Genevieve 101: Part 4

"I'm running in the rain.  Just running in the rain..."

I'm going to keep this entry a little shorter because my comments were getting to be quite long.  26 things would be too much to read at once unless you have all day.  

76. One day at Connie's house, little miss Hannah fell and hit her head on the ground.  You came up to her and fake cried and then tried to hug her.  While Hannah was in her mommy's arms, you kept trying to hug her and give her things to make her feel better.  You handed her her leftover baby food pouch, some puffs, and a bag of peas.  I think you even tried to wipe her tears with a little blankie.  What a good heart you have.  Thank you for being so kind and loving.

77. Aunt Rachel tried to teach you to put your finger to your mouth and say "sh".  You did it once on your own about a week later.  Now, you are starting to understand the purpose/meaning of that motion, and you sometimes do it when your "deedee" (baby) is sleeping.

78. We've resorted to trying Miralax.  Well, it certainly has helped you poop, but it makes you have poops that are near diarrhea (including lots of sharts).  Your GI recommended half a cap full (a tad more than half a tablespoon) mixed in 14 ounces of liquid.  I cut back some, and that makes you not poop at all.  You are an expert at holding it in.

79.  After a week on Miralax, I decided to call it quits.  I just didn't feel good about giving it to you in the first place, and I think it gave you upset bowels.  Your BM's were also way too much like diarrhea and way too frequent.  Your bum could not handle it and was so red and irritated.  :(

80.  You LOVE eating fruit leathers!  You've been eating one a day and would eat more if we allowed it.  I think they are helping you poop regularly, so I will keep letting you have them.  

81.  You've started using this maniacal laugh.  You use it when you get your way or are really excited about something, but I think you use it just because sometimes after seeing the way it makes your daddy and I laugh.

82.  While coloring one day, you got up and went over to your book box.  I told you to please keep your crayons by the paper.  You said something like "Oh", put your crayon down by the paper, and then ran into the kitchen.  You came back with a wet rag and started wiping the wall.  That's when I noticed a purple mark on the wall.  Ooops.  I'm pretty sure this was an accident, and I thought it was so great that you attempted to clean it up all on your own.  I took a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to it, and the crayon went bye bye.

83.  You are a great "Flashdancer".  When you throw a fit or are just dancing to music, you do a move that reminds us all of the dance to Maniac in the movie Flashdance seen here.  You go up on your tippy toes and move your feet up and down quickly.  Have I ever told you how hilarious you are?

84.  One night, you absolutely refused to fall asleep.  I resorted to putting you in your crib and letting you scream and cry for about two minutes while I sat in the chair next to your crib.  When I got you out, you nursed yourself to sleep within 30 minutes and slept for seven hours straight before waking up.  Letting your scream for a short time has worked in the past, but you've never slept that long.  I think you just need to release all of the energy you hold in your tiny little body.  

85.  At lunch one day, you really wanted to hold your black and white stuffed puppy with the bunny ears.  I washed you up and let you hold the puppy while you ate your little square of cookie.  You showed the puppy to me and then make the monkey sound.  The look on your face said, "Wait.  That wasn't right."  Then you made your dog sound, and I laughed. 

86.  You love the rain and lightning.  You say rain and light, and you love running around in our unlandscaped backyard.  I just have to look for rusty nails ahead of time.  :( 

Genevieve 101: 51-75

Funny girl!

I have put off this blog entry long enough.  I am making myself sit down and take the time to finish it.  I mean, I only started it in May, and here it is almost mid August.  

May/June
51. The other night you insisted on wearing your frog eyes headband while you nursed to sleep.
52. You have been into hitting these days, so after hitting me one day, I took your hand and rubbed it softly down my cheek saying, "Nice. Nice".  Now, you will hit (on purpose at times) and then immediately run your hands down my cheek saying, "Niiii.  Niiii."  It's worth getting hit for the sweetness that follows.
53. You have started plugging your ears.  I think you have figured out that things sound differently this way.
54.  You make this weird sound when you want to watch the Fraggle Rock intro.  It took us so long to figure out what this meant, and finally your daddy put two and two together.
55.  For awhile, you kept waking up in the middle of the night super hungry.  You will nurse, and nurse, and nurse but not fall back to sleep.  I have to get you up, put you in your high chair, and give you a full meal which you scarf down with gusto.  Then I nurse you back to sleep where you'll go another 2-3 hours.
56.  You don't want to eat a lot during the day lately, and you only really breast feed before your naps.  I decided to give the Elecare Jr. toddler formula another try just to give you some extra calories.  You probably only drank about 3 ounces but seemed to like it at first.  It's very sweet and vanilla flavored.
57.  You would not let me put you in your crib tonight.  You fell asleep in my arms three times but cried each time I put you down.  This is not usual.  After letting you cry a few minutes to give myself a breaky poo, I came back to try a fourth time.  That's when I noticed you were passing gas.  I think you may have a corn intolerance after all since the main ingredient in the toddler formula is "corn syrup solids".  That's the only new thing you have had in a long time, and there was nothing new in my diet.  I gave you some Benadryl, nursed you to sleep, and so far you have been asleep in your crib for an hour and 45 minutes.
58.  The other day you walked up to Pawncho, something he rarely allows, and you rammed him with your belly.  You squealed with delight and then grabbed his tail.  I told you to be nice, and you tried to pet him saying, "Niiiiii."
59.  You were a pretty good traveler on our Southern California trip.  You actually slept better the first few nights than you have in a really long time.  It was nice to have gotten a little more sleep than usual.

July/August
60. I have been taking you to an indoor playground, and you love being pushed in a Little Tike Cozy Coupe. Your favorite is the fire truck one because it has a CB radio that you pretend is a phone.  You are getting braver about going down the slide, but you still want Mommy to hold your hands.
61. You switched to taking only one nap a day while we were in Bullhead City at the beginning of July.  At this time, two naps were too many, but one nap seemed like too few.  We have since adjusted, and you take one 2 1/2 hour nap every day (unless you need to poop, are sick, or are teething.  In those cases, who knows what your sleep will be like!).
62. You have favorite songs that play on a Pandora station.  You will stop what you are doing, go look at the Squeezebox screen to see what album cover is showing, and then you get down and get funky!  One of your favorites is Kesha's Die Young.
63. You recognize musical tunes very well.  When I start singing Old MacDonald, you make the quacking sound.  When I start singing Itsy Bitsy Spider, you start doing the hand motions.  You will even recognize the tunes when I only whistle them.  I really hope that you are musically inclined.  I know a good guitar teacher for the future.
64. One night, when you were coming down with a cold, Daddy was trying to comfort you, but you only wanted Mommy (like usual).  Daddy brought you into the kitchen where I was, and you reached out to me.  I took you in my arms, and then you pushed on Daddy's chest and said, "Go."  Daddy and I laughed, but then Daddy told you that you hurt his feelings because he was only trying to make you feel better.  You had used the word "go" earlier in the day for the first time when I said were were going bye bye, but we were both surprised at how well you applied it to a new situation.
65. Everyone says how much they love your facial expressions!  You make the funniest faces, and I don't have the foggiest idea of where you get them.  ;)
66. We bought you a play kitchen with lots of food and dishes.  The first thing you did was pick up the phone and say "woh" (hello).
67.  Mommy and Daddy showed you how to lick the pretend ice cream cones.  I was thinking that you really had no idea what an ice cream cone was, so one day I put some coconut milk ice cream in one of your plastic cones.  You enjoyed it so much that you screamed when it was all gone.  Then you made the more sign.
68.  Your vocabulary is out of control!  You need Mommy or Daddy to interpret for you, but your newest words are egg, pizza, knee, elbow, apple, peach, Elmo, Ernie, backpack, and probably a few others I am forgetting.  I'm sure there will be new ones tomorrow!
69.  When walking around Wal-Mart one day you said "Cookie.  Elmo." while you pointed.  When I looked where you were pointing, there was a product with Cookie Monster and Elmo on it.  I was surprised that you recognized them.  We read a couple of books with Elmo, and I've shown you some YouTube clips of Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.  I just laughed and told you that you were right. 
70.  When shopping at Dollar Tree, you pointed to something and said, "Backpack. Backpack."  There was an item with Dora the Explorer on it, but you call it backpack, backpack.  Mommy and Daddy have caved in and let you watch some TV.  Sometimes we watch it with you, and sometimes it is a babysitter because Mama needs to get dinner done and gets frustrated with you interrupting.  (Yes, I've tried other things, but my dear Genevieve has no interest unless it is trouble or extremely messy.)
71.  You no longer want bedtime stories.  You still want to read and listen to books - just not before bed.  Instead, you want to turn your sounds on and get right to the business of drinking milk. 
72.  I bought you a Dora toothbrush in the hopes of you being more cooperative during the struggle that is brushing your teeth.  It worked the first night...
73. We started you on a daily probiotic.  It was a last ditch effort to help with your digestive/constipation issues.  At first it caused you to have a BM every day except one day.  Now we are going on two days with no BM, so I am "this close" to giving you Miralax, though I have been fighting that idea since March.  I'm pretty sure you are holding it all in, which just makes everything worse, including the smell of your toots. 
74.  Currently you are cutting three eye teeth, and you have been very crabby.  I don't blame you, but I'm ready for the teeth to poke through already.  You refuse most foods, but today I got you to eat one green bean, a couple of strawberries, a piece of lettuce, some puffs, pureed mangoes with your probiotic mixed in, and some red grapes.  You want nothing to do with your usual favorites like chicken or broccoli. 
75.  Today (8/13), you had your first pulled elbow.  You were running away from Mommy at the library, and when I took your hand, you immediately laid yourself down on the ground causing your arm to get pulled.  You held your arm, said "ow" and started fussing but not full on crying.  I kissed your arm, said sorry, and noticed you were a little distraught.  I picked you up as you kept saying ow, and you put one arm around me and laid your head on my shoulder.  I couldn't see anything wrong, but I figured some ligaments were pulled or something was slightly out of place.  There was no swelling, and you were able to use your arm; you just didn't want to use it.  You fussed the short drive home from the library.  Not being sure I should take you to the doctor or not, I gave you some Tylenol and took you to nurse for a nap because it was nap time.  You started to fall right to sleep, but I noticed that your usually roaming hand was not roaming today.  You also would stop drinking to say ow and whine or cry.  My heart was breaking, and I knew I needed to take you to the doctor.  Unfortunately, they were closed from 12-1, and it was 12:30.  I nursed you some more, and then we went to the doctor.  By the time we got there just after 1:00, you were starting to use your arm and were no longer complaining.  I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.  Dr. S said it was probably "Nursemaid's Elbow" (which I had read about beforehand), and she said sometimes the elbow will just pop back in.  She said if now, then she would be able to pop it back in no problem.  Dr. S. checked you out and said everything seemed fine.  You weren't fussing or holding your arm anymore, so we came home where you had a nap.  What a day!

I think for my next entry, I am going to try to type up one or two things each day.  That will help me get this done a lot faster.  After this, I will need to buy a calendar, so I can jot down observations each day like I did for Genevieve's first year.  Yet another thing I need to get to...