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.