Wordless Wednesday: A Weekend Nap

(In the blogging world, Wordless Wednesdays are very popular. Just posting pictures...hard for me to be completly wordless. These are 2 pics Chris took of all the girls snoozin. We had been cuddling but Penny crawled into this position. I like to roll up in a ball and she likes to sprawl out!)

Our little daredevil

Okay, still no video of Penelope walking. She seems to think crawling is still a pretty good thing. I'm the only person who can get her to walk and that's only if I say in the most enthusiastic voice "stand up Penny. Okay, walk to mommy!" Yesterday at day care they told me she won't walk on her own, but right when the teacher put her down she walked 12 steps to me. That's the most steps at one time.

...but this walking thing doesn't stop her from learning other things. On Monday she was in the living room while I was cooking dinner. I peeked into the living room to see her sitting on our antique trunk. I said "Penny, no, no!" She immediately tried to get back onto the couch but ended up in a handstand. I grabbed her and rolled her over. Well, that was just about the funniest thing ever and elicited the greatest squeal as she turned right around to climb on the trunk again. As you can see she is almost doing somersaults completly on her own



Okay, being a good parent the trunk is now moved to a new location so you don't have to worry about the next post reporting a trip to the ER for stitches. It makes me understand my parents' decor years ago. When we were little our living room had one chair and a ton of kids' gym equipment--balance beam, brachiation ladder AKA monkey bars, a slide, gym mats, pull up bar.

A shortage of photos

Warning to parents of babies...don't show your babes videos or pictures of themselves on digital cameras. We have made that mistake and now Penelope is not happy being on the right side of the camera. She thinks it is a toy so the lack of pictures on the blog are not due to us being lazy. Oh, no, I'm taking them often, but I either get this type...

"Why won't you give me the camera now?!"

Or "woo hoo, I'm going to grab it right out of mom's hands" She was like 4 feet away 2 seconds before this moment.

So the only good photos you may see for awhile will be of Penelope's back...

...and long distance shots.

Becoming Me: 5 a day

This is amazing. I have a daughter who eats peas like most people eat potato chips. Really. I need to take a video. I put a bowl of peas in front of her and she grabs handfuls of them and shoves them in her mouth. She is pretty good with lots of other veggies and fruits too. We've slowly introduced "favorite" kids foods like grilled cheese, goldfish and graham crackers and many times those are thrown on the floor the moment I give her peach slices, bananas or strawberries. Everyone says this will end soon so I'm loading her up with tons of fruit and veggies now.

Even though I grew up in a kind of vegetarian household--my mom didn't eat meat so she didn't cook much of it, but we'd still go to McDonalds or get TV dinners occasionally--I wasn't much of a fan of veggies or fruit. My parents often disagreed about my choice of nutri-grain cereal or cheerios every night for dinner. As I got older I got less picky, and was a strict vegetarian for about 7 years. But as I often point out, vegetarianism doesn't necessarily mean healthy. Cookies and cheese are vegetarian. I also am quite lazy so in college I lived off of salad (lettuce, tomato, fake chicken nuggets), tomato soup, cheese sandwiches and cereal with bananas. Very little variety in my day to day diet. Since I married an amazing cook, he does create a lot more variety in my diet, but I defintily don't get 5 a day of fruits and veggies.

Last September I saw research that showed the # of Americans eating fruits and veggies has not gone up in the past 10 years despite the educational push by the federal gov't. I don't have the study so I can't quote the exact percentage, but it is really low. So I started working on getting 5 a day. It is hard for me! I think a lot of my problem is that I often overcount my servings, i.e. a sprinkling of blueberries in my oatmeal, the lettuce and tomato on a sandwich, some green beans at dinner, a slice of carrot cake (joking about that one). I'm sure every little bit helps, but if you actually look at serving size of fruits and veggies sometimes you have to eat a lot compared to the serving size of chocolate! I'm not trying to put restrictions, for instance a tablespoon of cool whip on 3/4 cup of blueberries gives it a little more zing or peanut butter with my apple slices.

The problem is that there are so many foods I don't like. Okay, I know this following statement is going to be a shocker and people often question my belonging to the human species... but I don't like strawberries. Not sure why people take this as a personal attack. I always get a "YOU DON'T LIKE STRAWBERRIES?! here try these ones! You'll like these!" Why is it okay for all those seafood haters to live in peace, but a strawberry hater must explain herself over and over again? I don't mind eating the ones in the middle of winter that everyone says have no taste. Any other time they make my face scrunch up and my jaw lock. Same with oranges, clementines, grapefruit, raspberries, kiwi, cherries... I saw some food person on the Today show advising parents to feed kids a new food 10 times. By the 10th time they will have acquired a taste and like it. I thought "If I'm going to try this with Penelope, I better do it myself." Well, I'm on taste 15 of strawberries since the beginning of the year, and nope, no taste acquired. Thankfully, I like tons of veggies. I'm trying to be more diverse with all veggies and whole grains...let's just say there's a reason McDonald's doesn't replace the french fries with lentils or coucous. Definitly acquired taste. Chris and I have been cooking all sorts of different soups and stews this winter...great way to get veggies and try things like parsnips. I also found out that I like cooked beets after a good Rachel Ray recipe.

So anyways, this is a goal I've been working on for a while so hopefully I can be healthier and a better role model that reaches for an apple instead of a cookie at snack time...anyone else find trouble eating 5 a day?

We've got a walker!

I tell ya, you give this girl a goal, and she takes you seriously. Tonight she was crawling to her room, then turned around, stood up, smiled and took 4 steps, stopped and sat down. I was watching from the living room and was in total shock.I was sure her first steps would be letting go of my hands since we walk circles around the house together. Nope, Penelope is obviously independent! She repeated it a few times tonight and now claps after she takes a few steps. I think with our enthusiastic parenting there won't be any self-esteem issues for many years.

Mine and Penny's new year's resolutions

I used to be one of those crazy New Year's Resolution people. You know, a whole list of the dozens of things I was going to change. I think since I was 13 the top one was "Lose at least 10 pounds" Funny how I'm at a much higher number after all those resolutions! A few years ago I decided I wanted to be successful even if it was a teeny resolution. I resolved to keep my email inbox organized for a year. I put the hundreds of emails into a folder on the drive and started fresh and clean. I even organized all my sent emails. It was such a wonderful feeling to see less than 10 emails staring at me every day. I kept it up for 2 years and want to do it again. Talk about starting fresh, our office moved buildings today so tomorrow I walk into a brand new office building to unpack, learn how to share a cube again and my first order of business will be to take those 7000 emails in my inbox, put them in a folder in case I need to access them and start with a nice empty inbox. I do have some other resolutions mulling around in my head. They all seem to be role model kinds so I can teach Penelope with my actions, i.e. eat 5 fruits and veggies a day (been working on this for months), always make our bed, no dishes left in the sink at night, limit my computer and reading time etc. Too many changes to start all at once, but I'll gnaw at them throughout the year.

I also decided to give my baby girl a simple resolution she can easily accomplish: Walk by February! We went to her 15 month check up on Dec 18th. I made the appointment late so we saw a different pediatrician then our normal one. Penelope is holding steady in the 50th percentile (24 lbs 29 inches). We were given new recommendations for moisturizer for her really dry skin. Every Minnesotan should buy stock in skin cremes because our family alone spends the equivalent of a 3rd world country's GDP on all this goop. Near the end of the appointment I mentioned that Penny wasn't walking yet. At our 12 month appt. our regular doc had told us she probably wouldn't start walking until 15 months since she didn't start crawling until right before her 1 year birthday. This is on the later end of the developmental stages, but still within normal. Well, the doctor said "If she isn't walking by herself by February (17 months) you need to call us to get a referral to an orthopedic doctor to make sure nothing is wrong" This made my worry alarm go off in high gear. I said "but she walks along the couch, and holds onto our fingers and walks" but I was told cruising doesn't count. I know I shouldn't freak out. Everyone tells me "They all figure it out in their own time. Don't worry" Ugh! Every time someone else says their child didn't walk until 18 months or even 2 years I bombard them with questions "What age did he start standing on his own? When did she start crawling? Did he not like to fall down?"

So Penny and I are working on walking and making sure it is a lot of fun (no stress from mommy!). She took the resolution seriously because on New Year's Day she stood up without pulling up on anything. Just right in the middle of the living room stood up, plopped down and did it over and over again as we cheered like crazy. Hasn't done it since but I'd say that was a good step.

Here's a pic of Miss Penelope pretending to be Mommy... a comfy chair, blanket, and a good book. After writing this post I think my resolution should be to limit my Mommy worrying...but I'd fail it so fast I don't think I should even write it down.

I love Christmas Cards!

Our Christmas tree and decorations are all boxed up and put away, but I'll probably leave the Christmas cards up for another month. I love Christmas cards. I love everything about them, picking them out or making them, sending them, receiving them. Every year I think that I'm going to see the end because, let's face it, Christmas cards have a lot of cons:

• They are expensive, even if you don't do a photo card, I think you'd have a hard time keeping your cards under $.80 once you factor in postage. That's pretty spendy, especially if you have a long list. Now since I work in direct mail I need to support the post office and use up all those labels. (If YOU think you get a lot of labels from non-profits you need to come to my house!)
• They aren't green. We could all do e-cards, save paper, fuel to ship them etc, but I'll recycle and continue with my cloth diapers so I don't feel bad about my 50 Christmas cards.
• Not necessary to keep in touch. I remember growing up we'd get a Christmas card and sometimes a letter that told us everything they've been up to. With email and Facebook we are in touch all the time and since I see 200 new photos of all my friends, both old and new, on a monthly basis, even the photo card is somewhat old school.

With all of that you'd think I wouldn't be a fan of Christmas cards, butI've always loved getting mail, even as a kid when everything was for my parents and now when the majority is "junk mail" or bills. So you can understand why Christmas is especially exciting with all these cards of friendship and love. This year I was a little afraid that Christmas cards were finally diminishing. It was a week before Christmas and we had only gotten 3. Then they came in a flurry. Chris saved them for me to open. I love all kinds...the old fashioned ones with manger scenes or new types like the one from my sister in law that just said Scatter Joy, the photo cards with kids, families, dogs. I especially love when people handwrite one or two personal lines, although, I'm sad to say I didn't do that this year. A few years ago I started to keep the photo cards and some of the Christmas cards I absolutely love. I saw a great blog post about turning colorful ones into gift tags so maybe I'll do that when I finally take them down.

Here's my favorite card this year from my brother and his girlfriend. She made it! Isn't it amazing? That's their dog, Basil.

The inside says "We Woof You a Merry Christmas" I wish I had taken a pic of the ornament she made us. This girl desparately needs to start an Etsy store in my opinion.

(Oh, by the way, I had 2 come back so Greta and Kari, I'm going to email you to get updated addresses :)