Nineteen Months - Favorite foods

Favorite breakfast food
1. blueberries and yogurt (beddy and go-gut)
2. blueberry waffle (awful)
3. banana and chocolate mousse yogurt with Mommy (nana and choc choc)

Favorite breakfast @ Red Barn
1. sausage biscuit
2. oatmeal (moatmeal)
3. pancakes

Favorite foods for dinner and lunch:
1. macaroni and cheese (chee)
2. Ketchup (chuh chuh)
3. Mushrooms (muh-mooms)
4. roasted red pepper (pepp oh)
5. tater tots (tot tots - also calls fries tot tots)

Favorite foods for lunch at Red Barn:

1. tater tot casserole

2. any kind of pasta w/ tomato sauce

Favorite fruits

1. blueberries (beddy)

2. oranges (o mah)

3. pineapple (ah-ul)

4. banana (nana)

5. cherries (cheddy)
6. grapes (gapes)

Favorite snacks
1. Annie's snack mix - rabbit crackers and pretzels (ca-cuh and peh-zul)
2. dried cherries (cheddy)
3. cheese (chee)
4. olives (odif)
5. pickles (pi pul)

I would like to add that we are very excited to see Anna Claire eating protein. She will now eat grilled chicken, pork tenderloin, steak, ham, crab. She does not appear to have a peanut allergy. I have been giving her peanut butter for a couple weeks now. It feels great to know your child is gettting and enjoying protein after months of very little!

Clockwise from top left (curly fries w/ ketchup, ham, apple, cheese toast)

honey butter croissant, apple, three cheese mac and cheese (american, white cheddar, and parm)

sauteed mushrooms, onion rings, broccoli, pickles, cheeseburger,

zucchini ribbons, carrot, champagne grapes

Typical Sunday

This morning we went to church at Grace Community, as per usual. Anna Claire has been in the Piglets class for about a month now since she began walking. She's thriving and loving being with same age kids.

Since birth, Anna Claire has loved the outdoors. No surprise that whenever we arrive home from church or elsewhere, she needs to walk around and explore, no matter what kind of whether. This morning after church, it was super-windy. She loved it, and loved hearing me calling it "windy-wind." She liked standing and watching the leaves blowing on the trees, and my hair smacking me in the face. She thought that was hilarious. Since Anna Claire began walking, it has been imperative to locate a "tick" (stick), to pick it up, and to run inside and show it to her Daddy. And so we did.

Today Anna Claire had her first ever ham and cheese sandwich. She loved it. She also had "affoo" (waffle fries) covered in ketchup (ketchup always gets licked off first before eating the actual fries) and sliced apple.

After nap, Nene came to visit. Anna Claire loves when Nene brings grapes, and is always curious about what other goodies are in "the bag," Today, she was absolutely elated to find an animal coloring book and new crayons. Thank you, Nene, for bringing WASHABLE crayons! It was a set of ten, and she was so excited to find a favorite color, pink. Her first ever pink crayon. This was Anna Claire's first BIG coloring book. She loved watching me color a page, and tried emulating me on the opposite page. We are a long way from coloring in the lines, but more color was going on the animal than anywhere else on the page, so I thought that was pretty good.

I guess what I want to get across is that Anna Claire was SO HAPPY today. My mom was happy today. I was happy today. Larry was happy today. We were all in a room together, being happy, and it made Anna Claire just plain giddy. It was a great showing. I think Momma got to see how sharp Anna Claire really is. She was talking TONS, plainly, and making it clear that she understands what we are saying.

Rainbow Snow Cream

I am not sure where I got the idea, but I knew I wanted to make snow cream for Anna Claire, and I knew I wanted her to get to fingerpaint today. I just sort of smooshed the two ideas together and made rainbow snow cream. It was a hit! Here are some pics from today's chilly, colorful fun.

Initial reaction

 snow + vanilla + milk/sugar + food coloring = rainbow snow cream

Digging in!

 Edible fingerpaint!

 Wed! (red)

 Coh!  (cold)

Learning how brown is created.

Snow day fun, take two!

This morning I knew it was important to do any running before noon - before the SNOW.

We stopped by The Red Barn to drop off tuition and to pick up her daily sheet that I forgot to get on Monday. I really love reading what Anna Claire does each day!

Afterward, we went to Walmart for bananas, sugar and wipes. My sharp girl, hearing me name those three items all morning, announced "ipes!" (wipes) once we had bananas and sugar in the cart.

On a similar note, while watching Diego later in the day, they were counting the arms on a sea star, and once they got to five, Anna Claire added, "six!" Letting me (and Diego) know she knew what number comes next!

Yoga with Mommy was a big hit again today, as was closet time. So when I titled the post "Snow day fun, take two!" it really is a statement of how similar today really was to yesterday.

One thing I'd add is that we were able to go out twice and stay for longer. There was no ice on the walk, and the snow wasn't as deep, so Anna Claire could really get around and eat more snow.

Also, we picked up some Dora underpants at Walmart. Her morning teachers in the Lambs class concurred with my reasoning that if Anna Claire is saying "poop" anytime she uses her diaper, it was not a bad idea to introduce the notion of potty and underpants. At this point, she we have a potty, she knows what it is, and has two potty books that she has had me read to her daily. Today we read Big Girls Use the Potty six times. She REALLY loves that book. It's sort of eerie how much the little girl in the book resembles AC. The girl potty trains her Teddy Bear first, then learns herself. It really is a cute book.

Mommy also thought it would be a good idea to give the child squeeze applesauce (ALL over her, ALL over her - yes, I said that twice). At 77 cents a pop, we won't be buying those again for awhile.

Hot chocolate was a big hit after coming in from the cold outside, but I later paid for it.

Snow day fun.

I had so much fun with Anna Claire today. I think she had fun too.

We did go outside, but just briefly. The snow covering the grass was so deep that it was impossible for Anna Claire to walk in, and walking on the sidewalk was way too slippery of an option. So I attempted to build her a snowman, and handed her snowballs to snack on while I worked.  I only got the bottom ball rolled before Anna Claire called out, "uh! uh! coe!" (up, up, cold).

So in we went. Inside was where the fun really happened today, which was fine by me. I am really over snow.

Our closet. We never really let her in there until recently because it was so cluttered I worried things would fall on her, and it was most definitely not baby-proofed. Well, it is now! Anna Claire is absolutely obsessed with Mommy and Daddy's closet. She played in there a good portion of the day, and with the most random things. She found a brown paper bag in my shipping wrap bin and enjoyed it for awhile. She loved her dad's brown boots, and walked around with them chanting, "Daddy! Daddy!" The biggest hit of the day were her Daddy's collection of cookbooks. She loves looking at the pictures, and especially having Larry or I sit with her and talk to her about the food in the photographs. Her favorite is my favorite as well: The Pasta Bible. Larry got it for me before we were married when I first became interested in making pasta. It has many pictures of noodles. Anna Claire loved finding pictures of "getti!"

Yoga. I had never practiced yoga in front of Anna Claire before. She loved watching me on the floor in different poses, and if I called out directions for her to get into a pose, she would do it! She loves downward facing dog and thinks it is so funny. Even funnier when I do it. Anna Claire loved plopping and falling on top of me in the middle of a pose. She had fun crawling under me and jumping and running across my mat. She was so excited when I took her socks off, and loved how the mat felt under her feet.

No need to buy new toys. I just need to make Anna Claire a part of what we already do and share what we have and she is perfectly happy.

Krogering with a Happy Baby

I love taking Anna Claire out in public now that she's older, mobile, talking, and happy. Just months ago, I would get anxious taking her out to run even the smallest errand. She is now talking to everyone and making friends everywhere she goes, and is just absolutely fun, funny, and precious.

Today, we made a run to Kroger to pick up things I knew Larry wouldn't be able to find on his weekly outing to Walmart. We made three loops through the floral department so Anna Claire could ooh and ahh and point out the HUNDREDS of pink and red valentines balloons: "Hotes! (hearts)" "Wed! (red)" "Boon! (balloon)". I must admit, I even gave them a few "wows" myself.

We made a brief stop to get some bananas. They were nice and green. Walmart's are a little too ripe for me, if you're looking at making them last a week. Anna Claire's face beamed, "Nana! Nana! Nana! Mmmmmmmm!  Eat! Eat!" I'm sure everyone in the produce department heard this announcement. Anna Claire then enjoyed rattling a bag I gave her from pulling one too many off  the roll for the bananas.

As we made our way to up and down the aisles of the store, Anna Claire said, "Hi!" to everyone, receiving lots of "What a beautiful/cute baby!" compliments to which she is replying, "Awwww." Also, at one point she dropped her snack trap and a cute four-year-old little boy picked it up and handed it to her. He received an "Awwww" as well.

Anna Claire enjoyed looking in everyone's shopping carts and naming what was in their carts. "Nanas!" she called to one lady must have had twenty bananas in her cart. She stopped and shared with us that her grandchildren are calling her "Nana" and that she did not like being called a fruit. "Hum! (ham)!" Anna Claire proudly announced to another. I did not see ham, but I have no doubt in my mind that there was ham or something resembling ham in there. "Waffoo (waffle)!" Yes, I did see waffles in that cart.

In the frozen foods section I hear Anna Claire say, "Hat! Hat!" I look up and down the aisle and spot the African American gentleman in the black pinstriped hat headed in the opposite direction. "Oh yes, baby. That is a nice hat." She smiled, delighted that I saw it too.

In the checkout line, I pulled a Mountain Dew out of the soda cooler, Anna Claire reached for it right away, "Daddy!" The Mountain Dew was for Daddy; she had recognized the oh so familiar green bottle. I told her she could give the Mountain Dew to him when we got home. "Awwww."

When we got home, I reached in the bag for Larry's Dew which she quickly grabbed from me and handed to Larry, "Daddy!"

Heartbreaking Pickups

The past few days that I've gone to pick up Anna Claire, she cries almost immediately upon seeing me. This has happened in the past, but not nearly to this magnitude.

Yesterday, the previous teacher introduced me then said "Anna Claire cries everyday, everyday, when her mom picks her up." She said "everyday" twice for emphasis I guess. That stung.

Today was the worst. When I walked into the classroom, a teacher (who I love) was holding Anna Claire. I reached out to take her, and she turned away from me, buried her head into the teacher's chest and cried even harder. I attempted two more times only to be met with the same reaction. Another teacher (who I also love) finally said, "You need to take your baby. Take your baby." I took Anna Claire and left in tears. I'm tearing up right now just thinking about it.

I have gone over it again and again in my mind, which I know better not to do, but I guess I'm just trying to figure out what I can do to prevent it from happening again. It's way too heartbreaking.

I should add that I have the happiest baby in the class (or at least I'm told) and that as soon as we get in the car, she is talking to me, singing and laughing. And Anna Claire is super happy at home. I guess that's why I'm at a total loss as to why she is not as happy to see me as I am to see her, after being apart for 8 hours.

Larry and I were talking about it, and wonder if it's because she misses Leah. My arrival may remind her that Leah is gone. She and I would chat for awhile, so she had some transition time before leaving. Since Leah left I've just been signing her out and taking off. Now that there are two teachers in place that I feel comfortable with, maybe I can hang around and transition again. It's certainly something to try. I'll keep you posted.