16 Months!

I don't do a lot of the monthly check-ins with milestone updates but since she's asleep I thought I might as well give it a whirl!

Jessica MacKenzie Smith - June 18th 2011 - 16 months old.

 Current aliases: Jessa, Jessie, Jessabear, The Bear. 

Weight: 22.4lbs

Height: hmm this is going to require some skill from the parents to work out later.

Hair Colour: Strawberry Blonde

Eye Colour: Almost brown but still hazel

Every single day this little girl develops more of her own personality. She's demonstrating both Daddy's stubbornness and hints of Mommy's ocd. If you peel the wrapper a fraction of an inch too far down her string cheese stick she flies into a rage. At times adorable... other times, not so much. If you take the Babybel cheese entirely out of the red wax casing she will refuse to eat the cheese point blank. She's also showing her relation to G'ma Tina. If you try to help her by doing something for her rather than by showing her, she gets fussy. (heheh I love you Mom!)

On the other hand she's really communicating now. I'm so glad we decided to teach her a few signs and even happier that she took to them so well. She doesn't say much yet but she uses her signs all the time. Her most frequently used signs are; Eat, More, and Help. I have to say- there's nothing more mind blowing than when she combines them into compound thoughts! 

Even though she's not speaking as such yet, she does know a few words. She has finally started using Momma and Dadda with direction. It's rare that she'll call me Dadda anymore. Hi and Hiya she has mastered and when LeeLoo (the cat) jumped into bed this morning, she very clearly said, "Hiya EeeOoo."

She loves her friends and is interacting with other children so well. Her best buddy went on vacation for a week and she took to carrying a dolly everywhere she went. (I think she missed her!) There's very little toy stealing and practically no shoving. A hug that maybe winds up with both toddlers on the floor? Yes. A shove? No. [However, Caiden is her exception to the rule. She thinks he was built solely for rough-housing - see?]

Summers in Raleigh are HOT! So we've been swimming a lot. She's a fish. She kicks and paddles and completely thinks that I should let go of her and that she'd be fine. One of my favourite parts about swimming? The extra long naps afterwards!

She can put all the pieces in the proper spots in her animal puzzle, she's gotten pretty darn good at eating with a fork, she runs like an olympian (okay that might be a bit of hyperbole), and she loves to sing!

She's absolutely precious and we love her to bits. We think she's amazing and she continues to astound us on an almost daily basis. That said, she's such a handful that we're definitely not thinking about a sibling for a long while! If you know her you'll know that she's completely sure that the world revolves around her and to even imply otherwise would be heresy.

You can find the other shots from her 16 month photo shoot in the picasa album.

One of those mornings

Thursday morning started with a 7am wake up call from the little bear. There was no convincing her to go back to sleep so up I got. Or I thought I was up. Weak willed non-morning person that I am, I put Sesame Street on (thank heaven for Netflix) and proceeded to lay down on the sofa. Well, an unspecified amount of time later I woke up to the credits (stop counting!) and a pre-chewed mound of pretzel on the sofa directly infront of my face. Mark was home too, he was just getting ready for work - it's not as if I fell asleep and let my toddler run amok. (well not mostly) Attempting to dress myself and the child simultaneously I learned that my jeans don't really fit. Sure I can wear them out of the house, but will I be comfortable in them? No. I'm pretty sure I need to shed about 10 more pounds before the majority of my clothes will fit again. Gee, thanks for that early morning 'you're fat' reminder jeans.

Drive Mark into work. Leave Jessica in the back seat all alone with a tub of Gerber cheddar puffs. I knew what would happen but the part of my brain that was temporarily in control didn't care. I just wanted to get to the Barnes and Nobles story time without a carseat meltdown. (Baby cheetos solve most of the world's ails at this point.) Arrive at Barnes and Nobles roughly an hour early. I was not going to drive home just to get her out of the car for 10 minutes before getting her back into the car. (Why can't the mall open at 9am?) Yes, this is the same story-time we attempted back in January. However, this time we were meeting a few of the amazing moms we've met in Stroller Strides so things were bound to go better, and it did! Jessica fell in love with two little girls who were about 6 or 7. They were the very quiet soft spoken type and were happy to have her sit between them on the bench. Jessica sat on that bench swinging her legs through the ENTIRE story! At one point the story teller asked who was brave and a lot of the kids raised their hands. Jessica looked all around her for a minute and then put both her hands in the air. It was adorable!

After a successful story-time we headed over to the mall. The stroller wasn't actually in the car but the Ergo was. Shopping with a baby in an Ergo is one thing. Wanting to try things on when the only thing containing your baby is an Ergo? Completely different thing. I debated back and forth for what felt like ages and then made the wrong decision. Yes. I decided to let her out of the ergo and to try something on. Baaad idea. In the end they didn't have the color in the style I was looking for so off we headed to the food court.

By this point I was starving. Getting Jessica back into the Ergo after tasting freedom should be an Olympic sport. I decided to get a parmesan pretzel in hopes that Jessica would enjoy it too. Nope. Shrieks of rage. Obviously the parmesan pretzel was an attempt by her mother to poison her. Only logical answer. It was dry and not worth the $2.50 I paid for it but you didn't see me shrieking and throwing it in the face of the man who sold it to me.

Definitely time to leave the mall. On the long walk back to the car I was "that mother" the one with the rabid child. I was embarrassed and wanted nothing more than to sprint out of the mall.. sprinting with a toddler in an ergo? Yeah, not possible. I felt like any second the good parent police would swoop down on me and demand to know what I done to my child to incite such anger.

After a few wrong turns we made it home. Jessica, of course, fell asleep 2 minute before we arrived at the apartment. I decided to drive up to our floor so I could, hopefully, carry her sleeping baby self in without waking her up.
Extract baby from car seat without waking - check!
Find keys without waking baby - check!
Open door into the hallway and... what???! Why is the carpet red? Why are the walls red? Where am I?! I'd accidently parked on the third floor instead of the fourth. There was no way I'd be able to keep her asleep and put her back into the car so we headed for the stairs. Alas. Unsuccessful. Awake baby. No nap in our near future.

The afternoon fared better - we went to a friend's house to play and then collected Daddy from work and she took a catnap in the car on the way home.

I'm pretty sure I learned my lesson. Never take a toddler to the mall on your own. NEVER.

Seriously off topic.

A midday email forward from my father brings us this little gem that I just had to share. (Every once in a while the parents manage to fwd on a email worthy of the fwd button. ;)

Redneck Turtle Burgers

Handmade ground beef patties, topped with sharp cheddar cheese, wrapped in a bacon weave, then the next step, add hotdogs as the heads, legs with slits for toes and tail.

Next step.  Place on an oven rack, covered loosely with foil and baked for 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees.  A little crispy, not too crunchy...just how a turtle should be, no?

I can't decide if I'm horrified or a little eager. I'm leaning towards disturbed yet impressed. I can feel my arteries clogging just looking at it. Southerns. Ya gotta lov'em. (Now if you passed it over to a Glaswegian.. they'd feel obliged to further deep fry it.)

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Edit: As far as I can piece together I'm pretty sure it originated at the INTERWEBS RANDOMNESS AND OTHER INSPIRING TALES Blog.

I've got a mouldy bunch of coconuts..

Okay so I only have one but that doesn't fit into the song as well.

Last weekend while we were visiting my folks, I learned a lot about coconuts. It's amazing what you will decide to do while Grandpa is entertaining the baby, there's a laptop in front of you and a coconut just begging to be opened. Mom had a couple coconuts and pineapples left over from some beach themed something or other that she did in class. (Sorry Mom, there appears to be a hole in my brain. I was listening at the time. Really!) Well, how do you open a coconut? I wanted to saw at it. Wrong. We turn to the information database that is YouTube. Apparently you just hit it really hard and it cracks open. We enlisted Dad. Success. Coconut open. It was yummy. 2nd coconut didn't have any water in it and smelled a bit funny. Less success. ((Water you say? Yes I said water! The liquid inside a coconut is called coconut water. If you purée it with the 'meat' of the coconut it then becomes coconut milk. Aaah youtube. What we would do without you?)) Then we watched a 10 minute video of a guy cutting a pineapple all fancy like... it spurred me to action. 30 seconds later I was finished being creative and just chopped it into ugly little chunks. After popping a significant amount into my mouth, the immediate development of a canker sore on my tongue and the accompanied burning sensation brought me to the abrupt conclusion that I'm minorly allergic to pineapple. Well that's new. yaay.

I digress. The point being - I wanted more coconut. So this week I picked up one from Harris Teeter. It sloshed acceptably so I thought I was in the clear. Last night I dug out our hammer and whacked it. Water into the waiting bowl and other than a slightly bruised finger it was all good. Until closer inspection that is. The water wasn't sweet. The coconut was slimy and ... oh my gosh!! is that mould!? Yes. I was in possession of a mouldy coconut. I was not happy. Mark suggested I could walk over to Harris Teeter and buy another one. That's a lot of work for a coconut. I decided against it. (perhaps if I still had my pedometer on I would have gone... maybe it would be in my best interest to leave it on?)

Oh. I also learned some alchemy. If you put ice tea in my Ninja it turns into beer.

Did you really just ask why I put ice tea in the ninja? I wanted to try and make an ice tea slushee that's why. Surely you can understand that.

10,000 steps and counting.

UPDATE: WE WON!!!! :D

For the past month I've been competing with my team " The Yummy Mummies" in a 10,000 steps a day challenge with my Stroller Strides class. The rules were simple, walk at least 10,000 steps every day and the team with the most cumulative steps at the end wins. We all included a few goals for the month. My goals included hitting 10,000 steps every day and shifting 5 out of the 10 extra pounds I've picked up since moving back to America.

I'm thrilled to say that as of this morning those 5lbs are gone and I managed 10,000 or more steps on all but two days!

Some days it was hard. Days like last Wednesday where it was 10:30pm and I only had 5,000 steps... thank goodness for the 24 hour gym in my building! I hit it hard and 40 minutes and 3 miles later I'd passed the 10,000 mark.

Some days it was easy. On Memorial Day I was at 12,000 steps before noon! It's amazing what hanging out with my Mom can do. (It's no surprise that she's half my size! That woman moves!)

I had an awesome team. The girls were incredible and their daily totals were amazing! I'm positive I wouldn't have gotten as much out of the competition if I didn't have their encouragement. We checked in with each other every day, all of us celebrating the previous days' total or sympathizing on a particularly slow day. I didn't feel silly marching in place when my team-mates happily joined in. So, Jennifer and Megan, I'd like to say thanks for being so darned awesome! :D  (of course I now have a strange habit of walking in place like I need to pee....)

My daily totals (My daily average was 11,666)

4th   11652

5th 12156

6th 11362

7th 12148

Week 1 Total 47318

8th 12006

9th 15728

10th 10674

11th 12641

12th 10860

13th 12260

14th 10042

Week 2 Total 84211

15th 10183

16th 10336

17th 11657

18th 11891

19th 12012

20th 11678

21st 10018

Week 3 Total 77775

22nd 13303

23rd 13352

24th 10820

25th 10232

26th 8529

27th 10361

28th 8581

Week 4 Total 75178

29th 14661

30th 17268

31st 10245

Week 5 Finale! 42174