uh oh

last night, right before we went upstairs to go to bed, nissa was carrying something that dropped from her hands and "uh oh" sprang clear as a bell from her lips. adam was in the other room, but both of us cracked up on the spot. what will this kid come up with next?

a recurring trick she has is to leave special surprises in the downstairs recycling bin. on more than one occasion, i have found toys of hers in there, especially her little wooden jumping men. this past time i found a measuring tape in there. the heavy, all metal, substantial and missing for a while measuring tape was at the bottom of the recycling bin. good thing i've gotten into the habit of checking it first! i think it may be finally time to start keeping it behind the bar with the trash can. it's handy to have it under the desk, but i really don't enjoy the paranoid dig i have to make every time it's time to take it out.

a new item to the repertoire came yesterday (what was in the air yesterday??)in the form of walking backwards! i've read that this is a milestone of sorts, so good for us! it was weird to watch, though. i was sitting on the floor folding laundry and nissa was behind me. she was pointing at me, saying something like a drawn out "oh" and walking backwards. it vaguely reminded me of the nun in blues brothers when she eerily slid backwards into her office as they were leaving.

one last exciting thing to report- we finally found a new couch! we've been shopping on and off for the last year (since last jan) to replace our sectional in the basement. we got it second hand (thanks, betty!) but it is tired and in need of replacement. we found lots of sectionals that didn't work- leather, square corner, too poof-y, to expensive. but now we have finally found the one. it's not quite as long as our current couch, but it does feature recliners on the ends and a comfy corner wedge. what a relief it is to cross that off the ol' list. the next challenge will be to find an ottoman to replace the coffee table, that will work with/around the recliners. that challenge will be saved for another day.

our little cleaner

adam and i both are keeping our fingers crossed that nissa's latest imitation sticks. after working out, i grabbed my water bottle and went to take a sip. in my classic klutzy fashion, i caught the bottom of the bottle on the rubber handles of the elliptical and spilled quite a bit of water on the floor. i ran to the kitchen to get some rags to clean up the water and when i came back, i noticed nissa had taken a towel from adam's work out (off the weight bench) and started the clean up on her own. she got right down and started wiping with the towel all by herself. it was amazing to see. when i took the towel to put it under the mat on the floor (water had seeped through) she took the towel back and wiped some more- clearly the better way to clean up the water in her mind. when did she learn this? how can we keep it coming?

nissa has been sleeping really poorly all week. at least once a night, she has woken up in a major way. she often does wake up, cry for a second, then roll back over. this is different. . . she's up, screaming as loud as possible, working up a sweat she's crying so hard. a half an hour or so later, and after a snack and/or drink, she is content enough to go back to bed. it's not teeth (that we've seen) and she didn't get a cold till later in the week, so we really don't know what's up with her. every night is a waiting game, hoping she sleeps through the night and gets all the hours she needs (and we do too).

with the warm weather has come spending more time outside. we were outside recently and the neighbors were dog sitting. once nissa spotted the dog, she pointed, wiggled and screamed "puppy!" he's a fluffy brown poodle mix so i leaned over the fence to say hello and make sure he was up to meeting strangers. he seemed friendly enough so i grabbed nissa to let her say hi too. she loved being able to pet him and get kisses on her hand. the interest didn't last long, but it was cute and i'm glad to be able to indulge her once in a while.

the other day i was in the back of the basement (changing loads of laundry, perhaps?) and nissa was exploring the area on her own. i noticed she was over by the buckets by the door, one of which contains rocks for the fish tanks. it wasn't until i was done and went to scoop her up that i noticed she had taken a fist full of rocks and put them in her mouth. i suppose they could resemble food. . . but ick! fortunately she spit them all back out into the bucket (ick again) and now i have to keep an extra close eye on her when she wanders over that way. the back of the basement in general is not very baby friendly :P

i experienced one of the biggest surprises with nissa when i took her and gibson to the vet for his check up. when we first got there, a nurse came in to ask questions, then took gibson in the back to draw his blood for tests. as soon as the door shut behind her, nissa started crying hysterically, reaching toward the door. she had become instantly upset that they had taken gibson away from her. before that they had just been milling around the room, not really paying attention to each other, though nissa was occasionally amused by gibson's leash trailing behind him. when the nurse brought gibson back (and nissa started to calm down) she asked what had happened to the baby to cause all of the crying. it was hard to keep a straight face when i answered that she was upset that she had taken gibson away. i hadn't really realized how attached she was to the pooch before then. then the doctor came in, checked him out, then offered to take him in the back again to give him his shots (since i clearly had my hands full with nissa). i said ok, then explained to nissa that gibson was going to go to the back again, but that he'd be right back. it didn't work. she wailed as soon as she saw he was leaving again and didn't calm down till he was back. the doctor felt bad that nissa had cried, but when i explained why when he returned, he understood. funny how that little kid understood the difference between gibson going to the back room at the vet vs going outside. . . i guess she could tell gibson was anxious?

another funny discovery happened at the vet too. on a hunch, i packed up water in a travel mug with a straw attachment. nissa is a BIG fan of drinking from straws, especially when it comes to sneaking a sip of my iced coffee (decaf, of course). so i filled up the mug with water, screwed on the lid and it was an instant hit. it's relatively leak-proof and easy to operate and not too heavy when full. at last, nissa has a high volume cup! but man, did i pay for it afterward, with a more-than-soaked diaper afterward.

lately, while preparing dinner, i've closed a few doors but otherwise let nissa roam the first floor at her leisure. as a result, she has found a precarious new favorite spot. nissa has taken to climbing up on the shelf on the butcher block in the kitchen. though it was terribly dusty before, it's not now (i know, bad mom moment) and just has a few pots and lids. her interest in the contents of the shelf helped me move long ago the cast iron skillet and cordless phone i was keeping down there.


lastly, on friday night i discovered that the gate that we've leaned up against the bar to keep out nissa and gibson is no longer going to cut it. i saw with my own eyes nissa grab the gate, pull it back and squeeze herself between the gate and the bar (tricky, with the kick rail keeping the gate pretty close) and making her way beyond the gate. to me, this sums up the challenge of parenthood- having your diligence thwarted by a surprisingly clever child. . . do you get mad, or just impressed? it's hard to stay on message when you're both at the same time.

more new stuff

so last night i finally came to my senses and accepted nissa's label for me. it's something like "baba." i figured it out when she was downstairs with adam and i was upstairs making dinner. i could hear her standing at the gate, yelling for me. she even pushed hard enough to open the gate on her own and headed up to see me. how can you argue with that? i had dinner mostly ready at that point, just finishing up dessert, so i was ok with having the company and she even helped me stir the pudding i was working on for dessert.

and the dessert was fabulous. best chocolate pudding was very appropriate, as identified by smitten kitchen. yum yum yum.

while i didn't see this first hand, this info came from grandma a, so it's the next best thing. grandma a was generous enough to come over saturday night to free up adam and i to start looking through the attic. we've got lots of stuff up there that desperately needs to find a new home so we can have room to work on the attic. we plan to construct a bedroom up there for us, so nissa can have her own room once her sibling comes along. it's a while away yet, but construction is not an overnight thing, so it's time to get started! anyways. . . saturday morning nissa and i hung out with rocio and her niece lola. we went out to a forest preserve to learn more about maple syrup. it was vaguely interesting, but the kids mostly liked the inside of the info center where there were all kinds of things to check out in a very age-appropriate way. both the girls ended up enjoying an eagles nest that put them a few feet off the ground in a plexiglass box that was wrapped in branches. i took pictures of nissa looking through the branches at me. we had a good chuckle while doing so. in the evening, grandma a was sitting with nissa looking at the pictures and when nissa got to the shots of her in the nest, she started laughing. we're pretty sure she remembered being there and was laughing at the fun she had. i did not know 16 month olds could do that!?!?



the other thing i didn't know a young 'un could do is understand 2-D abstract pictures. specifically, nissa has a sippy cup that features 3 dogs (maybe a cat in the middle? i'm not sure) and the "front" one is chasing a bouncing ball. you know it's bouncing, because of the action lines. . . but there is no shading to suggest a sphere, just circle. last thursday i gave nissa this cup with some water in it and she pointed to the ball and said "ball." this is, by the way, one of her new words, which she really enjoys. i responded with "yes, that's right, ball. and these are puppies" and she got all excited about the puppies (another favorite word to say). and all i can say is wow.

out for a walk

unusual circumstances called for me to pick up nissa from grandpa's house. painfully common circumstances caused us to park around the corner, instead of on our block. so, faced with the prospect of carrying nissa, her carseat, her back pack and my back pack, i had an idea. i put her bag in her seat, my bag on my back and once we were on our block, our side of the street, i put nissa down to walk the rest of the way. she walked the entire block, then down the gangway. sure, there were lots of distractions and stops along the way, but watching her walk and not having to carry her was worth the slower progress.

nissa's first pit stop was to pick up a leaf from the grass. it appeared to me to be a leaf like the many others on the grass, but this one merited picking up. nissa carried it along until she encountered another leaf on the sidewalk that she took up into her other hand. then, the find of all finds, nissa came upon a third leaf on the sidewalk that caused her to put down the other two and carry that one alone. then we got to the house with sabbath, the german shepherd. any normal kid would be petrified of the racket this dog made, barking aggressively and throwing himself against the window. my kid? smiled huge, pointed and said "puppy!" yes, dear. puppy. but it's not a nice puppy, we need to keep walking. let's go see our puppy! "puppy!" no dear, he wants to eat you for lunch. let's move along. i had to pick her up and put her past the house to get her to ignore the spastic dog.

but after a lot of coaxing and patience, we made it into the yard, chased around our own puppy and enjoyed some more of the much anticipated, warmish spring weather.

words

nissa's vocabulary list is growing. here's what i've heard so far:
gatik
daddy
puppy
ball
(b)moo (like what a cow says)
teeth
grandpa
grandma
hi
bye bye

still no mama, mommy or any other name for me. sometimes i get daddy. harumph.

good news and bad news

good news is i made the switch back to birth control over the weekend. i'm hoping that will get things back to normal for me.

bad news is i had a terrible mommy moment yesterday and i'm having a hard time focusing this morning. nissa was past due for bed and it showed. i set her on the changing table to get her ready for bed, then decided to pull the clothes out of her hamper to put into the basket. in the few seconds i had my back turned to her, i heard the window shade go up then a thud as nissa landed on the ground. my guess is she stood up to grab the shade, lost her balance out of her tiredness, fell on her butt, but kept going and fell back off the table. i felt terrible. i still do. i can't believe i let that happen. she went to bed super easy, but then i worried all night that she was going to go into shock in her sleep or have some crazy concussion problem and never wake up. my only solace was that while i was showering she shifted her position in bed slightly. sure, kids fall all the time, but it is miserable when it happens to you.

sushi? yes please

i've been wanting to take dear little nissa out for sushi for a while. mostly because i enjoy sushi, but also to expose her to see what she thought. last night was it and our experiment was successful. she was a bit of a terror in the restaurant while we waited for food (waited? ugh. there's no cooking!) but seemed to enjoy the deconstructed rolls i offered her. tuna and salmon, with veggies and rice. what's not to like? i just hope we didn't disturb our fellow diners too much.

as a quick aside, nissa's got another "word" kind of under her belt. i've always tried to be consistent with the "x says y" stuff with animals. tried it with santa too, it kinda worked. so the other day we were looking at her toy cars and one of them is a farm truck with cows. i said to nissa, "what does the cow say? it says mooooo" and she actually tried to say it too. since then, it typically comes out "booo" which she still gets credit for. maybe that's why she doesn't say momma. . . she does say kinda baba at me, maybe that's it? hmmm.

so i'm off to try and catch up on past blog entries. i've got a handful that are unfinished. some will be quick, but some, like camping or wyoming, might take a while. sadly, i still have to finish up her arrival entry too. better get typing!

spring is in the air

the last couple of days have brought some well-needed sunshine and warmer weather. wednesday was up to 62'! pretty impressive for march.

so wednesday when i got home from work, i did a quick once-over to get the gibson leavings up and the 3 of us headed out side. nissa wandered rather aimlessly and shouted a lot. gibson and i played catch with the frisbee. it's not fetch, unless you count me walking over to him to get the frisbee back to throw again. we need to work on that!

so here are a couple of videos (shot with my cell phone, terrible quality) of our outside time. in the first, nissa had walked around the sidewalk a bit and upon entering the grass, kinda got "stuck". i think she was thrown off by the uneven footing (so different from concrete, hardwood and inside carpeting that she's walked on to date). she got the hang of it eventually. the last video is of a cardinal calling in the distance. it's there, but apparently smaller than the pixel rate, so you can't see it as it flies away (and i pan to follow it). oh well.

little changes

so, it's been a week since we dropped down to a single nursing session per day. now we only nurse right before bed, and i feel pretty good about it. i liked twice a day, but having my mornings back to myself is kinda nice. and with needing to get up early soon, i'll need all the help i can get. it's the little changes that really are amazing to me. sure, this nursing thing is crazy, even at this late stage in the game. but it's a low key thing, not demanding and just a special little way we spend time together before bed. i'm sure we'll phase this out too soon enough. ah, my little girl is growing up bit by bit.

i had to laugh at this smart cookie over the weekend. while she was napping, i showered and decided to set my hair in curlers for something a little different for the atv show. i inherited a set of old wire rollers that work well, but are in no way comfortable. in about a half hour my hair was more-or-less set and nissa awoke shortly after. part of me was nervous to spring this new head-thing on her, but i got over it quickly. i walked in to a drowsy nissa. . . at first happy to see me, then perplexed about the new head business. i was waiting to get the eyebrow, but no luck. she reached out toward the rollers, but wouldn't commit to touching them. not for a while at least. but after a few hugs and kisses, a diaper change and snack, life was back to normal and nissa was all about poking and pulling on the rollers in my hair. i think she even liked the results when i pulled them out.

why?

why does my daughter insist that it's a good idea to stick her ice cold hands into my cleavage?

why do we live in a scary world where i have to debate sharing a photo of my naked baby before a bath, in fear of some creep using it inappropriately?

wonderful birthday weekend

lately my time to contribute here is limited, at best. so here goes a quick and dirty summary of a most wonderful birthday weekend.

it started thursday evening, when nissa stayed at grandma & grandpa a's house and adam and i went out. out, like when we first started dating: catch a show at double door, then hit up a couple bars afterward for a few more drinks, then breakfast at the diner. mmmm corned beef hash. it was awesome to be out and about and see a lot of folks i haven't seen in a while. it's always nice to be remembered and to gush about the kid to a new-old crowd.

thursday evening's outing made friday a bit slow going, but enjoyable none the less. we picked up nissa just in time to bring her home for a nap and watched movies all day. once nissa was back up, we watched "up," which was too cute, but surprisingly sad at the same time. sad but uplifting. man, i'm such an adult.

saturday we made yummy blueberry pancakes for breakfast, hung out, then went out to dinner as a family. we had intended to go out for sushi, but when the place needed a reservation to avoid a 40 minute wait, we walked down the block for some delicious "dressed up" mexican at jack rabbit. very tasty. looking forward to going back and trying the ginger creme brulee. that night nissa gave me a hug. this is a big deal because she's been hugging dolls and toys for a while now, but not people. but after our nurse and before laying her in bed, she wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a squeeze, just like the dollies get. it was wonderful.

sunday was hectic, but fun. we drove out to the burbs for a cousin's birthday party and got to hang out with rick and his family. nissa and sarah are cuter together every day. they even shared what could be described as a hug. i have a picture. . . it's cute, but i'm not 100% sure that's what sarah's goal was. after the party we went to adam's parents for a wonderful dinner and some birthday (carrot, yum) cake.

monday we went to the museum of science and industry together. the best part about the day was nissa's insistence on walking as often as possible. sometimes she'd hold my hand, more often she wouldn't, so i'd follow closely behind her while adam enjoyed the exhibits. we went into the "idea factory" area intended for kids, but found the little kid stuff too little/simple and the big kid stuff too big and overrun by running, screaming 10 year olds. it was pretty intense. for the first few minutes all nissa could do was stare at the mayhem. very much like the first time we took peter to chuck e. cheese. it's priceless. once we left that insanity, we felt comfortable letting nissa roam, and roam she did. the only time i'd pick her up is to move things along, or if she started to crawl. but if it was because of crawling, carrying was short lived and she was soon squirming to get back down. it's amazing how well she's walking now- getting better every day. that evening, while adam was at band practice, nissa and i called grandma and grandpa g on the webcam and the entire time we chatted (30-45 min) nissa was running (ok, walking) laps around the couch. she barely slowed the entire time.

the last few nights i've gotten hugs and i l-o-v-e it. sure, it kinda freaks me out that she's walking so well, becoming such a little big girl, but the process is so much fun and her excitement so obvious, it's absolutely the most fun i've ever had.