Blinky Shoes!

On Sunday, the girls and I went out to some stores to window shop. We just wanted to get out of the house. Winter is starting to wear on us and Sasha and I are really feeling cooped up in the apartment. (I'm pretty sure my husband feels the same). So I try to get Sasha out of the house whenever I can.
During our window shopping, we found some blinky shoes. They're the shoes with the lights in them that blink whenever the child wearing them takes a step. We tried them on Sasha's feet and she loved them and had a blast. They only cost like $14 so we got them even though I didn't plan on spending any money.
The shoes don't fit very well. They're still big. But Sasha just LOVES them. Playing with her shoes is like her favorite activity. Walking now goes like this: step, step, stop and look at shoes, sign "light", say "light", point at shoes and admire, repeat.
They have velcro fasteners, so she's figured out how to put the shoes on and take them off. Her shoes are her favorite "toy" this week. When I put her shoes away, she'll sign "where shoes?" at me!

Growing Vocabulary

A day at work
Sasha's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds and it is so fun to watch! It's also funny and educational to see her mimic us, especially when she copies nuances that we didn't realize she was paying attention to.
For example, when I walk into the bathroom, she'll follow me in and will sternly tell me "out! out! out!" while she points for me to leave. This is probably due to all the times I have to kick her out of the bathroom when she tries to shove q-tips in her ear or play in my makeup.
Tonight, she took her box of milk and squeezed it out the straw all over the living room carpet. She pointed at the spilled puddle of milk on the carpet, sternly scowled at it, pointed, and said BAD! Of course she had to try to help wipe it up with a paper towel.
There is no way I could possibly list all her new words. There are just so many of them. She can ask us for rice. She can say "all done" or "all gone". Her sign language (and mine too) is also growing. As situations come up, I look new words up in my sign language dictionary and teach them to her; she picks them up almost immediately. Today she learned the sign for PIZZA. She gleefully copied the sign and shoved more pizza in her mouth.

Where is our growth spurt?

Good Night Moon at the bookstore. I love this picture.
The signs are all there. Sasha has been eating like Ms Pacman, nearly non-stop all day. No bite of food is refused. She'll even mow down strange suspicious foods she's never seen before.
She sleeps a bit more too. She usually likes to sleep 10 hours straight at 'night'. Now she's doing almost 12. She takes naps.
Eating lots of food and sleeping more is usually a sign of a growth spurt, no? Any day now, she should be growing like a weed. I took her to her Monday playgroup and the teacher there said that even though she hasn't seen Sasha for a month, she doesn't look like she's grown at all. So it's not just me; even people that haven't seen her in a while still think she hasn't grown.
Any day now! Just you wait! She's going to grow in a huge spurt. Maybe it'll happen overnight like I hear some kids do. Maybe I'll get to buy her some new shoes :)

Today she had an adult sized bowl of cereal for breakfast. She stopped eating her breakfast because the bowl was empty, milk and all, not because she was full. When my husband woke up he made a breakfast skillet, and Sasha ate some of that too. She ate a tub of ice cream, a whole slice of pizza, a tub of yogurt, cheese and apple. Plus she drank plenty of juice and whole milk. She's been eating wonderfully and taking her daily vitamins. That makes me very happy.

Tea Party

Would you like to join me for a tea party?

Yay! I'll make your tea for you.
Would you like some sugar in your tea?

I'm really busy stirring this tea.

Enjoy!

NUM!!!!

I haven't been updating as much as I should lately and I probably have a lot to catch up on.

My little Sasha, thank goodness, is now eating like a garbage disposal. Consistantly! Since I got sick with food poisoning and had to cut back on nursing, it helped us to start the weaning process. She now nurses about once a day, and I have no idea if she's getting any milk or if it's just a habit. If I'm not around, she's fine without nursing.
Her appetite has increased inversely proportionate to her decrease in nursing. I sort of expected this. She is now eating a LOT.
She cracks me up when she eats. She gets so hungry that she eats quickly. Sometimes she eats so quickly that she runs herself out of breath and has to stop and catch her breath to continue on.

If she likes what she's eating, she will loudly declare "NUM!!!!!!!" after her first bite, and will continue eating. I live for those moments. It's so satisfying to see her eat and enjoy what she's eating.
She can put away bowls of cereal for breakfast. Adult sized servings even! She loves noodles and rice and chicken. If she eats chicken, she will cluck like a chicken and pretend to wave her "wings" up and down. She now loves drinking milk and probably drinks way too much of it. She puts away many juice boxes a day.
She is just generally eating MUCH more than she ever has before. I fully expect a nice growth spurt soon.

Back

Watching her videos on her iPod on a LONG interstate car ride home from a funeral. Worked like a charm and she fell right asleep.
We had to go up north for my mother's funeral. We were gone for 5 days and had to spend four overnights in a hotel. It was a very sad event.
Sasha didn't really understand what was going on. She had fun at Mcdonalds and she also got to go swimming with her dad in the hotel swimming pool. She adjusted okay to the change of surroundings and routine and seeing all the people. She loved one of my parent's cats. She ate well and slept well. I was surprised at how well she switched to a day shift schedule and how well she did with a routine. I hope we can keep the day shift and routine going now that we are back home again.

Fun with Daddy

We went to Ikea and they had a ball pit! So we had to let Sasha play in the ball pit with her daddy for a little bit. She had fun!

When we went up north, we went to a McDonald's with a maze-like playland inside. Sasha and her dad ran amok and had a blast. I couldn't help but remark on how much more fearless Sasha is compared to her big sister. At the same McDonalds a decade earlier, I used to take Cassie when she was a little toddler, and Cassie was always afraid to play in the playland. Sasha had a healthy curiosity and playfulness although she had her dad with her every step of the way.

Strange mealtime manners

We had a very strange dinner.
I made a beef roast, with side dishes of black-eyed peas and rice pilaf, and some broccoli. We all sat at the table for a family dinner. I gave Sasha some rice and some other foods because I didn't think she would be interested in our beef or broccoli. I did put two small spears of broccoli on her high chair table just to familiarize her with broccoli, but I really didn't expect her to eat it.
As I was eating, I was surprised to see Sasha pick up the broccoli and inspect it closely. I don't know what was going through her mind, but she made the broccoli dance. She just started bouncing it on her tray as if it was dancing around and said "dan dan dan" which is how she says "dance dance dance". We all laughed and she was amused with herself. I went back to eating. About a minute later she shoved the broccoli in her mouth and ate it. I was very very surprised and said "Oh look! She's eating broccoli". She really seemed to like it. She ate both spears. I gave her a few more and she started eating those.
That's my girl!
But strangely, about a minute later, her head started bobbing forward. She put her head down on her tray and stayed like that for a little while. I realized she just instantly fell asleep. I was scared at first, worried that maybe she passed out or something. But nope, she just got tired and fell asleep right there at the dinner table.