First Crayons

"Woah"

Brooke has been doing so many new things that I cannot keep up. She says so many new words that I cant even keep track of them all. But, there are a few things she is doing that deserve a mention :)

- Brooke has been turning off the lights in our family room (so it is dark) and then pointing to the lit Christmas tree ... saying "woah". She also points to the tree every morning and insists I turn it on. She is going to really miss it when we take it down!

- She has been really into dancing and has found some new moves. These include: spinning, arm flapping, bouncing, something similar to the running-man with fast feet movement, butt shaking, belly wiggling, and squatting. Often these moves are performed in combination.

- She has recently discovered two things: her tiptoes and her tongue. She now does much of her walking on her tiptoes, and 50% of the time she is simultaneously poking her tongue out. Its pretty hard to look at her seriously now.

- She has started saying "bite" a lot, for "take a bite". She began this when she was asking me for whole/big pieces of food she could bite herself versus me breaking up into little pieces. For some reason, "bite" became another word for something like hungry or more. She will interchange "more" and "bite" when she is asking for food. BUT, she has added the movement of her hand to her mouth when she says "bite". Nobody taught her this, but I guess she just wants to be really clear that she wants to put some food into her mouth :)

- Similar to the last item, she has begun to use the word "more" for things other than food. Today she did it twice. First, I was dancing with her to a silly song. The song stopped, she looked at me and said "more". So, we continued to dance until Mommy got really tired. Later, Daddy was tickling her and blowing on her belly and feet. Every time he stopped she would look at him (very seriously) and say "more". Guess she hasnt learned that you are supposed to say "no more" to tickling!

- Stacking and Iserting: Brooke is really into stacking things on top of each other, and placing objects inside one another. Whenever she has two objects, she will try to balance them on top of each other and/or place one inside the other. This also includes herself - as she trys to place herself into every box and basket in the house. This new interest is pretty common with her age, and we are helping build her skills with some new lego blocks. It only took her a day to figure out their purpose and she spends a lot of her time now trying to get them to connect together (although she spends more of her lego time dumping all of the blocks out of the bag onto the floor, and then picking them up and putting them back into the bag).

New Words:
wheee!
baby
waddle (what a penguin does)
Baa (previously forgotten)
Elmo (thought it was a fluke, but she definitely says it)
Hi (previously forgotten)
Bite

Christmas

Season's Greetings!

Merry Christmas

Brooke is really enjoying her long car ride to Great Grandmas house.

We Survived ...

On the way home from Great Grandmas. Now, let's just hope she stays
like this for the next 1.5 hrs in the car ;)

It was a hard day for all, even Uncle Brad couldn't stay awake in the car.

Winter Fun

We have had a bit of snow around here and today out sitter took Brooke
out to do some exploring (while mom & dad checked out a movie). She
snaped this pic, and it was too cute not too share!

First Haircut Celebration!

Mommy & Daddy are out to lunch with Brooke after she got her very
first haircut (just shy if 15 months old)!

Pink Pancakes

I never got to update on my final attempt at the Deceptively Delicious cookbook. I gave pancakes another try, even though sweet potato pancakes didnt work out. Brooke will generally eat pancakes and I know if I can figure out the right way to pump them up with something she would eat it. What exactly is the best thing to throw into a pancake, I am not too sure ... but this one made me curious because it included pureed beets.



Brooke has never had a beet, in fact, I dont think I have ever had a beet either ;) The process was a strange one, starting with a nasty looking pancake batter.




I'm not sure this picture does it justice, but the batter truly was a hot pink. Which looked even more interesting as I cooked the batter.



The pancakes though, ended up looking pretty good. Not as good as the ones in the picture, but when does anything look like it does in the cookbook? I'm guessing ... never.

I tried the pancake out the first time when we were out to dinner. She is generally better behaved and more willing to try new things when we are in public or with other people. In this case, both were true (we were with other people, in public). I handed her some pancake and she handed it right back to me. No luck.

I figured she was a little distracted, so I tried it again the next day. She is very into "taking a bite" lately. She wants to be handed a big item that she can take bites of, versus me handing her already cut-up pieces. I figured it was worth a shot and handed her a whole pancake.

She was pretty excited about her whole pancake and kept looking at me saying "bite?". I told her she could take a bite and she gave it a whirl.

She ate it! There was more mangling than eating, but overall the beet-puree pancake was a hit!

Reading at Starbucks

... And flirting with the men in the chairs next to us ;)

Everyone MUST acknowledge Brooke!

Brooke's Christmas Wish List: UPDATED

I have been asked by quite a few people what Brooke needs/wants/would like for Christmas. Seeing as she is only 14.5 months old, there arent a whole lot of things she needs that mommy and daddy dont cover ;) As for her interests and likes, it is tough. Her attention span is shorter than anything I have ever seen. She likes something for a minute and then doesnt like it any more. But there are a few things she values: food, music, lights. Its tough to give a toddler food ... so I would go with something that is noisy and has flashing lights in general.

There are a few things that are always useful:

-CLOTHES (she is approaching the tail end of 18M size clothes and doesnt own a whole lot in the next size - 24M or 2T. She isnt there yet, so these clothes would be late winter and early spring)

-BOOKS (Brooke loves books. We cant have too many of them. She still needs the ones with hard pages, aka "board books", because in addition to reading them she also likes to eat them).

There are also a couple of toys that she has really enjoyed at her friends houses that she does not have at home.

PLAYSKOOL EXPLORE N’GROW BUSY BALL POPPER
LAUGH & LEARN LEARNING PHONE

SHAPE SORTER
Doesnt matter what kind, she is starting to like putting objects inside other objects, so we think she is ready for shape sorting ;) If you dont know what a shape sorter is, here are a few examples:


WOODEN NESTING BLOCKS
Melissa & Doug make nice ones, but there are others out there. Brooke has cardboard ones but she eats them and SITS ON THEM. They arent going to survive her rough handling. Brooke needs some made out of a better material so she cant destroy them (at least, not so fast)

Updated: 12/16 at 5:15pm!

Glutton For Punishment

Ok, I tried another recipe. I was trying to allow some error to the recipies due to Brooke's picky tastes. Maybe she didnt like the "buttered noodles" because she didnt like the shape, or maybe the taste. She eats macaroni & cheese that I prepare (with added calliflower), so I figured that I would try the Deceptively Delicious mac & cheese. I used elbow noodles just like she is used to. The difference between my mac and cheese and this one is that 1) this one is home-made, not from a box and 2) it has butternut squash versus caulliflower.




So I chopped up the squash (which was a pain)

And steamed and pureed it in the Babycook (which was easy)









After mixing all the ingredients together I had a very cheesy macaroni and cheese. It was so thick and heavy, it practically warped the spatula. But, since I'm used to the cheap box kind, maybe I'm just not familiar with the "good stuff".

I gave it a taste and thought it was ok. Honestly, the box stuff is better. But ... it wasnt up to me. It was up to the tiny food critic.
She inspected it.


It must have looked ok because she decided to give it a try.
Many items never even enter her mouth, they go straight to the dog.
This was a good sign.







or maybe not...


And to prove how poorly I learn a lesson, I have one more recipe we are going to try tonight. This one has pureed beets in it. Yum.

YoBaby 3 in 1 Meals

Brooke has recently been giving us a hard time at mealtime. She isnt eating a lot of her regular items and has been throwing (or on nice days, politely handing back) her food. Erica, over at But Mommy, is having a YoBaby giveaway that has introduced me to a new product.

Despite her new fussiness, there are a few things we can guarantee she will eat. YoBaby yogurt is at the top of the list. It was one of her first foods (they make a plain vanilla version that it hard to find, but was great for early solid introductions) and still a regular on the menu. I'm not sure how much yogurt you can give a toddler, but she sometimes gets it for two meals a day :( I buy the stuff on a weekly basis and make sure there is always one in the fridge. In the event she declines her meal (aka whips-it-at-mommy) I offer up a yogurt.

There is a new product called "3 in 1 Meals" that combine yogurt, fruit and veggies. A pretty crucial element we are missing (hence, the Deceptively Delicious cookbook). Of course, I entered the giveaway. But more importantly, I'm gonna need to get out there and hunt for this stuff. I'm not sure we have it locally yet, because I'm pretty sure I would have snatched it up already!

Santa

We had planned to take Brooke to visit Santa at a local shop after her nap. She went down a bit late, and slept for a while, so we were cutting it close. When she woke up from her nap she was cranky (I guess babies are like adults in that they occasionally "get up on the wrong side of the bed"). As we walked to see Santa we couldn't get her to crack a smile. She had an irritated look on her face and was pouting the whole way.

We got there to find a bit of a crowd (guess we werent the only ones sneaking in at the end) and thought about skipping it. Why push her when she was already in a bad mood? After some conversation we decided to give it a try anyway.

We waited in line for less than 10 minutes. Brooke was checking out the other kids and the decorations, but still no smile. Finally she could see Santa. She glanced his way but really didnt seem to care ... until it was her turn.

Brooke freaked out before she even got onto his lap, and did her best to try to jump off of it the few seconds she was there.

Nothing was going to make it better. Not even Mommy could fix it. You can even tell from Santas face in the pictures he was a bit irritated. I bet all Santas wonder why the heck parents would be cruel enough to bring their little ones (who dont even know who he is) out just to torture them. I'm not sure as a parent I even understand it myself, but it just seems like some sort of ritual each child must go through in life. And we gather photographic evidence for proof.

So we grabbed Brooke, who shot Santa one last horrified look, and carried her out of the store still screaming. In the end, it was fun for all. Let the Holidays begin!

Strike Three Jessica Seinfeld!

Yesterday I made the Mozzarella Sticks from Deceptively Delicious.

Issue One:
They came out looking like this...


Issue Two:
Brooke's reaction...


I honestly thought these would work. She eats soy nuggets, so the breading is not unusual. She also loves cheese. I can sneak some veggies into a grilled cheese sandwich, so what is the big deal? Honestly? I dont know! She is very perceptive and very picky about her food :(

We are going to give them another whirl tonight with dinner, but I'm not feeling very optimistic about it...

Jessica Seinfeld - You Are 1 for 3

A friend lent me a cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld (wife to Jerry Seinfeld) called "Deceptively Delicious". The point of each recipe is to sneak some sort of veggie of fruit puree into a recipe and get your kids to eat it.

First thing I tried was her "Buttered Noodles" which include yellow squash. Brooke likes yellow squash so I thought it might be an easy sell. Not so much. She ate two pieces and whipped the rest on the floor. I had the sitter try to feed it to her for lunch yesterday and the result was the same.

Next I tried the sweet potato pancake recipe. Brooke loves pancakes. But with these, she actually tried to stick her hand down her throat to try and throw back up the little that she actually did consume.

This morning we had "Green Eggs", which have a spinach puree.

Success! She ate them! Yay!

I'm not sure if one out of three is a very good ratio. I have one or two others I plan to try - including a mac & cheese recipe and one for mozzarella sticks. We will see how that goes...

14 Months...

Today Brooke is 14-months-old and I figured I should give some updates!

HEALTH

She is feeling better, but still has some signs/symptoms. She has a cough, but its not all of the time. She goes through periods where she sounds like she has a rough time breathing. She seems to be feeling pretty good though, running around and causing trouble as usual. I just have to remind her now and then that she isnt 100% and she needs to take it easy ;)

ATTITUDE

All of the developmental emails I get talk about "toddler tantrums". There is a reason for this. Brooke has been slowly developing the art of the tantrum and getting quite good at it. Thrashing, pounding, crying, and hitting herself on the head. Whatever works at the moment. Right now the only solution is distraction, and we are lucky that this specific toddler has an attention span of about 2 seconds. She is quite easily distracted.

LANGUAGE

Brooke has always been very vocal. She sings, yells, squeaks, babbles, and talks. No matter what she likes to be heard ... all of the time. She has developed quite a vocabulary and I figured I should take a second to note her words. There are three categories: words she uses all the time, words she has used but might be a fluke, and words she seems to have forgotton ;)

Common Words
Note: Not all of these words sounds as they are written, but they are instead what she is intending to say!
Dad
Mom
Bye
Down
Quack
Roar (what a lion, tiger, dinosaur and zebra say)
Neigh
Woof
Moo
"Brrrrrrr" (buzzing lips is what an elephant says)
OooohOoooh(monkey says)
Uh-Oh
No
Bath
More
Ball
Duck
Book
Bop (this is what you say when you intentionally hit an object on your head)
Night
Whoa
Door
Rock (what you say when you are rocking on a chair)
Water


Possible Flukes:
Back
Elmo
Dog
Golf


Forgotten Words:
Hi
Up
Gobble (what a turkey says)
Baa (what a sheep says)


Words She Made Up:
Na Na = Milk (though she can say plenty of "m" words, she has decided that milk is called "na na". we have no clue why)


FAVORITES
Book: Go, Dog. Go!

Song: Theme song to Go, Diego, Go!

Food: Raspberries

Toy: Gloworm

Word: Its a tie between "bye" and "ball"

Character: Moose A. Moose (from nick jr.)

Bookworm

Occasionally Brooke takes a breather from the terrorizing and
tinkering to be a little bit calmer and relaxed. There are few things
that provide us these peaceful moments, but when we do find her the be
the quieter version of herself it's often because she has her nose
burried in a book.

Here she is, taking a moment to wind down with a good book :)

Bronchiolitis

Took Brooke into the doctor for a few various things and were told she has bronchiolitis. This explains the sleepless nights and nasty sounding cough. We were prescribed an inhaler and also a chamber she needs to use in order to actually get the mist from the inhaler.
Although this gives an idea of what the chamber is like, the little patient in the picture is nothing like our little patient. Ours does not readily put her face into the mask and inhale the mist from the chamber ... quite the opposite, in fact. Its been traumatic for all of us but hopefully it will help her heal and get better soon. And most importantly, we hope she has no recollection of this whole episode. Just in case, we are taking turns administering the inhaler to her so that she hates mommy and daddy equally instead of just one of us being the bad guy ;)

"Feels Like" 25 Degrees Out

But Mommy still needs her Starbucks. Bundle up Brooke!

Trouble. Big Trouble.

Let Your iPhone Figure Out Your Baby's Needs

Figured it wouldnt take long: iPhone App Claims to Know What Crying Baby Wants. Supposedly this new app can tell the difference between five basic infant cries: hungry, tired, bored, annoyed or stressed.

Brooke is too old for this, but if it honesly works it would haved been helpful for the three months (solid) where she pretty much never stopped crying ;)

And this is seriously the most expensive iPhone app I have ever seen. In fact, it might honestly be the most expensive one of them all. Its $9.99 through the holidays and then goes to its regular price ... 30 BUCKS.

And maybe it does work. But here is another question - does it also understand the language a baby is crying in? Recent research suggests that all cries are not the same and that a newborn baby from Germany has a different cry than one from France. So how do we know that our $30 buys an application that understands our babies cry, along with the accent? Hmmm....

Trick Of The Day

Today she figured out how to ...

Flush the toilet.

I knew it was only a matter of time :(

Our Little Angel

Mac N Cheese Please!

Brooke has decided to wear her mac n cheese as a hair accessory. I've
been patiently waiting for her hair to grow so she could wear a
barette, but I guess she just couldn't wait any longer.

What Tinkering Did She Do Today?

Don't think that Brooke is going to take a day off of exploration. She is a busy girl with eyes that roam and fingers that like to push buttons. For a few days now she has noticed that we have a light switch about 3 feet from the ground, on a short wall that separates two rooms. She has pointed at the switch and reached for it, but quicky gets distracted and moves to a new target.

Tonight was a different story. She was enthralled with the switch and couldnt leave it alone. It is similar to the one at the right, a dimmer switch. It has a few lights on the side that make it extra eye-catching. Unfortunately, you just have to tap it to turn it on or off. Of course, Brooke figured out that she can reach it, and spent a good portion of the night turning the lights on and off.

We arent too sure she knows she was actually turning the overhead lights on and off - because the lights along the side of the switch go up and down when you tap it. She seemed to be watching the lights on the dimmer and didnt seem to be noticing what was going on above.

Because she is pretty good at identifying the actual impact a pushed button has ... I dont doubt she knew full well what she was doing. And I expect our family room to be flashing lights like a disco party for the next few days, until she grows bored and finds something new to get into.

Oops She Did It Again

Brooke was enjoying a nice bath tonight when she noticed the drain. She just went to a "big girl bath" a few weeks ago and prior to that was confined to a chair that was suction-cupped to the tub. She had limited mobility and couldnt see (or access) a good part of the tub. Things have changed and each bath she gets a little more adventurous.

Immediately after spotting it she pulled the plug. Go figure. I told her "NO" and put the plug back in. The rest of the bath (which was cut short due to her tinkering) was filled with her providing me a snooty smile followed by her pulling the plug (or reaching for the plug). Over and over and over. Once she sets her mind to do something she just cannot be stopped. Thus, we ended the bath a bit earlier than expected so that she could find some other way to get into trouble.

Nap Trouble

Brooke hasnt been herself lately, but seems a bit better as of yesterday. We still dont know what it is/was, but I am ruling out teething. The fact that she is doing better but yet still hasn't had new teeth come in is a pretty good sign something else is/was up. For sure she now has a cold - runny nose and a horrible cough. She is a little trooper but still seems to get hit with a lot of stuff :(

Since whatever-she-has-or-had started she has been irritable and also very tired. We started putting her down for two naps again, to try to help her mood during the day, make up for the restless nights, and give us a little bit of a break! Yesterday she seemed like she was feeling better and last night she slept a little better, so I figured we better go back down to one nap.

Today she didnt wake up until 7:30 (usual is about 6:45 or 7:00) but was rubbing her eyes by 9:30. I knew I was in trouble. I tried to keep her entertained and busy, but her mood increasingly grew to be more feisty. She starting throwing herself on the floor and writhing around anytime I told her no (yes, we now do temper-tantrums, though the are yet to be common). She would start crying about nothing. I put up with her (and she with me) for as long as I could. We had an early lunch and she was in bed by 12:00, versus her usual 1:30 naptime. I'm hoping she quickly jumps back into her one-nap routine as easily as she did initially, but I think it might take us a couple of days :)

The Button Pusher Strikes Again

Today Brooke moseyed over to the microwave and promptly pushed
"reheat" like she had done it a billion times before. I didn't even
notice the Tiny Tinkerer till I heard the microwave going (and I was
right next to her - although invested in cutting up a watermellon).

No Device Is Safe From The Tiny Tinkerer

Brooke loves to push buttons and tinker with stuff, like remotes, iPhones and laptops. Recently she has been playing around with my old laptop (my new one finally arrived) and since I have a replacement I have been a little less concerned about her button pushing.

The other day I took my eye off of her for a second, and when I looked back she had something in her mouth. I couldnt figure out what it could possibly be ... until I looked down at the laptop and noticed a key missing. She easily gave the key up and after a few minutes I figured out how to get it back onto the laptop. I have no clue how she got it off in the first place.

Today my old laptop was sitting on our ottoman and I saw Brooke eyeing it. I figured we werent in any sort of trouble since it wasnt even on. Of course, I was wrong. Brooke teetered over to the ottoman and started pressing buttons. She looked to the screen for results of her tinkering and found nothing. What did she do? She reached to the top of the keyboard, pressed (and held down) a little button on the top. The power button. Yup, she powered the thing up herself.

Think its a freak occurance? You might. Except every time I powered it back down she would push that button again and start it back up.

Stacking

The other day Brooke finally placed a ring on her stacker. We have had the toy for months and thus far she has eaten them, thrown them, and looked through them ... but she hasnt actually attempted to stack them. Over the weekend she put a ring or two on here and there, but by today she is stacking them like an old pro ;) Its a great way for her to build her eye-hand coordination and has already given her the courage to start stacking some other items.

Next on the list: shape sorting!

Maclaren Recall

Just got sent a link regarding a Maclaren recall.

The recall is voluntary and encompasses over a million strollers, models include: Volo, Triumph, Quest Sport, Quest Mod, Techno XT, Techno XLR, Twin Triumph, Twin Techno and Easy Traveller. According to msnbc, "Maclaren, in cooperation with the CPSC, is providing consumers and retailers free repair kits which will cover a joint on the faulty hinge mechanism."

They also say: "Consumers should stop using the strollers immediately and contact Maclaren via its Web site or by calling toll-free at (877) 688-2326, the company said."

Might want to wait until the news is a little bit older! We have a Maclaren umbrella stroller and I thought I would check out the recall - but you cant get on their website. Looks like about a million other people are trying to hit the same site I am - and we crashed it. Luckily its not our primary stroller so I'm in no rush ;)

Fun With Food

Mealtime with Brooke is a delight. She either screams and yells "MORE" or throws every item from her tray. In addition, she has a few other fun tricks. The newest trick is the good old place-everything-on-your-head trick. She has been doing this here and there with a lot of things (like toys and books) but prefers food. I think because it will stick?

Here she is storing a piece of melon, on her melon. She also kindly offer up pieces of food that she no longer wants. Generally she offers these things to the dog, who patiently sits next to Brooke's highchair waiting for the moment Brooke tires of what she is eating. Occasionally, she likes to offer Mommy some of her sloppy seconds.

The Joy Of Being Adorable

It must be hard to be so cute, that you cant even resist your own
self. Here she is, kissing her own reflection in the microwave.

Some Nice Weather!

Thanks to a run of good weather we decided to do a last-minute tag along with Paige and Evan on a planned trip, and spent a few hours at the zoo visiting some of Brooke's favorite animals.

Thanks for letting us crash your adventure Paige & Evan!



Brooke checking out some monkeys. We spent most of our time watching monkeys today.
They were highly entertaining, definite show stoppers!

Today, these guys were the for sure winners:

While eating lunch on the go today, she got to try out
a new snack cup in which she actually gets to serve herself.

Brooke figured out that if she pushed the tab in (versus inserting her hand)
she could easily pour all of the contents out into the stroller.

She really enjoyed the animals today and is getting much better at linking the sound to the animal. She growled at the lion and said "oohh oohh" at the monkey. Though she is getting it, she does occasionally slip up. I showed her the zebra and she said "Roar!". I gently told her that I didnt think zebras said "roar" and she replied "ROAR!". So for now, a zebra says roar. (So does the tiger and the leopard ... but hey, even an adult cant tell you the difference between the noises a lion, tiger and leopard :)