helper

Since I've started on this latest Whole30, I have, out of necessity, been thinking more about food. While our usual fare is already pretty aligned with a paleo menu (minus our much beloved butter), this has been a good excuse to shake things up. I've been having fun finding new recipes and meal ideas to add variety, but I've also been thinking about ways to involve Squirt more in meal-time - especially selection and preparation. I firmly believe - and see time-and-time again - that one of the biggest causes of obesity and ill-health is poor knowledge of menu planning and food preparation. So few of my adult friends and colleagues actually know how to properly prepare nutritious meals and find it so daunting that they often reach for prepared substitutions (full of chemicals, mystery ingredients, and things I don't even want to mention). And how many young adults leave home even knowing how to plan a balanced meal and make wise choices, rather than living on take-out and fast food?

Yes, I realize Squirt is very young - too young, some might argue, to even understand this stuff. But I don't think it's ever too early to start building the foundation of good habits and smart choices. I'm going to start thinking of ways I can start involving Squirt more in mealtimes, so she can learn how to cook - and I mean really cook from scratch, no soup mixes, no canned foods, only fresh, whole ingredients - and learn how to make healthy choices while enjoying treats in moderation (rather than gorging on them excitedly every chance she gets because they're so restricted). Looking back, I've already started taking steps in this direction with her introduction to solids - baby led weaning. She has always been presented with real foods in their real form (she was never spoon-fed purees of whatever-the-heck-came-from-that-jar). She explored her foods, inspecting them, feeling them, smelling them, tasting them, and then, finally (and I really mean finally) eating them. She developed her own tastes and preferences. Another step in this direction was entirely incidental - throughout her life, she has been with me in the kitchen, quietly observing me from her perch on my back or hip as I prepare dinner. Now I plan on taking that passive observation into active participation. Right now it is as simple as her throwing ingredients in the pot and stirring. She smells the food with me and watches as I plate it. Soon, I will have her help me as I shop (and harvest), letting her select some of our produce. As she gets older, she can continue to help more in planning and preparation, and I will continue to introduce her to increasingly varied flavors and cooking styles.

Happy helper, mixing up her broccoli bites.

lavender in the village

This weekend was the long-awaited Lavender in the Village Festival in Los Ranchos. I was so excited to go, since they didn't host one last year. Squirt and I went on our usual market day - our farmer's market was just down the street. We picked up a bunch of cherries, plums, and apples, then hopped on the bus to the festival. It was hot as Hades and already pretty crowded, so we didn't stay long or do very much (we'll pick our own lavender next time), but it was still fun. One of the local farms had animals out for the children to pet, much to Squirt's delight, and I got some much-enjoyed lavender lemonade as a treat. She loved dancing to the funky blue-grass music and I was excited to find a bottle of Hippopotamus Repellent from my favorite lavender farm located in the middle-of-nowhere place I grew up. I'm looking forward to next year when she will be older and better able to do more of the activities!

Her second self-portrait, taken on the ride to the festival.

Action shot: waving and saying "hi duck!"

A bit wary of the frolicking baby goat just off camera...

(Note the smear of plum on her dress.)

The crazy chickens actually let her pet them.

Sluuurp!

Made in the shade with lemonade!

one and a quarter

Yesterday was Squirt's fifteen-month check-up at the pediatrician's office. She is **drum-roll** healthy and fantastic. Except for those pesky molars, but we try to not talk about those... Oh please, just make them go away!... For those who are interested in this sort of thing, she's still wee - 30 inches tall and a dainty 20 pounds even. She officially weighs the same as my lightest kettle bell (I coulda told you that...). Despite being petite, she is sharp as a whip and the doc marvelled at her sporadic sentence-building (remarking that most children don't string words together until their second birthday - and to think, I was worried) and ability to follow fairly abstract commands. What can I say? She's a smarty britches. But we've already discussed this in a few posts. I'm a bit concerned about her slow growth, but the doc wasn't. She eats very well at home and dismally at daycare, so I'm sure that's where the problem, if there even is one, lies. There's nothing I can do about that, though, so I'm just going to make a more concerted effort to have high-calorie, nutrient-dense snacks always available at home.

This week has been pretty fun. Squirt's been continually impressing me with her growing vocabulary. Yesterday was especially fun. When we got home from our doctor visit, our boy cat came running out to greet us. She smiled, waved, and said "hi," then started looking around quizzically. "Radar?" she asks. Then wanders through the house calling for the other cat until she finds her (obviously to Radar's dismay). She also very proudly exclaimed to me, "Hiii, I looove you!" before running off to play. I almost died right there. When reading her bedtime story, she pointed at the page and announced "duck" (and it was actually a duck). She tried to convince me that the picture of the owl was also a duck, but, while I may have been wroung about that plane/car thing, I was firm that, no, it was an owl. She finally gargled something that sounded like "ggggooowll." Ok, I'll take it. Owl.  

Squirt has also started drinking with a regular, big-girl cup! The other evening at dinner I could not for the life of me find one of her sippy cups and she was thirsty and really letting me know it. In a hurry, I just grabbed a regular cup and filled it up with water - here, have fun, we'll mop later. I watched her with fascination as she carefully picked up the cup, slowly brought it to her mouth to take a big sip, and gently sat it back down on the table, smacking her lips with satisfaction before digging into dinner. Wow. Way to go! No mopping required. I tried it again last night, just to see if it was a flook. Same result. Happy slurping, sans mopping. She, as you can see below, is pretty proud of herself, too.

On a side note, I'm in the midst of another Whole30. I'm pretty disappointed with how sloppy I've gotten with my eating (and am surprised at the associated health impacts of that) and have decided I need to re-establish a healthy relationship with my food. I expected the first week or so to be rough and full of cravings, since I'd been eating pretty much whatever I wanted whenever I wanted for a few weeks now, but so far it's been smooth sailing. It's like putting on a pair of comfortable old shoes, honestly. It feels good. It helps that Daddy-o is on board with me (mostly). As part of this, I've embarked on a quest to shake up our menu, which - even when we're being paleo - tends to revolve around a few similar meals. Don't get me wrong, they're fantastic meals! But it's not fun anymore. So I'm collecting paleo (or easily modified to be paleo) recipes that I've never tried before to throw into the rotation. Last night was our first new thing - paleo Swedish meatballs! I thought it would be a very appropriate first experiment, given our family's Scandinavian heritage. And they were a hit! Now I'm excited to start finding more traditional Scandinavian meals that we can modify, so Squirt gets a taste of Daddy's homeland. I'll let you know how it goes and might even post a few recipes or two if I find anything fantastic.

Washing down her Swedish meatballs with a big-girl cup.

Multi-tasking - brushing her teeth in the bath tub.

!!!

Squirt and I were playing on the floor and watching "My Little Pony." The episode ended and I stood up to start the next episode and she jumped up and squealed something that I swear was, "I love youuuu!"

!!!

She grinned and hugged me before starting her adorable theme song dance. Did she just tell me she loved me, or am I crazy?

independence

Miss Independence celebrated her second Independence Day this week (though, honestly, her first wasn't noteworthy). I wanted to do something special to celebrate, but every "event" I found didn't start until the evening and with her recent recurrence of sleep issues and night terrors, I wanted to stick to her nighttime routine. So fireworks were out. We shifted our fun up into the morning and went to the zoo. I let Squirt explore freely - pretty much for the first time ever - following close behind. She was fiercely independent yesterday, and it was fun to see her discover the exhibits for herself. She loved the big cats (is anyone surprised?), excitedly proclaiming "Radar!" when one of the mountain lions approached her. We also went on the train tour of the zoo, which is something neither of us have done. She was pretty excited until I wouldn't let her get up and leave halfway through... We stayed and wandered the zoo longer than I think we ever have, so we were pretty tuckered out when we got home. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and playing at home. Squirt discovered the wonders of Momma's sunglasses and found a new, slightly less roomy "boat." All in all, it was a pretty relaxing day. Just don't ask me about the camel spider incident that night...

Showing her American pride on her way to daycare.

Watching the conductor on the zoo train.

Fascinated by the seals. Cannot get close enough...

Note the lack of a nose...

They swam by so very close...

She could almost touch them!

Taking a break on the green.

"Radar!"

This "boat" seems a bit less roomy than the other one...

Her movie star sunglasses.

Practicing those front squats.

self-portrait

Last night, Squirt joined the ranks of the likes of Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, and Leonardo DaVinci. That is to say that she has captured her first self-portrait.

Last night, Squirt was in a pretty volatile mood (I blame molars and inescapable heat). There was almost nothing I could do to cheer her up. We played "boat" with the laundry basket, with me pushing her through the house as she made bbbbbrt noises. I used my phone to sneak a few pictures of her. She was fascinated (and I was getting tired), so I showed her the pictures on my phone. She pointed and cheesed at the pictures of herself and figured out how to scroll through the other pictures. I took a picture of myself and showed it to her - she waved and declared "Momma!" She was happy and I needed to finish cooking her dinner, so I left her in her "boat" with my phone and cooked up some curried lamb and cauliflower (which was a hit, thankyouverymuch). I took the phone from her as I sat her down to eat. "Upload complete." What? What upload? What heinous thing did she do??? The little notification disappeared as soon as I read it... It was all rather ominous (but maybe I've just watched far too many Cold War spy movies). We went about our nightly routine and I completely forgot about that little notification.

Until this morning.

I woke up to multiple notifications on my phone about people "liking" or commenting on my new photo on facebook. What photo? When I venture to look, I'm greeted with a picture of Squirt. A picture I did not take nor upload. Apparently, when I left her to her own devices as I finished dinner, she had captured her very first self-portrait and decided to share it with the world...

Squirt: self-portrait. A study of toddlerhood.

buzzing

It feels like we've been buzzing around like bees these last few weeks. A few playdates here and there; a few trips to the zoo, aquarium, and parks; wandering farmer's markets; little holidays and birthdays; and always work, work, work. On top of this, Squirt was selected to be used as the baby girl in a big tv show that's filming here, so that kept us on our toes for a few days (and wore us out for a few more). That was quite an adventure, to say the least. Squirt's been quite a busy girl as of late.

Stuff!
Much to her delight, Squirt has recently experienced an influx of stuff. My folks visited with armloads of presents (from them plus an aunt and uncle), a coworker gave Squirt presents, another friend gave her a bag full of goodies (belated birthday present)... The house is officially filled with all manner of brightly colored, noisy, squishy thingamajigs. One must be careful when walking through the house at night, lest one awaken one of the noisey doodads. Woe to whoever awakens a noisy doodad in the middle of the night! But Squirt loves this. And, as much as I complain about it, I love watching her play. She rocks and feeds her new baby doll with her new little fake bottle, kisses her stuffed animals on their noses, and proudly carries around her other little stuff in her new little purse. She loves stacking stuff on top of other stuff and figuring out which stuff is suitable for petting a cat (which is a very tricky endeavor). Thanks to the noisy toys with buttons, she now has a thing for buttons in general and pushes every single button (or anything that even looks like a button) that she finds, which means she turns off the computer. A lot. It's also very dangerous to let her near my phone. She's already deleted a couple of pictures and, I'm not entirely sure, but I think she may have called Copenhagen last night...

Talking
An area of frustration for me (and I realize it shouldn't be) has been this whole language development thing. Yes, yes, I know babies all develop at their own pace and that it's not at all uncommon for two-year olds+ to be running around with only a couple of words. But I'm feeling the pressure! It seems like most of Squirt's little comrades are babbling away - car, dog, up... Nothing fancy, but enough to make a point. Squirt doesn't have much. Mama, dada, and, of course, Radar have been mostly it (though she calls any small, furry animal "Radar," much to the other cat's annoyance). Mostly she is quiet, listening. I wrongly assumed that, because she didn't say them, she didn't understand them. But, recently, she has been proving me wrongwrongwrong. I'm continually amazed at how much she understands. Heck, she understands words I don't recall ever saying to her. It's impressive... We concluded that she knows the words, she's just not ready to start using them. We have a theory that once she starts the floodgates will open. Last night (kinda) proved that theory. We were playing in the back yard and a plane flew overhead. She usually points and waves. Last night she pointed and, clear as an adorable little bell, proclaimed, "It's a car!" Whaaaa??? "No, Squirt, it's a plane." She giggled at me and gave me her "silly momma" look, reiterating, "It's a CAR." My mistake...

Monkey see...
Squirt is really big on mimicking Daddy and me right now. This is super! She now wipes her own snotty face, throws away trash (and everything else if we're not careful), and brushes her own teeth (of which she now has eight, plus one demonic molar starting to poke through). She sometimes successfully puts on her own shirts, though other times insists on trying to pull her pants on as a shirt... (Who am I to dictate her fashion? She might be onto something.) She's starting to get pretty good at feeding herself with utinsels, too, which will be really nice once mastered. This recent mimicry has also been a lot of fun, as I discovered recently when trying to sneak in a workout... Often, when I need to work out and she's in a very hands-on mood, I'll just work out with her (baby deck squats = dooooom). But this time she was pretty content to play next to me as I worked out, so I grabbed my kettlebell and went to town. I started doing squats and she stopped what she was doing and gave me a quizzical look. I smiled, talked to her, and counted out my reps. She had a sudden flash of inspiration, grabbed a fluffy piece of her aforementioned stuff, walked next to me, and started doing squats right along with me (and, I might add, with far better form and range of motion). That was just super fun. Then, as I was doing some flutter kicks (evil, evil things, especially when you've had abdominal surgery that pretty much destroys your core srength and stability), she pointedly laid down next to me and started kicking her legs, squealing away. The kid has some serious abs under that cute little baby belly (which, by the way, she is more than happy to show just about anyone upon meeting - "Hi, nice to meet you, here's my bellyyyyy")! Finally, the planks... She ambled off to play with her stuff and left me in peace to do some planks (for that pregnancy and surgically ravaged belly o' mine). There I am, perfect form, quietly counting out the seconds until I can collapse and cry, when Squirt marches up to me and stands right in front of me. She grabs my head and pulls it up so I look at her and plants a giant kiss on my face. She then pushes my head back down, pats it, and goes back about her very important business.

She really gets into it when she washes her hands...

Running cherrily through the house with her little purse (and momma's wine key).

(Sorry it's blurry, she won't stand still...)

Feeding her babies.

Chillin' in her trailer on set and getting ready for her close-up.

Baby Squirt does her own stunt work (practicing at home).

As always, loving bath time!

Figuring out how to use the spray gun to fill her pool.

(Yes, she figured it out. And yes, she sprayed Momma.)

What? It was hot!