Hug Twice

My parents are here visiting, and so we celebrated both kids’ birthdays with one party (one early, one late) because they won’t be here in October when my daughter’s birthday is.  When we went shopping, my daughter showed a strong preference for a baby doll, hugging them, patting them, and kissing them - so we got her a baby doll and a doll stroller to push her baby around in.

Alexa was thrilled with the baby doll.  She hugger her, rocked her, and kissed her.  But when she got the stroller, she didn’t want the baby doll to ride in it.  SHE wanted to ride in it.  The baby doll was ejected from the stroller and unceremoniously dumped onto the floor, and Alexa repeatedly tried to get in the stroller.  Finally we had to just put the stroller away, get out Alexa’s stroller, and let Alexa sit in it for a while.

She may want a dolly, but she certainly still wants to be the baby. 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Yesterday on my finance blog I wrote a post about a generic item at Aldi being the same exact thing as a particular generic item at Kroger, and how amusing I found that.  In the post, I happened to mention how picky my son is.  I got a comment from someone about how their child wouldn’t be picky, because they’d have to eat what they were given.

And I honestly laughed out loud.  For a few minutes even.  I think, in fact, I might be slightly giggling still.

For I could have written that comment 5 years ago.  I was going to feed my child the healthiest food possible, and they were going to eat it and like it or just not eat.  And then I had my first child.  And everything changed.

When I had CJ, the first few days were fine.  And then he decided that he didn’t want to nurse.  At all.  And I went through a month of having to pump and feed him with a bottle so he wouldn’t have to be hospitalized.  Luckily, he did eventually begin to nurse again, but that really was just an indication of how he is.

When he started solid food, I made everything from scratch, home pureed from the freshest organic ingredients.  Some he loved.  Some he HATED.  And he completely let you know that.  And even though all the “experts” said just keep giving the things he doesn’t like to him, and he’ll like it eventually - that isn’t how it went.  Try a food he hates too many times (staggered and not in a row at all), he starts distrusting all solid food and refuses to eat.  He’d rather not eat at all, honestly.

And he’s still that way to this day.  Only offer what we’re eating, and he just doesn’t eat.  And he’ll continue not to eat.  I don’t know for how long, because I have my limits of how far I’ll push it at his age.  But I do know it spans over a day.

And on the other hand - my daughter Alexa is so skinny that I’d feed her a steady diet of cookies if it’d help her gain weight.  She has a wide and varied palate but doesn’t seem to eat enough to keep up with her activity level.  I’m hoping she somehow gains 3 pounds in the next two months so she can at least find her way back onto the growth chart…

Oh, and the movie went fine, and my parents are here for a week and bought us a flat screen TV.  More on those things later. 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Today CJ and Alexa will both be seeing their first in the theater movie.  Horton Hears A Who, which is at our cheap theater which has $0.50 matinees on Wednesday.

I’m really excited, and very nervous that I’ll spend the whole time playing with Alexa in the lobby.  My mom and dad are visiting and my mom is going with us, so she can stay with CJ at the movie if I have to take Alexa out.

Hopefully we all have a good time!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

We have a lot of “bars” to eat in our house.  It started out a way to get my picky picky son to eat at least a little bit of fruit - he has hated fruit since the moment he first tasted it at 7 months old.  We have a number of different cereal bars with fruit filling - apple, raspberry, and blueberry, generally.  It’d be better of course if he’d just eat actual fruit, but that experiment has failed every single time.  The bars at least he will eat.

No matter which CJ decides he is going to eat (and it varies), he will basically eat the entire box of that one kind (over many days or more, of course) before he will open another box.  Variety - not really his strong suit.

Actually, now that I’ve written this - he takes after his father.  Who would eat the same thing for dinner every night if I let him.  And did eat the same exact thing for breakfast every morning for about , well, 30 years, until he went on the meal plan he’s on now, which was designed for normal people who like variety. 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

No, not Matt.  I’m talking about CJ.

He thinks he is the boss of Alexa.  And not just in an older brother kind of way - he acts like he is her parent.  Which I do understand is perfectly normal, and how big siblings act (I know I used to do it to my little brothers) but oh my goodness it is annoying.

However, he doesn’t limit it to just Alexa.  He bosses around kids at the park, the zoo, and the playground just the same.  If they break a rule he has - he tells them off and tells them to stop.  He’s my little rule junkie.  Always enforcing them on others.

Which does not explain why he’s so lax about following them himself when he pleases… 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!