What’s She Doing Wednesday: My Nature-Loving Girlie Girl

Jia’s happenings as of late:

Eye roller: I noticed this two to three weeks ago when she gave me a marker she wanted me to take the cap off of and I said “no,” after I repeatedly uncapped them for her and she would walk off with an uncapped marker. So when I took it from her smiling and said “Noooo, sweetie” she ROLLED HER EYES AT ME! She was smiling and I thought it was a fluke. That is, until she did it to Mom 3 days after! Jia wanted her to uncap the marker too, and she wouldn’t do it. Jia started crying, so Mom was making fun of her crying, trying to get her to laugh. Instead, Jia stopped crying and rolled her eyes. With the most serious expression! Oh my gosh where did this come from? Jeff’s answer: from seeing her mom roll her eyes at daddy all the time! Ha!
Scared of Strange Men. By “strange,” I mean unfamiliar, like my dad, uncle, grandfather. Two weekends ago my parents came into town so we went to my aunt and uncle’s house for a Happy Hour. I was starting to feel super sick, so Jeff told me to find a place to rest while he and the family took care of Jia. So, I ditched to close my eyes. She started crying. Stopped crying when Jeff turned on Little Baby Bum for a diaper change. Then my dad started talking to her. Cried. Then calmed down a little. Then my uncle came up to her and talked to her. Cried. Then calmed down even less. Then my grandfather came through the door and talked to her. Cried. Never really recovered. Poor thing, she’s so used to only Jeff and Duke (my father-in-law). So mom and Jeff had to take her outside to eat her snack and I had to come downstairs from “resting” (you can never rest when you know your baby is downstairs frustrated and upset), feeling dizzy, hot, and sick, to feed her dinner. (she wasn’t eating a bite with anyone else)
Making Sense of Songs: During the Alphabet Phonics song on LBB, she knows when the “F F Fish” comes up and makes the noise. Also, with “The Wheels on the Bus” song, after the verse “the baby on the bus says wah wah wah,” she knows it’s time for “the mommy on the bus says ‘shh shh shh'” so she says that sound with the song (and perfectly timed!) Oh and “If you’re happy and you know it” comes on, she’ll try and clap with them, she loves this song. She gets excited when she hears it and starts clapping and smiling. No, she doesn’t do this for all the songs, literally just these few.
She’s digging for gold. Already up her nostrils with those little fingers! We’re convinced she’s learned it from daddy haha.. I think all babies go through this phase when they discover their nostrils, but it’s fun to blame Jeff (so maybe he’ll pick his nose less ha)
She’s definitely teething. She’s such a little crank ball. She’s just so mad if she isn’t held in my arms if I’m doing anything else (tidying, cooking) and refuses to be with Jeff most of the time, pushing away his arms and screaming. She hasn’t been sleeping in until her normal time, waking up around the 6-7 AM hour, which is very uncommon for her. Her tooth count is up to 11. Yup, since last week, we found a new sprouting molar. So she’s working her way up to 3 full molars at this point.
Nature’s Littlest Explorer: She would love it if we stayed outside for hours on end. In the mornings if we are done with breakfast sooner than normal, we’ll go for a walk down the street. The only drawback, is if it’s time to go in to wind down for her nap or if she starts refusing to hold my hand in the street, and I carry her toward the driveway, she gets very upset and cries. So to ameliorate her if she wants to explore independently, I take her to the back yard. The only thing, is one of our pipes is busted underneath the house (for the outdoor water) so we can’t spray out insecticide… so we’ve got about a dozen ant hills, bees, mosquitoes, wasps, etc. Currently the ant hills and bees are the only nuisances, with the mosquitoes hanging around the way back yard near the shed. This is one of the things I’m super anxious about getting done – bug proofing the yard for the summer. But anyway, anytime we are outside, she would rather stay outside forever. It’s good, I’m glad she likes the outdoors, I just wish we had a safe non-buggy outdoors. She also takes fistfuls of mulch and puts it in a bucket.
New words: doggie (“go-go”), duck, bird. When she sees dogs outside, she says “go-go!” and we ask her “What do they say?” and she says “Arf!” Sometimes we’ll even see dogs outside and she’ll just point to them and say “Arf Arf!”
Food: She’ll hold an entire string cheese now and nibble on it. This is pretty convenient for morning and mid-afternoon snack options. Oh and I got these EasyPouch Independence holders which make pouch-eating way way easier! You just place the pouch inside of this plastic case and snap it shut. She used it this morning and it was so much easier than keeping a paranoid eye on her for fear she’ll squeeze out the contents or stand up from sitting and inadvertently squeeze out the contents. It’s a 2-pack for $7.99 so I threw one into my purse and one into the baby bag. Oh and she likes pickles. Who would’ve thought?! And pot roast.
By the way I’m getting sick of having a purse + baby bag. I know, first-world problems, right? I’m going to search Target for a nice tote bag that’s cute and get a Baby Bag Organizer insert from Lily Jade to convert it to a baby bag. The diaper bag my mom made is great and super useful but pretty obviously a diaper bag and would like a little versatility, organization, and something that is a little more camouflaged, and Lily Jade bags are gorgeous but pricey. Next baby I really would like to get the Madeline Red Canvas ($195, yikes). It’s my dream diaper bag now. I used to want the Madeline in Brandy (leather) but c’mon let’s be real. Leather gets hella heavy. A red canvas cute diaper bag that converts to a backpack style in a snap? And they come with the organizer inserts and changing pad.
Moo. We tried cow’s milk for the first time Tuesday (4/28)! I decided not to figure out if we wanted to try goat’s milk in place of cow’s milk, because it’s something like $4 per half gallon, and well, yeah that’s about it. I can’t say it would be easy to do goat’s either – I mean, what about when you’re in a restaurant or wherever else? Cow’s milk is out there. Goat’s milk? Kinda inconvenient if that’s all your kid is used to. Anyhow, so I got a tiny quart of Trader Joe’s whole milk (not even organic) and added about 1-1.5 ounces to the 4 oz I pumped last night before bed, for a total of 5-ish ounces. She’s done fine so far, drank basically all of it with no obvious signs of displeasure. So yes, today we are starting with an 80/20 ratio of breast/cow’s milk rate. Next Tuesday will be about 40%.
Gradually Weaning: I skipped a feeding before nap today (4/28), first time skipping in attempt to wean one feeding. I think I’ll keep the morning and bedtime feedings for a little while, only because I read that those are the feedings kiddos are more attached to (the closeness of being with momma) and have trouble giving up. Especially since she’s teething, I don’t want to piss her off too much. Plus, I mean I like our bonding time too 🙂
Bath Baby: Jia has now found out how to plug and unplug the bathtub drain! We got one of those new really tight-sealing rubber top stoppers and after watching us so many times she tries to plug the drain when we are draining her tub.
Belly Laughs for Belches: She gets a kick out of when I burp. Then I pretend to burp after and she still laughs out loud.
Movin on Up: Envision Jia is way far away from the steps to go up. I say “C’mon Jia, let’s go uppa!” and she beelines it for the stairs. So cool when your baby finally understands what you’re asking them to do and does it!
Color Me Mine: Jia loves her new washable crayons. We have to put them back in the box because she will run around the house with the crayons and then try to eat them when we’re not noticing (I’ve wiped lots of brown crayon off from her face and inside her mouth unfortunately), so she’ll bring the box up to us to open for her. We try to enforce the “crayons at the table only”
She gets mad when we do her sleepsack zipper because she wants to do it herself.