Bobble Head Lena

Lena had her 18 month physical last Friday (at 19 1/2 months). I have to say, Friday was not a happy day for any of us. It began with waiting for about 2 hours for the check-up. I realize that long waits are sometimes the price you pay for HMO medical care, but 2 hours is a VERY long time in toddler land. During our approximately hour1/2 long visit to the waiting room, Lena had her first official public tantrum - complete with screaming and throwing herself on the floor. I can't tell you how thrilled the rest of the waiting room patients were. There was a nice older woman and her granddaughter, a loud Latino family, and a boy with a horrible, contageous looking rash in there when we arrived. After the first 1/2 hour, not even rash-boy's mother would look me in the eye. We spent another 1/2 hour waiting in the check-up room. The first 15 minutes were great; the mirror was a big hit. But Lena soon grew tired of her own, adorable image and proceeded to throw the toys I brought for her at the very expensive looking medical equipment. Then finally, FINALLY a nurse came in to weigh and measure my little angel. Here are the results:

Head: 19 inches - 75-90%
Height: 31 inches - 25-50%
Weight: 21 lb, 7.5 oz. - 3%

If she keeps this up, she's going to grow up to look like Nancy Reagan. Big head, little body. She's like a giant bobble head. Jason insists her head size is due to her enormous brain. If he's right, this may not bode well for the future. Lately, Lena has become more aggressive. Other mommys have assured me that this is a good thing. "She's not aggressive" they say, "she's assertive." I'm hoping this logic works when she's older. "It's not a protection racket, Officer. She's just strong willed." I realize that most of her personality is already formed at birth, so there is really only a small part that we, as her parents, have any influence over. Right now Lena will either grow up to be a brilliant scientist, saving millions of lives when she discovers a cure for cancer, or she will rule all of metropolis. I only hope that we've taught her well enough to offer full medical benefits to her henchmen.

Weddings and Waves

This weekend Jason, Lena, and I had the honor of attending our good friend Jill's wedding in Laguna. The ceremony was small and held on the balcony of her parent's BEAUTIFUL home on the hills overlooking the ocean. As you can see, Jill was resplendent and her new husband, Noah, didn't look so bad himself. Pretty much everything, from the food to the company was divine. Lena had a great time running back and forth on the balcony, trying to figure out how to scale the glass enclosure. She was, thankfully, thwarted in this effort by the home's solid design and two watchful parents. The black shirt I wrote about before worked perfectly. She looked a little more dressed up because of the velvet, and was definitely warm enough since most of the time we were inside. She spent a lot of time climbing on the very convenient leather ottomans, chasing Gail's (Jill's sister) dog, Sparky, and generally flirting with everyone who looked her way. A good time was had by all.

Until we got back to the hotel room. Our theory was that she would be so tired from all the fun she had at the wedding she would instantly fall asleep in the car, thereby making it easy on her equally tired parents. No such luck. When we got back to the Holiday Inn she looked at us like, "that was fun, what's next?" and proceeded to keep herself awake by screaming until, oh, about 1am. I won't bore you with more details, suffice it to say we were tired beach goers the next day.

But we did go to the beach. Lena got her first taste ( I think literally) of the Pacific ocean. She loved it. The sand was great for digging, the water was great for splashing, and the seagulls were fun to yell at. I took camera video of her and her dad splashing in the waves. Unfortunately, (or fortunately if you're Jason and find it all extremely amusing) the video ends abruptly with an "AAARRGH, SHIT!" from me getting hit by a small wave. I'm sure this video clip will be played many, many times in the next few years....sigh...

The day was a bit chilly (hence the long sleeves and jeans) but very clear. We let her dig in the sand for a while, then walked (or strollered) around for a bit. We ate at a French/Cajun restaurant with a view of the beach where Lena had another first: calamari. She loved it. She ate about 6 pieces, plus the lemon wedge. We left for home at about 2pm. She slept in the car all the way home AND for another 3 hours when we got there. All in all a good weekend.

what's with all the pink?

Okay, I understand that MOST people dress their girl children in soft, pastel colors, especially in spring. However, there have to be SOME people who prefer the odd black, or at the very least earth tone, article of children's clothing. Yes, yes, I know there are plenty of places on-line where one could purchase less cutsie and sometimes even downright snarky clothing( here or here for example), but have you seen the prices? Sheesh! And really, all I want is a plain black t-shirt to go under her VERY cute (but not too cutsie) hot pink and black kitty cat dress. We're going to a wedding in Laguna this weekend and it's likely to rain. I want her to be both warm and well-dresssed. I did finally find one today at the Osh Kosh B'gosh outlet at Ontario Mills. It's black velvet and a left over from Christmas. Not perfect, but do-able. But for the love of Pete, MUST everything else be pink and/or yellow?!

The Great Escape

There is a story told in Jason's family that is helpful to understanding the personalities of Jason and his brothers. It is the story of how each one first escaped from his crib. Jason, being the smartypants that he is, figured out the latch and let himself out; Jared, being the adventurer that he is, climbed over the top; and Peter, being the smartest one of all, yelled until someone came and got him. Lena proved to us, without a doubt, this morning that she is indeed Uncle Jared's neice.

Now, I have to point out, there really is no Jason option on her crib (we did this on purpose). Her crib is one single unit, no latch. And while she does yell at us every so often, she will give up after a while. This leaves only the Jared option. We knew it would hapen eventually since all the climbing, and jumping, and running about pointed in that direction. So, this morning, at around 8:30, we heard the inevitable thud of Lena hitting the floor and rolling. I am guessing about the rolling since we found her in the middle of the floor. ( if not we're in trouble.) It took a few seconds before the crying started, and Jason and I nearly collided trying to get to her room, but she's okay, Not even a bruise, although she did scare herself pretty good. So, while I know it's pointless, I'm hoping she won't try it again anytime soon. But knowing Jared as I do, I'm not counting on it.

Rainy Day Lena

It's been raining here for the past couple days, which means we were once again house bound. Since Lena was feeling better, she actually enjoyed the rain. We haven't really had a lot of it, and when we did she must not have been paying much attention because this time she thought it was pretty cool. On Monday and Tuesday, she spent much of her time looking out the window, playing with dad's laptop, or pulling all the books from the shelves at Mrs. Nelson's toy and book shop (no picture, she was too quick for me). Finally, today, I took her to the mall to play on the rubberized climbing toys at the Metro Nissan Play area. Since we've been going to the park on Wednesdays, we hadn't been to the mall for a long time, but the sogginess of the park (it's not actively raining, but it's still wet) forced the play group to find a drier venue. The last time we played at the mall, she was still a little wobbly, and had a hard time with the stairs, but today was different. She spent most of her time pretending to drive the big yellow Xterra (or trying to push whoever else was pretending to drive out of the way). But she also liked the rubberized log slide and the rubberized rocks. She played equally with kids she knew, like Aidan and Seth, and kids she didn't know. She sat on every mommy's lap (whether their kids liked it or not) and screamed loud enough for all to know she was there and ready to be adored. Now, regardless of what Aidan's mom Melissa says, she did not get this from me. I have no idea where we got such an extrovert. But here she is in all her loud and pushy (literally in Aidan's case) glory. I could'n tbe prouder.

Lena's first real words

So Lena's been saying "words" for awhile now. Even words that mean something, like egg and hi. However, most of the time these words were used at inappropriate times. For example, pointing at the very LOUD birds in the tree in front of our house and yelling "EGGGGG!!!" as loudly as possible (I assumed she was competing with the chirping in her own special Lena way) does not count, we decided, as her first words.

So I am happy to announce, Lena has made her first attempts at real communication. Oh no, not to me of course, but to her dad. I was bathing her Wednesday morning (in the morning instead of evening because she poured juice on her head and her hair was standing up like Cameron Diaz's in Something about Mary and that is just not park appropriate. Anyway....) when Jason yells goodbye to her from the hall. He says goodbye to her every morning and sometimes she waves or smiles at him, but on this morning, she lifted her head up from her bath and yelled "bye dad!" at him, then went back to playing. We were both surprised and happy. She has not done it again, but at least she's finally starting!