No more toothless babies

Nora finally cut her first tooth. She's only been teething for about five months!

Coming to a stand-still

Addy has come up with a new therapy game. She calls it "Ready, Steady". She stands in her walker (which scares the tar out of me because the point of the game is to let go and just balance by herself) or in front of someone with their arms stretched out beside her. She psyches herself up by chanting "Ready... Steady... Balance!" and lets go and stands still, just balancing herself. I counted a couple of times as high as 15 seconds before she had to grab on to my arms!

Round and round they go

Addy had another awesome PT session today. The front wheels on the walker can swivel (to make steering easier, if somewhat precarious) or they can be locked (to make it easier to control, but only go in a straight line). So far we've generally had the wheels locked, but the therapist suggested unlocking the swivel wheels to help build up balance and coordination (and hopefully keep the foot-stomping to a minimum). She said to start with just one side unlocked and work up to both sides. By the end of the 30 minute session, Addy was scary good with both wheels unlocked.

More of the terrible twos

And we have another developmental milestone: Addy's version of kicking on people in the shins (I'm telling you, she has more in common with "typical" kids than you'd think). She comes up next to you with her walker, picks the front wheels up off the ground, and then slams one of them down on your foot.

The (very tarnished) silver lining that you can really only see if it hasn't happened to you is that it requires a fair amount of leg strength and balance for her to pull that off. So I'm glad for that I think.

In other news, we now have a time-out mat. It's a flattened diaper box, wrapped in brown craft paper. Addy wanted to help me decorate it. That seemed somehow cruel and counterproductive.

Yummy things that don't taste anything like chicken

Addy has also recently eaten:
* Lettuce, which she liked much better when it was covered in an equally sized piece of cheese and some ranch dressing
* Fresh tomato (no skin and no seeds)

and (drumroll, please)

* Pasta with sauce and cheese

Mmmm, tastes like...

Addy has recently eaten (and declared quite yummy):
* A "ham-flavored chicken lunch meat" with cheese sandwich
* BBQ "pork-flavored chicken", the second helping of which was requested to have cheese on it
* A few bites of fried "catfish-flavored chicken"

Progress is progress. We'll work on taking "chicken" out of the name of all of her foods later.

Planning ahead

Addy says she wants to be a princess in a pink and white dress for Halloween this year, which kind of surprised me. I assumed she would want to be a dragon. Go figure. But maybe Nora can be the snorting dragon to Addy's princess...

Growing like weeks

Nora has been on what seems like a 2 month long growth spurt. She eats all the time--still no teeth have popped through--and she oscillates between getting a little chunkier, then a little taller. To achieve her lovely heft, she has given up sleeping through the night. Thanks, kiddo. Today she has also figured out how to push herself up to sitting from laying on the floor (twice now) and actually army crawled forward (dragging her belly as she went) to get a piece of play food.

Addy has been all about the sundresses this summer. The size 3Ts that I just bought her a few weeks ago are getting more shirt-like this week. Must be all the walking she's been doing lately. She's worked up to walking as much as 75 minutes at a time in her KAFOs and walker this week!

All things purple

My favorite preschooler wants to be a dragon when she grows up (last time I asked her, she thought that would be when she's about 15 and after she has been a spider monkey for a while) and she wants to have purple scales when she does become a dragon, so we've been trying out purple veggies lately. First up was purple cabbage slaw with ginger dressing, which Addy helped to stir for us. Mommy and Daddy thought was pretty yummy, and Addy ate a couple of bites. Next was purple potatoes with cheese sauce, which Addy did not care for at all for some reason. What she did enjoy about the purple potatoes was getting to play with a few pieces while I cooked the rest of them. When she got bored with that I added a small bowl of oobleck and let her "cook" them together, which gave me just enough time to get the rest of our dinner cooked. (Oobleck and its home chemistry brethren are the secret reasons why people have kids. It's socially acceptable to play with the non-Newtonian solid that is cornstarch+water if you're doing so with a child. All by yourself, though, and its kind of embarrassing.)

Oh, Nora

Today at lunch Nora decided that every bite of carrots needed to be followed by chewing on the sleeve of her shirt.

Unrelated (except for happening today): she has mastered making the "duck lips" face and snorting at the same time.

In case you needed further proof that preschoolers are crazy

Addy: I need to go to the doctor. I don't feel good.

Mama: What doesn't feel good? Your head? Your tummy? Or something else.

Addy: It's my foot. My foot doesn't feel good.

Mama [puzzled, because as far as we can tell, she has no sensation in her feet]: What's wrong with your foot? Does it have a booboo or something else?

Addy: It has allergies. I need to go see the doctor so he can make the allergies in my foot better.

The real reason that twos are so terrible

I read somewhere that one theory for why 2-year olds go from being sweet little toddlers into tantrum-throwing little hellions is that there is a disconnect between their ability to form thoughts and their ability to communicate them to others.

It's a totally false theory.

My favorite 2-year old is scary articulate, and we are not even remotely exempt from the heinous existence that is The Terrible Twos. In addition to the relatively infrequent all-out screaming fits when she doesn't get her way, she gives us the following insights into the true root cause of the terrible twos:

"I'm not going to [whatever she's been asked to do] because my hair is gorgeous."

"I want to walk, and I want to use my tall braces to do it, but I'm not going to let you put them on me."

It's not that two year olds have rational thoughts that they have trouble articulating. They're just totally bat scat crazy and they have trouble articulating their insanity and those around them have no hope of comprehending their irrational logic. And that frustrates them.

I am, unfortunately, no closer to figuring out what to do about this disconnect between preschool reality and actual reality. But if I ever do, I'll have a best-selling book deal.

More gloves than you can shake a stick at

I usually have Addy wear gloves while she's using her wheelchair, just to keep the grime and nastiness to a minimum. So far, these are her favorites:


Pink, princess bike gloves. They're cute and they do the job, but they are a ROYAL pain to get on her wiggly fingers and she definitely isn't able to put them on herself. I searched for a while, looking for a better option, and found a pattern for fingerless quadriplegic wheelchair gloves (link). (No, Addy isn't a quadriplegic, but she does have the dexterity of a 2 year old, so these looked like a perfect option).

It took a couple of tries, but I managed to make them her size and possible for her to put on by herself (and, while I was at it, blinged out with Dora ribbon):


The fabric is white linen--I'm digging the linen because it wicks moisture away, though grey might have been a better choice for color. The palm has black leather to be extra cushy and grippy on her wheels. And I figured out how to have the Dora ribbon be both decorative and functional. Overall, I'm pretty proud of myself. I even made two of them. Maybe tomorrow I'll figure out how to make one for her left hand.

Addy's thoughts on kale

I'm trying to get Addy to eat more veggies, so at the suggestion of a friend, I made up some "hidden veggie" smoothies and froze them in ice cube trays so we can try them in small doses, heavily doctored with vanilla yogurt or applesauce as needed. We've tried 3 flavors so far: apple/carrot/beet, mandarin orange/steamed sweet potato/almond, and pear/grape/kale. I have sampled all 3 and all of them are genuinely tasty. Most surprising, even the apple/carrot/beet was yummy (when mixed with an equal portion of vanilla yogurt, you can't even pick out the dirt flavor of the beets).

Apparently there's no fooling Miss Addy. The pear/grape/kale, with its Incredible Hulk Green color, found its way onto her lunch plate this week.

Miss C: What do you think of your green sauce? Is it yummy?

A (in a sarcastically sweet tone, with an equally sweet smile): No!

Miss C: What does it taste like?

A (squinting her eyes and using her fingers to emphasize her point): Like a liiiitle bit of applesauce fell on the floor.

We've opted for hiding it in with her milk in an opaque sippy cup instead.

First day of school

Addy went to her first day of preschool today. Miss C asked her if they learned numbers, colors, and letters. "Yes, yes, yes" was the reply. Then Miss C asked her what else they learned. "Kids like sandcastles." She also keeps chanting "Holla Holla Holla! Toot! Toot!" No idea what that means.

Sprout count (5 June)

32 zinnias, 27 lettuce, 1 gillion carrots. We should probably thin the carrots soon.