Sabrina talks constantly.  She talks from the moment she wakes up until the moment she goes to sleep.  With no exaggeration, she is almost never quiet.  When she isn’t forming words, she is making monotonous, repetitive sounds just to see how long it will take to make mommy’s head explode.  Because of this, we tune her out some of the time.  It is just exhausting otherwise.

Not only does she talk a lot, she is incredibly bossy.  She is always telling someone or the dog what to do or not do.

Yesterday, we went to a consignment sale.  I turned out of the parking lot and started to drive home.  Sabrina started telling me I had to stop the car.  This was a new level of bossy.  I asked her why and in typical 3 year old fashion her response was “Because you have to stop the car”.  I only engaged her because I was curious what prompted this.  I was concerned she needed something.  I drove a few blocks before she finally managed to say “Tessa’s straps aren’t done”.  I pulled over and told Sabrina if she was making it up she was going to be in big trouble (there was a recent incident with a button and Sabrina making me think Tessa was chocking while I was hurtling down the highway at 75MPH then careening to a stop to find it not quite accurate).  She was right.  I had done the middle chest clip but hadn’t clipped the straps into the buckle between her legs.  I’ve never forgotten to buckle the car seat straps before.  You can send my mother of the year award to PO Box 789…

Sorry Tessa.  Of course I thanked Sabrina and apologized for not believing her.  Then today we were going some where and she said “Stop the car Mommy” just for the fun of it.

My runner up mother of the year status should come from the other stupid thing I did that day.  The building where the consignment sale was held is decorated for Halloween.  They had a 10 foot tall furry spider in the hallway.  I pushed the stroller close enough for Sabrina to touch it thinking she might find it cute.  She froze and didn’t speak or move until we walked away.  She has said no fewer than 50 times since then “I didn’t like the spider mommy”.  She already has spider issues (she asks us to check her window to make sure there are no spider every night before bed) and my dumbass self thinks she might want to pet the 10 foot tall spider?

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Ahh to be 3 and have little things make you incredibly happy.  My sister sent Sabrina a few things for her birthday this week.  Her favorite items were the birthday card with the pin that says “Princess” and the sparkly headbands which she has declared to be crowns.  First thing this morning, Sabrina asked “Can I be a princess now?” which consists of putting on the “circle” (the pin) and her “crown” (the head band).

She even said it was okay for Tessa to wear one.  Tessa wasn’t so thrilled about it.

And yes, we do sit around and exclaim to each other that we can’t believe how stinking cute our kids are.

I was surprised at the feelings evoked by taking my child into the Children’s Hospital.  As I was pushing her to the clinic in the hospital complex, I felt like people were examining my child to determine what her label was.  (Paranoid much? Apparently I am, thanks for asking.)   I just wanted to put a sign on her declaring her perfectly normal.  Someone in the elevator lobby remarked “She is just watching everything.”  I smiled and nodded but inside was thinking “Of course she is.  She is perfectly normal – why wouldn’t she?”  Silly?  Completely.  It made me really feel for the parents of children who do have labels hung by doctors or society and the assumptions that those labels carry.  Aside from my own neuroses, our experience with the Children’s Hospital this time was much more positive than our last encounter.

Tessa’s evaluation yesterday was largely a non-event.  I guess in some ways I was secretly hoping for a solution.  I wanted them to say “If you do X, then her eating issues will be solved.”  As is often the case, they gave me some opinions and possibilities and maybes.

Basically the therapist discussed her eating habits and problems with me and then watched Tessa eat for 45 minutes.  She decided that Tessa has “poor tongue lateralization”.  This means that she only moves her tongue forward and back rather than any side to side movements.  This means she can’t adequately manipulate her food to chew/gum it sufficiently and it is often taken to the back of her mouth before it has been chewed or gummed enough to swallow and the gagging/vomiting begins.  It also explains why she often ejects food with her tongue even when she seems to want to eat it – she can’t manipulate it around in her mouth with her tongue like most of us do.  This is something that should resolve itself with time and a little assistance.

The therapist suggested we continue to offer her table foods cut into tiny pieces and that we use an oral-motor stimulation tool like this one from Nuk.  We’ll stroke the insides of her cheeks and sides of her tongue with it to encourage the development of the lateral tongue movements.  (I can’t even imagine the scary google searches this paragraph will trigger.)

The other possibility is that her frenulum is a little short (that is what connects your tongue to the bottom of your mouth) and doesn’t allow full movement of her tongue.  Tessa threw a holy fit when the therapist tried to look so she couldn’t be sure about that.  They can clip it if it is too short but we are going to give it a month to see how she progresses and to allow her pediatrician to see if he can get a better look in her mouth.  While I didn’t get any definitive answers, it was a relief to not hear any possibilities of the autism spectrum or sensory issues thrown about – I had mostly ruled them out for other reasons on my own but still had a little tingle of fear in the back of my brain.

In other news, I have some how managed to attain the age of 37 today.  Happy birthday to me.  And my thoughts go out to all of those remembering 9/11 for much more sobering reasons.

My plans for the day? A playdate for Sabrina.  Lunch with a friend and her kids.  Then I am going to sign Sabrina up for a dance class (“Creative Movement”).  Before my momma days, this is the kind of day I would have mockingly said was in my future as a stay at home mom.  But I would have been kidding.  I wouldn’t have guessed that I would really become That Mom.

Formerly mock-worthy the first?  A play date.  I set it up.  I set it up as much for me as for Sabrina.  I like days when I actually get to interact with other grownups who don’t just reside in my computer or operate a cash register at Target.  I knew play dates were in my future but I didn’t guess that I would enjoy some of them too.  (I find group play dates kind of suck.)

Mock-worthy the second?  Lunching.  I’m a lady who lunches.  Sort of – if you can call going to a burrito version of Subway with 2 adults and 4 children “lunching”.  Lunch used to be walking downtown in my grownup clothes and heels to grab something between meetings.  Now it is marked on my calendar a week in advance and anticipated.  Naps are planned around it.  Outfits (for the children) are thought out.

Mock-worthy the third: Dance class.  This all started yesterday with a friend’s status update.  I was thinking about signing Sabrina up for a Mom’s Day Out program – which in my understanding was 1 morning a week for a couple of hours.  Around here, they are a couple of mornings a week and more pre-school-ish than anything else.  They also have waiting lists if you don’t sign up in January for the fall.  Who knew?  So that is out this year and I’m okay with that.  I just wanted her to get a little weekly socialization – I’m not ready to send her off to a school setting yet.  She’s my baby.  Anywho, I saw this status update about dance class for my friend’s daughter is is exactly Sabrina’s age.  I joked that I thought that toddlers taking dance class was something that only happened on TV (likening it to my desire to attend boarding school when Facts of Life was popular).  Apparently not – most of the girls around here take “Creative Movement” when they are turn 3. I’m not one to do what everyone else does (in fact, I usually work hard to do the opposite) but Sabrina probably needs to interact with people who aren’t her parents.

I never took any lessons for dance or baton or gymnastics or soccer or anything else when I was a kid.  Steve and I discussed it before we had kids and agreed we wanted our children to have the opportunity to try things – to find their bliss – but that we weren’t going to be the parents that had our kids in all sorts of lessons and activities so that they needed a date book to keep it all straight.  One thing/activity at a time – this momma doesn’t want to run a taxi service.  So I guess this is the beginning of that.  Sabrina is ridiculously excited at the prospect of taking “ballet” class.  And momma is feeling like she missed the page of the toddler handbook that told me when I am supposed to start thinking of these things.  I feel a little dazed that it is already time to think of things like lessons and pre-school.  In my head, she just came home yesterday – she is just a baby.  My baby.  I’m not ready to share her with the world yet.

This is not the face of a happy child. Obviously.  I’ve talked about our struggle to keep Tessa’s weight up.  When we started baby food, she only wanted to eat fruits.  Because we wanted her to eat, we didn’t fight her on it very hard.  We fed her veggies but kept them sweet and easy – carrots, sweet potatoes, peas.  We tried other things but when she resisted we opted to focus more on getting her to eat instead of getting her to eat what we wanted her to eat.  Now, she is looking like a normal, pudgy baby so we are starting to push the issue.  She isn’t amused.

She hates all vegetables and proteins.  We have to dip the vegetables into fruits to get her to eat them.  Last night I decided to take a stand.  She was going to eat half of the jar of squash turkey dinner if it killed both of us.  It was a messy, unhappy dinner time.  She spit and screamed and shook her fists and gagged.  But she ate half the jar.  I gave her a jar of fruits as a reward after.  Yes, I’ve tried making baby food in case she just doesn’t like the jarred stuff.  I did a sweet potato-zucchini puree, an avocado puree, a cantaloupe-blueberry puree, a squash-corn-broccoli puree.  She has rejected them all.  She much prefers the jarred stuff.

She still has a lot of yucky cradle cap on her head (yellowed icky skin).  I consulted my BFF, Google, and found out that a little olive oil and a soft toothbrush might do the trick.  (Actually, my new BFF is SwagBucks.  I use it for 90% of my searches now. You randomly earn swagbucks when you do searches.  I’ve been using it for 3 weeks and have 35 swagbucks.  I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary – just my regular searches that I would normally use google for.  You use the swagbucks to buy things from the swagstore.  For example, a $5 Amazon gift card costs 45 swagbucks.  If I can earn $5 a month to spend at Amazon by doing my regular internet searches, why not?  Just as a disclaimer, this link I’m embedding gives me some sort of referral credit if you sign up and use it.  But that isn’t why I’m telling you about it – I just happen to think it is kind of cool.)  The toothbrush/olive oil suggestion worked amazingly well.  I think after 1 more try I should have it all off.  But as you can see in the last photo, even washing it twice last night she has crazy olive oil hair this morning.

And Sabrina was feeling left out and wanted to say hi.

When a child is close to/firmly attached to her (let’s stick with one gender because if I have to do his/her all through this I will get cranky) father, people see it as healthy, cute, sweet, and appropriate.  It is met with enthusiasm.  People comment about how little girls love their daddies.  When a child is close to/firmly attached to her mother, people often see it as the child being spoiled, clingy, needy, indulged.  Sideways glances are exchanged while people calculate future therapy bills in their heads.  Why the different set of standards?

Sabrina, at almost 3, is a daddy’s girl.  She was all about mommy for about 6 weeks after we returned from Guatemala and then Daddy became IT.  Often when I get her up in the morning, the first thing out of her mouth is “Where’s Daddy?”  When Steve is home, she will often reject my assistance with something and say “Not Mommy, just Daddy.”  I’m not bothered by this nor do I blame her.  She sees me all damn day long.  Daddy comes home and is FUN! SHINY! NEW!  He tickles and chases! (Not to imply he isn’t the whole package.  He is. He also disciplines and puts to bed and etc.)

Tessa, at just weeks shy of a year old (shut up? when did that happen?!?), is a total momma’s girl.  When she is upset or tired, often I am the only one who can soothe her.  She prefers me over Steve much of the time.  She likes to be held and comforted by momma.  She is full of attitude and knows who and what she wants.  I am enjoying this time with my baby because 1) she won’t be a baby much longer and 2) I have little doubt she will become a daddy’s girl because most little girls do.  Steve isn’t bothered by her preference of me (she doesn’t reject him…she just prefers me) and teases me to enjoy it while it lasts because she will soon be a daddy’s girl too.

Basically, we have no problem with this what-so-ever.  Other people do.  Everyone ooooh’s and ahhh’s over Sabrina’s love of Daddy and what a great father Steve is.  They think it is great/funny/sweet that she is all about Daddy.  But when witnessing Tessa’s preference of me?  I am warned that I should “nip it in the bud” and that I will “be sorry when she is 3 and still wants” all me, all the time and that I shouldn’t “spoil and indulge her”.

First, I don’t think that by responding to my child’s needs I am spoiling her.  She has rules and boundaries just like Sabrina always has and they are age appropriate.  Yes I might be a little softer with her because she is my last baby and is growing up so fast – but so what?  She doesn’t like strangers in her face – that is a perfectly normal developmental thing at this point.  (Personally, I’m not crazy about strangers in my face either – especially when they judge my parenting because my child wants them to back off.)  She prefers one parent over the other right now – but so does Sabrina.

Tell me, o wise internets, do you see similar attitudes or is this unique to my experience?  Does anything like this happen with boys too?  And this assumes a traditional family, I’m sure non-traditional families come with their own set of stuff.

This is Tessa’s soulful look – a pathetic plea to be released from captivity of the evil high chair:

This is Sabrina’s attempt to immitate.  The child just can’t help but be joyful:

I asked for advice from all of you because Tessa wasn’t able to eat any solids without gagging and throwing up.  I wanted to give  a quick update since all of you were kind enough to take a few minutes to offer your thoughts.

Tessa still isn’t allowing me to feed her anything solid or with chunks.  But, I have been making her cereal thicker and thicker and am hoping to start mixing in some Stage 3 fruits – starting small and then increasing the amount to hopefully trick her into it.  I’ve also discovered that if I put some broken cheerios and/or gerber puffs on her tray, she will put them in her mouth now.  She doesn’t actually swallow most of them – the spits the mush back out (lovely mess).  But I have to think that she must accidentally swallow a little of it here and there.  It is much more fun for her and for me when she is the one shoving them in her mouth instead of me doing it repeatedly.

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On the Sabrina front, she is doing a great job with potty training.  We’ve had 3 accidents in just over a week and I think 2 of them were parental error.  It requires constant reminders and a lot of patience for listening to her whine about how she doesn’t want to/have to/need to go…but I think it is going really well.

I do wonder at what point we back off the rewards.  For a variety of reasons, we quit rewarding each trip to the potty and started rewarding 1/2 days of success.  If at nap time she is dry, she gets a treat – the same goes at bedtime.  It seems to be working well and I’m not suggesting we quit rewarding yet…I’m just curious how you all wean them off the treats?  I don’t want to have to clue her first boyfriend into the reward system.

I really don’t have anything to say today other than whining that I am tired of potty training.  Is wearing diapers until kindergarten really a bad thing?  We’ve just made the switch from pull ups to panties.  It’s been 1 1/2 days and we’ve only had one accident which is fabulous.  But to get those results, I have to take Sabrina to the potty every hour.  Which results in much whining from her – she doesn’t want to stop what she is doing to go potty.  She worries that Tessa will take her toys while she goes potty. She doesn’t need to go potty.  She doesn’t want to go potty.  She has a boo-boo.  Look! A bug.  Seriously, the whining is wearing me down.

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On a completely unrelated note, I love that this little restaurant seems to have an identity crisis.  Every time we drive past it, we laugh.  If you can’t read the signs, it says “Wok -N- Grill and Sno Biz Treat Center”.  One awning says “Delicious Chinese Food, Good Prices” and the other says “Ice Cream, Shakes & Smoothies” while the ledge over the drive through says “Sno Biz Shave Ice”.  I’ve never been brave enough to eat there but it always makes me smile.

I’m a pretty laid back momma.  But now and then something comes up and I wonder if maybe I should be worried.  So I ask all of you.

At Tessa’s 9 month pediatrician appointment, he encouraged us to keep working on solids and baby food.  I shared that she didn’t like the Stage 2 foods that had texture.  He suggested we work at small items of table food because sometimes the mixed textures (smooth with tiny pieces) of baby food is weird for babies.  I’ve spent 6 weeks trying.  I give her a couple of gerber puffs everyday.  I’ve tried tiny pieces of cereal, pasta, rice, bread, banana, potato, even bland hummus.  I get the same result every single time.  She spits it back out.  I put it back in her mouth.  She spits it out.  I put it back in.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  If I tuck it back in her cheek so that she can’t spit it out easily, she gags and then throws up the entire contents of her stomach.  A single piece of rice caused a very large puddle of vomit on the floor of a mexican restaurant on Saturday.

Tessa is 10.5 months old.  She tolerates no food that isn’t thoroughly pureed.  Do I worry?  Do I keep trying?  Do I just buy a magic bullet and plan on pureeing her food well into college?  Oh wise internets, please tell me.

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A couple of photos…they aren’t great but I’ve been limping along with a broken camera.  I can’t see what I am taking photos of and I can’t change the settings.  Considering that, they aren’t so bad.

While they don’t receive less love, second children do sort of get the shaft when it comes to energy and stuff.  I spent lots of time shopping for Sabrina’s clothes and toys.

I bought most things on sale but I had a job so I was more able financially to buy all sorts of pretty little dresses.  I took photos of her in almost every single outfit.  I changed her clothes several times a day just to dress her in another pretty frock.  Tessa stayed in sleepers almost all winter.  Why put her in a cute outfit if we weren’t going anywhere (and with 2 little ones, we didn’t go many places).  Her wardrobe consists of hand-me-downs and consignment sale finds.

I bought Sabrina a huge lot of baby toys on Ebay.  After seeing Sabrina largely ingnore those toys, Tessa’s toys are often things like a bottle lid and odd things that were Sabrina’s. Or is Sabrina is napping, Tessa takes the opportunity to play with all of her things. (Don’t tell Sabrina – she would never sleep again.)

Sabrina’s “toy box” is a pretty wicker basket I used to use for throw blankets.  Tessa’s “toy box”:

There is one thing that Tessa has that Sabrina never did.  When Sabrina was at the age of dropping things over the side of her high chair just to watch them fall, we had a 3 strikes rule.  We would pick things up 3 times and then they stayed on the floor.  Tessa has the luxury of a someone who is happy to pick up toys forever:

Sabrina looks like Moe of the Three Stooges.  Thank goodness it grows pretty quickly.