====================================================================== ========================== ======================== ======================== PEBBLES PRESS ======================= ========================== ======================== ====================================================================== ``The Straight Poop on Heather'' 3 May 1995 Vol. 2, No. 1 Editor-in-chief: Heather Contributing Editors: John & Marie Fashion Editor: Aunt Susan -- COMING OF AGE That's right, Heather turned one on April 2! We had a great birthday party, spent way too much time and energy preparing for it, but had a complete blast. We had a picnic in Golden Gate Park, had tons of food, grilled up burgers and chicken, and generally had a good time. We reserved tables near the Children's Playground, but everyone was having such a good time that nobody actually made it over to the playground. We had 15 adults and 8 kids (including us and Heather), so there was complete chaos. Of the 8 kids, 3 were younger than Heather. All 3 were *noticeably* bigger than her, and two of them were walking. Heather is just a petite crawler; what can we say. Just like her mom. There were also three preschool-age kids and an 8-year-old. We had drawing supplies laid out for the preschoolers, which kept them busy when they weren't occupied eating strawberries. The birthday activities primarily consisted of changing Heather's clothes with great frequency. First we changed Heather into her Korean robe. She looked so adorable, like a little Korean empress. She was getting fussy and tired by then, and wasn't too happy about being changed into the robe, but once she got it on and we sat her on the blanket with the coins and stuff, she realized that she was the center of attention and started to enjoy it. We're very proud of her: she picked the coins. I just hope she's planning on sharing her wealth with her loving parents. :-) After she picked up the coins, she crawled straight to me, ignoring the other items. Guess that means she'll be rich and live with her parents her whole life. Then we changed her again, into the party dress her aunt Barbara gave her. We had to make sure she didn't crawl off the blanket and get it dirty, and we CERTAINLY wouldn't have fed her in it, but she did look awfully pretty. She wore that while we opened her presents. We bought lots of little toys and things for the other kids, and had made them each a party favor bag. so once we had changed Heather, the kids all opened their favor bags, we passed out party hats, and then opened Heather's presents. Heather's favorite present so far is a Little Tikes push car from Rick and Pauline. She pushes it around everywhere, and likes to climb up and stand on the seat. She also got a Tonka dump truck from Penny and Terry, which is great because she's totally hooked on putting things IN and taking things OUT. Joel and Caprice gave her a really nice shape-sorter box which she can play with for unbelievably long periods of time (and has lots of little pieces to make a big mess in our house). She also received a storybook with a read-along cassette tape from the Neveus, a toy watering can from Dana, and this great first-words book with works of art (like the Mona Lisa might be labeled with the word "smile") from Kathy. (Actually, Heather's REAL favorite toy was probably the yellow spaghetti-confetti that one of the presents was packed with.) After we opened presents, we had the cake. (After changing her again, of course: this time back into her purple romper with red chili peppers, from Aunt Susan.) Heather blew out the candle -- mainly because the wind was blowing to help her. :-) But she did actually blow, which was awfully cute. (Unfortunately, by then the battery had died on the camcorder.) And yes, we gave her a slice, yes it was chocolate, and yes we took pictures. By then she was really tired though, so she didn't even want to eat much cake. The best news of the party was when we found out that Andrew and Sharon are expecting a baby in October. Welcome to the club! -- MOTOR DEVELOPMENT UPDATE Heather had pretty much plateaued there for a while. She mastered crawling and cruising months ago, and showed very few signs of being interested in the next obvious step: walking. Oh, sure, every once in a while she'd let go of the furniture or grownup's legs she was holding onto and balance precariously for a few seconds, laughing, then plop down on her butt. And occasionally she'd get up on her hands and feet to crawl around, like a little monkey. But you can't really call that walking, now can you? Then all of a sudden, Monday afternoon we come home from day care, I put her down, expecting her to grab the sofa, and she just stands there! Completely stable, no wobble, no reaching out to grab something, no plopping down to sit. Then John, who was standing a few feet in front of her, reached out towards her. She looked at him, looked at her feet, laughed, and tried to take one tiny step. THEN she plopped down on her butt! She was grinning like a maniac the whole time, though: you can tell she's finally zoomed in on this walking concept, and she's definitely interested. So we officially declare her to have taken her first step on Monday, May 1. I'm sure it'll be a while before she's really walking, but this is really cool. -- JET SETTING BABY This has been a busy (stressful, exhausting, difficult, long) month. At the end of March, we went down to Monterey for the weekend. This was our first real road trip with Heather, and she handled it like a champ. On Saturday, we drove down, got there in the late afternoon, and took a lo-o-ong walk (with Heather in the backpack), from our hotel in Old Monterey, down to Fisherman's Wharf, then along the water to Cannery Row, and all the way down to Pacific Grove. We were headed for a restaurant that was recommended in a guidebook, but it turned out they had closed down! We wandered around, rather bummed and completely exhausted, and finally stumbled across Pasta Mia, which won several awards for Best Italian in Monterey County. It was really good! Heather was cute and charming for a while, then John took her out for a walk and she fell asleep, so she snoozed in the corner while we finished our meal. On Sunday, we went to the aquarium. Heather absolutely loved the fish! She'd push her nose right up against the tank, try to touch the fish through the glass, and generally laugh at the whole concept. She even touched the sea cucumbers and aquariums in the "petting tank." She was so cooperative, she even fell asleep in the stroller on the way to lunch and let us have ANOTHER meal in peace! After the aquarium, we went to the Dennis the Menace Playground. Heather gave it a big thumbs-down: too many slides, not enough swings. Then there was Heather's birthday party: see COMING OF AGE. After that, John and I were both completely wrapped up in work: he was preparing a presentation for his journal club, and I was getting ready for a demo and seminar I was supposed to give at Rome Lab on April 20. But then, on the 18th, we got a phone call from Korea, saying that John's mom, who was on vacation there, had had a stroke. So of course, we dropped everything, I cancelled my trip, and we flew to Korea to be with John's family. John flew over on the 19th, but I had to spend the day getting a passport for Heather (yes, you *can* get a passport in one day, if it's an emergency, but it's not much fun!) So I flew over on the 20th, alone, with Heather, 12 hours on a plane. What fun! It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, actually, though Heather wouldn't go to sleep at her usual bedtime, and at that point we still had 3 hours to go on the trip, so her mood quickly degenerated, and so did mine. Heather was the best medicine we could have provided for John's family. Although there was very little we could do for John's mother besides visiting her in the hospital, Heather gave everyone a welcome distraction, something positive to think about, and something to do. She really bonded with John's whole family, especially Eddie, who hadn't had a chance to spend much time with her before. When Eddie left, two days before we did, Heather climbed into his arms and cried when he left. She doesn't do that for *anyone* but us. After the first day and a half or so, which were really tough, Heather adjusted to the different time zone, unfamiliar environment, and new faces, and was an absolute angel. She went through a big developmental burst, communicating and understanding much more, and just generally acting more like a toddler. The trip back on Thursday (the 27th) was *really* rough, though: it was a night flight, and Heather WOULD NOT sleep. She had little catnaps all night, and screamed in between. I don't think we were very popular with the other passengers, and quite frankly, Heather wasn't very popular with us. We tried to keep reminding ourselves how tough this all was on her, and to be sympathetic, but it wasn't easy. Our flight got in rather late, so we drove straight to day care, dumped Heather there (she did just fine, by all reports), went home, and crashed. That night we all slept really well, and Heather was more or less adjusted by the following day, though we had trouble getting her to go to bed for the next four or five days. Rick and Pauline, our sainted friends, agreed to take care of Heather all day on Saturday. We dropped her off around lunchtime, had lunch together, went to a movie, had coffee, wandered around shopping for a while, and had dinner at Val 21. It was a really good day: we both needed the break, and the time alone together. Heather did fine with Rick and Pauline once they took her shopping. :-) Of course, she worships Daniel, and vice versa, so that helped. -- SNACKS AND SUCH Heather's favorite foods are now: cheese, strawberries, kiwis, yogurt (berry flavor only), and raisin bread. She discovered kiwis at Dana's first birthday party last weekend and wouldn't stop eating them. This is an obsessive-compulsive personality we're talking about here. She's gradually been cutting down on nursing over the last month or so. Before the Korea trip, she had pretty much dropped the late-night nursing and was sleeping straight through most nights. Korea really disrupted our schedule; we nursed at semi-random times, and I couldn't even tell you how many times a day we averaged. After we got back, it was hit or miss: sometimes she'd nurse twice in the evening, sometimes skip the morning feeding altogether. Last Saturday she didn't nurse at all the whole day, and I started to think that perhaps she was weaned. But then Sunday she nursed twice. Now she seems to have settled on the morning nursing only. I have a feeling she'd nurse in the evening at least some of the time if I offered, but I don't plan to offer any more unless she's fussy and nothing else works. She's gotten to be a great drinker with a straw. Penny and Terry's brilliant recommendation to buy a straw cup really worked. Yesterday, John bought her a smoothie at the Juice Club, and she was sucking up smoothie like there was no tomorrow, even though it's quite thick. (John said that her cheeks would actually pucker up from the vacuum every time she sucked.) She's also getting pretty good with a spoon, thought we only let her use one under controlled conditions (i.e., mostly with relatively thick substances (cottage cheese, not baby cereal) and primarily with white or beige foods (no peas))! The Mess of the Month was mashed potatoes (which she "ate" with a spoon) and strawberries (which she shoved into her mouth as fast as she could pick them up). She ended up with potatoes in her hair, on her cheeks, on the floor, on the chair, and in her eyebrows; and strawberry stains on her hands, arms, mouth, clothes, and chair. She went directly from that chair to the bathtub, at arm's length. -- HEALTH NEWS Heather got a mild case of conjunctivitis in March. We gave her some drops for a day or two, she hated them, it seemed to get better, and we stopped. A couple of weeks later, it flared up again. This time, we went in to the doctor and got a prescription for eye ointment, which was orders of magnitude easier to administer, but still no picnic (have I ever mentioned how *stubborn* my child is?) That made it much better, though she was still pretty goopy at her birthday party, as you can tell if you see the pictures or videotape. At her well-baby checkup on the 7th, she still had a bit of gunk in the corner of her eye. The doctor checked her eyes carefully, then looked in both ears and told us, surprise! she has an ear infection in her right ear. That explains why her eye wasn't clearing up. We put her on oral antibiotics, and everything cleared up within a week. She weighed in at 20 lbs. 6 oz, and was 29.5 inches tall. That's 40th and 60th %ile, respectively, and her head circumference is 50th %ile. Just what we expected. Healthy, happy, and hard to manage: that's our Heather! -- ALL THE POOP THAT'S S*IT TO PRINT [Warning: not for the squeamish] Since our Contributing Editor of Poop is too busy with graduate school to actually write a column, we decided to interview him one morning as he changed Heather's a.m. poop. "Oh, my God!... I'm speechless. It's like -- you know what it's like? It's like fused volcanic rock, full of bumps and nodules and colors. A wondrous bouquet of colors, textures, and smells. Odoriferous to the max!" Also, this month we have a useful tip for the uninitiated: some things don't actually get digested, or processed in any way. No, that's not little deflated balloons in your baby's poop, just the leftover grape skins from yesterday's snack. [Will you squeamish people QUIT reading the part that's clearly marked "not for the squeamish" and QUIT complaining? Jeez.] -- BABY TALK Heather continues to babble up a storm, and is gradually introducing new words into her vocabulary (and losing old ones: whatever happened to "gakka" and "dwee," you may ask? Answer: I have no idea). She says "yum yum," when you give her something tasty to eat. I'm almost ready to say that she knows who her "dada" is and can point to him when you ask her "where's dada?" (No "mama," I'm afraid.) And of course that all-time favorite "bappa" (also known as "babboo," "baba," and, to the grownup world, "pacifier"). The other day after I picked her up at day care, when I put her in her car seat, she started crying furiously, and didn't stop until I said "do you want your baba?" Then she stopped, started saying "baba!" over and over, and reaching towards me. This kid knows what she likes. She makes lots of recognizable gestures: mostly pointing to things she's interested in or wants to have (and sometimes saying "buttsdat?" or "buttsdis?" If she wants it, she'll often say "yat!") She also spontaneously plays peekaboo, putting her hands over her face, flinging them out, and looking up to see if you're going to play with her. She dances to music, especially if she sees somebody else dancing. Best of all is that in Korea, she started climbing onto my lap, leaning her face up to me, and giving me a kiss. At first, this was reserved ONLY for me, but now John's gotten a few kisses too. You can't get her to do this; she only does it spontaneously, when she's in the mood. It's about the best thing in the world. We've taught her some cute party tricks: "where's the tree?" "where's the sky?" "where's your nose?" and "where's mommy's nose?" all elicit an appropriate pointing gesture with maybe 60 or 70% accuracy. If you ask her "How does the wind go?" she blows. She understands lots of other things, too, though she doesn't always follow the instructions you give her! The other day, I said "put your baba in the cup" and she did! Concurrent with this new ability to communicate is an ability to get really good and MAD. She has this habit of throwing things when she's really angry: the other day, I was letting her "feed" herself with a spoon from a jar of squash. I also had a spoon, and was actually feeding her with that. At one point, I moved the jar away from her so I could get a spoonful, and she yelled at me. I gave it back, but it was too late: she started waving her arms, making angry sounds, and then THREW the spoon on the ground. It was so funny, I had to stifle a laugh. -- FUN 'N' GAMES As always, she loves to read books. She now will actively climb up on our laps, dragging a book along with her -- that independent spirit is part of the developmental spurt that happened in Korea. She'll sit there, let you read for a while, then get bored and want to read something else. So you go through the pile of books, holding up each one in turn. Often you pick the wrong one, and she'll emphatically shake her head "no" and push that book away. Finally you get the right one; she looks at it, says "yah," (or maybe "yat") and settles back to be read to. If you don't open the book right away and start reading, she leans back harder and harder against you ("don't you KNOW that LEANING means READING? Get with the program already!") Her favorite books remain Dr. Seuss's ABC and Animal Time. She also loves Elmer's Weather (all about a patchwork elephant and meteorology). Two new activities she learned how to do last month, both first demonstrated on April 1: we went out for dinner, to a place that gave Heather crayons and a placemat to draw on. As usual, we picked up the crayons, demonstrated drawing, and gave her the crayon, fully expecting her to eat it, as usual. But she held it very delicately, put the tip of the crayon on the placemat, and started pushing it around the page! She only made the very faintest mark, but she was so intent on what she was doing, and so pleased! The second new activity was less socially acceptable. When we got to the car after dinner, and went to put her in her car seat, we realized she was holding a spoon from the restaurant. Yes, that's right, Heather committed her first act of larceny, the day before she turned one. -- FASHION As always, Heather continues to be a fashion plate. She's now graduating into 18-month sizes, AND the weather is getting nicer, so this opens up a whole new world of dressing opportunities! Of course, the big fashion news this month is the multiple clothing changes on her birthday (see COMING OF AGE). She also got some really cute outfits for her birthday from the Parks and from Grandma Mary. My personal favorite is the little pink denim Baby B'Gosh dress from Grandma, but it's hard to choose. (And we haven't yet received Aunt Susan's presents, which will no doubt be stunning and daring.) John's aunt took us on a whirlwind shopping trip the day before we left Korea. This time, even Mom got some clothes (a long lavender jacket, a blue patterned oriental-style blouse, and a long dark blue skirt, all made out of soft, suedy silk). Heather got a new dress, a play outfit, and a sweater-and-shorts set. Plus frilly socks. We almost had to physically restrain his aunt from buying anything else. -- STAY TUNED for another year of Pebbles excitement!