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