Driving Miss Sasha

Never got out of the parking garage, but she wanted to drive the car, shift the gears, and beep the horn like Daddy.
Also had to add this pic as it makes me laugh. Sasha was fascinated by a mannequin at a store:

The Chocolate Milk Diet

My darling toddler has forsaken solid foods for chocolate milk and juice.
We are having such a difficult time feeding her. She is refusing everything. We try to offer her foods and she hits our hand and turns her head away. We are very worried.
I figure her 8oz boxes of chocolate milk are 200 calories each and I lose count of how many she drinks a day. About 4? Then her 6.5oz juice boxes are 100 calories each and she drinks several of those a day. So she's getting enough calories. I do give her a multivitamin daily, and also a gummy omega-3 fatty acid supplement.

In her defense, she is still teething. I am hoping that is the source of the problem. If her teeth come in and she still has eating troubles, I am going to be very scared for her. I think we are going to need professional help, and our pediatrician has been useless.

We're getting desperate. Any ideas appreciated. So far, if it doesn't come in a juice box, she won't take it.

Diaper Daddy

My husband likes to exercise in the living room every day, and Sasha loves to supervise.
Today, my husband was laying on the living room floor doing some sit ups and lifting some hand weights. He didn't realize that he was sitting on Sasha's diaper changing pad. But Sasha noticed! She grabbed the baby wipes and a diaper. She started wiping his pants and tried to diaper him, lol! She even told him "up!" and "down!" the way we tell her to put her legs up and down.
She did like a perfect imitation of us during diaper time on him, and it was hilarious.

Eating woes again

We seem to be having troubles getting Sasha to eat again. She has hardly eaten the last week or two. My husband and I are starting to worry. We fought hard to get her weight up and I fear she is starting to lose weight again. We are going to have to start putting fats in her foods again to boost her caloric intake.

Down Down Down

Little shopper girl

Sasha has been stir crazy lately. Our car is on it's last leg so we haven't been able to get out of the house very much. So Sasha has been bored of being indoors, cooped up inside the apartment.

We went out to eat today, to get out of the house.
Usually Sasha does great in restauraunts. Lately, she just doesn't want to stay in high chairs. She didn't last long in the high chair today. It didn't take long before she was trying to climb out of it, chanting "down down down up up". 'Up' means 'pick me up', and 'down' means she wants down on the ground. Well we couldn't have her running amok in the restauraunt so we had to hold her. She was not happy with this and fussed almost the whole time. My husband and I had to take turns passing her off to each other while the other tried to eat.
The restauraunt we went to was at a mall, so after we hurried our meal and left, we went strolling around the mall. Sasha was all about the escalators and stairs. My husband let her walk down the stairs. She immediately turned around and went up the escalator with him, then they had to go down the stairs again.
She did NOT want to be carried around. She wanted to walk by herself. If I carried her, she'd start squirming and chanting "down down down".
Her favorite store is the Yankee Candle Company. She LOVES running around the store, sniffing all the scented candles. We bought her a mcintosh apple scented candle. She happily purchased it herself with daddy's credit card.
Then she proudly carried the shopping bag with around the mall with her. She was quite a sight walking around the mall by herself with shopping bag in hand.

Smells

Sasha's new fun "activity" is smelling things!
Or perhaps I should say my new fun activity with Sasha is showing her the smells of various things. I sort of think it's educational.
When I hand her something and tell her to smell it, she will. I had noticed that whenever she saw a flower, or if I mentioned the word flower, she would sniff and inhale deeply. So that gave me the idea to start teaching her about smells.

At the mall a week or two ago, we passed by the Yankee Candle Company store. She was a bit fussy but the moment I handed her a candle and told her to smell it, she smelled it and calmed down. She was very entertained as I handed her candles to smell. She loves running around sniffing the various scents. I made sure to tell her the name of each scent as she sniffed.
I bet she'd love a trip to Bath and Body Works.

We have several candles at home. She sometimes cries and fusses and points at them. She won't calm down until we hand her a candle and let her sniff it. Also, there have been several times where she has been upset for an unknown reason, and handing her a candle to sniff has calmed her down or distracted her from her upset.

Today she was a bit anxious and stir crazy from being indoors the last few days. So I took her in the kitchen and we went through our spice cabinet. She loved it. Her favorite spice seems to be thyme and she also liked nutmeg and cumin. I told her the name of each spice as she sniffed them, and she repeated each spice name back to me. She was sad when we were done.

Little Model

Late update but I've been slacking with posting lately. I finally got some buttons on a sweater that I made for Sasha. Watermelon buttons! Now she is finally able to wear the sweater. When the weather was nicer, we used it as a jacket and it fit perfectly. Although if she grows any, she will outgrow it. Which is fine. I can pass it on to her younger cousin when she outgrows it.
I love these pictures as I like the way her eyes photographed in natural light. It was one of the first mild weather days of the year, so Sasha loves any excuse to get out on the balcony.

While I'm talking about knitting, here's a dress I made for Sasha:

I haven't had any pictures taken of her wearing it yet, but I'll post it when I get some.
I also have another sweater finished:

Sasha likes wearing the pink one as a jacket and tries to put it on all by herself.

Here come the teeth again

Sasha had four new teeth canine teeth coming in. The top two came through.
Her bottom right one looks like it's going to come through any day now and the gums appear painfully swollen. I always feel bad for her when I see it. She's intermittently crabby but for the most part she's doing okay.

A day or two ago, I was playing with Sasha. It was a game we play often, and Sasha usually finds it fun and hilarious. I loudly announce, "I am going to throw you in the garbage!". She knows what that means and starts cracking up laughing in anticipation. I hold her above my bed and bounce her in the air while counting. When I reach ten, I carefully throw her onto the bed so she bounces one time, and I yell "I'm throwing you in the garbage!". It sounds rough but we usually have a lot of fun and Sasha usually cracks up laughing and begging for more.
Well I must have caught her off guard the day before yesterday. I did the "throw you in the garbage" game, and when she landed, instead of laughing, she started crying really hard. As she was crying, I saw a little blood on her tongue and realized she bit her tongue.
After comforting her for a few minutes, I was able to look at her owie. It appears that she just isn't used to having those new upper canine teeth, as she bit herself with one of her new teeth.
Just my luck, that was the first time my husband saw me play the game with Sasha, and when she bit herself, he glared at me like he was quite horrified. I swear it's harmless fun when she doesn't accidentally bite herself.

Signing

Sasha has mostly stopped with her baby sign language. She does still sign stuff occasionally, but not very much.
It's understandable. Sasha is smart enough to notice that the rest of the world talks, not signs. So why bother? She figured that out long ago, so she rarely signed when we were out of the house or for strangers. Signing was mostly a thing that mommy did with her. My husband and older daughter did put effort into signing and learning the signs that Sasha knew, but Sasha knows it was mostly something mom encouraged and pushed. She'd sign for me and I'd cheer her on and it made me happy.
But if the rest of the world talks, that's where she's putting her efforts.

I am rethinking whether to continue to teach it to her as a second language. Originally it's intent was for her to be able to communicate with us while she was still learning how to talk. Her verbal vocabulary has surpassed her signing vocabulary now. So we shall see!

She's got some signs she still uses. Like "where?" and "more" and "bike". Especially "where?". That sign has become a fun little game for her. She likes to throw, drop, or hide objects then turn to us and ask us "where?". When we find it and give it to her, she hides it again and signs "where?" again. She can keep this up all day if we can keep up with her.

Just yesterday, Sasha was in her car seat and unbeknownst to us, she kicked off a shoe. I took her out of the car seat and started walking up to the house. She said "where?" and signed it at the same time. My husband and I remarked that we thought she was looking for Cassie and we continued upstairs. After we got upstairs, I set her down and noticed her shoe was missing.
"Oh no! Where is her shoe?", I said. Sasha chimed in by saying "where?" and signing "where?" again. We finally realized that when she originally said "where?", she was talking about her shoe. Oops! My husband had to run back down to the car to get her shoe.

I Don't Know!

Sasha's first official sentence is "I don't know". She started saying this repeatedly at the mall yesterday. It sounds like "I no no! I no no!" and is the answer to most any question you ask her now.

If you ask her if something is funny, she will laugh her head off like you said something hilarious. She knows that funny means laugh.

Other new words this week are "Grandma" and "high chair". Grandma sounds like "da ma" and high chair is said very clearly.

When she wants me to count, she will say "two three". When she wants me to sing her the alphabet, she says "bc", and she makes random hand gestures pretending like she's signing the alphabet but she's pretty close to some real letters in her gestures.

Children's Museum

The day after the playdate, most of the mommies and kids met up at a Children's museum. It was much fun and the kids had a blast!

More Playdate Pics

Another mother at the playdate is photographically talented and took these pics at the playdate.

Pretending to eat some food, but mostly just sitting with the other little ones:

And some "bad hair day" shots but cute anyways:


Love the photography skills she has. These are great pics!

Playing with babies

We went on a playdate this weekend, with a bunch of other little ones all Sasha's age and had a blast!
My camera battery died so I didn't get any pictures, but fortunately one of the other moms shared her pictures with me. Here are a few.

Group shots of the kids:

Playing with bubbles!


We had a lot of fun. Sasha enjoyed playing with the slide and even a toy roller coaster. One of the little boys tried to give her a hug but accidentally knocked her off the roller coaster toy instead and she cried.

Knitting herself a sweater

I guess she's seen me knitting her sweaters enough. She thought she'd help me out a bit with them!
They say imitation is the best form of flattery.
I did finish knitting this sweater yesterday and it is really cute. I just need to put some buttons on it. Yesterday I finally got the buttons on that other sweater that I knit for Sasha. So I'll have to get some pictures up.

While we're talking about knitting, here's a pair of socks I knit for Sasha. My little model was crabby when I wanted to take a picture of her wearing her new handmade socks:

Fever

On Sunday afternoon, everything seemed to be going as usual for a day off. My husband and Sasha took a nap together. I didn't want Sasha napping for longer than an hour or two so that she didn't ruin her sleep schedule. After one hour had elapsed after she fell asleep, I tried to wake her up, but she was very groggy and difficult to wake. So I let her nap another half hour and tried again. She was still groggy and wouldn't wake up so I tried again another half hour later. After the two hour mark, I was determined to wake her. I sort of got her awake and walking around but she stayed awake for about 5 minutes and layed back down and fell asleep right in the middle of the living room floor. I kept pestering and harassing her but she just wouldn't wake up.
More hours passed by and I was starting to get concerned. She just wasn't waking. My husband picked her up and remarked that she felt hot. I touched her and she sure was. She was hot and crabby and tired. We fought with her to take her temperature and it was 101.0F degrees. Poor baby.
We had to fight with her again to give her some baby tylenol. She was a poor miserable little creature. You could tell by looking in her eyes that she felt miserable and my heart really felt for her. She was very inactive, not at all like her usual self. She just sat or flopped wherever she was and watched tv or whatever was in her view.
Eventually the baby tylenol kicked in and she started feeling better. On Monday she was still somewhat ill, but not as ill as she was on Sunday. By the end of the day on Monday, she seemed back to her old self.
Other than the tiredness and fever, there really weren't any other cold or flu symptoms. No gastrointestinal upset, nothing else that I can tell. The only thing I can think of is that maybe it was related to her new teeth.

First New Canine Tooth

Sorry I haven't updated in a while!
Sasha has been getting her four canine teeth. Her top left just erupted through, and her bottom left looks imminent. Her top right is definitely swollen and I can feel a bump on her bottom right.
Checking her teeth can be a challenge. Little girl can bite!. But if we need her to open her mouth to see anything inside, all we have to do is ask her "Sasha, where are you blueberries?". She will proudly open her mouth widely and point inside. This is from one day when I handed her a handful of blueberries. I turned my back on her for a few seconds and when I turned back they were all gone. I thought it was too quick for her to have eaten them so fast so I asked her where her blueberries went. This is when she opened her mouth widely and pointed inside. She ate them all! And now whenever we ask her where those blueberries went (or any other food she has just consumed), she will gladly tell us where they went.
All these new teeth have made little girl miserable at times. She is whiny and more irritable.