Tag Archives: Milestones

What’s She Doing Wednesday: My House is a Battlefield

So in an effort to publish mid-week posts on this blog, I figured I’d give a shot at “What’s She Doing Wednesdays” to write about new little quirks, developmental milestones, likes/dislikes, funny behaviors, etc. So here we go:

What’s She Doing Wednesday – My House is a Battlefield

In the short few days into this first full week of 2015, Jia has managed to really show me a new and growing side of her. This week I really felt like I was starting to raise a toddler. Oh boy.

Here’s what I’ve experienced in the last (maybe not even) 48 hours:

I put safety gates at the top of two sets of stairs, not bottom. We decided to wait on the lower gate to see if Jia would actually climb them. Tonight (Wednesday) I turn my back to load the dishwasher real quick and was away for MAYBE one minute and return to find Jia already climbing up on the 3rd stair. I supervised her while she successfully climbed the remaining 4 steps to the gate. Time to get a bottom-of-the-stairs gate. This was definitely THE week to get the safety gates installed. Thank goodness I ordered them Saturday and PRIME delivered them by Monday. Patting myself on the back here.
She has decided she doesn’t like smashed food. She was a fan on Sunday. Not after. Unless it’s breakfast and she’s eating mixed berries with oatmeal. Turns head violently away from the spoon and refuses to look back at me til she can “feel” that the spoon is nowhere close.
We found the first food she disliked: Yogurt. HATES yogurt. And it’s great that I got a huge tub of Plain Organic Whole Milk yogurt, since that was a waste. Thank GOODNESS she was a fan of the (yogurt) chicken I baked tonight and scarfed down an entire mini-chicken breast! (recipe is below). This kid loves (loved, because who knows now): black eyed peas, spinach, pumpkin, quinoa, lentils, all fruit, brussels sprouts, green beans, avocado, beets, carrots, butternut squash, peas, fig, kale, persimmon, salmon, chicken, turkey. Yogurt really took me by surprise.
She’s found she can command the doggies by dropping food on the ground. She gets a huge kick out of this (look at the picture above), in between screaming because she doesn’t feel like eating the food she used to love.
Threw her head back in annoyance that she wasn’t allowed to drink from her sip cup until her spinach/sweet potato-smothered face is cleaned off.
I can no longer dump a handful of Happy Baby puffs to keep her occupied while I prep her food/dinner/clean dishes. She now eats a small amount then drops them one by one to Mei Mei. Then laughs her head off.
As I’m typing this, she’s flicking the cords behind the TV and peeks around the corner at me with a VERY mischievous grin on her face as she cackles.
Discovered and loves trash cans. This includes the bucket we keep her dirty soaking poo cloth diapers. Ewww.
“Doggie water bowl? Fantastic place to clean my hands” (I’ve had to run and pull her away from it twice since starting this post)
She discovered the unending fun that is toilet paper. We keep a roll of the “good stuff” in her changing table area, in case we get a real hefty poo in a cloth diaper.

But thankfully, here are some beautiful and adorable new things we’ve seen: Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: My House is a Battlefield” »

My Take on the New Year

Wow, after a two-week hiatus from Little Sproutings, it’s time to start up again.

The holiday flew by and it feels like it was over before it even began! We had a really nice time in Charleston, SC celebrating Jia’s First Christmas at my parents’ house, along with Jeff’s parents. We spent 8 days eating good food and dodging lots of rain storms, but it didn’t feel nearly long enough. It was actually our first Christmas with both sides of our families together, which made it even more special. Even though it is always nice to go down South to be with my parents, I was really glad to be back in the comforts of our home with Jia back in her big crib and us back in our routine.

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, mainly because I don’t ever make good on them. But, for this year I wanted to make goals for self-improvement.

I think that this year is more important than other years prior because I’m a mom. I’ll eventually be a role model for Jia, though she is already building her perception of the world and interpersonal interactions from what she sees at home with Jeff and me. So, it will become more and more important to self-reflect and make myself a better version of what and who I am. These characteristics, values, and behaviors are what Jia will use to model her own behaviors as she grows up.

This week’s post isn’t so much a topic-specific health post, but more of a spiritual, reflective, and introspective therapeutic one. Continue reading “My Take on the New Year” »

Your Little Sprout’s Growth Charts Explained

Almost all of us have been there. Sitting at the pediatrician’s office, the nurse wheels in the infant scale for his or her weigh-in, encircles your angel’s head with a halo-like measuring tape, marks the examination table paper at the heel and top of the head.

After gathering all the important info, they enter the information into the computer (or on a form) and scribble a number down on your progress report paperwork in their corresponding ” _____ %ile” spaces (“blank percentile”).

Maybe you’ve sat there confused. “If there was something wrong, they’d tell me…right?” you thought to yourself.

If this sounds like you, I’m here to clear it up! I’m going to walk you through reading a growth chart and interpreting the numbers.

What are Growth Charts?

First off, growth charts were made in order to track infant, child, and adolescent’s development (length, weight, and head circumference factors) from birth up to 20 years of age.

The lines show the distribution of the population according to that specific measurement.

For instance, if a measurement falls along the “75” line, then that means for that measurement, 75 percent of girls (or boys, depending on the chart) at that age/weight/length/head circumference were shorter/weighed less/had smaller head circumferences. We’ll get into that in our practice exercise below. Continue reading “Your Little Sprout’s Growth Charts Explained” »

Your Snoozin Sprout

Whether or not you plan to (or currently) “sleep train” your baby, new parents and parents-to-be are familiar with wondering if their baby will be a “good sleeper,” or if they will be up all night long. It seems as though the instant you bring your baby home, strangers and family members start to ask “ohhh is she sleeping through the night yet?”

For some, it’s nothing more than an innocent question, but for others it can be obnoxious. Tired parents will sense a notion of judgment or eagerness to hear of the parent’s failure to being able to keep their baby asleep, or they just dread hearing the question because it reminds them of how little sleep they are actually getting.

Good sleeper or not, there’s one thing that I think we can all agree on – that newborns sleep differently than young infants, and young infants sleep differently than older babies. When Jia was sleeping in our living room in her crib, Jeff and I tiptoed around our 1-bedroom condo like you wouldn’t believe. For a handful of weeks I was living on-edge after 8:30 PM. I dreaded bedtime. Whether it was the dogs barking at something they heard outside our window, needing to take a quick trip to the fridge, opening and closing our squeaking front door (thank you WD-40) or wondering if the dropping of the shampoo bottle in the shower was enough to rouse her from her light sleep, I was going nuts.

Nowadays, in her own room sleeping 11-11.5 hours straight, I still wonder: how come our friends’ toddler needs the clanking of pots and pans or loudly opening and closing dresser drawers to wake up, whereas sometimes it seems Jia can sleep through an army passing by her door but other nights her sleep will be disturbed by Jeff blowing his nose next door?

We started talking about this and I became curious – how are sleep patterns and brain waves different for infants and toddlers, and when do they change?

Continue reading “Your Snoozin Sprout” »

This Sprout Was Made for Walkin…

So, Jia isn’t going to crawl. Doesn’t want to. My guess is there are two things that contribute to this: she’s not in day-care around other babies thinking “oh wow that looks cool, let me try!” and the only consistent examples of crawling on all fours are her fur siblings, Kona and Mei-Mei. I think she realizes she’s more like us than her siblings. She’s had plenty of tummy time, too. I actually don’t mind, I welcome her current lack of all-fours mobility. It helps me run to the bathroom or kitchen with the comfort of knowing she’s probably only backwards-scooted at most, a foot from where I left her 5 seconds ago.

Many babies never crawl and instead go straight to cruising/standing then onto walking. Though crawling is a milestone, it’s not a developmental requirement. Additionally, pediatricians think that the push for “Back to Sleep,” the public health campaign that has drastically decreased the number of cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) has contributed to less children crawling these days. Since babies are spending more times on their backs than on their tummies, their back and torso muscles may not be as strong as before “Back to Sleep” began. According pediatricians (cited on Parenting.com), studies have not shown any negative developmental outcome associated with skipping the milestone of crawling. Continue reading “This Sprout Was Made for Walkin…” »