Family Alive

It’s been a whirlwind day… I think I’m not adjusting to the increasing speed and mobility of my daughter very quickly. She is WEARING ME OUT. She is SO BUSY! Toddling from room to room, taking her toys with her, pulling clothes out of the laundry basket (she doesn’t seem to notice if they’re folded or not, unfortunately!), pushing the basket all over the house, pulling her baby food and snacks out of the cupboards (which I thought didn’t need to have a latch on them, but after picking up a container of Gerber fruit/veggiie puffs from 3 different rooms, and cleaning up a spilled container of goldfish crackers, I might change my mind!). I’m either feeding her – which is a tedious job and doesn’t allow time to eat myself – or cleaning her and her mess (from “clearing the tray” onto the floor when she’s tired of food), or picking things up so I don’t break an ankle on a Peek-A-Block, or feeding her again… If I go to the kitchen and do anything that involves food, she feels that she needs to eat and makes desperate little “ooo”s and whimpers, all the while bringing me packages of crackers or puffs. I love it – don’t get me wrong, but she has WORN ME OUT today!

I was going to make a nice entertaining post of milestones for Analise, but now I’m just going to put them here in bullet form before I fall asleep at the keyboard:

• Using a fork – first attempt catapulted a green bean across the room
• Favorite foods – lasagna and any sort of beans, particularly baked beans. If there are beans to be had, she will see them on your plate and “oo-oo-oo” until she’s got some.
• Gerber Fruit/Veggie Puffs – I’m not sure who invented these, but they are making a lot of money from us. Analise is addicted to them – we currently have at least 6 containers of them in our cupboard. She gets frantic when she sees them, whether in their container or in a tupperware. They’re essentially puffed rice with a little flavor, practially no nutritional value until you eat 70 of them (and though she eats a lot of them, Analise only eats about 40 or so a day). And then there is the fun she gets from carrying them around, hearing them shake inside the container…
• Nutrition??? How in the world do you know toddlers are getting any nutrition at all? I try to give her fruits and veggies and meats in a good variety, but she’s so dang picky! One key is that if it’s on my plate first, she’s definitely more interested than if it goes straight to her tray. And then add in the fact that most of the food ends up NOT in her mouth… We have noticed, though, that she has progressed to getting about 50% of food into her mouth, rather than the 15-20% of last month.
• Climbing – She’s just learned to stand up in her little rocking chair, which gets an immediate “no”, of course. But the day after she started that, I turned my back and looked over to find her ON THE COUCH! She’d climbed up onto the rocker and right on up. It’s disconcerting to find your toddler on the couch when they’ve never been there!
• Learning to share – I’m learning, that is. Whatever is on my plate is what she wants. Tonight it was tacos, and the beans/meat topping was her desire. I think I got 1 or 2 beans the whole night. She’d also like everyone else around her to share when I run out – she was “ooo”ing and eyeing everyone else’s beans when my plate was clean. This lesson is especially painful when dessert comes around…

  I think that about sums it up… especially the glowing smile and the big brown eyes in the photos. The whirlwind that is Analise…