Memories at 14 months

Jeff here.  This post may be very boring, so feel free to skip it.
I wanted to write down a few of the special things that Christine does right now.  I never knew how true the expression that "kids grow up so fast" really was.  I can't snap a camera or video tape enough to capture the wonderful girl my daughter is.  I am so glad that we decided to have a child while I was in Medical School.  Nothing cheers me up or keeps me going like my little girl.
So here are a few things I want to remember about her.
1. When I get home after a long day, I open the door.  Christine spins around, mouth open with her 6 toothed smile, points, and says "dada, dada!"  Then when I put my bag and keys down, she immediately forgets about me and tries to get to the keys at any cost.  For a good set of keys or a shiny cell phone, she'll stand on her tip toes, or even so high that she stand on the dorsal side of her toes.
2. We have a few activities that we like to do when Daddy comes home.  First, help Daddy get changed.  I always have nasty scrubs on so before I pick up Christine I always change.  While I do, Christine likes to go through all the stuff in my closet, especially if there are hangers lying around.
3.  The steam roller.  My dad always played steamroller with us.  So I have no idea, if anyone else knows this game, but Christine loves it.
4. Getting the mail.  I like to take Christine on a walk to get the mail.  We always walk by our neighbor's that have cats.  Sometimes the cats are at the window, and Christine gets so excited when she sees them.  There are always tons of squirrels to chase after.  Christine still hasn't caught one yet.  And of course, Christine always has to bang on the benches in front of our apartment.  I don't know why, but when every we go on a walk she runs over to the benches, pats them with her hand a couple of times and then moves on.
5.  Sometimes I get to feed Christine at night.  Christine is a fruit fanatic.  Bananas, strawberries, cherries, pears, peaches, grapes, apples, pineapples, raisins.... the list goes on and on.  Cheetos was her first word, but strawberries was a close second.
6.  I usually get to do "Bath Time Fun".  Every night for as long as I can remember I have sung Christine the same song about Bath Time Fun. I'm not sure where I came up with it or the tune, but it has stuck! "It's bath time fun for everyone.  It's bath time fun for you, bath time for me, bath time fun, bath time fun fun."  Yeah, it's not likely to win any Emmy's.
7. To get ready for bath time Christine pulls out her bath toys and throws them into the bath tub.  She loves playing with her cup and used yogurt bottle the most!  She always wants to drink from them, but I won't let her.  She then will try to stick her face down into the water to drink the water.  She has absolutely no fear of water.
8. After we dry off, Christine turns off the light switches in the bathroom.  However, recently she has learned how to turn on the switches as well, so sometimes it takes awhile to get all the light switches in the off position.  We then go find mommy.  We sometimes play peak-a-boo around the corner to find mommy.
9.  Bed time rituals include chasing naked Christine around the house as she cackles, wrestling baby while trying to put her diaper on, trying to get her to only chose 1 book to read, trying to get her to drink her bottle rather than to pour it into various other cup like toys (she has a chemist in her), reading Good Night Gorrilla, Good Night Moon, and The Going to Bed Book.  Singing primary songs and then night prayers.  During night prayers Christine usually starts laughing because she can reach through the bars of her crib and pull mommy's and daddy's hair.
10.  Christine recently discovered her belly.  She loves to run around and point to her belly.  Then she tries to find everyone else's belly.  She hasn't tried to do this in public yet, luckily.
11.  One game that Christine got the biggest kick out of was invented by Angela.  It involved hiding a finger puppet in her diaper box.  The finger puppet, a hippo named Jimbo, would poke his head out of the little hand holes.  She would put her eye right up next to the hole to try and see in. She would feed him Cheerios through the hole.  Oh man did she ever laugh at that!!
12.  We are trying to teach her some sign language.  Unfortunately her vocabulary in sign has surpassed my own.  She loves saying happy, which comes out more like Bappy, and the sign she uses is tapping her chest. When she is grumpy she gets put in the crib.  She learned very quickly that saying she was bappy was a quick ticket out of the crib.  Now she uses it even when she is still upset.  Today, she was saying happy while still whining, and Angela said to her, "You don't sound happy.  You sound grumpy."  To reemphasize that she WAS in fact happy, she patted Angela on the chest and said bappy, as if to say, "No mom your mistaken, I AM happy."
13. Christine loves shoes and clothes.  She loves trying on mommy and daddy's shoes.  She thinks it is really funny when we help her walk in them.

It's just too hard to put down all of my favorite memories of Christine.  I can't help but smile when I think about her.  We have truly been blessed with a precious daughter of God.  I just hope we are good enough parents to keep her as sweet as she is now.

"Tagged"

Halloween pictures ARE coming I promise. It's all Jeff's fault because he loaded all the pictures from the camera to the computer that is in Christine's room and not the laptop. We've been busy getting ready for the ward Christmas party, Jeff finished surgery and took his shelf exam on Friday (yay!) and of course taking care of Christine (she's cutting a molar right now, poor girl).

Tonight Jeff and I were reading our blog archives remembering our past Thanksgivings and we saw a post I wrote in 2008 called Tagged. Jeff and I thought it would be fun to do again.

8 TV Shows I watch (and Jeff watches by default because I control the remote)
1 Parks and Recreation (our FAVORITE!)
2 The Office (this season is much better now that Michael is gone)
3 Pysch
4 Project Runway (just started the first episode of Project Accessory)
5 Gilmore Girls (I'm working my way through all the seasons... again)
6 Kitchen Nightmares (LOVE chef Ramsey)
7 Ugly Betty (on Netflix)
8 Ramsey Best Restaurant

8 Favorite Restaurants
1 Chuys
2 I can't think of any other ones. We actually haven't been to a restaurant in a loooong time. Unless you count Saturday, I had a coupon for a free soft serve ice cream cone at Burger King. I might go to McDonald's next week because I have a coupon for a free dollar menu item.

8 Things that happened yesterday

1. Went to the Houston Temple. My sweet friend Angie watched Christine for us.
2. Got my hair cut.  It's nice to have decent looking hair again.
3. Went shopping at the Galleria. Jeff had the day off from studying since he is starting a new rotation next week, so he took Christine while I got my hair cut then we went to a few stores. I am looking for a pair of riding boots... couldn't find any that I liked and fit my calves right. Trying to find Jeff some "cool surgeon" tennis shoes. Did you know that it is trendy to have neon souls poking out under your scrubs in the operating room?
4. Bought Christine some clothes at Children's Place (some long sleeve shirts, pants, and a hoodie, we are getting ready for Winter). That girl has her daddy wrapped around her finger. All she does is say "dada!!!" and he'll get her whatever she wants. Christine ran around the store like a crazy person, she knew we were at "her store" She loved that the racks were at her level and she would run to the clothes within her reach and hug them. Jeff had to take her out of the store to get her to calm down. She doesn't act like this at other stores, just her store. 
5. Sung 12 rounds of Ittsy Bittsy Spider, 9 rounds of If You're Happy and You Know It, 3 rounds of Little Monkeys hanging from a Tree, read Fancy Nancy 4 times, read That's Not My Bunny 58 times
6. Picked up Christine's toys... over and over again.
7. Washed and folded laundry
8. Stayed up late finishing two posters to announce the ward Christmas Party. I was really grouchy because I was so tired and wanted to go to bed.

8 Things I am looking forward to

1. Thanksgiving this week! We are excited to see lots of family
2. Christmas music. I am pulling out the Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving
3. Putting up Christmas decorations... I didn't really get to enjoy any Christmas traditions last year because of Christine's colic (I cringe just remembering that time). So it feels like we haven't had Christmas for two years.
4. Jeff finally being home at a reasonable hour now that he is off surgery.
5. Christmas crafting!!!! I have soooooo many projects I want to do.
6. Finishing up Physical Therapy (we are down to just once a month now!!) When I first started taking Christine we had to go in every week.
7. Psych coming back up on Hulu (they used to put episodes up online the day after they air, now they are making us wait 30 days after it airs! next week we will finally have a new episode to watch)
8. Did I mention Christmas crafts?????

8 Things on my wish list

1. A house. One with a good water heater and a dishwasher that doesn't sound like a tank from WWI is driving though our kitchen.
2. A backyard. One with a fence and lots of room for Christine to run around
3. Double A batteries. Elmo is dead and Christine is devastated. We need Elmo singing "Nose, it helps us smell and sneeze" back in our lives.
4. An off switch to Winnie the Pooh singing book. Christine looooooves that thing, and there are times I wish I could turn it off so I wouldn't have to listen to Pooh singing "A funny honey story book!" over and over again.
5. For Jeff to do well on his upcoming Step One exam.
6. For all the cockroaches in Texas to become extinct.
7. All the little inchworms too.
8. And mosquitoes.

A bit more randomness

continuing the random update on September and October happenings...

Gigi gave Christine the book "Fancy Nancy" for her birthday. Christine thinks she needs to be fancy too!

 Now that Christine is walking so well, she gets to wear shoes every time we leave the house. 

 When Christine and I went to Utah we stayed in my sister's old room. Christine figured out that there were tons of Lord of the Rings pictures that my sister had taped to the back of the door. Christine ripped them all down in about 3 seconds. (Hope you didn't want those Ashley!) There was one photo that caught her eye...  Legolas! She picked it up and hauled it around Grandma's house with her. When we got home, as I unpacked our suitcases, I discovered that Christine had carefully packed away her special picture. Christine immediately grabbed her picture from me and brought it to show her dad.

" Look Dad! It's Legolas! isn't he dreamy?"

 At the end of October I threw my friend a baby shower. As I was cleaning up, Christine found a leftover prize... cookies and cream candy bar! She figured out how to unwrap the entire thing in about 2 seconds and immediately began chomping on it. That little trouble maker keeps me on my toes.

 Speaking of the little trouble maker!

The last two months

Before I post our Halloween pictures I want to catch up. Here is a brief overview of our last few months.

 Christine enjoyed her first popsicle, the nice cold treats helped us endure the hot summer. I made these homemade popsicles after seeing them in Martha Stewart Everyday Food. Pureed strawberries, mangos, and pineapple Yum! SO much fun to make! I will definitely be repeating this next summer.

We finally had a little rain. Christine thought it was so fun to play in the water. 

 We finally went to the zoo. It was hot so we didn't stay very long, but we still had a great time.

 Christine's favorite of the animals was the birds.

 She thought the monkeys were funny.

 and she was not at all impressed by the big scary alligator.

a little update

Its been over two months since I have posted. Woops! We have been crazy busy here and the blog usually is the first thing to go off my to-do list. The biggest reason for this is that Jeff is doing his surgery rotation. Surgery has pretty bad hours and Jeff is hardly ever home. This means I have been a single parent for a while now and it drains ALL of my energy. We knew it would be this way so Christine and I hopped on a plane and flew out to Utah for two weeks to spend some time with my family while Jeff did liver transplants.

Things we have been up to:

Christine turned one! I had grand ideas for a birthday party with her little friends, but with Jeff living at the hospital we decided to keep things really simple. We just picked up some little presents for her and enjoyed playing with her around the house.

Christine got super sick. Turned out to be a bought of gastroenteritis with some secondary complications. This was the first time she's been really sick. She threw up everything I gave her. I ended up having to force pedialyte down her throat using a syringe to keep her hydrated for several days. We went back to the doctor and he gave her a prescription for Zofran. I am a big fan of Zofran now, as soon as she had the medicine in her she could keep down her formula. She lost a lot of weight during that time though, poor girl. We survived the hard days because, lucky for me, Jeff's parents live only an hour away.  So Christine and I stayed with them for a few days, it was so nice to have help taking care of Christine. It was an added bonus that they let us use their washing machine. I washed so many loads of laundry that week. One night I went through all of Christine's sheets (because she kept vomiting-- this was before the Zofran) and then I moved her into bed with me and placed her on top of a towel and then she leaned just over the towel and threw up all over the bed sheets... more sheet changing! Those were long, hard days. The doctor gave me a special diet for Christine after he prescribed her anti-nausea medicine, we had to switch over to soy formula and give her things like angel food cake. We are completely back to normal now. We just saw the doctor again and got the clear for switching to whole milk.

Christine cut four upper teeth all at the same time. This was at the end of the gastroenteritis. (bad timing!) I am glad that she finally has teeth to chomp her food with. Finally we can introduce more real food.