Becoming sneaky?

I am relaying a story DH told me earlier since I am standing mid-watches and miss my little girl's mornings.

Apparently Miss C is getting sneaky. When she started crawling we fully expected her to venture out and explore more. That was all fine and good and when she got into something, mainly power outlets or other dangerous areas, DH started to make a "zzzt" noise and tell her "no, danger." That worked reasonably well although Miss C would put her little hand right back around the area she got zzzt'd, in her attempts to determine what caused that sound.

This morning, Miss C displayed another facet we hadn't seen, trickery. She was zzzt'd and moved when she was messing with DH's cigar box. Not a big deal, just something not to mess with. Well, according to DH, Miss C took her toy kitten and started tossing it over towards the box. She would toss it, crawl over and hug it, make her purring sound then toss it again, each time getting progressively closer to the coveted box. Eventually, DH caught on and they moved to another room to play in hopes that she would soon forget the box.

I thought it was a cute story. I think I remember Alphagal mentioning E-baby doing something similar with her pacifier but it was at a much later age. I wonder if Miss C is trying to trick us or what.
I mean, look at this little girl, do you think she would try to trick you?

A busy day all around

Today we went to visit the Navy's Child Development center. Let me explain, after Mrs J told me that she was closing down at the end of the summer, DH and I discussed when we should start looking for alternate care. We agreed to move Miss C in July when Mrs J is going home on vacation. I spoke with Mrs J about this and she was fine with it. Well, when we signed up for in home care, we also got on the wait list for the child Development center. Apparently this place is harder to get into than Harvard! We are "Priority 1" because we are dual military and we just got a chance to take a spot after 6 months!
We decided to take the spot (it opens on May 5th) because Miss C does need the socialization with her peers and because Mrs J is closing down. So, today Miss C and I had an adventure and went to meet her classmates and her teachers. She had a great time. I swear little miss thing was introducing herself to everyone, it was so cute! She apparently remembers the group setting from SoCal and is fine with it.
So, I thought that because DH was still here that we would just shift over in May in spite of my being on shift. Oh, I was so wrong!
When DH got home from work today he told me that he will be leaving soon, not quite sure when soon, but sometime in the next few days. He will be back around Miss C's birthday but he has another, albeit shorter trip then. AH, OK, so now what?
I called Mrs J and talked to her. We had discussed this possibility earlier and she is being gracious enough to be willing to help out still. Thank gosh for great people. So, for those interested, here's our plan to make sure that we are using all of our resources.
Once DH leaves, Mrs J will let me bring Miss C over for the eves and mids (on the eves I get her at midnight, poor baby, and on mids I bring her at 10pm, poor baby, and wait until noon the next day to get her so I can get some sleep). Once our spot opens at the Child Development Center (CDC), I will use them for weekday days, but I am paying for all of the services.
Mrs J is nice enough to let me use my 50 hours then charge me the additional even though I will use most of them in the evenings and overnight (oh yea, and weekends). i am really lucky and blessed that she is willing to help me out with this. The reason I will still take Miss C to the CDC is for the school aspect with other kids. I am going to pay regardless.
So, other than that, I learned that in order to advance to the next "class", Miss C will have to be able to walk comfortably, show independent eating (apparently they work on this in her class first) and sit at a little table to eat. Are they trying to make her grow up too fast?
i worry that i am not doing enough then I worry that they want too much!
Alas, on the plus side, I am still home. DH won't be gone the 6 months that most folks are. Mrs J and family are seriously helping save my bacon.
And, one big plus, Miss C is a happy, healthy, well adjusted little girl. Guess that should be the most important, right?

Enjoying dinner and learning

We have learned some neat things recently.
1. From a mother to be, my sister in law, L, we learned that if you put a little sugar in tomato sauce, it takes out the acidity. This is terrific because Miss C loves spaghetti, as you can see below!


















2. We learned that the best clean up for spaghetti is a bath, the results are below.



















3. We learned that combining squash and spaghetti makes Miss C a happy girl. She ate spaghetti squash alfredo for lunch and boy was she happy!

4. We learned that if we have a walking stick, Miss C must have her own walking stick for hikes, even if she is in a back pack carrier.

That's about it for us today.

What have you learned lately?

Miss C is 10 months old today! (on the 9th, I just know I won't have time to blog tomorrow! :) )

Holy cow. I know each month I say that but each month seems to sneak up on me and smack me with a brick. I can't believe Miss C is ten months old today. Wow! Let's see:
1. Communicating. Miss C is getting more adept at communicating with us. She uses a combination of verbal words, signs and verbal grunts and hollers. For example, when she is hungry but not for milk, she gives a guttural cry and grabs at your pants. When she wants some milk, she gets your attention and signs milk with one or both hands. When she wants water, she waves her hand towards her cheek, her version of the water sign. When she sees the cat, she screams "kitty!" flails to get to her and tries to purr (think how you might sound purring and make it in baby noise) then smacks the floor next to her to get the cat to come to her. Its all very amusing and enlightening.
2. Standing, climbing. whatever. Miss C tries to give us heart failure at every possible opportunity. I already told you all about the stairs (ugh!) but she still works our heart rates at other times. Miss C is pulling herself up on everything and trying to surf around it. For example, there is an end table to the right of where I tend to sit in the living room. I have already given up any rights to said table because Miss C is tall enough to reach everything on it and believes it is hers so... Yep. I caved. Anyway, she will stand up, grab something, book, bowl, whatever, then either switch hands and hand walk herself over to me or drop it on the ground then sit down next to it and play. It really is interesting to watch and see how she decides which to drop and which to carry.
3. Gravity. Apparently this is the stage where kids try gravity out for size. Miss C does this with lots of stuff. For example, she will stand up, grab a pacifier and then drop it and see how far it moves. She will then get down, grab it and do it all over again. I have seen her work on this technique when she is done eating but we have not noticed her "all done" and "wash hands" signs or she is simply bored.
4. Favorite foods. I think it might be too early to have a favorite food, but it seems like Miss C likes sweet potatoes and pasta. Both in any form imaginable. I made sweet potato fries, oh yea, those were a hit! I make her pasta, this week its spaghetti noodles, for meals and have to hide them until she eats her "baby food" otherwise she will refuse to eat until she gets her pasta! Unfortunately, she seems to get tummy aches from tomato sauce so we switched from marinara to Alfredo. Yep, baby gets spaghetti Alfredo!
5. Dancing. When Miss C started to stand, I show her the "booty dance." You all know the one I am talking about. Its the one where you work on your balance so you hold your arms out and shake your booty while you listen to music. She loves this dance. She is so cute because she loves music and dances to almost anything. We got a new CD the other day and were listening to it during snack time. Miss C decided she had to dance and booty danced in her high chair! It really was priceless!
I guess that's pretty much the basics for this month.

On a bummer note, Mrs J let us know today that she won't be running the day care after September, family issues and all. I am afraid her own two little girls feel like she is spending too much time with other kids. I can't say I blame them. We all wanted our mother's time to ourselves when we were kids, right? I admit the announcement took me by surprise but I do understand. I am going to start interviewing new providers towards the end of June. Bummer.
So, what's everyone else been up to lately?

Rough morning (a poo story)

Well, as you are probably aware, I am doing shift work for a while. This week I am on eves which means I miss Miss C's dinner, bath time and bed time. I get home around midnight. Last night Miss C woke up at 3am or so. Ok, no problem. This hasn't happened in a while, she might be hungry. She has taken to being more independent lately so she chooses either to take a bottle or not to but won't touch it if you try to get her to. Yep, loads of fun. This hasn't been a huge issue lately but...
Well, I got her fed and back to sleep but then she woke up practically screaming at 330. I ran upstairs, barely awake and dying for sleep, and changed her. I figured that she had a wet butt and all that. When I got there, she was on her tummy, hands and knees really, crying her eyes out. Bad dream? Maybe. Got the diaper changed and found a neat little poo package in there. Ok, that was the issue, no problem. By this time, DH came up to help and sent me back to bed while he got Miss C back to sleep.
We thought all was well. She woke up at her normal 6am wake up time and life was grand until she started to grunt and groan (her normal poo faces and sounds). I grunted with her and then she started to cry and scream. Oh crap! Did I make her cry?!! DH mentioned a little while later that she had done something similar lately and that she really hadn't pooped much... Hmm...
I started to think about all of the discussions Alphagal and Poobou have included me in on with their girls and this potentially potent issue. The crying abated and I thought, ok, time to take some action. Around 9 I decided to help out and used (ugh!) a lubed q-tip. I then put Miss C in her crib and we played peek a boo. DH mentioned that she seems to poo better in there maybe because the mattress is soft so I thought I would give it a shot.
Yep, loads of fun. It took about 10 minutes but then Miss C got red in the face, started bearing down, grunting and crying. It was terrible. I remembered something Poobou wrote and decided to let gravity help. I picked up Miss C and held her to my chest, her head on my shoulder. We then sat in her glider and I let her use my legs to brace her little feet on. She cried and screamed and all I could do was rub her back and tell her we were getting it all out. By the time 3o minutes had elapsed, I knew we were successful. Sometime during all of this, I managed to get her little pants off and unsnap her onesie. Lucky me.
I braced myself for more tears as I laid her down on her changing pad. Low and behold a nearly 6 inch gift awaited me (grown up size and all, poor baby!) and Miss C was exhausted.
So, how was your morning?