she said she saw nothing wrong. I told her pediatrician directly that I was concerned about an umbilical hernia. The pediatrician said Sasha didn't have any hernia and even if there was a hernia, that umbilical hernias often go away by themselves anyways so don't worry. She mostly brushed me off.

Today during bath, I washed her belly, and the lump in her belly button is getting bigger. Now it's got something hard inside. There's either something intestinal pushing out from her abdomen through her belly button or something growing in there.
I was really grossed out by whatever it was and nearly vomited.
I don't know what's going on. The ped seemed to indicate not to worry but I am worried anyways.

I took a pic of her belly button but it's on my camera. I'll see if I can attach a pic later.

EDIT: See UPDATE

Games

One of our newest favorite pictures, a daddy and daughter moment. They were drawing happy faces and shapes and stuff on a whiteboard and just having fun together.

Today, my husband and Sasha played really hard. This is not unusual. It's actually the norm. What's unusual is that I was awake enough to see some of the silly games that they usually play when I am asleep during the daytime.
Sasha has a table and chair set. She and my husband threw a blanket over the top so that the blanket draped over the sides. This was now "Sasha's house". They took a pillow and used that for a door. Sasha went under her little table and pretended it was her house.

Sasha loves drawing with crayons. I don't think I've mentioned that here yet. She runs up to my husband and says "Paper please!". (Have I mentioned how polite she is? She always says "please" and "thank you"). He hands her a piece of paper and she happily takes it to the table with her crayons and scribbles away. Sometimes she'll bring her paper and crayons up to one of us and ask us "happy face?". We draw a happy face on the paper for her. She takes the paper and crayon back to her table and happily colors over the happy face. She also likes it when my husband draws some shapes (circle, square, star, etc) or some numbers or some letters for her.
She loves numbers, shapes, and the alphabet, and especially drawn "happy faces". She's getting really good at them too. She mostly knows her shapes and colors. She can sing parts of the abc song. She can also almost count to ten, but she tends to get stuck in loops with some of the numbers. I haven't heard her count to ten successfully yet but she is so close.
She often sees a number or letter and she correctly tells us what it is. For example, she loudly announced "FOUR!" today as she pointed to the number 4 on her box of diapers (We are about to switch her to size 4 but she's still in size 3 yet).

Basically, she's been playing really hard, and it's hard to keep the living room cleaned up after her. She likes to play with all her toys, especially her Mister Potato head, which she adores. She plays with her blocks, her train set, her large legos, her puzzles, her ball. After a good play session, the living room looks like a toy box exploded.
I guess that's the sign of a good time when a toddler is around. But honestly, she is a lot of fun to play with and a joy to be around. My husband remarked today, "So when do the terrible two's begin?". She is just so pleasant and has such a sweet personality. I don't think we'll have any problems with her.

Knitting- New Sweater

It's taken me a while, but I finished knitting a warm sweater for Sasha, and I have another sweater that is almost done.
This purple sweater is hand knit, made with a raglan top-down pattern out of Cascade 220 Superwash wool. It is very warm and machine washable.
We got some cute buttons for it. Sasha exclaims "buttons!" every time she sees the sweater. They're very bright, cheerful, and glittery buttons.

Like I said, I have another, really cute sweater that is almost done. Sasha's been "helping" me with that project. Here I have a picture of her helping me out and trying it on for size. (you can see the knitting needles in her hands if you look closely)

That sweater isn't ready yet. It's made from the top down, so it can be tried on for size as we go.
Sasha likes to grab my knitting projects and click the needles together while saying "nitting! nitting! Mama's nitting!" It took me a few days to undo some of the "help" she gave me on this pink sweater. She made a bit of a mess of it but I was able to recover and get it going again. I'm sure it'll be ready to wear by the end of the week if I put my mind to it.
Then I'll start working on some scarves and stuff for the family for the winter. Now that it's getting cooler outside, it's about time to start making the warmer stuff.

Pet Store

Fishies!
Birdies!
Guinea Pigs!
Amusingly, I've found a free source of educational entertainment for my toddler- the pet stores! Haha, it's like the petting zoo but without that pesky admission charges. Fortunately I haven't been guilted into buying anything.
I like to take Sasha to the local pet stores and let her look at all the pets. The fishies, the hamsters and gerbils, the guinea pigs and ferrets, the kitties and puppies, the turtles and reptiles. So many different animals to go and look at, and sometimes they'll even let her pet stuff.
(In the pictures here, Sasha is wearing her new sweater before I put the buttons on it, but that's for the next post).

An excellent chef

Just like mommy! She's cooking something. The pan is empty and on the coffee table in the living room, but she sure is enjoying whatever it is that she's making.

My Kitchen Helper

This age is the best! Can I just freeze her at this age forever please?
Sasha is my little buddy. She's also a great helper.
She has always been our little shadow. It used to get annoying in the kitchen because she'd try to get into everything. It was darned near impossible to accomplish anything.
But now, she's more observant and helpful. All I have to do is pull up a chair next to me for her to stand on and she'll watch what I'm doing.
For example, when I made beef stew with my new pressure cooker. I had to chop up a bunch of vegetables. Usually this is an exercise in frustration. Chop, chase the kid, chop again, put away all my pots and pans that are scattered across the floors. Now she stands on the chair and watches me. She points out each vegetable and we talk about what I'm doing.
"Mama chopping carrots. Orange carrots". Then I offer her a taste of each item. A few nibbles of carrots. A bunch of nibbles of green pepper (she loves those). Some celery. Even to my surprise, raw onion. She actually liked eating raw onion. Strange kid.

She helps us make our tea (completely supervised).
She helps me wash dishes. Actually she's more like a slave driver. She hands me dirty dishes, commands me "WASH DISHES MAMA!", then the moment I grab the dirty dish from her to start washing it, she grabs another dish and starts commanding me to wash that. I can't keep up with her pace but she sure makes me wash dishes faster.

Pardon the dust...

I have been terrible at updating Sasha's baby book. I admit it.
However, I have been updating this blog religiously since Sasha was at least 6 months old and trying her first foods.
For at least a year now, I've been thinking about printing out this blog and binding it into a book somehow, as a keepsake of my daughter's first years. The longer I've thought about it, the more difficult the task became. Do you know how many blog entries I've made over the last few years? A LOT! And each day I put the project off, I made more blog entries and the task got bigger and bigger.
At first I pulled up all the entries at once (don't do it with a slow computer! link) and did a print preview. After my computer sat there for a while, it finally came out to about 700 pages. Ouch.
But this site layout isn't really formatted for printed medium. That sidebar off to the right takes up a lot of space once you scroll down past it. So I did try a few layout changes but that still didn't fix things for me.
The other problem is that Blogger only displays posts in reverse chronological order. Newest to oldest. That's no way to print a book. Why would I want to read the book backwards? Blogger says that the only way to change the order of posts is to change the dates. But for me, the dates tell just as much of the story as the words in the posts. Not an option.

I found a solution. It's called Blurb. It "slurps" your whole blog up and lets you turn it into a bound book. Reasonable prices. Does EXACTLY what I'm looking for.
I did download their software and "slurped" my blog. I spent a day playing around with their software, formatting each page. It has some neat features.
So that's what I'm doing. Soon I will have a bound, printed copy of this whole blog. At least all posts prior to this post here.

Big Sister's Makeup

Toddler self-applied makeup (click to enlarge)
The evening routine usually goes like this:
I shower and get ready for work. Sasha joins me in the bathroom while I do my hair and makeup, if she isn't getting a night time bath. She usually stands on the toilet seat next to the bathroom sink and pretends to put makeup on (copying Mama, of course).
Well tonight she decided to put sister's makeup on instead of her usual empty container of powder. I was WAY behind schedule and in a hurry so I didn't notice her sneaky switch.
Right as it's time for me to leave, I see it. She's got makeup all over her face. Figures it happens right at the moment I have to go. I called out to my husband and older daughter and they laughed a bit. We grabbed the camera and took the pics so we can embarrass her with it years from now.
Then it was makeup removal time. Sasha did well with that. We had a hard time removing it but some baby oil on a cotton ball removed the stubborn makeup.
Thank goodness I wasn't late for work. Whew!

Bathtub swimmer

Today we saw another amusing effect of yesterday's swim.
Sasha is now quite an avid bathtub swimmer. It was difficult to get her out of that bath tonight. She was splashing and leaping and swimming and floating and sticking her face in the water. Oh and did I mention the splashing, hah. When we hit the usual time for the end of bathtime, I asked her "Are you done?". She responded with a loud and vehement "NO! NO!" and dove back under the water.
Tonight's bath lasted at least twice as long as usual. Most of it spent playing and chanting "swimming! swimming! splash! splash!"
My husband was amused when I joked that she would be spending the rest of the night in the bathtub. She did eventually decide quite abruptly that bathtime was over. Fortunately she did so before I left for work for the night.

Fan

It's getting cooler outside. Our apartment tends to be roasting, so we can't really turn off the air conditioning and open the windows unless it's early spring, late fall, or winter. Yes, even winter we have to open the windows to let the heat out. Isn't that sad? We do not turn the heat on at all in our apartment. It's just that way.
Anyways, it's been cooler out lately so we were able to open the windows and turn on some fans. Fans, however, can be dangerous to little fingers. So when I first put the fan out and turned it on, I had to go through a safety briefing with the little one.
Thanks to Cassie's help, Sasha won't be touching any fans. Cassie did a dramatic enactment of what happens when you stick your fingers in a fan, and that got the point across to Sasha.
But now Sasha is fascinated with the fan, especially with the way it blows her hair when she stands in front of it. She likes to stand in front of it and let it blow her hair around.

Swimming

Today Sasha had a busy day. We took her to a local indoor waterpark!
It has a huge kiddie pool play area with lots of sprinklers and slides.
Mostly, she had a lot of fun with her dad. He carried her around that whole pool and she swam, splashed, and played her little heart out. She had a blast. She has such absolute faith and trust in her father, and it was never more apparent than when he taught her how to float on her back. She did just as he told her. Her eyes gazed in his as she floated on her back and you could tell by looking at her that she was confident that nothing bad would happen so long as her Dada had her.
Those two have such a special connection. It's beautiful to watch.

The rest of the evening, she kept talking about "swimming". Even as she drifted off to sleep, she quietly muttered "swimming" under her breath until she finally dozed off into dreamland, where her dreams were probably all about swimming.

Driving Miss Sasha

We were at the Early childhood program at our school system again this week. I think we'll try to do it every week because it's so good for her. She gets lots of interaction with kids her age, and while I think that's great for her development, it fascinates me to just sit back and watch her. She's got some great interpersonal skills.
She has a special way of approaching other children. When she sees a child that she wants to play with, she slowly walks towards them. She stops short right in front of them and stands there while trying to make eye contact. Then she very very slowly steps forwards into the child's personal space. She keeps inching herself forward until she gets closer. She leans in to them and tries to get eye contact. If she gets it, she bursts out with a cheerful "HI!" and a wave. I wish I could get her process on video because it is really charming.
Somehow, her magic seems to work on even the most selfish of bullies. She brings out a protectiveness in other kids, especially in older girls. I've seen quite a few older girls (like 3-5 year olds) protectively mother-hen Sasha.
Sasha is great at sharing. If she is playing with a toy that she likes, I've seen her try to offer the great toy to other children that she likes.
I've never seen any child try to hit Sasha. Like I said, she somehow manages to charm even the bullies. I have seen a few kids snatch toys from her hand. When that happens, Sasha gets this bewildered look on her face, as if to say "Now why would you do that?". But she doesn't try to take it back. If another kid takes a toy away from her, she doesn't really care about the toy anymore. The child has her interest more than the toy and she'll watch that child for a while instead.
I love how nice Sasha is. She's just a sweet child. I hope that she stays as nice. I'm sure she'll go through her phases, but I just want to believe that this is her true personality.

During gym time, the toy cars are like the toy that all the kids want to play with at the early childhood program. Eventually Sasha did get a turn with the car (her favorite). She took my car keys and discovered that they fit perfectly in the car's "ignition". I found it amusing.
There is a little boy that Sasha gets along with very well. He is as sweet and charming as she is, and they share with each other. They took turns with a riding toy together. Sasha sat in the seat and the boy (1 month younger than Sasha) pushed her around the gym. Then after a little while, they swapped roles. I thought it was adorable and tried to get a pic, but they were too fast for my cell phone camera, hehe!

2 year appointment

Sasha had her two-year old doctor appointment today.
In the past, Sasha has had weight troubles. At her last doctor appointment, she had weighed in at below the third percentile for her age.
Fortunately, it appears our troubles are gone for now. Praise chocolate milk and brown rice!
Sasha weighed 24.5 lbs, which was the 25th percentile according to our doctor's charts.
She is 35.4 inches tall, which is the 50th percentile.
So she's doing great with her weight! Now I can concentrate on getting nutritious food into her, instead of a 'food at all costs' free for all like it has been the past few months. Basically, if Sasha would eat it, if it had calories she could have it. Now we can afford to start getting picky again.

The appointment went well. We almost overslept, so we had to rush really quickly to the office. We were late. My husband didn't have time to shower so he had to stay home. I know he really wanted to be there with us. He feels like Sasha needs him, especially when it comes to shots and he wants to be there for her.
I talked to Sasha in the waiting room and explained to her that she was seeing The Doctor, and I tried to explain a little of what she could expect. That The Doctor would look in her ears and her eyes and her nose and would listen to her heart. I think she understood a little.
So when the nurse came into the exam room, Sasha did not get upset at all. This was a new nurse. Well, we've never seen her before. This nurse was wonderful! The nurse gave Sasha easy to understand commands, and Sasha obeyed. She told Sasha to sit on the scale, so Sasha did. When the nurse told Sasha to lay down to be measured, Sasha happily complied.
Bloodwork needed to be done for anemia and lead testing, and a tb test. The nurse said it's easier to take blood from a child's toe than a finger. She washed Sasha's feet (which Sasha loved!) and gave Sasha a book to read. Sasha read the book and didn't care at all that the nurse just jabbed her toe with a needle and milked it for blood. For the TB test, the nurse told Sasha that she was putting a bubble on Sasha's skin. Sasha loves bubbles, so she was fine with that. She watched the nurse put the needle under her skin, and with no objections observed her new bubble. She proudly showed it to us. Not a single tear shed. Damn that nurse was good.
The doctor came in next. Sasha was fine with the doctor and her inspections. She gave the doctor a cheerful "Hi Doctor!".
I addressed my concerns with the doctor. I was concerned about Sasha's abdomen. Her belly button turned from an innie to an outie with all her weight gain, and Sasha has been constipated. She screams and cries whenever she goes poop. The doctor dismissed my concerns.
More shots. This time, vaccines. The nurse returned to give Sasha two shots, both in the upper legs. I had to hold Sasha down while the nurse gave the vaccinations, and this time Sasha cried, because they hurt. The nurse put bandaids on the owies, and Sasha was again happy. She pointed out her owies and her bandaids and even called them her "Sasha's pwize" (prize). Bandaids made it all better.

My husband sent me some text messages when it was vaccine time. He felt like he wanted to be there for Sasha. He said he felt as though she was upset. Those two have a special bond.

Back to school

Open Gym
School started a month ago for my older daughter, but it just started this week for Sasha!
Our local school district has a really neat early education program for children ages birth through 5 years old. They have some sort of activity every weekday. They open the gym up at one of the elementary schools so that the children can run around and play. They also have a classroom filled FULL of toys. There are so many toys that they are stacked from floor to ceiling on shelves. They also allow you to borrow any of the toys that you want, like a toy library. So it's like having nearly every possible toy available to your child.

We went to the program on Monday and Sasha had a great time! We are always the first family to show up, so Sasha played in the toy room until more children arrived. There was a set of boy twins her age, and also a set of boy triplets that were about a year older than Sasha, and another boy about a month younger than Sasha at the program. Sasha gets along very well with the younger boy. They both share toys with each other nicely and the smile and make faces at each other. The twin and triplet boys are a bit too rowdy for her.

After playing in the toy room, we went to the gym. It was great to have someplace for Sasha to actually run around. We really don't have that available to us in our small little apartment. Sasha took full advantage. She ran around and rode bikes, and she drove a toy car around. She kept yelling "Bye Bye! See ya!" at me as she drove away in her car, like she was pretending she was driving away from me.

I love this program and I'm glad that it is back in session. This program is awesome to have in the winter, when everyone is cooped up indoors.

Makeover

For the last week, we have been plotting a dramatic hair "makeover" for my 14 yo daughter Cassie. She just started high school last month, and now she does't want her long hair anymore. She wanted a new haircut. Something shorter, a little more trendy, cleaner, easier to work with, and something a bit unique.
So we all did some research and looked around at some new hairstyles (Cassie, my friend Anj, Cassie's friends, and I). There were some really neat hairstyles she wanted but we concluded most of them wouldn't look good on her face. She has a round face so it had to be something compatible with that.
Then one of my friends came across an article: http://beauty.about.com/od/hairstylephotogalleries/ss/roundfa_8.htm and it was perfect. The "Kelly Clarkson".
We put together a collage of other pictures that we found interesting that we were looking for in a haircut:
(click to enlarge)

So today was haircut day. We printed out the collage we made and the "Kelly Clarkson haircut" article and took it to the stylists. I got my hair cut (nothing drastic or new) and so did Cassie.
It took the hair stylists 4 hours! They had a blast with it though. They really loved doing their drastic makeover. Cassie got an "inverted bob", which is short in the back and long in front. She also got some purple and pink streaks in her hair too!
Here is our "before" picture (click to expand on these pics):

Our "during" pictures:

And some of our "AFTER" pics:


The pink and purple stripes didn't show up so well on camera, but they're very bright and colorful! We love the new haircut. I think it looks great with her face shape. She can't wait for school tomorrow so her friends can see it.

Traveling with a cold

After the birthday party on Saturday, Cassie spent the night at my brother's house. She and my brother were very close when she was younger, so it was nice of them to let her stay with them.
Sasha, my husband, and I stayed at a hotel. We had a free night coming to us so we used our free night for this stay.
Earlier in the week, Cassie had a cold with a runny nose. Between Cassie's cold and the all the rain, Sasha acquired the cold. It started very suddenly, in the middle of the night while trying to sleep in the hotel room.
Sasha woke up crying and at first we couldn't figure out why. My husband remarked that Sasha seemed to have difficulty breathing. I was very worried at first, but then when I realized it was a runny nose, we had Sasha blow her nose. She was able to go back to sleep, but she slept very fitfully. I felt bad for any hotel guests in the surrounding rooms, as Sasha woke up often and cried loudly during the night.
We checked out of the hotel in the morning and went to my brother's house. Sasha was still crabby with a runny nose, so my brother offered us some baby tylenol. Sasha took it and did seem a lot better afterwards.
We visited with my brother, then went out for lunch with a family friend, Jamie. After lunch, we went back home. I had been worried about the flooding at home, and whether we would be able to get back, but fortunately it seemed okay.
I was also worried about getting Sasha back home. She seemed better with the tylenol, but I knew that she was still sick so I just wanted to get her home. I had hoped to do more visiting, but I was nervous about Sasha's condition. I didn't want to be away from home if she got any worse.
So we returned back home. Uneventfully, thank goodness.

Pictures from the birthday party

Sasha sharing peapods with her cousin, Madison
The rain couldn't keep her from playing outside at her birthday party.
Playing with her daddy
Opening presents
Gift successfully opened! (good view of the t-shirt big sister Cassie made)
Reading birthday cards with mommy
Blowing out birthday candles. She really did it!
Eating her birthday cake
Trying to steal a little of her daddy's cake. His must taste better :)
Hugging her grandpa
Playing with her cousin, Madison