Adventures of the Hakkawegians: June 2012

Sunday, June 24, 2012

the monthly list-up (14mo)

New this month:

Walking. Lots. Stumbling lots too. Falling down on bum lots as well. Pretty exciting :)

[She discovers one of her ducks is in the corner and hones in on it...

you can hear her say 'wa wa'..quack quack]

Saying and signing 'duck' (wa)
Saying and signing 'book' (bu' and hands clasped...sometimes opening-closing from the 'top of the hand-book', not the side :P)
Saying dog (bf...= woof) for all small animals
Signing bath - she now gets a bath every day (rather than every 3 days or so before she could sign it)
Signing 'lay down here' (patting the pillow, cushion or whatnot)

Signing for me to sing 'itsy bitsy spider' (she started signing for it after I sang it once...took me a couple times to catch on though)
Gives kisses and can request to give a kiss or get a kiss (point to the spot on face we want to kiss - ours or hers)
Thinks it's hillarious to kiss my nose when I ask her for a kiss there
The kiss is of course the open-mouthed peck
Laying down on cushions on the floor to 'rest' (2-10 seconds), or even resting her head on the couch with her arm hanging down limp, etc.
Started not wanting to eat stuff we offer her unless it is plain white rice or plain spaghetti-stuff - but if she is allowed to get down on the floor and wander around and stop by us for a bite, she is willing to eat pretty much anything still
Will not use the potty for potty-business - but still enjoys to sit on the potty and play with her toys (in ECing this is called a 'potty break'...the not going on the potty I mean, not the chillaxin on the potty doing non-potty business)
No longer drinks formula during the day while I'm at work (just eats food)
If I am not there when she wakes up at night she just goes back to sleep (or...Judge doesn't wake up at least, so we don't know if she takes a while or not :P)
Sometimes I go sleep in the other room from around 2 or 4am until just before 6 when I get up for work, as she still wakes up and gets restless for a while around that time and I'm exhausted and need ma sleep
Summer solstice was the first time she didn't nurse in the morning before I went to work - because when I came in from the other room before 6am for her 'last nurse' of the night, she didn't wake up from the door opening, me picking up the baby wipes, or me crawling onto the bed, so I just crawled off again and let her sleep on (this is seriously unheard of - she's a super light sleeper) --- and she was totally fine with not having that nurse. If I'm there she of course does request to nurse all the time though, so it is not 'morning weaning', by far.
She now orchestrates nursing from specifically which side, and switches back and forth, or refuses to nurse from one side, just the other, or vice versa.

Still:

...needs to nurse whenever she wakes up at night and I am there - which is at least 3 times a night
...only got two teeth
...at around the 15th percentile (73.5cm and 8.4kg at 13 months 3 weeks)
...amazingly, increadibly, wonderfully, deliciously Leona!

When Leona was little (more little than now), I tried reading 'full and real' stories to her a few times, and a few of those few times she seemed interested in sitting through an entire short storybook. Most times though, once she got the hang of it, she was interested in turning the pages herself, and fast, so the story would often go like this:

There was an egg under a leaf, and pop out came a catapillar that was so hungery. [in rapid fire:] He ate an apple, three plums, four strawberres, three plums, two pears, five oranges, and tons of stuff and got a tummy ache, and ate tons of stuff, and he became a beautiful butterfly!, and ate a juicy green leaf, and became big and fat and built a cocoon, the end. A beautiful butterfly!

and so on until she was done. ... or until I just stopped narrating and let her enjoy her page-flipping (though she does seem to quite enjoy "A beautiful butterfly!").

In her toy 'corner' in the livingroom her thick-cardboard-page books have been a part of the pile since we got here, and she has flipped through them sometimes on her own, or we do the short stories like above, but we haven't particularly focused on them - just following her lead.

Around two or three weeks ago I did the sign for book a few times when I approached her when she was reading "You're reading your book [+sign]". Last week she said bu' and put her hands together, and since that instant, she's been ALL about her books. Still no long stories in this house, of course. I mean, it is Leona we are talking about. She can sit still for all of 15 seconds (but then she can also be absorbed in reading pamphlets, working on something with some toys, or standing by the window looking at the world outside, all for minutes and minutes on end). Not that she can't play on her own a lot, but it is more like a waltz around the room.

She will also now bring her book over to us, lay down using us as a pillow or beside us (on the floor), and if we're not laying down already she will first pat the cushens ("lay down here") and then lay down, and open the book, and then 3 or 7 seconds later get up again, and then lay down again, etc., etc.

my second midnight sun run

June 2nd, the first night the sun didn't dip completely down behind the mountain from our view, I took a run of photos every 30 minutes from 9:20pm until 1:50am (with an extra one at midnight for good measure), and put together the following 'sun-run' (pictures only cropped, not edited):

The plan was to do another one at the hight of summer - June 21. But, as luck would have it, it was not only cloudy and rainy on the 21nd, but it was also a Thursday, meaning I had work on Friday, so for all intents and purposes it was a no-go.

Today, however, on midsummer night's eve, the skies are not only clear, but it's also Saturday, and thus I did another almost identical run - minus the 9:20 and midnight shots (again, only cropped):

To be honest I thought there would be more of a difference in hight of the sun at her lowest. Hrm.

...I think I may play a bit with the contrast, but for now, off to bed!

.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

a family affair

Putting to a cheap-ass short grill is not as easy as it looks, apparently.

Well worth the effort.

a picnic at the lake

I've been wanting to share my walk to work with Judge and Leona for a while now, and finally this past weekend the weather was nice - not warm not 100% sunny, but nice. So Judge 'whipped' together some Taiwanese style cold noodles (since the food would get cold anyhow, mayzle ensure it's supposed to be cold).