16 Months and growing!

I didn't get to Cailin's 15 month post last month with all the non stop illnesses in my house. Actually, I haven't been posting much at all, mainly due to illnesses.

Anywho, Cailin is just growing like a weed. Not so much physically really. This girl finally hit 23lbs at her 15 month appointment. Finally gained like a half a pound since like 10 months. I went from people commenting on how big she was, to people telling me she's "tiny". I don't think she's tiny, but she does seem small. That's okay. She's eating tons!

This girl is learning something new every day. I can barely keep up. I can't even list words she's saying now, cause I couldn't even remember them all. She's repeating words we say, or at least trying to. Time to watch the F word around here! She says things like, "ew", "owie", and "ay yi yi". She also says names like, Ebo (Elmo), Doda (Dora) and Dabba (Yo Gabba Gabba). Yeah, I'm starting to think we watch too much TV. I don't have anything against TV, but I've wanted to keep it to a minimum for her. And she doesn't sit in front of it all day, by any means. I'd say she watches 30-60 minutes a day, while I'm cooking dinner. It's the only thing that keeps us both sane. When we get home, she's hungry and grumpy. So Nick Jr. and some pretzels keep her happy until dinner's ready.  She will also answer questions. She says "yeah" and "no".

She's finally learning some manners. :) Signing "please" when she wants something (50% of the time) and saying "thank you" when she gets it (80% of the time). So cute. She says, "tay tay".

She's so silly. She has learned how to pucker her lips and give silly kisses. making a "mmmmmuah!" noise. But she scrunches up her nose when she does it. She'll tell you where her nose, eyes, ears and mouth are. See:

She's throwing full on tantrums. Throwing herself on the floor tantrums.

She has 11 teeth! All four on top and bottom, and 3 molars. And they keep coming.

She's still in 18 month clothing.

She loves baths, books, Yo Gabba Gabba, and Dora/Diego(same thing, right? I prefer Diego over Dora. That bitch is annoying!). She also has a thing for babies. Her blankie/lovie. God help me if I ever lose that thing. All hell would break loose for sure. Why don't I have a backup you ask? Because that thin 12x12 peice of fabric right there cost me $25 flippin dollars! So she only likes the silky material. At least one FULL side must be silky fabric. Do you know where they sell that type of blanky? NOWHERE. Not Target, Walmart, or even Babies R Us. I finally went online and that was all I could find. I'm going to try sewing my own backup... someday... when I have some extra time on my hands...  Also, sucking her thumb. The lovie and thumb sucking go hand and hand.

She still hates the usual. Diaper changes are still the devil. She's starting to dislike when I brush her teeth too.

Wordless Wednesday: Spring has Sprung!

Here are the pics from our last shoot with the wonderful LaTricia.

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Sick

I've pretty much been sick since August. I know I've posted about being sick a couple times (and the kiddo being sick too, but that's a different kind of sick). I'm nauseas. Diarrhea. Vomiting. All the time. It'll start with one day out of nowhere I'll be sitting at my desk at work and the nausea starts. I try to ignore it, drink some water or eat something. But it doesn't go away, it only gets worse. Before I know it I'm in the bathroom shitting my brains out (TMI, I know). Then I'm thinking to myself, "Oh maybe I just needed to poop". Nope. Not too long after I'm back in the bathroom and it's coming out the other end. I'm completely feeling like death at this point and incapable of doing anything, even caring for my daughter when I get home from work. Since Husband has been out of town, I'll call someone, anyone, to come help with her while I lay on the couch in misery. The next day I'll still feel like shit (and be shitting), but at least I'm not dying or throwing up. Then I basically feel like crap, but managable crap all week or two. I'll get a break somewhere in between where I'll feel normal. Then a week or two later it starts again.

There's something wrong with me. I don't know what it is, but I KNOW there's something wrong. I'm lathargic, nauseas and all around feeling yucky all the time. Not only that, but did you know that I STILL get PUPPPS rash every month when I ovulate? Yep. And I can.not seem to lose weight. I've been doing Weight Watchers for 8 weeks now. I've been staying within my points, and I don't use my weekly points. I've been all around eating a LOT healthier. Haven't been able to really work out much due to not feeling well, but do you know how much weight I've lost? In 8 weeks? 3 fucking pounds. You'd think with the healthy eating plus the whole not being able to keep much food in my body would equal weight loss, right? Wrong. This can't be normal.

Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment. I'm sure they won't listen to me. I'm sure they'll prescribe me some medicine for nausea and send me on my way, but I need to be stern. I need to tell them that they need to send me to some sort of specialist, or run some tests for God sake.

Oh and on a side note, my poor princess can't catch a break either. She went her longest streak since October - 4 or 5 weeks without getting sick. But then the weather went from 80 degrees to 50 degrees literally over night, and BAM! She gets another cold. :(

On another note: Cailin's 15 months now. I need to get to that post, but work is insanely busy and with being sick and all, I haven't had the time or energy.

I'll leave you with a picture, since I hate pictureless posts.

Wordless Wednesday - blonde hair & smokey eye

Changing it up. Look, it's me not the baby!

I recently went blonde again (and my hair is now dry as hell)! And this was my pink and grey smokey eye makeup for our mommy & me pics we did with the fabulous LaTricia this weekend. Pics to come, I can't wait to see them!

I Feed Myself, Momma.

Check her out feeding herself with a spoon! This was about a month ago. I was thinking about getting her a toddler fork too. The other day I accidently left my fork in her reach, left to put the dogs away while we ate (they were being especially bad), and when I came back, she was trying to pick up her food with my fork! I mean, she was even doing it correctly, and I was like "huh, maybe I should get her her own fork."

Life With A Toddler

Can I just say... HOLY SHIT!! Now that Cailin is walking my life is officially over. This is what just happened:

Went to Target, she was okay until we got to the register. Then started yanking on me and whining because she wanted down. We got away from Target without any meltdowns.

However, once we got to Trader Joe's, that's a whole other story. She did NOT want to go in the cart. She wanted down to walk. Um, sorry Charlie! So there was a whole fit about that. Screaming, and then crying because I accidently hurt her leg on the cart while trying to get her to sit down. Now she's crying, tears and all, so I am consoling her, apologizing and telling her that Mommy didn't mean to hurt her.  Once the tears dry up we struggled again and finally got her into the cart. This was all before we even entered the damn store. She was fussing and not wanting to be in there. Toys weren't working, my keys weren't even working as she kept throwing them on the floor. Ugh. I was seriously considering turning around and leaving, but then I got that little sample of coffee, and two cups, and gave one of the cups to her. Then I gave the other one to her once I was done drinking the coffee and thank all that is holy, that made her happy. She spent the rest of the time playing with the little cups putting them in and out of eachother.

Then we got to the register and there was this old Middle Eastern couple behind us. They were dressed in Muslim/Middle Eastern clothing. The woman wearing one of those dresses with the veil and all, and the man had a long white beard and one of those big hats ( please excuse my description and ignorance on this subject. I really have no idea what they're called. I even tried googling). Anyway, Cai sees them and start pointing and staring. Big time. I mean, she likes to stare at people, but she was STARING. And of course kept pointing. I kept bringing her hand down when she would point and tried telling her to say "hi", but no. How embarrassing! At least she's not old enough to say something about it. Oi!

Going out to eat is getting ridiculously hard now. She just no longer wants to sit still. I get it, she just learned how to walk and she's enjoying this new world of hers, but my goodness, it's almost impossible to take her into public now. Once she has food infront of her she's okay for a bit, but she will now throw food, yell, etc. We won't be going out to eat as much anymore that's for sure.

It's just different, I guess. She's always been such a good, easy going baby, and now she's done a complete 180. I mean, she's still good, as long as she's getting her way. Which about 95% of the time this spoiled princess is getting her way. We've officially reached toddlerhood, people. Yikes. Having a baby was so much easier than having a toddler.

Making Toddler Food

Once Cailin turned one, and also decided she was too much of a big girl to be spoon fed, I had a hard time figuring out what to feed this kid. Also because we weren't doing formula anymore, and aparently giving whole milk as much as she was taking formula is not ideal.

Now I think I got this feeding a toddler thing down. First of all, she is a FANTASTIC eater. I am so lucky. She eats pretty much whatever we're eating. She is just now starting to show a distaste in some things, and I definitely know what her favorites are. Her favorite foods are: avacado, mac n' cheese, cucumber, and sweet potatoes. She's not a huge fan of meat. She loves her vegis. If I only put meat on her plate, she'll eat it. But if I put meat, and vegis on her plate, she'll eat all the vegis and spit the meat out. Or feed it to the dogs.

Speaking of the bottle, we finally got her off of that. Well, sort of. We're using the Nuk Active Cup, So technically it's not a bottle, but it's sort of still shaped like one. The other tranistion cups with the nipple like spout she doesn't like. I think this is better because the nipple is smaller. She's also down to just 2-3 cups of milk a day. Morning, sometimes mid day, and before bed. I'm not exactly sure if she's taking her "bottle" during the day at my SIL's anymore, but I know on the weekends she's not really wanting it.

Anyway, I miss some of the convenience of making a load of baby food and freezing it. I mean, cutting up some fresh fruits and vegis isn't hard, but what about the cooked ones? So I took some ideas from Gerber.

You know those Gerber Pick Ups? Great idea. But what's not so great is food that sits on a shelf, AKA preservitives. I'm not a big fan of feeding her those things. Not that she doesn't eat anything with preservatives. She gets Cheerios, and Goldfish, and Puffs for snacks, but when it comes to fruits and vegis and such, I don't really trust carrots or yogurt that can sit on a shelf unrefridgerated. So, I made them myself. I cut up some carrots, sweet potato and/or squash into bite sized peices, steamed them and froze them. I put the chopped, cooked vegis in an ice cube tray just like before, froze. Then once frozen I put them in a bag. They stay stuck together in the cube.  Just like making baby food. Except I skipped the pureeing part. I also made a bunch of little baby sized whole grain pancakes and froze those too. Like homemade Eggos! I also added what I had left of my purees to those. So we had sweet potato and beet pancakes, yum! And one other time I added banana. Mmmm banana pancakes.  Aren't I smart?! ;p



Um... I swear I know how to spell pancakes. Derrrr.