Alita has been learning about "jobs" recently. Mommy works in a big kitchen making Jammy Sammys, daddy works on a computer at Stanford and plays with green ice algae in the big freezer, uncle Will helps people to feel better when they get big owies. A couple weeks ago we asked Alita what she wants to do for her job. She said "I want to be an engineer flying an airplane."
Tonight, as we were tucking her in to bed, she said, "I'm taking off tonight for Los Angeles." I asked what she was going to do there. She said, "I'm going to my office. I have green water bottles there filled with green ice and I'm going to help people to feel better."
Also an amazing memory seemed to surface this evening. Alita said, "when I give people shots, I'm going to give them trains." I asked, "you mean, if you were a doctor, you'd give the kids a toy train to help them feel better after getting their shots?" "Yes," she said, "Who was that guy driving the police car for a long time when I got shot?" I was perplexed. Then I started wondering -- "You mean the ambulance?" -- "Yeah, the ambulance" she said. "You remember when you went in the ambulance and got shot with the epi pen?" "Yeah," she replied. Wow... she was only 15 months old when that happened. I guess traumatic events really do stick with you.
Speaking of which, Alita tripped and fell at preschool the other day and skinned both knees. This prompted her to lie on the couch all evening with a dramatic look on her face, and she limped with bent knees for the next two days, whenever she remembered she had owies on her knees. Also, she did not for any reason want her owies showing, even when going to the bathroom she wanted her knees covered up.
Dakota is showing her personality more each day. She is really great at entertaining herself - with a whisk, a ukelele, or one of Alita's toys... She's also putting everything into her mouth. Twice now she has barfed in the past week, we think from eating random pieces of lint, dirt and other stuff off the floor or ground. Our little goat. She is making all kinds of sounds - consonants, raspberries, hitting her hand on the highchair tray... she also loves the swing. She is sitting up and quite mobile - she is pretty darn close to crawling, and even though not fully mobile she can pretty much get where she wants to go. She loves the bathtub, loves watching the chickens and any other animals.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Two year old Truisms
The other day, Ben was explaining to Alita how all living things are made up of cells. He told her that mommy and daddy are made up of cells, plants are made up of cells, and even our pet Tortoise is made of cells. After pondering this new knowledge, Alita added, "Dakota is made out of cells. Sh
e has little cells."
Last Tuesday, for the first time ever, I arrived late to pick up Alita from daycare. I was totally flustered by traffic, had tried calling my lifelines (Ben and Shelley) and left message at the daycare office, but was finally faced with the fact that I just might get charged the $$ by the minute rate our daycare charges to discourage parents from arriving late. I thought Alita would be beside herself since all the other kids had already gone home. I parked, ran in the door with apologies and excuses frantically spilling all over the place to Chandrika, Alita just smiles, looks up at me, stretches out her arms and says, "I give Mommy a big hug to make her feel better."
Alita has been learning the difference between girls and boys - both the obvious and not-so-obvious ways of telling them apart. On Thursday, Alita was happy to hear that Ama and Boppa were going to be coming for a quick visit that night. As she externally processed what would happen when they arrived, she explained to Ben. "Bobba will sit in that chair over there and daddy will sit in this chair here and I will sit in the booster chair and Ama will sit on her vagina in that chair and we will look at the light."
At a restaurant on Friday night, Alita began happily swinging her legs under her chair. She turns and says to me, "Look mommy I'm a clock and my legs are my penjamin!"
e has little cells."Last Tuesday, for the first time ever, I arrived late to pick up Alita from daycare. I was totally flustered by traffic, had tried calling my lifelines (Ben and Shelley) and left message at the daycare office, but was finally faced with the fact that I just might get charged the $$ by the minute rate our daycare charges to discourage parents from arriving late. I thought Alita would be beside herself since all the other kids had already gone home. I parked, ran in the door with apologies and excuses frantically spilling all over the place to Chandrika, Alita just smiles, looks up at me, stretches out her arms and says, "I give Mommy a big hug to make her feel better."
Alita has been learning the difference between girls and boys - both the obvious and not-so-obvious ways of telling them apart. On Thursday, Alita was happy to hear that Ama and Boppa were going to be coming for a quick visit that night. As she externally processed what would happen when they arrived, she explained to Ben. "Bobba will sit in that chair over there and daddy will sit in this chair here and I will sit in the booster chair and Ama will sit on her vagina in that chair and we will look at the light."At a restaurant on Friday night, Alita began happily swinging her legs under her chair. She turns and says to me, "Look mommy I'm a clock and my legs are my penjamin!"
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Counting and singing
Alita is learning to count and sing. She doesn't like to sing on command, but we often catch her singing an entire song to herself that we didn't even know she knew the words to -- Baa Baa Black Sheep, She Sells Sea Shells, Pussycat Pussycat, Twinkle Twinkle... At the park the other day, she and Lucy sat down on a towel together and sang "yippee yippee bumblebee" with hand motions, clapping and thigh-slapping!
Alita can count to ten now, and sometimes she even gets to twenty... but the numbers between thirteen and twenty include "Thursteen, Saturteen... Twenty!" She can reliably count about 4 objects, and anything more than that is "five" which we think is her way of saying "a lot." She is starting to understand family and relationships, and she can rattle off all the names of the people in a family when prompted. She's starting to also express a sense of time, using "yesterday" to indicate things that happened in the past or already; "almost nighttime" means it's getting late in the day, and "it's daytime" is what she says when she wakes up and it's still dark outside.
In New Zealand, we left Carina and Alita to nap in the same room together (napping is getting harder and harder for Alita to accomplish on her own) and they sat and entertained each other with songs, reading books, and playing together for 2 hours!! We watched it all on the video monitor; it was hilarious - and they got along so much better when left to their own devices than when all of us parents were intervening.
Alita refers to herself in the second person -- she calls herself "you" and refers to all her things as "yours". It's a really tough concept to explain because every time I say "that's YOUR book, this is MY book" she agrees, and says "that's your book!" She has been working on asking questions but doesn't quite have the words for questions yet so she'll say "Daddy's going?" for "where's daddy going" and "Daddy's doing" for "what's daddy doing". When she gets in the carseat, she'll say "going? Going?" to ask where we're going. She knows the name of our street and has some sense that we live in California.
Alita can count to ten now, and sometimes she even gets to twenty... but the numbers between thirteen and twenty include "Thursteen, Saturteen... Twenty!" She can reliably count about 4 objects, and anything more than that is "five" which we think is her way of saying "a lot." She is starting to understand family and relationships, and she can rattle off all the names of the people in a family when prompted. She's starting to also express a sense of time, using "yesterday" to indicate things that happened in the past or already; "almost nighttime" means it's getting late in the day, and "it's daytime" is what she says when she wakes up and it's still dark outside.
In New Zealand, we left Carina and Alita to nap in the same room together (napping is getting harder and harder for Alita to accomplish on her own) and they sat and entertained each other with songs, reading books, and playing together for 2 hours!! We watched it all on the video monitor; it was hilarious - and they got along so much better when left to their own devices than when all of us parents were intervening.
Alita refers to herself in the second person -- she calls herself "you" and refers to all her things as "yours". It's a really tough concept to explain because every time I say "that's YOUR book, this is MY book" she agrees, and says "that's your book!" She has been working on asking questions but doesn't quite have the words for questions yet so she'll say "Daddy's going?" for "where's daddy going" and "Daddy's doing" for "what's daddy doing". When she gets in the carseat, she'll say "going? Going?" to ask where we're going. She knows the name of our street and has some sense that we live in California.
Springtime
It's Springtime in the Tobey Saenz household. We're back from a great trip to New Zealand, mommy is back to work, and the 4 person household is feeling a little more manageable each day. Highlights recently have included mommy's trip to DC to meet Michelle Obama's team. Daddy was explaining to Alita that Barack Obama and Michelle are in charge of the whole country. Alita looked at him quizzically and asked, "who's in charge of the living room?" Later that day she told us Kona is in charge of the living room. Last week, we had Cass and Mike over for dinner. Because we're focusing on potty training recently (ever since returning from NZ Alita has had a lot of success going diaper-free!), Alita was sitting at the table "sans pants". She started fiddling around under the table and then asked loudly, "Mommy, A-ita putting fork in fa-china!". Uh-oh.
Dakota is getting bigger every day and is a really happy, mellow kid. She spends long periods of time awake and looking around; she loves wiggling on her floor mat, and she is starting to look at objects that are close by. Alita loves giving her hugs.
We just got 5 baby chicks. They are living in our dining room for now until our pre-fab coop arrives. Alita is thrilled about having chickens in our house. They're a little more interesting than the polywogs we had in an aquarium for about a week!
Dakota is getting bigger every day and is a really happy, mellow kid. She spends long periods of time awake and looking around; she loves wiggling on her floor mat, and she is starting to look at objects that are close by. Alita loves giving her hugs.
We just got 5 baby chicks. They are living in our dining room for now until our pre-fab coop arrives. Alita is thrilled about having chickens in our house. They're a little more interesting than the polywogs we had in an aquarium for about a week!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Welcome, Dakota!!
On January 24, 2010, we welcomed Dakota Tobey Saenz into our lives! She came very quickly at 7:07am after just 2 intense hours of labor. We arrived at the hospital at 6:35am, so we threw the nurses and midwife for a loop as they tried to check us in while Dakota was rapidly trying to meet the outside world! Though her cord was wrapped once around her neck and she was a little blue when she first arrived, she "pinked up" quickly and we heard her shrill cry after some quick work by the nursing staff at Kaiser.
Dakota weighed in at 7 lbs 3 oz, 20 inches long. She has been a very mellow baby -- we have hardly heard her cry! The name Dakota is a tribute to my (Kirsten's) maternal grandparents, Andrew and Ruth Foley, who both grew up in North Dakota. Being from North Dakota was one of the main factors that drew them together when they met at a skating rink in San Francisco in 1941, and they lived a long and happy life together. Nana (Ruth Foley) passed away during my pregnancy with Dakota, so we wanted to recognize her strong spirit and generous nature in naming our second daughter. In Cherokee language, Dakota means "friend".
Aunt Becca arrived from San Diego just a few hours after Dakota's birth, so Dakota met all her grandparents plus one aunt within her first day of life. She met Aunt Rachel, Uncle Wow, and Cousin Carina via Skype when we arrived home from the hospital.
Alita preparing for Dakota
Alita was very excited for her baby sister to arrive. As mommy's tummy grew larger and larger, Alita always wanted to feel mommy's tummy, and she would look up in wonder and say "baby sister's moving!" when she felt a kick. When I put a pair of pants on her a few weeks ago, and said, "whoops! these pants are too small for you now!," Alita's immediate reaction was, "They're for baby sister!" So she was ready to welcome her new sister into the world... or so she thought.The arrival of Baby Sister
When we first arrived home with Dakota, Alita was quite fascinated with the fact that Baby Sister had somehow gotten out of mommy's tummy. She has been incredibly sweet and gentle with the baby. Although seeing mommy nurse Dakota for the first time was tough, Alita has quickly picked up the habit of picking up her dolls (she now has three: Baby Arrow, Baby Moji, and Baby Bubba) and "nursing" them, wrapping them in blankets, or just carrying them around saying "shhhh".
It's worth mentioning the genesis of Baby Moji's name -- Alita was playing with the magnet letters on our refrigerator, and she "spelled" a word and pointed to it and said "that's your baby's name!" (She refers to herself in the second person): PRMOJI. We call her Baby Moji for short.
After meeting her baby sister, Alita took off on her tike bike, zooming down the sidewalk with the amazingly fast foot-paddling motion she has perfected despite the fact that the bike is way too small for her. She took a spill into the bushes, cried for a quick moment, then looked up and said gleefully, "Now it's Baby Sister's turn!" We're still not sure if she was trying to be nice or if there was some malicious intent in her voice...The First Few Days
Dakota spent most of her first few days sleeping during the day and being more awake at night. One night she decided to stay awake from 10pm until 4am; we're still trying to recover from that! At the same time, she has been a very agreeable baby, and has done a fantastic job of her three main responsibilities in life:
sleeping, pooping, and eating. She even pooped in her first bath!Despite her initially averse reaction to seeing Dakota nursing, Alita now thinks of all kinds of ways to help her out when she is upset. Every time she hears Dakota whimper, she either insists, "Baby Sister needs to eat!" or "sing a song for Baby Sister!" to "make her feel better".
Ama and Boppa h
ave been here since Dakota's birth to help around the house, help Alita to adjust to her new big-sister role, and to generally ease the burden on all of us. One evening, Ama and Alita baked cookies - a special treat for Alita - and while I was nursing Dakota, Alita explained to Daddy, "Baby Sister's eating cookies from mommy's boobs!"
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Alita at 19 months
It's getting easier and easier to translate from Alitese to English these days, though every once in a while a Portuguese word slips by us that we can't quite understand...
We are pretty sure that Alita can now officially count (to two). Whenever I put her shoes on, she says "one!" with the first one and "dooo!" with the second one. She also can answer the question, "How many ____ does [mommy] have?" except that the answer is always "faaaahv!" (five). This is a great party trick, because we just ask her how many fingers and toes do various people have, and invariably people are impressed that she knows they have five! Well, tonight at the dinner table I asked her "how many legs does mommy have?" and she responded with an enthusiastic "faaahhv!!"
Alita now loves to do the splits (or at least try) on a slippery wooden floor. She also loves to insist that she do things by herself, which she expresses by saying "seffff!" She uses this for eating (she can now feed herself an entire bowl of oatmeal or soup by herself, brush her teeth by herself, and climb up and down stairs by herself, all with limited oversight by a watchful mommy or daddy.
Alita can name just about any food that she eats on a regular basis, including:
"enom" - melon (not to be confused with "enom" the word for airplane or "enom" for lemon)
"nnnn-gah" - yogurt
"babyboo" - baby food
"maow" - milk
"staaoom" - spoon
"wanini" - zucchini
"pepppo" - peppers
"saaass" - applesauce (or spaghetti sauce, depending on the context)
"noonoof" - noodles (or "pasta")
"beps" - grapes
"bagdiddies" - strawberries or blueberries
Around the couch she likes to point out various things, like "wow" (wall), "ai-do-doff" (fireplace), "dor" (door) and "owtzaie" (outside).
What a joy she is at this precious age!!
We are pretty sure that Alita can now officially count (to two). Whenever I put her shoes on, she says "one!" with the first one and "dooo!" with the second one. She also can answer the question, "How many ____ does [mommy] have?" except that the answer is always "faaaahv!" (five). This is a great party trick, because we just ask her how many fingers and toes do various people have, and invariably people are impressed that she knows they have five! Well, tonight at the dinner table I asked her "how many legs does mommy have?" and she responded with an enthusiastic "faaahhv!!"
Alita now loves to do the splits (or at least try) on a slippery wooden floor. She also loves to insist that she do things by herself, which she expresses by saying "seffff!" She uses this for eating (she can now feed herself an entire bowl of oatmeal or soup by herself, brush her teeth by herself, and climb up and down stairs by herself, all with limited oversight by a watchful mommy or daddy.
Alita can name just about any food that she eats on a regular basis, including:
"enom" - melon (not to be confused with "enom" the word for airplane or "enom" for lemon)
"nnnn-gah" - yogurt
"babyboo" - baby food
"maow" - milk
"staaoom" - spoon
"wanini" - zucchini
"pepppo" - peppers
"saaass" - applesauce (or spaghetti sauce, depending on the context)
"noonoof" - noodles (or "pasta")
"beps" - grapes
"bagdiddies" - strawberries or blueberries
Around the couch she likes to point out various things, like "wow" (wall), "ai-do-doff" (fireplace), "dor" (door) and "owtzaie" (outside).
What a joy she is at this precious age!!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Christmas in Patagonia
We had a fabulous trip to Patagonia for Christmas and New Year's. Alita loved the hiking, and the mountains were spectacular.
Alita picked up many new words, including "rivahh" = river, "hola!", and "bridge".
We hiked around some volcanoes in the Pucon/Lake District...
We spent plenty of time just relaxing and enjoying the surroundings.
The colors of the lakes were unreal.
Guanacos grazing in the meadow.
Sometimes it got so windy we had to hold Alita down so she didn't blow away.
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