Toys Toddlers REALLY like

On Monday and Tuesday, I took Sasha to the local toddler preschool program that we found. We're going to make it a regular thing to do now on Mondays and Tuesdays. It's so good for her! The part of the program we've participated in so far is two part. First the kids play in the heavily stocked toy room. Then after about an hour, the kids get to play with bikes and balls in the elementary school gym.

The toy collections let me know what sort of toys she actually likes. I swear they've got aisles and aisles of toys stacked from floor to ceiling. Any toy you can think of ever made, they've got it and when Sasha likes one I can borrow it! This alone should save me money because I don't have to waste money on toys she won't like anymore.

Toys she liked this week:
Wooden pegged puzzles
Sit & Spin - remember these when you were a kid?
Playhouse- Sasha was guarding a play house like it was her turf
Toy Vacuum (go figure)- popular with all the toddlers!

I found that I really like Little Tikes toys. They've got the coolest stuff, very sturdy, and kids loved them. There were lots of little kids the same age as Sasha and pretty much all the cool toys that the kids liked were made by Little Tikes. I think everything else (Fisher Price, Playschool) broke under the strain of a gazillion toddlers playing with them. Wanna know if a toy is tough? Throw it in the room with this crowd of toddlers, haha!

So anyways, I borrowed the Sit & Spin toy. The one we borrowed has a button with lights and music on the part in the center that you hold.

At the gym, Sasha was fond of this little car:

Isn't it cute? I could push her around with the pole, or she could scoot it around herself, although she mostly scooted it backwards. She had a blast with it.
Anyways, in the gym today, Sasha met her first bully. Oh no! There was a three year old rich kid, very cute, with his imported au pair. In the gym portion of toddler preschool, he took a liking to Sasha. I don't know how to describe it but it was like he was herding sheep, if you've ever seen a sheep dog do that. Wherever Sasha would step, he would jump in front of her to prevent her from moving and would yell "You stay right here baby!". She was basically stuck standing in one spot as he wouldn't let her go anywhere. She didn't get upset. She just glared at him and didn't give up. She kept trying to move anyways. Eventually she sat down on the floor, to which he yelled "Yeah baby, you just sit there and don't move." Whenever she tried to stand up, he would hold her down so she couldn't get up.

I mostly watched for a few reasons. I've never seen Sasha encounter a social situation like this before and wanted to see how she reacted. She did pretty well I think! She just kept doing what she was trying to do and didn't give up trying. I also wanted to see what the kid was like, since Sasha will be playing in this program with this child on a weekly basis. I wanted to see if his nanny would step in and stop him. Nope. She just yelled at him and said "no don't do that" but that's not effective on a 3 year old. So she seemed mostly ineffective. Sasha didn't seem to be in any harm, and I think she learned from this social encounter that 3 year olds are annoying.

Eventually I did extricate Sasha from the situation and had her play across the gym from the boy. Sasha stole his car...the neat one pictured above. Yeah he was pretty upset at that but oh well. The kids had to pick a bike or car to bring to the gym and the car was actually what he originally chose, thus it was "his" car. So Sasha got her retaliation :)

The Director

Lately, Sasha has started telling us what to do. She's our little Director of Operations. During playtime, she'll give us toys to play with, point at us and the toy, and tell us to play with the toy. She'll make sure we're playing with them the way she wants, and if we're not, she'll yell at us, point insistently, or sometimes get mad. Then she'll take the toy away when she's done having us play with the one toy and will go seek another suitable activity for us. She can be very insistant, lol! It used to be that we would run around trying to entertain her but she's really flipping it around and is now in charge of playtime.

I'm assuming it's a phase. Or is it a sign of her personality? Hard for me to tell. I think it's funny and amusing for now.

Little Fashionista

Sasha LOVES clothes. She loves it when I change her clothes, and she especially loves shoes. If she doesn't have her shoes on, she will bring them to me and will daintily hold out her feet to me so that I will put them on her feet.
I've got some pic

She's trying to put her shoes on her feet all by herself. She figures if she hits her shoes against her feet enough, maybe they'll go on her feet:


Trying to put her skirt on. Note she's trying to put it on over her head, hehe!

Trying to decide on an outfit then trying to take off her jacket, which she just asked me to put on her a few minutes earlier:


She's decided on a new jacket, and is trying to take the other one off.



What a little Virgo girl :)

Baby Sign Language

Well, I'm overdue for a post on Sasha's sign language development. I've mentioned it in previous posts, especially when she learned a new sign, but I figured I'd put together a post and try to compile her current vocabulary. She just turned 14 months old. She signed her first sign (more) at 6 months, and I've been signing to her since she was two months old.
First, I'll try to list her signs. Wish me luck; I know I'll be coming back to edit this part as I remember more of them, as she's got a good sign language vocabulary.

• Sister/Cassie - her favorite or most often used sign


• Dad -the way she does this is cute. She points at her forehead, looks like think, or even worse, sometimes it looks like an 'L' on her forehead, like loser!


• more - she bumps her fists together


• all done


• all gone - she only does this with one hand


• eat


• drink


• milk


• water
• cereal - when she's eating her cheerios


• potty - she does this sign a lot! When anyone goes potty, when the toilet flushes, when she's currently going potty. Hope that means she'll potty train easy, haha!


• bath - one of her new favorite signs. Sometimes she literally makes motions across her whole body like she's washing up. arms, legs, and all.


• bird - she surprised me with this sign one day. I showed it to her when she was looking at some geese outside. Then later that day she pointed at the tv and signed bird. Yep, there was a bird on televison!


• dog - another favorite sign. She loves doggies. I wish she could see more of them as they make her so happy. She barks when she does this sign now


• tree - she only signs this when I sign it first.


• light - She loves lights! She points out every light in our hallway and can say 'light' also.


• telephone - as much as she loves telephones, she doesn't do this sign often but I've seen her do it.


• bye bye - bye bye, but I think most every baby can do this. She opens and closes her hands at head level. Funny thing is, she waits until the person leaves before she'll say bye bye to them. By that time, they're long gone.


• shoes - This girl LOVES her shoes. If she doesn't have her shoes on, she'll ask for them to be put on, usually by bringing us her shoes and sticking out her feet. But she has on rare occasion signed shoe


• socks- Her newest sign! She signed this one today. I didn't even know she knew this sign.


• hat - She hardly ever does this sign, only did it to copy me when she did do it


• baby signing time -she knows this as a phrase/song and as her sign language video, but not the individual words. One day I sang her the Intro song to the Baby Signing Time video (it's one of those annoying songs that sticks in your head) and she started signing "baby signing time"! I was impressed.


• sleep - instead of signing this across her whole face, she just signs this over her lips and does a funny little raspberry. But she really means she's tired when she does this!


• I know she knows more, I'll update this when I think of them

Some of her signs look similar, and I have a hard time distinguishing them. 'Milk', 'light', 'all done', 'bye-bye' sort of look the same the way she does them some times. I'm trying to get her to hold her hand up high over her head for the sign for 'light' so I can tell the difference but right now she opens and closes her hand at head level for 'light' and 'milk' and 'bye bye'. 'All done', she NORMALLY does with both hands but sometimes she gets lazy with it, then it looks like 'milk', light, etc.

Her signs are not precise by any means. By that, I mean her version of the sign does not look like the textbook version. But she has meaning behind them. When she signs 'all-done', she really means 'all-done', and she usually does it the same every time. In that respect, it is a true form of communication.

Suspiciously absent from her list is 'mom'! Nope, she won't sign Mom. She has signs for 'dad' and 'sister' but not 'mom'. Bummer!

Tea Time

Sasha is a little tea fiend. Then again, so is her Daddy. The two of them have a daily tea time ritual.
This has been going on for a while now. Jon likes to make tea by the gallon. We buy bulk tea leaves so he can make his tea and he can drink about a gallon a day. (1 US gallon = 3.7854118 liters). When it's time to make his tea for the day, Sasha always accompanies him. She insists upon it now. When Jon says 'tea', she gets very excited and runs to him, and she starts chanting 'tea, tea, tea'. When she says 'tea', it sounds like just the 't' sound of it without the vowel.
He balances Sasha in one arm, which leaves him his other arm to make the tea. Under Sasha's watchful eye, he fills the teapot with water, then puts it on the stovetop to bring to a boil. Sasha will let her daddy put her back down to run around the house while she waits for the tea water. When the tea water is boiling, the teapot whistles, and Sasha runs back into her daddy's arms. He measures the tea leaves into a large bowl, and counts each teaspoon out while Sasha watches. He carefully pours the hot tea water over the leaves, careful to stay balanced and not to let any steam or hot water get to Sasha.
It's just so cute how she insists on being in his arms every time he goes to make tea. She also loves to drink the tea! We now have a collection of Sasha teas...teas that are low in caffeine or uncaffeinated just for her. She has some plum tea, and fruit tea, both containing vitamin c and antioxidants, but she still loves just plain old black tea. When any of us is drinking our tea, she comes up to us and has us give her some of ours. She enjoys drinking it straight from our coffee mugs.

Dad's got the schedule now

My first night back to work after implementing our new day shift schedule and routine. I wanted to take another personal day to stay home from work, but I'm all out of them so I had no choice. I was hoping to cement the new schedule a little more so that it would be easier on my husband. I know it is so hard on him to hear her cry.
She was asleep within two minutes tonight. I can't believe how well she goes to sleep at night.
I am at work right now. I know she was doing some night waking. I'm sure I'll hear more about that when I get home.
Meanwhile, I've been night weaning Sasha at the same time. The verdict is still out as to whether or not it is helping with her appetite. I am going to pump at work to keep my milk supply up just in case it doesn't. Today she ate a bunch of cheerios and some scrambled eggs. She also drank some milk and some tea. It's the first time she's ever drank cow's milk without refusing! Maybe this will work. I'm so optimistic!

(UPDATE: After I got home from work, Sasha and Jon were still asleep. Both got plenty of sleep! It's working!)

2nd night

Update to our new sleep and routine. See previous post.

I took a personal day from work so I could try to cement our new sleep schedule with Sasha. I am amazed at how well she is taking so many changes at once. It's almost like she likes the new routine.
Our bedtime routine is now as follows. We have a family dinner and feed Sasha as best as we can. After dinner, Sasha plays for a little bit and then it is bath time. She takes a warm bath whether she needs it or not. She is dressed into her pajamas. We turn down all the lights in the house so it is dim, and Sasha listens to some music on itunes. She gets a nite-nite daddy dance with the itunes visualizer. That always makes her drowsy. I give her a final nursing for the night. Finally, she is ready to be tucked into her crib.
Tonight I put her in her crib, and she immediately cried. I turned out the lights, turned on some light music (Sarah McLachlan). I rubbed her temple lightly and whispered "Ni-nite" a few times. Then I turned and left the room, closing the door behind me.
I used a stop watch to time her. She stood up in her crib as soon as I walked out the door. I let her cry for one minute exactly and returned to the room. I had her lay back down again, rubbed her temples, and whispered "nite-nite" a few times, walked out, closed the door behind me. 45 seconds later, all was silent. A minute later, I reopened the door and I swear she was asleep!
So it took a total of 1min 45 seconds to get her to sleep.
She slept well for a few hours, but then the night waking started. It really made my husband anxious. He is really restraining himself as he just wants to run to her and pick her up whenever she cries. For the night wakings, we do the same as putting her to sleep. I check on her to make sure she is not hot, cold, hurt, or in any trouble or danger. Then I let her cry for a minute, check, console. Two minutes, check, console. Three minutes, check, console. Four minutes, check, console. She cried off and on during one of her night waking sessions for almost a half an hour. I know I feel bad! But she wasn't crying non-stop, just off and on.
Everything has been going so well otherwise. I figured we'd have some night waking, especially considering she's used to frequent night nursing. She's just in booby withdrawl. Each night is better than the night before.

First night

Update to previous post:

First night down on our new sleep plan, and all is ok. Sasha slept 6.5 hours straight. Actually she did night wake a few times but she settled back down ok. I'm used to her sleeping 8-10 hours, but after 6.5 hours she was up, talking to herself, and playing with her glowworm. Maybe she'll take extra naps? Not sure what to expect yet but I'm playing it by ear to see what her natural schedule or biorhythm is.

Day shift is great for Sasha. Yesterday I took her to a program that our school district has for babies and toddlers. It was awesome!!! She got to play with 234895723495 toys and other babies her age. If we keep this up, we'll make it a regular occurrence. Then today I took her to a park...something that was usually very difficult to do on a night shift. She had a blast!

Our new plan

It took a LOT of thought, but we finally decided to make a BUNCH of changes. We are going to switch Sasha to a day shift schedule, night wean, try the cry-it-out check and console method, and see if we can't FINALLY get her to sleep through the night.
It's a drastic change but it's necessary. So far, she's been a real trooper and taking it well but we're still only on our first night so we shall see.

I work night shift, and so Sasha and my husband have been night shifters with me as well. Lately, now that she's walking, it's not working out! She's so loud, and we're in an apartment complex with neighbors. When I come home at night from work to feed her I can hear her all the way down the complex hallway. We're going to upset our neighbors if we can't keep it quiet at night.
Add to that the fact that I work full time, and have to come home for her nursings twice a night. It's too much.
We've been doing the co-sleeping/nursing combination and she wakes up at least 10-20times a day to nurse. Therefore previous attempts to switch to day shift and have my husband sleep with her have been unsuccessful. She would keep waking up, and neither my husband nor Sasha could sleep at night without me. If we could get her to sleep through the night at NIGHT, then she and my husband could actually get out of the house and do stuff during the day when everything is actually open. Coffee shops! Book stores! Parks! Malls! Anything! They're so cooped up in this small apartment all night and they're both getting stir crazy...it's not even winter yet. Ever have to watch tv or stay up at night at home? Nothing but infomercials and there is nothing to do. My husband has been so incredibly bored and drained.
I read recently that frequent night nursings decrease a toddler's appetite for solids. I don't know if it's true but that's definitely the case for us. We've had little to no success getting Sasha to eat and it's been a huge source of guilt for us. She's not grown since her 9 month check up. No height change, and only a few ounces in weight. She's drastically dropped in percentiles. I'm hoping that night weaning her will help her take solids. If this does not work, then I'm in trouble.

I gave the Cry-it-out check and console method a try for a nap and it worked well, and it also worked well putting her to bed. She was OUT, completely asleep after 10 minutes only! She cries 1 min, I check and console. She cries two minutes, I check and console. She cries 3 minutes, I check and console, and she is out like a light. So far.

Wish us luck! So many changes at once but she's taking it well so far. I hope this works. It will drastically improve our quality of life if it does. Getting my husband and Sasha out of the apartment during the day will be a godsend.

Baby Fun!

We found out that our local school district has a preschool program for children ages birth through 5. So I decided to check it out. They have daily activities, a classroom open to the kids that is chock full wall to ceiling full of toys, story times, open gym. They have a toy library, where you can check out and borrow cool toys. Plus they have other stuff like classes for parents, field trips, arts and crafts. Wow!
I took Sasha to her first fun filled evening. She's not really used to interacting with anyone outside the immediate family, so this should be great for socializing her. At first, Sasha went into a very quiet, observing mode. They started out with story time and they had all these little chairs. I sat Sasha in a chair and she literally just sat there on that chair for like 20-30 minutes straight, just staring around and trying to make sense of what was going on:

After story time was over, she still just sat in that chair. The rest of the kids moved on to arts and crafts and playtime. Eventually I was able to coax her off that chair and into arts and crafts:

They made a turkey out of a paper bag stuffed with crumpled news paper, then they had each child 'decorate' a paper turkey feather. Sasha did just fine decorating her little feather. Go Sasha!

She warmed up to the classroom and played with toys for a while. They opened up the school gymnasium and put a bunch of balls, bikes, and outdoor-type toys in there. I took her to that and she ran around and pushed the bikes around. No she wouldn't ride them, she just wanted to push them:

After she got tired of that, we went back to the classroom of toys. Did I mention it was stuffed floor to ceiling with aisles of toys?

We stayed until they closed up the classroom and kicked us out. What a blast. Sasha made a little friend with a boy a month younger than her. Actually, they just stood in front of each other and stared, but when it was time to leave they said 'bye bye!' to each other, which was really cute.
There were actually lots of kids her age there. I think the interaction with other kids her age should be good for her. We'll definitely be doing this again. Especially during the winter months to keep us from feeling cooped up. I love this program

Stacking Blocks

Well here's another milestone caught on camera: stacking blocks! Yay Sasha!

She's all recovered from her cold, thankfully. This week in general has been a rough one so thank goodness it's my equivalent of a Friday. There were building inspectors that came through our apartment, maintenance work in our apartment, plus smoke and fire alarm testing which made the fire alarms in the building keep going off during the day. That made it tough to sleep this week. Oh the joy of being a night shift worker. Then add Sasha's new teeth and her cold to the blend and it made for a challenging week. Especially for my sleep-deprived husband. He has the patience of a saint I swear. I don't know what we'd do without him. He adores his little girl, and she keeps him going.

Remember that post a week back or so where I said Sasha was finally eating? Well scratch that. She's not eating anymore. I am so terribly worried about her. She ate nothing the past few days. We've tried but she just wouldn't eat. Nothing but nursing and I don't think a nearly 14 month old can survive on nursing alone.

I might be switching her back to a day shift. I may also start working on getting her into her own bed. Wish me luck with that. It is going to be a very trying week for us this next week if we do.

The Climbing Begins

Sasha has slowly become more adventurous with her climbing, but this is a big leap forward. She rolled her car over to the computer desk so she could reach the mouse, keyboard, stapler, cell phone, and other fun stuff she's not supposed to play with.
I know this mischevious smile well. Had to include this pic because it is a classic Sasha smile.
Oh look, she found a cell phone!

I was at work when this happened. My husband suddenly asked me where the camera was and was quiet for a while. That's when he took these pictures. He's normally very jumpy when it comes to Sasha climbing so I'm surprised he was able to take these pictures. Hehe!

Colds and Teeth

It came from out of nowhere. A cold. I came home from work the night before last night, and Sasha had a runny nose. She had seemed just fine earlier that night. By the time she went to bed, she was so stuffed up that she was having a hard time breathing.

All night, I laid next to her, and I could hear her labored breathing. She mostly had to breathe out her mouth so it sounded almost like a snore. Nursing was difficult for her. It was sad to see her get so frustrated with something that was usually her comfort. But since she was mostly breathing out her mouth, it was nearly impossible for her to nurse properly and it seemed to make her anxious, and me too. I wanted to make sure that I passed on the antibodies that would help her fight off whatever it was that was ailing her.

She felt warm and her cheeks were a rosy pink, but she didn't seem to have a fever.

Fortunately, it was short lived. By the next night, her runny nose was gone and she was able to breathe properly again. She actually sat in my lap and watched tv with me for a while. Normally she would not sit still that long. As she sat in my lap, I checked the progress of the new tooth coming in. It's still painfully swollen and now I've noticed two more molars coming in on the top! Poor kid. 3 molars on the way and a cold. I guess it explains her crabby wookie spells.

Work it, baby!

If you want to be buff, you've got to exercise!

Up! Down! Up! Down!

No pain, no gain!

Don't worry, they're only 1-pound weights :)

Singing Baby

There have been plenty of times where I sing songs that have hand motions to Sasha, like Itsy Bitsy Spider, Herman the Worm, or Patty Cake. Sasha likes to try to gesture along. But today, she did something very cute: she sang!
We were at the dinner table, eating jambalaya. My husband was taking a nap so it was just the girls and I. At some point, she decided to stop eating. Eventually, she became bored of watching me eat my dinner and fussed. She didn't fuss long, maybe 30 seconds, when she resigned herself to try to entertain herself. She did a few hand motions with her hands that I did not recognize as sign language, but the movements were peculiar and deliberate. She babbled to herself a few times, and then it happened. She started singing. She has a beautiful little voice.
It wasn't a song that I recognize. She made some hand motions to go along with it, sort of similar to the "roll it" part of patty cake. The words to the song were all "dadadada dadada". But it was a cute sweet baby voice that varied in frequency. It took me a bit to realize what she was doing but I was pretty surprised when I figured it out.
I just wish I knew what song it was, if it was a song we've sang to her. My husband and I have a habit of making up our own songs and singing to her. Some of my husband's songs are not songs that I've ever heard, and vice versa. Half of my made up songs, I doubt I'd even remember them. I just sort of make them up on the spot, pertinent to that situation only, and they're non-sensical. For example, if Sasha is fussing while I'm busy cooking, I might start 'singing' the recipe or actions I am doing in an effort to calm her down.

Besides the singing, we have another molar coming in! Her first molar is through now and she's really chewing foods well. Now this second molar is at a stage where it looks pretty painful. Her gum is huge and swollen and I can feel the tooth beneath but it hasn't come through. So she has 9 teeth and a 10th on the way. She has intermittent bouts of fussiness, which I think is related to the new tooth. I'm sure it has to hurt. Poor girl.