This is my favorite gift Kira received for Christmas, courtesy of grandma and grandpa Hat (because they always have on ball caps, lol).
It is a chainsaw. I love it.
Santa brought the apron, but don’t let the butterflies fool you…she is a little tiny, twisted version of both her parents with her slightly devious gleam in her eye. I think she’s thinking the same thing I am…Halloween either 2010 or 2011, there will DEFINITELY be a Baby Leatherface costume in the works.
Mwahahahahaha!!!
I thought I would share my day with the internuts.
I think I will backtrack a bit to add that Friday night was spent in a battle of wits. Vince and I vs. Christmas tree lights. They nearly kicked our ass. We ended up tossing the majority of our cumulative collection in the garbage. And that was the most enjoyable part of the whole experience. Well, not really, I suppose I really did enjoy making up mean songs about Christmas lights to the tune of several Christmas songs. But I would enjoy that sort of thing.
Now, moving on to the Saturday festivities…
I awoke to the invite for breakfast and to laundry. This starts out pretty exciting, eh? Then on to breakfast at IHOP, which was yummy delicious, where my child proceeded to act spastic near the end of our excursion. She took a power nap of 20 minutes on the way home and then proceeded to be all bouncy, so we decided to pack her lunch and torture ourselves at the mall. We managed to kill two birds with one stone: 1) we got Kira’s picture taken with Santa for the first time ever and 2) we did her first ever Build-a-Bear because I had a coupon (I lurves me some coupon savings!!).
The mall traffic sucked ASS! The insane traffic, the crowded stores and just the simple fact that it is a mall is why I try to avoid ever going there. I know, I know…I am not a girl, well at least not in the sterotypical “liking to shop” sort of way. Trust me, my husband can and HAS out-shopped me by a long shot.
We lost Vince at a cool pub decor store and went to BAB. Kira immediately grabbed FOUR unstuffed animals, a polar bear, a kitteh, and 2 different teddy bears and latched onto them like a leech. We waited for Vince and waited and waited until I realized I didn’t have my cell phone. So, I pried the unstuffed animals from Kira’s firm grip and went looking for him…no such luck, so we headed back and called his mobile from the BAB store phone. No answer, gah!
He finally strolls in and we get Kira a polar bear. She did quite well for such a tiny girl, she even pressed the pedal all by herself to blow the stuffing in. She kept her death-grip on her polar bear until I fed her in line for Santa.
Ah, the first Santa experience…I walk her up to him and she starts screaming and crying. Most likely to the horror of most of the other parents waiting in line, I hand her over to this Santa stranger, step back and tell the lady to take the picture tears, smiles or whatever we get…I WANT THIS PICTURE! So, we got pictures with Santa and the lady did manage to distract her enough to get the “what, are you nuts?!?” glare from my kid. I love it! Then they stuck it to us for $20 for 2 5 x 7′s. That is crazy shit. I assure you next year we will try another approach, like the Breakfast with Santa event or something. It couldn’t possibly be worse than the effing mall.
At this point Kira was wiped out, as were we. We came home and she napped for all of an hour, maybe. We ate dinner and then I got peed on a little. And then I knelt in the pee. Hmm…I think that will be all for today!
Tomorrow we shall have our first family portrait done, dinner with family and then I shall hopefully get a good night sleep before I proceed with intentionally making my child ill by giving her milk to drink. Doctors are so sadistic…
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that on the way to breakfast I threw Kira’s sippy cup of apple-banana juice into my purse and upon arrival discovered that the lid wasn’t secure and about half the sippy cup emptied into my purse! This was quite funny until I realized this evening that my MP3 player was in there…YIKES! I am just hoping that it isn’t f.u.b.a.r.
All in all, it was a crazy day and I had a great time!!!
I was all psyched up to take Kira out in her first snow but alas, there is no snow!
That didn’t stop us from dressing the part. She liked the hat, obviously, but I couldn’t keep the mittens on her!
I cooked meatballs for dinner, but I decided to try some ingredient improv so that Kira could eat them, too. So, due to her food allergies, no eggs, no bread crumbs.
I decided that pureed peas would take the place of eggs for stickiness and wheatgerm would take the place of breadcrumbs. That was okay, but they wouldn’t stick together so I added applesauce.
Are you grossed out yet?
Well, don’t get too grossed out because my fairly picky eater husband ate them and he liked them…hehe, even after I told him what was in them (but not until after he ate them, lol).
Happy Black Friday! Or day after Thanksgiving, if you prefer. I prefer the latter, as I am not so crazy as to line up in freezing temperatures and fight crowds. I would rather pay more for stuff, no…actually I’d rather shop online.
I hope you had a lovely day of thanks, good food and good company.
I was just thinking about crashing for the night when my blog popped into my mind, so here I am. I must say, I am appalled by my lack of input to my site. Where have I been?!?!?!?!
I can hardly believe how quickly the time passes, too fast.
Meanwhile, here’s a brief update. As you know, Kira is 1 year old now and she is always on the go, always walking and running. Her new thing is to back up to and sit upon all the animals she encounters. It is cute, but I need to stop this behavior before she gets hurt. Uh, to say the least, she is not gentle about plopping down on them and I worry that someone fuzzy will eventually react unpleasantly.
Kira is having reflux and gas symptoms nearly as bad as she did at about age 4 months, she is also having a lot of diarrhea that is burning her skin. I took her to a pediatric GI specialist and got accused of being crazy for stating both factually and calmly that giving Kira milk as an experiment makes me anxious. The doctor wants to see for himself, but he doesn’t have to live with the consequences. The consequences make me anxious. The doc says my reaction worries her more than the problem and if I am not already, then I should consider “seeing someone” and perhaps getting some kind of anxiety meds. I personally believe that it would be more disturbing if I had been pleased about making my daughter sick. But what do I know?!? They decided to test her for celiac disease, but fortunately the results were negative. I just wish I knew what was wrong so that we can make her feel better…
Meanwhile, there isn’t much else happening.
I’ll be back. Really, I swear!
Today was Kira’s 1st Birthday party. It was such a great success. Family and friends visiting, cupcakes (both allergy-free and regular!), Kira playing outside with other kids and seeing her surrounded by love. She was also fairly responsive to her gifts, which everyone so generously brought for her. She didn’t have much interest in opening her gifts, but she sure did enjoy them once they were opened. She grabbed an Elmo and ran, grabbed a baby and hugged her, and danced to a musical puppy.
As much as this is a celebration of Kira’s first year of life, it is also more than that. It is a celebration of being a family for a year, for Kira’s amazing growth physically and mentally this past year, for all of us surviving each other for a year. It really has been an amazing year. Trying and difficult, wonderful and joyful, endearing and educational. I have grown as much, possibly more, as Kira has this past year but in a different way.
I am a better person. More aware of others, of myself, more patient and I have an entirely different perspective on love than ever before.
I have Kira, my love, to thank for all that. I thank her for this most wonderful year and for her most wonderful self.
Happy 1st Birthday Party, Kira Barie!!
Most of the time, if Kira is fussy or crabby, I find it rather easy to get a smile and a laugh from her…
Simply put a diaper on my head. It cracks her up.
I believe this may be the early stages of toilet humor, lol.
I have a food allergy baby on my hands. No milk, soy, eggs, or peanut butter allowed. It does bad things. We know for certain the milk and soy do VERY BAD THINGS and we are under a doctor order to avoid the other things…unless we just feel sadistic enough to give it a try and see if we land in the ER. After all the milk and soy issues, I am not willing to go there for the time being. I like when my baby girl feels good and we have NORMAL day-to-day activities that don’t include severe skin rash, diarrhea, and projectile vomiting. Call me crazy, if you will.
So, I would be willing to bet that any parent that has endured food allergies with their infant has experienced how FREAKING DIFFICULT it is to figure out what to feed them. Most especially, during the transition to solid food or if, like my child, as soon as they figure out finger food and feeding themselves, they vehemently refuse ALL pureed food, anything served on a spoon and/or fed TO them by a parent.
Breakfast is, in my opinion, the most difficult meal to come up with something filling, healthy and not all sugar.
My little one will NOT accept any baby cereal, oatmeal, cream of wheat or rice. Nada. Won’t take it. I kept trying and trying, but ultimately I choose not to continue that battle. It is not worth the screaming that rings my ears and the frustrations caused to both her and I.
This led me to do a lot of Googling in hopes of discovering something more than cut fruit and Cheerios to feed my 9-12 month old…
I found a recipe for Baby Cereal Pancakes, however, the recipe contains egg yolks and milk, which my daughter cannot have. So I started experimenting with the recipe and can finally say the the 3rd time IS IN FACT the charm. My third batch is not only a success in that the end result actually resembles a pancake, but that my kid actually ate one and seemed to enjoy it. WOOT!!!!!!
I thought I would share my recipe for anyone out there struggling with the same issues…I would hope that any other mommy’s out there in the blogosphere will consider doing the same (sharing!) if they happen to be dealing with food allergies and the struggle for variety and nutrition in their allergy kid’s diet.
Baby Cereal Pancakes
1/2 cup baby cereal oatmeal (or barley)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup baby formula (or milk, soy, rice milk…whatever your child can have)
1/2 cup of applesauce
roughly 1/2 cup of apple juice to start
cinnamon, vanilla extract and/or a mashed up fruit of choice, like banana (optional)
mix all this up and add a dash of water if it is still thick, you want to add a little water or juice until the consistency will pour off the spoon or run through the slats of a fork…not like watery, but it should pour onto the skillet.
I use a non-stick skillet to avoid using butter because my child cannot have butter. Depending on your child, you may want to use a little butter melted in the skillet or non stick spray…or whatever you do if you make normal pancakes.
Pour whatever size pancakes you want and cook until brown on bottom, then flip and brown the other side. Low-Med. Low heat.
I make them small and add a little Karo syrup (like a drop or two) and spread it over the top or I spread a pureed fruit like apple sauce, pears…or whatever fruit you want…on top.
Good luck!
By the way, I tasted them and they actually do taste good!
I should preface this by saying that this was already poop #3 of the day and it wasn’t yet one o’clock in the afternoon…
I began by placing my child on the floor in front of me to change a stinky poopy diaper but she was more interested in being free like the wind, which makes keeping her still and on her back a difficult task. She wiggled to break free of me while I reasoned with a 10 month old to stick around long enough to get a new diaper on…yeah, fat chance of that working. As I explained to her the importance of having patience (ironic, since I have none myself) and how she can make time to allow a quick diaper change (I mean, I kinda make her schedule so there’s no getting around the fact that she has the time!), she chewed on the face of a monkey, occasionally attempting to make a break for it.
Okay, poopy diaper off, butt clean, and new diaper on, sparing no time to safely roll the poop into the dirty diaper in hope of that being enough seconds spared to get the new diaper securely fastened.
As I fasten the last tab, Kira, in one swift motion, rolls over into a downward dog and springs up onto her feet and takes a step over my legs to escape.
No problem…
Except now that I am reaching for the poopy diaper to roll it up and discard it, I realize the poop is missing.
Yes, I said the poop is MISSING!
I look at Kira and exclaim, “THE POOP IS MISSING!” in a humorously alarmed tone. She looks back at me curiously as I, on hands and knees, look all over the living room and even UNDER the sofa for a turd. I mean, really, how difficult can it be to find a TURD in the LIVING ROOM?!? I am uncertain where else to look and I have not yet located said turd, so again I look to Kira and say with an underlying tone of both defeat and laughter, “I don’t know where the poop is. Do you see the stinky poopy?”.
This is the point of the story in which my 10 month old child, who has a very timely, witty and slightly “off” sense of humor already, looks right at me and raises her right leg straight out in front of her exposing the bottom of her foot where there is an infant shoe size 2 turd.
Ah, now the case of the missing poop has been solved…I may now move on to less stinky things.
If there were an award as such, it would go to the dickhead featured in this news story.
I have been annoyed by the incessant, shrill cries of a child in a public place. I also have the free-will and wherewithal to LEAVE if I can’t deal with it, certainly that would make more sense the repeated striking of a 2 year old in the face by a complete stranger.
In this story, it explains how the man threatened the mother that “if she couldn’t shut the kid up, then he would”…then, when the child continued to cry in another aisle, he proceeded with hitting her in the face four or five times.
You see…maybe I am a little crazy, maybe just perfectly normal, or maybe I simply tend to respond quickly in most situations…either way, just those words alone would have sent me off into a blazing hot, angry like a bear that has been poked with a hot stick rage of protecting my child.
Now, I am not trying to scold the mother for not reacting faster or with violent retaliation…but I certainly do not understand her quick forgiveness. I am a forgiving person, but I am thinking that a little bit of anger is in order for now and then forgiveness a little later. She is either full of crap and putting on for the media or I guess she is more forgiving than most people I have encountered.
No matter, I can assure you that if I were in the mother’s shoes, I would have potentially been arrested along with the crazy bastard that hit my kid repeatedly. I would have tackled his sorry ass and wailed on him with a vengeance. I am not saying that behaving violently and being arrested in front of my kid in response to a violent attack is THE BEST or THE RIGHT thing to do…but perhaps it is. Even though some of you may see it as setting the example of violence being acceptable, I am personally of the opinion that (a mother) defending her child IS acceptable be it violent or not, circumstantially speaking. I feel that doing nothing is worse for the child than doing something.
