Unconventional teaching methods

When it comes to helping Carina learn shapes and colors, we have plenty of shape sorters and crayons and puzzles. But her preferred means of practicing? A little {silly} game a friend of ours encouraged her to play. We call it "pop 'em out!"

She usually says the shape and color of each as she "pops" them, but I think she was so excited I was filming her, she got flustered and stopped after the first one. You can at least get the idea...

This kid. She kills me.

Oh, and please disregard the fact that I sound like an idiot. This is why I don't vlog ;)

Cinderella Cheese

One of the things I am currently enjoy the most about being a parent is toddler speak.

Instead of tomatoes, Carina eats her weight in "titty-matoes". I wish I were joking...actually, I don't. It's freaking hilarious every time she says it.

This is my recent favorite, caught on camera:



You can stop watching after she says it, about 20 seconds in. Despite my trying to get her to, she doesn't say it again. In other news I need to learn how to edit videos.

Share with me what your toddler says in toddlerese ;)

The tiniest Eagles cheerleader

Every now and then when Carina gets bored with her toys we'll snuggle up on the couch together and watch videos of other babies laughing, dancing, and snuggling or torturing playing with pets. I have a number of old videos of Carina stored on my computer so we watch those, sometimes, too. She has just begun to recognize herself and exclaims, "baby KEENA!" whenever I press play. "Keena" would be her current pronunciation of her own name.

Today we watched this one and I smiled and laughed for miles. If only we could all be this happy about something as simple as shaking a pom pom.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

In which Daddy teaches toddler how to defeat him

Among his sister's friends, Mike is quite famous for his epic pout face. He has even been known to out-pout cute little girls. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that after 7 years of dating (and 3.5 of marriage), it still works on me. I think he should consider himself lucky.

While photos certainly can't do it justice, I love this one so I had to share. 

Mike and our flower girl in a pout-off, about 5 years ago. Hope she doesn't kill me for posting this ;)

As Carina's eyes turned from slate blue to brown in the months following her birth, we knew she was going to have those pouty, puppy-dog eyes just like Mike. We joked that it was going to be so easy for her to get whatever she wants from us with a simple curl of the lip and widening of her eyes.

So, when Mike started showing her how to pout the other day I couldn't help but laugh. He already {practically} can't say "no" to her. This? Is not going to help...


The best one comes right at the end.

Now she knows, and Daddy is doomed.

Parenting by the seat of your pants

Mike here while Mama G takes a well-deserved evening to pamper herself a little bit.  Carina and many of your little ones are at an age when they no longer sleep/wake in really regular cycles, but are now powered by nuclear reactors that go from full-blown fission to dead cold a few times a day, and not always predictably.  It’s a lot of work to adjust the new ups, downs, all-arounds, and ‘how-the-hell/where-the-hell did you do/get/destroy/learn-to-say that’s.’

             

With Mama G now 32 weeks along baking little princess number 2 and it being the heat of the summer, I do most of the active playing on weekends and evenings when I’m home from the lab.  It’s lots of fun, and you learn on the fly how to/how not to get your kid out and around.  Keeping the little ones active and getting them to want to be is really important to me – I love a good TV show as much as anyone, but I also like to try and be active and was all the time as a little guy.  So with this intro in mind, here are a few things I’ve done to get Carina up and going so we can focus that little ball of energy and get her having some fun.  I titled this ‘by the seat of your pants’ because like anything else that’s new in life, you mess up sometimes – see below for the juicy, smelly, and sometimes a little painful details.

Daddy Monster

We start this one with, “Mommy, what do you see here?”

“I see a tasty baby” says Mama G.   

I then transmorgrify into the Daddy Monster and say (in a voice a whole lot like Trekkie Monster from Avenue Q, God help me when/if Carina ever realizes that someday), “DO YOU KNOOOOOW WHAT DADDY MONSTERS DO TO TASTY BABIES?!!!! WE EAT THEM! HAM-HOCKS! OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM” And then proceed to raspberry and chomp the peanut’s little legs, hands, tummy, and cheeks.  She goes wild, giggles, belly laughs, and I melt, thus transmorgrifying back into my sappy self and end with a big hug.  A wonderful moment everytime…

…except when her diaper fails to contain pee, and then it’s vile beyond words.

Get Daddy

This one’s pretty simple.  I say “Carina, can you get Daddy?” And then run away as if my 20 lb, two-and-a-half foot tall peanut is Godzilla – this is a fair comparison in reality.  She charges across the room, ‘tackles’ me, and then jumps up and down on my tummy and face until she’s tired out.  Great one before naptime. 

Also a very easy way to get covered in dookie if you forget to check the LO’s diaper before playing.  Last Saturday morning was a disaster.

Get Carina

The reverse of before.  I chase her all over the house, she slams doors to try and get away, and we end with belly laughing and a baby over my shoulders as I run up and down the block outside.  The judgemental look on my bitter-beer-faced neighbor lady who was walking her yap dog was the best .  Lady, yes I am nuts, and yes I run all over the house with my little one.  I will do so for as long as she doesn’t realize what a big dork I am.  And then I think I’ll be pretty sad, until I get to embarrass boys she brings home by reliving her childhood in theatrical fashion in my boxer shorts.

A good old-fashioned sword fight

This one is a worthwhile how could you teach your child that rant parent-teacher conference.  It’s no secret I love a good sci-fi or fantasy yarn.  At trip to the Connecticut Renaissance Fair earlier this summer, Mama G bought a wooden sword for our little lady.  I, naturally, already had a plastic pirate sword from one of several previous Halloween costumes that take advantage of my genetically superior chest hair.  The only reasonable course of action was to give my little lady her sword, wield mine, hold it over my head, and charge across the room.  She raised hers, chopped my legs, and left me sprawled out on the ground.  What happened next in my epic battle with “The Sword Maiden of the Middlewest” is best explained in the video below:

Alright folks, I hope this brightened up your week. Get your kids up, active, and doing things they love, and try and open them up to some of the things you love – this last bit will, I think, be the subject of my next post, so stay tuned, and have fun romping with your tots!

Toddle Along Tuesday - Carina identifies letters!

I think because I've been feeling like such a failure lately due to Carina's "failure to thrive" issues, this particular first has meant so much to me. It makes me confident that I'm at least doing something right ;)

So here's Carina, identifying letters for the first time. She has "M", "N", and "O" down pretty well, and then gets "K" and "D" later on. "H" is debatable for now; it sort of sounds like "hache". She also knows that her name begins with "C"! Didn't catch that on video, though, sadly.

I've been working with her on letters a lot lately because 1. she loves them - she could circle this tower for hours yelling them out and 2. it makes for a nice welcomed break in between trying to get her to eat.




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My co-host for Toddle Along Tuesday this week is Nikki from Life with You Makes Perfect Sense and the topic is favorite firsts! What milestone was the most precious for you? Sitting up, talking, walking, maybe a 1st birthday party, or something else? Feel free to gush and/or reminisce. There are no rules here, except that you link up a relevant post (old or new) rather than your whole blog.

Next week's topic is places to shop! Do you have a favorite store or website from which to shop? Or do you prefer consignment sales and thrift stores? Tell us and show us some of your fave finds! Old post or new post, either is fine!

If you like advance notice for TAT, I just added a section at the bottom right of the blog that lists the Toddle Along Tuesday topics for the next few weeks! Would you like to submit a topic idea and/or volunteer to co-host one week? E-mail me!

Carina says baby!

I mentioned last week that Carina points at my belly and says "baby", and a few of you asked me to try to capture it on video. This is the best we could do. She says it once, and then there's about 30 more seconds of us trying to get her to say it again...unsuccessfully, of course. She would rather watch Daddy with the camera ;)

Rocking on our Bee

I haven't posted a video in a while. Here is Carina lovin on her Rockabye Buzzy Bee. She loves this thing. Most of the time she squeals "bee!" while she's riding. No dice in this video, though. Just lots of funny baby sounds.

I almost feel bad posting this

Carina tried so hard to get the Disney Princess story time CD out of the cover of her book this afternoon. Watch what happens when she gets frustrated. When I start narrating half-way through, you can't even hear me over her shrieks...


This just might be her most epic tantrum yet.

P.S. Don't mind the phantom "ABC" song that randomly starts playing in the background. I think our Bright Starts Activity table might be possessed...

Take that, naysayers!

For everyone who was worried that something was wrong with Carina because she wasn't crawling yet, here you go. {Not you guys, those annoying strangers in real life}

She stops for a few seconds about half-way through, then really gets going!

Holy adorable overload

Carina just started clapping a few days ago and I was lucky enough to catch it on camera.

Oh, and I seriously want to nom on those ham-hocks.

Scooting around!

Carina is getting more and more mobile!  She can almost stand unassisted and she just started scooting around the entire around-we-go toy table.  I'll look at her and she is playing with the piano on one side, and then I'll glance over at her again a minute later and she's trying to eat the butterfly on the other side.

Here's some cute scooting for your viewing pleasure

Flying Baby and "Dada"!

It's the first time we caught her saying "Dada" on video!  And then some crazy Daddy-Baby play time ensues.

I hope it doesn't make you dizzy...please keep watching it gets really cute around the 30 second mark :)

Om Nom Nom

This morning we gave Carina solids for the first time. We waited until just a few days before her 6 month birthday because a whole slew of organizations recommend delaying the introduction of solids until now.  In all honesty, I wasn't quite ready to deal with the mess until now, either.

So I made pea puree using my new baby food maker (more on that to come tomorrow!) and we set up our Fisher-Price Precious Planet High Chair.  After strapping Carina in, it was go time.

Ready to get started

In go the peas!

Not sure about these, Mom

Okay, maybe they aren't so bad

Do you like my green goatee?

Because pics can't do it justice:

In all, she got more peas on her face and bib than in her mouth. We're crossing our fingers that she'll actually eat some of it next time.

What was your baby's first solid food?  How did it go?

Wordless Wednesday - Mommy is soo funny!

Our trip home on Monday night was a bit smoother than the trip out to Philly last Thursday.  Whew!  While waiting for our slightly delayed flight at the Philly airport, Carina wouldn't stop laughing.  She must be the only person in the world who actually enjoys the Philadelphia International Airport.

Sorry for the crappy quality iPhone video.  I think you can see super cuteness pretty clearly, though ;)

Baby squeals

I ensure you that these are in fact, happy squeals.  No babies were harmed during the making of this video ;)



She has just started laughing and squealing like this quite often.  The "Daddy monster" really brings it out in her.

Jumperooooo!

Carina cannot get enough of her jumperoo.  Watching her kick and bounce cracks me up.  This tiny little person continues to amaze me each and every day. 



Her legs can't quite reach the ground yet, so we put an old box underneath and it fits perfectly.

Please ignore my crazy hair. I haven't dyed it in about 6 months and I just realized how ridiculous it looks with the blonde pony tail and brown rest-of-head. Eek.

So much screaming

Those would be the three words I would use to describe the last few days.  Carina does not like to travel nor does she like being in a new place.  She also has had theatrical timing with both projectile spitup and poopsplosions.  I am running on very little sleep and am hurting pretty badly since this idiot frazzled Mama forgot to bring all of the manual pump parts and Carina doesn't want to nurse this morning.  ::sigh::

Please cross your fingers for a happy smiling baby today, the day of her baptism.  Also, if you could pray that spitup does not end up in the baptismal font and her little white dress remains free from poop stains, that would be much appreciated.

To cheer you (and myself) up, here is a cute video I filmed recently of Carina blowing raspberries.  Oh-so-cute.  Enjoy.

Weeeeeeeee!

I know I already posted a video of Carina dancing, but this is just too cute not to share.  Look at her flailing her arms and kicking her little feet.  I am so smitten.

'Dancing' Carina

I can't get over how cute this is.