Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Maria loves her food!




I have never seen a child love food this much! I guess since my only real comparison is Maya, that would explain my shock at how much food Maria can put away. Maya just does NOT have time to sit still long enough to eat a whole meal. After a few bites, she will annouce "I'm done." I'm almost to the point of letting her eat anything at any time just to get some food in her!
Maria, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoys eating. She also eats very slowly. I'm guessing so far that she will be left-handed (notice which hand she uses to feed herself), and she will veryyyy slooooooowly piiiiiiick upppppp a pieeeeeeeece of fooooooood. Thennnnnn sloooooooowly mooooooove it towarrrrrrrrrds her mouuuuuuuuuth. Then cheeewwwwwwww, chewwwwww, chewwwww. You get the idea. One night we had to just cut her off after an hour and a half. We had to go to bed, man!
This morning was a perfect example. Maria tends to sleep a little later than Miss 5:00 a.m., so we try to get Maya eating early to get something in her before daycare. This morning I made Maya a piece of cheese toast. She ate a few bites, I think (unless I find the remainder in a chair somewhere ....). We even let her eat in the living room if she'll just EAT.
So Maria finally got up, sat in her chair and ate some banana and a whole fruit cereal bar. After 1/2 an hour or so, she's still wiping up crumbs and eating them, but we get her out of her chair anyway. I put her on the floor in the living room to do her hair and BONSAI! She spies Maya's leftover cheese toast and automatically scoots herself towards it. Grabs it in her hand and eats it. Go, Maria, go! She's so cute I just can't stand it!!

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Get some snakes?





Maya is a hoot! E's parents were coming over for dinner tonight, and E was telling Maya about it. He told Maya he was going to grill some steaks and was going to take her with him to the meat market to pick them out. She started telling Gran that they were going to "get some snakes" instead of 'grill some steaks.' Yeah, um, not in MY house .... I'm a 'no reptile' mommy.


She is talking so clearly now. I tend to forget she's only 2 1/2. She can tell some amazing stories. It's really funny when she runs out of storyline because she'll just start saying anything. Usually she has to throw in a "jake was spitting" line, about the little boy in her daycare class. He may have spit one time in class long, long ago, but in Maya's world, he spits every single day and has to go to time out because "he won't listen." Hm. Wonder where she has heard the "(s)he won't listen" line before ... at HOME, maybe?!?!

Friday, April 11, 2008

Maria update




Maria is learning so very fast! She's simply amazing ... sometimes I completely forget she is 13 months old, as she is still small and a little delayed in some gross motor skills. But she is picking things up so quickly that it reminds me she is not going to be a little baby much longer. Today she learned to give mama some sugar. And for those of you reading who are not from the south, that is NOT sugar for my iced tea! I got a big old smoochy kiss from my baby today, and it just melted my heart to see that little grin after she did it.


I also handed her my cell phone, and that little stinker put it right up to her ear! Any time I asked her if she was calling Gran, she would try to get it to her ear ... it was sooooo cute!
She has sat up by herself at least 2 times that we know of, but I haven't seen it myself yet. We have an Early Interventionist work with her once a week, and even she is amazed at how quickly Maria is progressing. Even though Maria isn't crawling or walking yet, she IS pulling on anyone's hands she can get to and will pull herself up and "walk" holding on to your hands. That is currently her favorite thing to do, and it's breaking mommy and daddy's backs! But she is so very adorable, and we just love her to pieces. She gets the cutest grin ever on her face whenever she does something that we clap for, or that we praise her for. She'll head for the stairs whenever Maya goes to her room to play, and she loves to follow Maya wherever she goes. Even though she's not crawing, she can scoot on her little bottom anywhere she wants to go, and she's pretty quick, too!! I almost had a heart attack when I walked upstairs to wash my hands, and when I came back down she was sitting at the top of the other set of stairs!! whew ... just in time! (Yes, I learned to close the gate between the two stairs before going upstairs again!)

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Back to Maria's birthday party...







I forgot to post pictures of Maria's birthday party!!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

My favorite Maya quotes



My favorites right now (she's 2 1/2 ... will be 3 in July):

- "Jake is spitting. He's in time out. He won't listen."

- "Marlowe is crazy."

- "Mama ... mama ..... mama .... you wanna get up?" (usually said very close to my face around 5:00 a.m.)

- "She's cute" (referring to Maria, of course)

- "She's crying" (referring to Maria)

- "She's sleeping" (referring to Maria, usually very loudly, standing right next to Maria's room and/or crib, which means she's not sleeping any more, Sweetheart)

- "Thank you so much, mommy!"

- "Monkey Joe isn't there."

- "Doe, a deer, a female deer ....Ray, a drop of ...."

- "She's from Guatemala"

- "Probably" (pronounced more like "proberly")


She's just so stinking cute!


Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Our week



Aren't they gorgeous?! (and yes, I bought the cd of the pictures and have the copyright release ....)

I got another comment today from someone at work about how "they look so much alike!" Um, yeah ... if you mean they both have dark hair and dark eyes, then yes, they 'look alike.' Other than that, I just don't see it. Completely different looks, if you ask me. I think Maria has more of an Indian look to her ... wider face, nose, slightly slanted eyes, and adorable, just completely adorable. Maya looks more hispanic to me, perfectly almond-shaped eyes, lighter skin, gorgeous lips, and simply all-around beautiful. Both completely stunning, but nothing like each other. :-)

I've got to tell you, there is NOTHING more stressful to a mother than to have her little one(s) sick or hurt. I'll admit Maya has been relatively easy so far ... occasional cold or fever, but nothing serious to date. Maria, however, almost caused my heart to stop beating. As a side note, and to continue my saga of maria, that first day we got her, she was so very hot and sweaty with the intensive crying that we couldn't figure out whether or not she had a fever. I did have enough sense to take the ear thermometer with us to Guatemala, but of course when I tried to use it, it wouldn't come on. ugh. So thank goodness for the baby lounge at the Marriott! We wandered in there with our crying baby and found other parents who had an ear thermometer we could use. Thankfully, she did not have a fever. But we were on the verge of calling the concierge and having a doctor come to check her, even though we knew we were going to the doctor the next day. After taking her temp, we were confident enough to hold out until the next day, when we walked a few blocks away to get her photos taken for her visa and to visit the pediatrician (embassy-approved, of course), who diagnosed severe eczema and a milk allergy. We switched her formula to Isomil and got a prescription filled for a low-steroid creme and a special soap for her eczema. The Guatemalan doctor was great! Very kind and patient and helpful. So anyway, my point is, Maria was the complete opposite of Maya from the very beginning .... not in a bad way, just different.

So fast forward to last Friday. I still have Thursday and Friday off most weeks for my FMLA adoption leave, but this week I had Monday and Tuesday off because I have end-of-month reports due this Friday. So Friday we went to C to see Omi (my mom ... she's German ... a REAL international family ... LOL!) for her birthday. My aunt went with us, which turned out to be quite a blessing. After lunch, I took the girls to the zoo while Aunt E stayed at home with mom. My friend Val met us at the zoo, and we both commented on how Maria seemed hot, but as mentioned above, she's normally a hot, sweaty kid. So I didn't really think that much of it, other than to say I would stop by the drug store on our way out of town and pick up some infant motrin if she was still warm by then. Well, on the way home, just a couple of miles from mom's house, I saw Maria's little hand start shaking in the rear view mirror and got really nervous. So I hurried as much as I could and when I went to get Maria out of her carseat, her eyes rolled back in her head!! Talk about panicking!!! I rushed her into the house and told my mom she was very sick and very hot and I didn't know what to do for her. She and my aunt suggested a tepid bath, so I ran to turn on the water. Mom and Aunt E managed to get Maya out of the car into the house, and bless her little heart, she just didn't understand that Maria was sick. She saw the running water and got excited and started stripping right then. So I just let her get in, too. Aunt E, in the meantime, rushed to the nearest drug store and got an ear thermometer and some baby motrin for me, and when I took her temp, it was over 104! eek!!! So I immediately gave her the motrin and kept checking her temp. It seemed to go down for a while, and then it jumped back up, so I called my brother to ask where I should take her to get checked out. We headed to Doctor's Care, and Aunt E went with me (after she and mom managed to corral Maya and get her dressed again!) and she sat in the car with Maya (I figured strapped in the carseat was the safest place for her, as she is a little too much for mom and Aunt E to manage on their own. Long story short (oops, too late), her fever went down some, we got home, and I took her to her regular doctor the next day, who disagreed with the ear infection diagnosis, so they spent HOURS trying to figure out her high-grade fever. It was 104.4 that morning at the doc's office. After 2 1/2 hours, plus another 1 1/2 hours getting a chest x-ray that showed nothing wrong, poor little baby Maria had been poked and prodded and had blood drawn and shots with antibiotics and they still didn't know what was causing it, so the doc told me to bring her back Monday. Thankfully we could keep the fever under control by alternating baby motrin and baby tylenol, so we did that all weekend. I was soooo thankful I had Monday and Tuesday off, because there is no way I would have gone to work while my baby was sick.

So back to the doctor on Monday, and this time we got to see her regular doctor. As I was undressing her, we found she had a strange red rash on her torso, front and back. The doc took one look at it and said, "oh, it's roseola." Evidently they spend a lot of time doing tests on high-grade fevers, only to have a rash appear in about 3 days (after the fever has subsided) and they can finally diagnose roseola. whew ... heave a big sigh of relief simply because we know what it was and now we know it's just a virus. But I will never, ever forget that feeling of helplessness when I saw those little tiny eyes roll back in my baby's head. Thank you, God, for making my baby better!