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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Anti Princess

Yesterday, I ventured out in the cold (what is this, winter??? Oh, right, it is. Nevermind...) to have dinner with my friend and see my dad in the hospital. Being the awesome daughter that I am, I stopped at the bookstore afterwards to pick up some magazines to help with my father's boredom. Ever in love with books, especially those that are on sale, I browsed through the bargain shelves. Deciding that I really don't need any more books but missing Amelia after spending most of the day away from her, I headed over to the children's shelves and started gathering books. Counting books, farm animals books, Sesame Street books, princess books...

Wait.

No princess books.

Actually, there were two very cute books that were displayed that I considered buying. One was pirates. The other was princesses. I would have bought her the pirates book if I had to choose one or the other.

Now, I can't give you some big social explanation of why I don't like the princess stuff. Really, it is more mother's gut feeling, in that all the pink makes me want to vomit a little bit. I'm not a girly girl. I don't wear make-up. I hate clothes shopping, unless it's for Amelia. I own very basic pairs of shoes. I would rather go hiking than go to the mall. It is just who I am, and although in my younger years I felt like this made me weird, I've learned to embrace this about myself.

On the other hand, I have been thinking a lot about who Amelia is and letting her be who she wants to be. Although femininity is not my forte, if she chooses to adore make-up and fancy heels, then that will be my girl and I will love her just how she is.

So let's talk about who my daughter is, at 16 months of age. She loves Elmo and Mickey Mouse. The only movies she's ever cared about are The Cat in the Hat starring Mike Myers and Elmo in Grouchland. When we go to the gym where there is an obscene amount of toys to choose from, she picks the phone, cars, and the kitchen, generally. Last week, she insisted upon playing basketball and race cars with the boys. Of her books, she likes Dr. Suess (particularly Are You My Mother?) the best.

Am I naive enough to think this will stay the same forever? No. I know that she may like pink and frilly some day. And if she says "Mama, can I please have the princess book?", I will probably say yes. But frankly, I see no reason to encourage it. I don't dress her in tutu's, I don't buy her girly girl stuff.

But really, why does all that stuff make me sick? Well, because, why can't the princesses look like this?
OK, well, maybe this takes it to the extreme. I certainly don't want my daughter to strive for morbid obesity. But, as I mentioned before, I try to be a good example to her when it comes to health and body image. Is this what I really want her seeing all the time?:
No. Not really. Do you know who she really loves?

That's my girl, loving the character with a backpack and a practical haircut.
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Friday, February 24, 2012

Outsmarted

I'm having a bit of a rough week. Nothing absolutely horrid, just a bit of disorganized, mixed with family health problems and a dash of hormones sprinkled on top. All I can say is TGIF.

To add to it, I'm beginning to think our toddler is smarter than us. Most days, I find it humorous. Other days, I wonder if this is going to be a situation of survival where if we have more children, they will outsmart us and make us live in the root cellar while they take over the house.

Case in point: our television. We decided to finally be all modern like this past summer and get a flat screen TV. We followed this up by getting a satellite dish because OMG I couldn't stand the same episode of Sid the Science Kid one more time! It's fabulous and I would totally pay twice the amount just for the DVR feature.

Satellite TV means a new remote, and this is something that Amelia, like many toddlers, cannot resist. Anything with buttons on it she's likely to swipe and run off with, giggling and pressing away. I'm totally shocked that she hasn't mistakenly ordered porn yet.

What she has figured out how to do is change the configuration of our screen. Within a week of getting satellite, she had changed it to 'normal', 'zoom', and 'stretch'. At random, and with much exasperation from her parents.

It took us three months to figure out how to do this. THREE.

We both tried many times to go through the menu and figure it out, and each attempt would end with us muttering swear words under our breath. Each time, we would have renewed hope that we would have the power to change our screen so people's faces wouldn't be cut off.

Each time we failed.

FINALLY this week, I looked at the remote one more time, deciding that surely she was not getting all the way into the menu and selecting the precise option to change the screen. It had to be a single button on the remote.

After glancing at the remote and pressing three or four random buttons, I saw it, at the bottom. 'Format'. I held my breath and pressed it.

SUCCESS.

I'm so smart.

Just not as smart as a toddler.

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Friday, February 17, 2012

Weight a Minute... Part Two

Today I am featured on Random Blogette discussing my history of eating and self-esteem issues. If you recall, I had touched on this topic recently. What I share in my guest post flowed from my fingers like therapy, but was painful and a little raw too.

I have struggled with food and healthy habits for a long time, and although every day is certainly not all rainbows and sunshine, I think I have reached a point in my life where I have a pretty good attitude about my body and how I treat it. However, it's taken me more than a decade to get to this place. Health and feeling good, unfortunately, is not a magical and quick process. I think we all want more for ourselves in this arena. We want to every day feel vibrant, light, and healthy. But the reality is that life happens. No matter how good I feel, I still have days where I make bad choices and feel a little guilty about it. The difference, I think, is that I can stop myself from going into an all day (or week) downward spiral. I can pick myself up and start over from that moment. I can remember that my ultimate goal is to be a good example for my daughter and to live a long, healthy life.

My wish is for all my readers to have the same kind of healthy goals for themselves.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Still A Peanut

Happy Valentine's Day! Frankly, I don't really care much about it, but I feel like it's my duty to at least say it once. The greatest gift that I could receive today has already been delivered, and that is that my cold seems to finally be improving. I actually got to sleep last night without my nose being constantly plugged or dripping. I always wonder how both can happen all at the same time, but really, I don't want to know the why's. I just want it to stop happening on my face.

On to other things. Last night was Amelia's 15 month check-up. She had a ball zipping around the waiting room and having everyone point and remark how cute she is. Once we were in the examination room, she was not a happy girl and let her nurse practitioner know that she was NOT pleased with being poked and prodded. Despite that, I'm happy to report that she is developing very well. She is ahead of schedule on many things, such as the amount of words she can say and knowing where several of her body parts are.

Even better news? One more shot at eighteen months and we are done till she starts school.

HALLELUJAH. I hate taking her in for baby torture.

In terms of size, Amelia is still our little peanut. She is 21 lbs 1 oz. (20th percentile) and 29 inches long (10th percentile) and her head circumference is 46.5 cm (66th percentile). We were shown her growth chart and although I still get all the time people commenting with slight looks of concern about how small she is, she is following the growth curve perfectly and her nurse practitioner said her weight for height is very good.

She is simply proof that good things come in small packages.
Playing with her new ball at the store-- it's almost as big as she is!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Germs and the Verbal Explosion

Germs have struck again in our house, but this time they've attacked Mama. I had big plans this weekend to clean and play with Amelia lots, but then woke up yesterday morning congested and feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. I'm pretty darned disappointed. Nothing big happened this week to get me down, but it has been one of those weeks where little things have frustrated me and work has left me feeling like I'm constantly pushing my daughter's needs to the side. I couldn't wait till the weekend to turn my computer off and have some quality play time together. I did manage to drag myself down to the floor to help her with her farm puzzle and play ball, but generally it has been a snotty tissue and cartoon fest at my house, especially since my husband had to work yesterday.

Thankfully, although I think my cold is reaching it's peak today and I almost feel worse than yesterday, I did get to sleep in and Amelia got lots of play time with her daddy. This evening she is heading to my in-laws with him and I will get a lot of guilt free rest. Originally I had hoped to catch up on some sewing and writing projects, but as I sit here sniffling, I know that it would be best for my health and sanity to sit on the couch and watch a movie instead.

Meanwhile, in the land of mommyhood, Amelia has been learning new words at a dizzying pace. Tomorrow is her 15 month check-up (and shots-- UGH) so I'm interested to hear what the nurse practitioner says about how many words she can say. She was saying about 10 words at a year and we were told that is generally the 18 month expectation. Now she is up to about 25-30 words. Some of them are more sounds than words but we count them anyways. I had to write them down to figure out what the count is. Amelia can say: ball, book, keys, shoes, Daddy, Ma, dog, kitty, water (wa wa), done, up, down, Dora (duh-duh), backpack, belly, hands, hot dog (for the hot dog dance during Micky's Clubhouse), cookie, banana (bani), please (psss), hi, hello, bye, see ya (SEES!!), bird, and juice (which is actually the pedialyte we give her when she's sick), roll, peek-a-boo, choo choo (for trains), ta da! and beep beep (for cars-- sometimes she will say vroom vroom and car too).

As someone who used to work in a preschool through first grade school building, I mostly feel like this means she will be put on red a lot for talking when she starts school. However, I am also grateful that she seems to be developing as she should be. Although I think feeling proud of your child's developments is a good feeling to have as you watch your child grow up, I always try to reflect too on how grateful I am that she is happy and healthy so far.

Other than talking, Amelia also has been trying to figure out how to do things all by her big girl self, like brushing her teeth. So today I leave you with a picture of her in her big girl chair, maintaining her oral hygiene:

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

And the Chobani Winner Is...

Insert drum roll here....

No really...

OK, here are the winners:

1) lolavie
2) Veronica of Eats and Treats

Congratulations! Please send me a private message on Facebook or Twitter with your e-mail and mailing address so Chobani can send your case of yogurt.

Thanks again to Our Crazy But Wonderful Life for making this giveaway possible.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Chobani Giveaway

I'm in an interesting situation this morning. I have yogurt to give away.

I HATE yogurt.

Sorry, Chobani, but it's true. Yogurt, pickles, and olives are probably my top three gag me foods. Which is unfortunate because they are all fairly healthy. It always works that way, doesn't it? I would be super freaking healthy and slender if I could eat chocolate ice cream and lose weight.

In truth, this is kind of Our Crazy But Wonderful Life's giveaway. As toddlers will do, her son has decided that milk is not anything that he's interested in, which has required her and her husband to be a little creative nutrition wise. Enter Chobani Champions. Filled with calcium and probiotics, and something that most kids love, my friend can now work on weaning her toddler.

What does this have to do with me, you ask? Well, it's simple. I am interested in getting lots of readers to my site, and my friend is not, so she offered to let me do the giveaway to get more people to my blog. So, here's how you can enter:

1) Like Amateur Mommy on Facebook.
2) Follow Amateur Mommy on Twitter.
3) Write a comment on this post (the post please, NOT my facebook page).

Really love yogurt and want more chances to win? Do all three! Two winners will be chosen tomorrow and revealed here on my blog, so you must return to discover if you have won. The prize pack includes six yogurts, three orange vanilla and three vanilla chocolate chunk. Good luck!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Big Moment

My original plan today was to fill you in on how fabulously funny I find 13abc's Rebecca Regnier and how you can get her book about social media support FREE today. It's called the Twitter Diet, and I can't wait to download and read it. I had grand plans of posting some of her videos and sharing how I'm doing with my eating and exercising since I wrote my body image post Tuesday.

But then this happened:
Frankly, there is nothing that would trump me blabbing all over my blog that our daughter is FINALLY walking. I thought it was pretty spectacular when Amelia started cruising, but this is oh so much more enthralling, in case you can't tell from our laughter in the video. Not as funny? She went from walking a few steps around 5:30 to walking all the way across our dining room by 8:30:
Yes, well, I kept telling everyone that she is a cautious girl and would not be walking until she is completely confident that she won't get hurt. Apparently my theory was correct. It wasn't that she couldn't, she just wouldn't because, you know, safety first people.

And, I'll tell you my secret. Though I knew she was still perfectly within the developmental range for walking (I had read somewhere that any time from 9 months to 18 months is normal) and her nurse practitioner had no worries, I was getting a little impatient about the whole thing. There was that naggy little voice in the back of my head saying, 'Shouldn't she be doing this by now?' I mean, she will be 15 months tomorrow. And although most moms were not fazed by the fact that she was not completely mobile yet, I did get the occasional eyebrow raise that indicated she is a little late in the walking department (honestly, most of those eyebrow raises were dads. Interesting, isn't it?) This reaction would then get me started on how she is simply cautious and that while she hadn't hit this milestone yet, she is excelling in the verbal department.

So, now that she is walking, I can put my mama bear defenses away for now, and start putting baby gates up instead!