Xmas

I rarely write the word Xmas...I prefer Christmas.

Not sure why, because I love the letter X, and I love X (chi) as a symbol for Christ.

It's probably residual from working at Starbucks (which I also loved), but each coffee has a code--and Christmas blend is, guess what: XMAS. So maybe writing out Christmas is my way of separating the sacred from the retail in my world.

Anyway--X celebrated Christmas this year! She had a lot of fun!

She got a play kitchen, which has been so sweet to watch her play and cook with (and continually "eat" the things she makes and bring me), and we're realizing how many little food toys we'll be picking up every day!

Here's the video of her running to me (but then seeing her kitchen for the first time).

She was pretty entertained all day!

We had a lovely Christmas day--didn't get out of our jammies all day long. (Until we put on new pijams). I can't remember the last time I got to do that, it was wonderful. When she wasn't playing with her kitchen, or dancing to music or her penguin (a gift from someone in Ric's family--it's a dancing penguin, plays a song and moves to it when you hit a button in it's hand), she spent the rest of the day rolling over a ball. Not sure why she loved doing that so much, other than maybe she discovered that she could. Not a new toy, just a new trick?

I had to work the day after Christmas since the College students were leading the service. They did a great job, I am so proud of them and love working with them. Great batch of kids. X has grown up with a bunch of them--they've been the ones taking care of her when I've had meetings, etc. So, at worship practice for this service, she was enjoying their music. She danced all over the platform, and they seemed to enjoy it as much as she did!

After the service on Sunday, we drove down to spend time with family and friends. We stopped in Huntsville to stay with our friends Luis and Rebecca and their three darling girls (lots of play time!!) and with Cesar--a friend who flew in from Arizona to visit. And then Ric headed back home, and X and I are down in Houston with my parents for a couple days. Hence--the blog updates, I finally have some time to catch up!

X has gotten to play kitchen with Tayta (we have discovered that perhaps we were spelling Taita wrong...it's a Quechua word of respect for elders, and one that my dad remembered from growing up in Ecuador). No kitchen here, but my parents gave her dishes and more play food for the kitchen. She's played with the puppies, opened some presents, and enjoyed watching some Toy Story--her favorite. She loves Buzz (buvv?? buvvvv??) and can also say "perrito", "woogy" and "yessie" for the other characters she likes.

Xaris Art

X loves our phones.

We don't let her play with them as much as she'd like to feed her addiction, and now we are trying to reserve it for only absolutely necessary occasions (to prevent screaming-toddler syndrome in restaurants, travel entertainment, etc) but she probably knows how to do more on the iphone than I do.

She plays games and scrolls through pictures, plays videos, etc.

And she takes pictures. Here is some of her photography.

a sad first and a happy first

Some more firsts...

Xaris got her first timeout today. I have no clue if she's too young or too old (maybe I should have been doing this awhile ago?) She's had a few spankings, but I'm not sure that's the best discipline for her age because I'm not totally sure she understands it...but I didn't know if she'd understand timeout either. She did. She was pretty upset. And even more upset when she got out of timeout, did the same thing again, and landed herself right back in timeout.

She was probably only in timeout for about 20 seconds, and I sat down 3 feet away from her, waited for her to focus and then discussed briefly what her behavior should be. We'll see if it works :) I'm open for stories and suggestions from other mothers-of-toddlers...what do you do and what is appropriate for their age?

Funnily enough--tonight (hours after her timeout experience) she was helping me put things away, carrying them from the living room to her bedroom, and she grabbed her babydoll. I was following her with the rest of her stuff, and upon entering her room, the first thing she did was go to the same wall/corner and put her babydoll face first towards the wall. She put her baby in timeout too! Not a clue what her baby did...so maybe X really doesn't get that timeout is a behavioral consequence yet... but it was pretty cute.

And the happy first: She prayed for the first time tonight! She'll pray with us all the time, holding hands, bowing her head and saying amen when we are done. But tonight as she was falling asleep, and we said our prayers together she kept saying "mas, mas" (more) after I had said Amen. So finally, I told her to do it. So she repeated after me "Gracias" and then said "Jesus....Amo....Gracias....Amen"

So sweet.

I'm crazy about this girl.

Xaris is a little sad that she's not popular anymore.

rawr.

a picture is worth 1000 words?

Ricardo took this while playing at the park with X.

Our little monstrita :)

pumpkin cupcakes

Another cooking adventure took place...this one just as successful but quite a bit messier!

Ricardo was around to take pictures, and Xaris was up for doing EVERYTHING by herself.

And they were HER cupcakes. We've not continued the tradition of cupcakes every month (I prefer not to use the oven for about 6 months out of the year here. We just don't need it. Stuff cooks on it's on when you just take it out of the fridge). But 18 months seemed like a special one, plus it was a lot cooler, so we went for it.

She tried a few tastes...not quite as yummy as the cinnamon sugar apples she got to mix the first time she made dessert.

Eyeballing what mama's got in hand

No, I can do it!

She didn't even want me standing really close...

See? I know what I'm doing here....

Then she got to enjoy one. She was pretty excited to see them all baked and ready. And they weren't half bad for being an experiment (the experiment was to see how they'd bake up when it's unclear how much of any given ingredient ended up on the floor rather than in the bowl).

Boo

A little delayed, but here are some attempts at getting X's picture in her halloween costume. She was very much on the go, needless to say, photos were difficult.

If you don't recognize it--she was Boo from Monsters, Inc.

18 months old!

18 month well-check went fine, despite the fact that she had multiple "owies" to show her pediatrician...she found fire ants on the weekend and had blisters on her hand, and she also did a nasty face plant into the dishwasher (she was trying to climb on the open door) and had some bruises on her cheek and forehead.

She's still petite...height is 30.5 inches, which is 20th percentile, (head circumference was 30th percentile, she's still top heavy :), and weight: 18.2 lbs, which is still under--there's no percentile for it.

No worries though, since she is healthy and still obviously meeting her developmental markers plenty early. And Dr. also said she has been surprisingly strong since her first month, and that she is strong enough to turn her car seat around. Yay! We'll see if she stops fussing so much.

No vaccinations, but she did get a flu shot, because she'll be starting pre-school in a couple weeks. She now knows how to say the word "piccy" (shot) and points to her leg where she got her shot.

Her face seems to say "really, mom? you're still taking these pictures?"

Putting her sock on, and taking them off...repeat....

Let's play some catch up...

I only download pictures from my phone occasionally. But now that I can take video on my phone, it seems I've got even more "someday-I'll-post-this-on-my-blog-so-everyone-can-see-it-and-be-delighted" moments to catch up on. So, here goes...

The latest trend...climbing.

She's loved climbing into cupboards, closets, shutting herself in places (dark places in particular....??) repeatedly. She gets a kick out of it. She is also quite a confident climber and loves to climb on things she's not supposed to climb.

BUSTED!

She's also still a good eater. Pediatrician asked at her last appointment how she was eating and when I said "fine--she eats anything" he said great, but then proceeded to tell me that she's at the age where appetite will drop and pickiness can begin...if it hadn't already. I hope not, because we've been wanting her to keep gaining weight so we can turn around her car seat!!

Peas remain a favorite...(yep, she ate 'em all)

And blueberries, of course!

We went to the Arboretum one Tuesday when they had some kids activities, including a petting zoo. Since she hadn't ever been near any of these animals before (only my parent's puppies), I did the wise momma thing and held her outside to look at the animals first. But no, she wiggled right on down, and headed inside without even waiting for me to park her stroller. She touched every animal, and then walked right back around and petted every animal again. She moved so fast, it was hard to take pictures!

Have I mentioned she loves to climb??

It's finally starting to cool down here, so there will likely be less half-nakey baby pictures. Although she really loves to roam around the house in a t-shirt and diaper. Especially if it's one of mine or Ricardo's t-shirts...I have to put a rubber band around part of the neckband, but other than that, it's a great fit!

And now onto the videos. Remember when I said X eats anything? Here she is eating chips and salsa with her papa. She first tried Jalapeño queso at about 11 months old...she ate a BUNCH of my dad's ají last month when we went down to Houston. Apparently she likes spicy.

She also (rarely) falls asleep while eating....

And, she loves to color. And listen to music while she colors. When the music fades, she has to touch the remote to bring it back. If you listen hard, you can hear her singing along with the song :)

Cooking with Mama

Our friends Keren and Charlie posted about how they cook together...and it made me curious as to whether or not Xaris was ready for some serious adventures in the kitchen with me.

We decided to find out!

I only had my iPhone handy, and we don't have great kitchen lighting so the pictures aren't the best. But they serve their purpose in documenting the event, so we'll keep 'em!

We pulled up a chair to the butcher block and began the experiment.

Starting out...putting pears in the bowl...and then tasting them. I started to wonder if we'd have enough for the dessert! And then I started wondering what affect this would have in her diaper later if she continued to eat so many! We had to switch jobs for a little while :)

Next job: Emptying raisins into the bowl! She was so exuberant in her shaking the boxes that they also fell (flew?) into the bowl. No problem, we just pick them back up and begin again.

Next up: Smashing. Possibly the favorite of all the steps to this dessert! It was easier to just give her a baggie and the pestle, instead of dealing with the mortar (and keeping stuff inside). She's smashing granola, which I use instead of a nut mixture.

Stirring...maybe tied for favorite, or a close runner-up!

Finished product, ready for the oven! I've been experimenting with phyllo dough, making different pastries and baklavas :) This one was honey-pear. Yum.

We like cooking together! Plus, we are really really cute in our aprons. The one she is wearing was my grandma's--my mom made it for her, and it has outlines of my hands from when I was 21 months old.

penguino

I just uploaded all my iPhone pictures to the computer...I had trouble trying to hold Xaris, the penguino and the phone to shoot some video--I ended up cutting out half of X's face for part of it, but here's part of the process of learning to say "penguin"

stubborn?

Last post I mentioned how X won't identify the characters in her Buenas Noches Gorila book, even though I've been reading it to her and showing her each animal nightly for months now...well, today we found a book that we hadn't seen or read in a LONG while: La Oruga Muy Hambrienta (the Very Hungry Caterpillar). I was so excited that we found it, I plopped down to read it to her, open to the first page and point out the sun, the moon, the caterpillar (oruga) and what does she say? "O-U-Ga". And proceeds to flip through the rest of the book pointing out the "O-uu-gas" on every page, and then spends about 10 minutes looking out the screen door pointing out "pio-pio's" (birds) and asking for "O-uuu-ga?".

she's asleep...work or blog?

It's been so long--primarily because X thinks the computer is hers and anytime I'm on it she likes to come hit buttons. Her favorite is the power button (not dissimilar to her friend Nory), and the space bar is a close second. Most of my work needs to happen once she's asleep, which means I'm doing work when I'm ready to drop also. However, a quick update since the last post:

She has doubled (or more) her vocabulary...sometimes 5 or 6 new words a day this week, it's crazyfun having a conversation with her. Along with the new words, some of the old ones have gotten pushed out (or out of order). She's started calling Ricardo "mama", along with "papa"...which he doesn't mind at all, but for some reason I kind of do. :) I get to be mama.

Her animals and animal sounds have also gone a little helter-skelter. Puppies now say Meow, and everything is a "pio-pio" (the noise a bird makes). We read "Buenas Noches Gorila" multiple times a day, and while every time I point out all the animals repeatedly, she has yet to point to one and say it's name. Today though, she found the globo (balloon) on each page, even when it was tiny, halfway off the page and squealed "bobo!" every time. We've never hunted down the globos in that book...and she's never said it before today...such a fun learning curve to watch. She's starting to put more together in phrases too. A few nights ago she fell asleep saying "Amomama" (I love mama). The best night ever so far!

She's trying out new words all the time, my favorite for the moment is "penguino" (guess what that means). She says something that begins with "ben" and eventually ends with "no", but there is no consistency or limit to the amount of syllables might occur in between.

benbenbeeeeno

be NEEE no

ben ga na neee no

bebaben nee no

etc.

Not all her new developments are as exciting though. She has a toy teapot that she loves that just recently (a few days?) starts crying when one particular song plays on it. It plays 5 or so songs, and has lots of other sounds and words, and it's only this one song that makes her all sad-faced and she starts wailing. Familiar to anyone else out there? So random.

We went to play for a little bit at the arboretum today...they have their pumpkin houses and pumpkin patch out. Since she learned how to run and climb, it's harder to get her to hold still enough for a picture!

I love this picture--mostly because she was distracted by some "big kids" romping in the hay maze so she sat for more than 5 seconds.

Inside a pumpkin house

There are giant frogs that spit water into a fountain/play area. As soon as she saw they were on, she took off running for them. I caught her long enough to strip off her clothes and put on her sandals. Lest you think I'm a horrible mother, it was 89 degrees here today.

"OOOOOOOOH!" (She kept saying it. Water is so exciting)

Learning about giant toads

And ombligos (belly buttons)

Keeping up with X is of course the majority of life right now :)

She still goes with me to work, although hopefully soon the church I work at will be opening a preschool so I can enroll her for a couple days a week. Those will be my "I-have-to-be-super-efficient" days. Ric's job got all crazy on him, so poor guy has a lot on his plate. We're training for some 5Ks (me) and half marathons (him), but get to do that together (because I can walk 3.1 miles in the time he can run 14 or so...) Turkey Trot, here we come!

And hopefully another post soon(er) rather than later!