Sleep is good..or maybe sleep is great

D had a monster nighttime sleep last night. I put her down a little after 7:30pm and she didn't wake up this morning until close to 8:30am! Cool! I wonder if the rain and darkened skies had anything to do with it?
Regardless, she was just a powerhouse of knowledge this morning.
When I picked her up from the crib, I brought her to the window to show her how it had rained. Saying in Chinese, "It rained last night. It's all wet outside." To which she responded, "Wet!"
And then continued to say, "Da lay" (lightening - which is something we talked about when it rained last time.) Then she said, "Umbrella!" Whoa...this girl was pulling out all the words that she knew corresponded with rain. That was pretty cool.
Then I'm feeding her breakfast and I'm making sliced oranges with yogurt. She's saying, "Orange, orange" as I'm pulling it out of the fridge but her pronounciation is more like, "oranch, oranch"
And while we are eating, she always likes to eat what I'm eating even if we are having the same exact thing so I give her a scoop of my yogurt. And she announces after she eats it, "Yogurt"!
Whaat?! This girl is on a roll today. And that's not the end.
We are on the staircase just sitting and playing and she is having me pet her stuffed giraffe, the entire time saying, "Muo, muo" which means "pet" in Chinese. The she announces, "PET!" as we are stroking the giraffe. I was all excited and so proud of her. Then she announces, "PAT!" and pats her own back and then pats mine!!
I am telling you...it's crazy. All this before noon.
On the flip side, she is so cognizant of everything that is going on, that she intentionally screams and carries on when I am on the phone. She refuses to go play by herself and latches onto me so I can't hear a word of conversation. Hello? I am not usually on the phone when I am watching her obviously but if it's my boss, I do try to pick up. And here I have this crazy child making all sorts of noises so we can't even have a civilized conversation.
Right now, as I am typing this it's making me crack up at how smart she is, but at the time that she is carrying on, I feel a tad embarrassed and maybe a smidge irked that I can't just say, "Shhh, be quiet" and have her understand me.

Raising our Children, Raising Ourselves

This is the book I am currently reading...Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves.
Clearly I need to move faster to get through this book. Currently only on page 19 or 20...
One of the points made early on is, obviously, stop to think before you actually react (unfavorably) to an action your child has committed. In this one section, it says to - take a moment and act out in your mind what you would like to do - yell, scream, tear her head off (the last four descriptors would be my own).
Today I am having one of those days. I want to tear D's head off because she will constantly say, "Milk, milk" so I give her her milk but instead of drinking it, she likes to turn the sippy cup around and spill it all over the place. All over her hands, her shirt..whatever. She is playing with her milk. And sometimes now she doesn't eat her food, she wants to play with it.
Yeah, sure, "it's a baby's job to play with her food..." But not if I have to be the one to clean it up. Yes, I have my days where I am easy breezy and I just do whatever. Keep giving her food, milk, snacks and clean up after her mess. But then I have my agro days where I am ready to kill someone because she keeps playing with her food. I feel like she's old enough to know exactly what I am saying and she needs to heed. But, then after I stop and think I think, "well, I know she knows she's not supposed to be doing this, but she is doing it anyway because she wants attention...." Boohoo. Poor neglected baby. Blah.
Yes, off to read this book immediately after I put her to bed!!

Oh happy days

You know what warms my heart? It's looking into the rearview mirror and seeing D happily eating her snacks out of one container and then picking up her water bottle with her other hand and having a drink now and then - All by herself. I love this autonomy. I do. It's awesome.
On the other hand, as I am watching D develop into a little human being...I fear what kind of personality she will ultimately have. More so, I fear how our relationship is going to pan out because I already see that when her father speaks sternly to her, her lips start to tremble and she starts bawling. But when I speak sternly to her, she laughs outright. WHHAATT?? What's going on here? Yes, she laughs and just continues to do what I've just told her not to do. I throw my hands up in the air. What to do with this child...I don't know. We shall see...we shall see.

Head plant

Oh lordy...recently I have been putting D into the product portion of shopping carts (instead of the secured seat up in the front) because it seems to thrill her to be riding where she is looking ahead and actually sitting down low. I think you may have an idea where this entry is headed...no pun intended.
The other day, G and I were at Costco. We placed D in the big section of the cart and had stopped wheeling for a minute and were engrossed in a conversation about my sunglasses which I had just dropped and the lens had popped out. Next thing I see is D going over the railing of the cart (me screaming bloody murder from shock) and then D landing on her back on the floor. Costco, mind you, has cement floors. However, from the look on D's face, she seemed to be fine but went berserko after she heard my banshee scream. That probably scared her more, though I don't doubt her whole body might've hurt after the initial shock of the fall.
Ohhh, my poor baby...it all happened so fast! Who knew Costco's shopping carts were so low in the railings. D was very sad, but not inconsolable, thankfully.
All's well.

A moment of pride

We attended a wedding this past weekend and to prep for Dillon's first night with a babysitter, we had our sitter come the weekend before to watch D for a couple hours while we went to catch a movie. Apparently, the first babysitting gig went all right. She cried for a minute when we left, then played and then after a few hours I guess must've realized that she hadn't seen G or myself materialize in a while and according to R, the sitter, she then started saying, "Mama" and looking around and then started crying. Half an hour later, we came home to a baby with big fat alligator tears welling up in her eyes. All-in-all, not too bad.
So, we were a little bit nervous with leaving her for the night with someone else to put her to bed. Mind you, D has never been put to bed by anyone other than myself and G. Once, we left D to be put to bed by her grandparents (Yieyie, Nainai and Popo - yup, all three) and she had all three in a tizzy b/c she bawled her eyes out the minute one would try to leave the room. Finally, my mom (Popo) who has seen how I deal with a crying D, just told G's mom (nainai) to leave her be. She will eventually fall asleep. And she did.
Alas, all our worry was for naught. R showed up about an hour before we were to leave the house. She played with D while I was getting ready and then we (G and I) both held her for a bit before we actually left. All was good! The report when we got home was that D didn't even cry when we left, she ate her entire dinner without any fuss and only cried for barely less than a minute before falling straight to sleep!
I cannot tell you the PRIDE that I felt going to sleep that night. My heart was bursting that D handled her first babysitting extravaganza so well. I am so relieved and looking forward to more occasions out now. Our baby is growing up. And not a moment too soon! I need one of those advent calendars...to count each day until D turns 4.

I can't get away from myself

A couple weeks ago, my mom spent some time with us and when I watched her interacting with D, I essentially saw myself. Yesterday, D was getting on my last nerve...yes, I have days like that (not sure whyyyy my friend, L thinks she aspires to be a mother like me). So, she threw some of her food on the floor as she is prone to do when she is upset and I was so mad, I banged my hand on her high chair table and said, "No!"
And so...hello mom, mirror image going on here. I was feeding D dinner tonight and she was starting to get upset because she was tired and not feeling like eating what she was being fed. So, what does she do? She throws some noodles on the floor and then BANGS HER HAND ON THE TABLE! Continuously. Mind you, she is skyping with her grandmother and trying to make a point by continuously banging her hand on the table and looking straight at her grandma.
Ayayayyay...

Oh, I guess it was hotter than I remembered

I made D and myself some eggs this morning. Pan fried with shredded cheese. I used Habanero cheese...I don't know why I recalled this cheese as being not super spicy the last time I had it. But I guess I remembered wrong because D kept getting mad saying, "Hot! Hot!"
So, I just mildly told her, "Eat the bread, eat the bread" to counter the spice, but I still wanted her to eat the eggs. Not because I thought she'd be wasting the eggs, but because I want her to get used to eating spicy foods. :oD
I then got her a glass of milk that soothes heat which suited her just fine. We had a lovely meal of eggs and toast. Hehehe.