Tuesday, March 23, 2010

21 Months

I’ve been delinquent with my monthly updates for Naomi, I didn’t even do one for 20 months! She turned 21 months last week on Friday. It was the same day she came down with some bug while she was at daycare.
At 21 months, Naomi’s no longer a little baby, although I make sure to tell her every day that she is still MY little baby, she has officially become a little girl. She has started enjoying playing with other kids. On our vacation in Orlando, we traveled with another family, and she had so much fun playing with the kids, chasing after them, imitating them, coloring and looking at Disney pins with them, while it was so cute, it was also bittersweet when she would yank away from me or Austin so that she could run up and hold hands with the other kids.
She’s extremely good with names, she just needs us to point out who someone is once and she’ll be able to remember who that person is and most of the time make an attempt at saying their name. Whether or not it actually sounds like that name is another story though. My friend Priscilla is “sala”
She loves to sing and is just very musical in general. I’ve always hoped that she would share Austin and my love of music, and so far it seems like she does. She loves listening to music in the car, and not kiddy music, but everything from Michael Jackson to Christian praise music.
She’s very talkative and for the most part express what she wants or needs, although it does lead to much frustration when she can’t get us to understand what she’s saying. It’s so cute to hear her voice. She’s such a little girl but her voice can be really really loud when she’s excited, like if we’re at the grocery store and we see an Elmo balloon, I’m pretty sure the entire store can hear her shrieking, “HI ELMO BALOON!!”
At not even 2 years old, she’s already learned that being cute and sweet can help her get what she wants. Like when she wants to play with our iPhone’s, she’ll tilt her head to the side, and smile sweetly and whisper in the cutest little voice, “daddy’s iphone?”
She loves girly things like shoes, bracelets, princesses, necklaces and even makeup…yea I’ve found her with a bright red face, and my blush in hand.
She still has problems with hitting when she gets frustrated, but she’s getting much much better, hopefully the countless timeouts are starting to work…although one day when we were at Disney, she started acting up and hit Austin in the face. He put her down on the ground and asked if she wanted a time out. Naomi responded, “YEA!” and walked over to a corner and put her face against the wall. Ugh can rebelliousness start that early!?

Monday, March 22, 2010

Sick days

We're home sick today. On Friday Naomi's daycare teacher called us to tell us that Naomi had vomitted a couple of times at school, but didn't have a fever. She was pretty fussy though. All weekend she was clingy and moody, and last night she finally came down with a fever. This morning I took her to the doctor's where she had a 103.5deg temperature, a pink-ish colored ear, and most likely a GI infection. All in all nothing serious, but nothing fun either. I'm off from work today, Austin is going to stay home with Naomi tomorrow. Planning on lots of Disney movies and PJ time. Perfect considering it's raining and cold outside.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Happy St Patrick's Day


We're back from our week in Florida. Haven't had time to post, but here's Naomi's St. Patrick's day outfit


Thursday, March 4, 2010

Where do you live?

We have been teaching Naomi where our family members live. She knows where most of our immediate family lives, but still gets stuck on Uncle Fish being in Palo Alto, and Uncle Chris being in New York.
We leave for Florida tomorrow morning, so I’ve been telling her that we’re going to visit some of the different Disney characters that live in Florida too. Here is how our conversation went last night.

Me: “Naomi, where does Nai Nai live?”
Naomi: “Bah – awws – tin” (Boston)
Me: “Where does Gu Gu live?”
Naomi: “Bah – awws – tin” (Boston)
Me: “Where does Yeh Yeh live?”
Naomi: “My – Wand!!” (Taiwan)
Me: “Where does Naomi live?”
Naomi: “Ummm, Sir – see?”
Me: “Yea that’s right, New Jersey. Where does Ahma live?”
Naomi: “Floor – Dah” (Florida)
Me: “Where does Do-Do live” (when she was first learning to speak, she couldn’t say Gong Gong meaning grandpa (on your mom’s side), so she started calling him Doo-Doo, and unfortunately for my dad, it’s stuck as his nickname)
Naomi: “Floor-DAHHHHH!!!”
Me: “Where does Cinderella live?”
Naomi: “Castle!”
Me: “Good job, ok where is Cinderella’s castle?”
Naomi: “Ummmm, TV!!!”

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Puppy dog eyes

As a father, it's been a constant struggle to try and teach Naomi not
to throw tantrums and lash out when she's frustrated. There's always a
fine line to walk between patience and discipline, especially when
your dealing with a toddler who doesn't always reason well. And what's
worse is when she pulls out the sweetness and the puppy dog face. I
mean look at those eyes. Look at them!!

Rockin those shades

Naomi is in heavy prep mode for the Florida sun.

Some new comfort items?

Naomi has two comfort items that she carries around with, and sleeps with every day. Whenever she's frustrated she, tired or cranky she always asks for either Mimi (her lambie blanket) or Izzy (her little baby doll dressed as a bunny). She loves them so much that we've had to get multiples so we can wash them, and even then they're starting to show a lot of wear. She sings good morning to them every day, kisses them all the time, puts them in her stroller and pushes them around, it's incredibly cute. Recently, she's been asking to leave them in her crib when she wakes up. She'll say, "No, mimi, izzy, bed" and throw them back in. Periodically throughout the day she'll still ask for them, so I usually keep them in my diaper bag in case she needs them. But the past two nights, she's refused to hold them during prayer time and our lullaby before bedtime. Instead, she's chosen completely random and different comfort items. On Sunday night, she desperately clung to a baby wipe (yes the kind we use to wipe her bum). She refused to let us take it away from her, and ended up falling asleep with both the wipe and her Mimi clutched to her chest.
Last night was equally odd, she grabbed her crocs that ah-ma gave her, these are too big for her and sit at the bottom of her closet. She calls them , "ah-ma's shoes". and she also insisted on wearing her Red Sox baseball cap. When I put her down in her crib, she got upset when I tried to take either the shoes (which she was wearing on her hands) or her hat off. So I let her be, and she fell asleep wearing a redsox hat and crocs on each hand.
Poor Mimi and Izzy were tossed to the side of her crib.