Sleeping with the Bible.....

Walking her dog and slinging her babe.

Eating German Pancake in style

This evening Johari went to bed clutching a small Bible. She wouldn't let go of it even while she was nursing and falling asleep. She would shake her head "No" if I tried to remove it from her clutches. Is this symbolic of something? :) Not really! Just kind of funny. She found the little New Testament in a drawer in the bathroom that someone had left behind. One of those ones that people hand out for free to encourage the reading of the Bible. Right now, Johari is cuddling it in her sleep.
On Thursday morning , we went to a playgroup in the basement of a church. We found out about it through one of the Meetup.com groups that I joined. The playgroup was nice. There were some kids older and some the same age as Johari. The kids ran around and played with toys for a while. Then they sat down and had a snack together and the toys were put away. Then there was a craft project which Johari wasn't ready to follow. It ended up being me trying to put this menorah together while Johari tore it apart. There was a 3 year old there, Isabella, that really took to me while we were there. She was a sweetie. By the end she insisted that I take her to the potty and not her mama. She wanted me to get her the toilet paper and not her mama. It was pretty cute. We like each other. Maybe it helped that I tried to comfort her after she got pushed by another little girl. Maybe we just hit it off.

Playing with Carmel, showing her the ropes....

Friday evening, we went to visit Carmel. Johari was disappointed when we arrived at their house and Carmel was nowhere to be seen because she was napping. She signed, "baby" over and over. She was more than happy to assist Christina in waking Carmel up. Johari really enjoyed playing with Carmel. They ate rice and teriyaki chicken together. A few times, Johari got a bit jealous of what Carmel had or was sitting on or her sippy cup of water. But we worked through it.

"I know how to put these on myself. I've got this! Don't they look stylish?"
Silly so-and-so

cry freedom

Johari has been very into transferring things from one vessel to another. Popcorn can go from bowl to bowl to table to floor to bowl and so on. Blueberries go from bowl to bag to bowl to bag to mouth. Applesauce from bowl to plate and drizzled all over her pieces of chicken. It looks like a tasty sauce although she doesn't try eating the combination. It is far more about the process although she takes a bite of whatever she is transferring here and there.
I have been thinking about joining the YMCA. So that I have another possible way to exercise if the weather is not inviting for the outdoor activities. I checked it out and they have childcare at the one that is close to where we live. So next step would be to apply for a membership and all that jazz. When I thought about taking Johari there and leaving her at the childcare, I could imagine how that might go or whether it would just be a tragedy for her. So my next step was to ask someone (a friend) to watch Johari for 20 minutes or a half hour to see how that goes. To get her used to the concept of me leaving for a little while and then coming back. On Monday, Hyon and Ariel came over to watch Johari for this first trial period. I told her I was going to leave for a bit. Immediately she got very upset and burst into tears and clung to me. I held her while she cried a bit and then I gave her to Hyon still crying and went for a short run. They reported a success. She cried for a couple minutes while Hyon held her and comforted her. Then she was ready to play with Ariel.
I am really thankful for this Playful Parenting book that I am reading. The chapters that I have been reading in the last week or so have been really helpful about handling children's emotions. Just being with them and allowing for their emotions to flow and be supported and safe. It helps me feel less anxiety about having to try to get her to stop crying. Instead, I can just hold her and let her cry if something is upsetting or hurts. I am not explaining it well. It sounds so simple. Accessing more understanding about what children need in their emotional world is really helpful. It makes it easier to just be with the emotions rather than needing to shut them off as soon as possible.
She is starting to draw with her markers a bit more. It had been all about the caps...on and off. Markers in the bowl and then putting each one on the table or on the floor. It is still much of the same process. She takes a marker out of the bowl, takes the cap off, draws a line or two with it, puts the cap back on, and the marker either goes on the floor or back in the bowl. The drawing part is the fun addition to the process. At least from my perspective.
Picture this, Johari breastfeeding and pretending to talk on her play cellphone. Quite a funny sight.

Just some pics from the past week or so....

Talking on her fake cellphone....

Being sicky sick and watching her Signing Time DVD...

A cool chickadee....
Or a Bono wannabe.....

"I've got this attachment parenting, babywearing thing down..."

5 things to be grateful for...

We finally made it to a cafe in Seattle today with our friend, Sanju. It was a nice little cafe. We hung out there for a while. A 21-month-old boy came in with his papa and we tried to make friends with the boy. I asked Johari if she wanted to share her tangerine with the little boy, Leo. Her very first response was a shake of the head "no". But with a small bit of encouragement she got really into giving him the oranges slice by slice. Leo was into receiving them. Then she wanted to give him her pear after she took a couple of bites. She really likes to give other people food. She is constantly trying to pass her food off to anyone around. Let's hope this spirit of sharing can persevere.
I was looking at a book that was recommended to me today online. I read a bit about its premise. It was talking about teaching younger or older children to use affirmations throughout their daily life. For some reason, it made me think of something that I have heard about before and done at various times on my own in my journal and tried to encourage other people to do as well. And that is think about 5 things that you are grateful or thankful for or happy about. I have found that when I do this on a regular basis (daily or at least trying to make it daily) it has made me more mindful of all of the small wonderful things that happen in my day. It has allowed me to hone in on the little delights as well as the bigger ones. So I thought that maybe we should try to do this at the dinner table every night as a family. And I suggested it. It seems like everyone agreed that it was a good idea. We have begun. (I had to make a ground rule...no response necessary after each thing that people are thankful for.) The things that I was thankful for today...

• Being able to spend time in the city at a nice cafe with a friend.
• Running around the house with Johari for exercise and great fun.
• Drinking green tea.
  
• Having a great dinner with green vegetables in it - a pile of broccoli.
  
• Watching Johari share her fruit with a little boy in the cafe.
  

So I challenge you to do the same for a while. Consistently for a couple of weeks to try it out. It can be whatever you want. The same thing every day. Different things. Little things. Big things. Medium things. 2 things. 20 things. I feel like it is a good practice for everyone. We have so much to gripe about and fret over and challenge us, it is good to take a moment out of a day to just be grateful for things. I was thinking, why 5. Does it have to be 5? What if you have a super horrible day and you are allowing yourself to feel like crap? Do you have to come up with 5 things...I don't think so, but maybe 5 should be something we could strive for. A minimum of 2, right? I mean even if we are really down and out there has to still be the energy to drudge up 2 things that you appreciate in one's life or in one's day. But then maybe we are so inspired by life that we just don't want to stop appreciating the things that we see around us. Let me know how it goes.

snow and snot

Well, Johari got a cold. It is no fun. But we are making it through. It started with her first time throwing up ever. Not bad to hold out until she is 16 months old to try throwing up. And then it went into total congestion and coughing and a stuffed nose and sad look. But her snot nose is drying up and her cough is still hacking stuff up. Her eyes look back to healthier.
We were out at the bread store the other day. When we got there, it started snowing. And here in the Northwest, the snows freaks people out a bit. The people in front of me in line said they had to take their food to go because they needed to rush home. A guy walked in and asked me what I thought of this snow...I told him I just moved here from Chicago and he got it. They don't really do anything to the roads when it snows. I am not really sure why. I guess because it doesn't happen often enough to spend their resources on cleaning up snow. But then along with the hills and rain and ice and snow, it can be treacherous driving, I guess. It just seemed so odd to me how hyped up everyone got at the sight of some flakes falling from the sky.