Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Greetings on Thanksgiving

Okay...maybe it is a day early, but I doubt I will manage to find time to get on the computer tomorrow. Zoë will have a full day of lots of people and lots of food. This ought to be an interesting day tomorrow.

Currently, our ever growing giant baby is running amuck and terrorizing the cats. With a washcloth on her head. She actually woke up in a good mood today, the past two days she has tried my patience in ways previously unimaginable. For example, she has reached that point in her life she hates diapers. So, she takes them off. Monday, I put her down for a nap. And upon hearing her talk to herself 30 minutes later, I decided to check on her. What I found was a very clean diaper in the middle of the floor and a VERY messy room and Zoë. She had finger painted....and not with paints. Needless to say, because of that incident, we are pushing full force on the whole potty training aspect of her toddlerhood.

She is still trying to figure that part out though. I have heard that pulls up training pants tends to actually delay potty training by a significant amount so we have opted to go to panties and water proof pants. She LOVES her panties, especially her Ming Ming panties. And she is horrified when she has an accident. But she refuses to try and use the potty. When we try to show her how, she screams bloody murder because we are taking her panties away. And when we have to change them, oh my word, the kid goes absolutely insane with rage on us. The panties are a big deal to her. Just need to find a way to explain it where she understands I guess. Work in progress. No one ever said it would be easy.

She is pretty big for her age. Very tall and very skinny. She has passed 24 month old clothes because of how tall she is and is now in 2T. The problem is, she is too skinny so all her clothes tend to fall around her ankles unless it has an elastic strap. So, sweatsuits it is!

Her foot finally grew again as well, so I bought her some boots recently but apparently they are not to her liking because she hates to wear them. Too bad, they are absolutely adorable and they are retail $40 but I only paid $10. Yesterday, at Wal-Mart, I went to pick her up another pair of shoes since her size 6 are getting way too snug and she demanded, literally, to get the EXACT same pair she currently owns. She would have nothing to do with a different design. I guess she likes the pair she currently has a whole heck of a lot. Now if we can just remember to grab the right size!

I've thrown some new photos up on Flickr. All you need to do is click on the link on the right to view them. I hope to have some up soon. Where as we used to take 3000 pictures in one day, we've gotten to where we forget about the camera rather often. Not on purpose, I assure you. I hope to have pictures out in the mail the first of next month to the grandparents that don't get to see her often enough. Recent ones.

But for now, I need to get off here. It is way too quiet in the living room....

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Whew, a Big One

Howdy folks,

I suppose a proper update is in order, as we generally only cover the vague specifics of Zoë and her life. For those who don't see or interact with her on a regular basis, it's only fair that you get a better idea of who she is nowadays.

Heck, I just realized as I leaned back from the computer after that first paragraph that today marks 18 months of Zoë in our life. (Well, at least externally.) Time flies when you're having fun.

I could go into the trite things that most parents say, like "Oh, she just loves life" and "She's such a happy child", but let's be honest, aren't most kids at this age? When you've only got 18 months under your belt everything is still exciting and new, so of course you'll have an overall rosy outlook. (Assuming, of course, that your parents give you a decent amount of positive attention.)

Personality wise, the best word we could use to describe Zub-Zub (as dad affectionately calls her) would be "ham". She loves getting attention from people. ANYBODY, she doesn't care. She is constantly grinning and genuinely interested in interacting with others. (I assure you, she didn't get that from me...)

It's pretty much impossible for us to take her out without some stranger pining over her for a moment. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard somebody comment on how she's just the cutest baby ever... Humorously enough, on more than one occasion this has been said by another parent IN FRONT OF THEIR CHILD, which somehow just seems wrong. Granted, there's probably a bias on my part, seeing as how it's our kid, but I genuinely believe that she's cuter than average.

Mentally she has consistently tested above her age range which is especially interesting as she was supposed to be a month behind on every milestone. (Owing to the fact that she was a month premature.) However, across the board she has excelled in all categories, particularly with reasoning and language skills. We've lost count of actual words that she knows at this point, though I'd wager it's 40-50. She's started forming basic sentences and can now give us a general idea of what she wants or needs.

Potty training officially began a week or two ago, but we're far from complete. She has a little Elmo potty that she's encouraged to sit on and she frequently joins us for our bathroom sojourns. She hasn't actually utilized it for its intended purpose yet, but you've got to start small.

Her imagination has kicked in full force at this point and she loves to pretend. One of her favorite activities is to pretend to feed us bits of food. Unfortunately, with the emergence of imagination also comes its side effect...nightmares. Most nights she does fine but occasionally will have evenings where she's plagued by bad dreams. She's generally good at calming herself down and going back to sleep, but on occasion we have to bring her into bed with us.

She is enthralled by our two cats and tries her best to get close to them and pet them. Of course the cats are a bit wary of this, as she's not the most delicate at handling them, but they usually take it in good enough humor. We have warned her many times that "kitties are pointy", a lesson she's had to learn the hard way a couple of times, but still she persists. Her love of cats is demonstrated by her apparent want to be one. She loves to crawl around and meow at us. Give her a small sized snack and she will invariably put it on the floor and eat it like a kitty. I've caught her trying to drink from their dish on many an occasion and almost nightly we have to put the cats' food and water up until her bedtime.

Another favorite game (that she only plays with me, for whatever reason) is to find an object: a small bottle, one of her shoes, etc., put it in her mouth and then have me take it from her with my mouth. We'll pass it back and forth and she'll laugh and clap. I guess dad with a shoe in his mouth is humorous. Got me.

She's recently become quite keen on dolls. She particularly likes baby dolls. She has one she got relatively recently that she totes with her everywhere she goes and snuggles up with at night.

Zoë has fully transitioned into a toddler bed at this point, replete with appropriate bedding and pillows. This definitely set off a sense of pride in her and she has begun to fully identify her bedroom as "her territory". This is a good thing, parentally speaking, as it means that she's more willing to stay in her room and babble and play a bit after getting up before summoning us from slumber. We take what we can get. ;)

Books are a major obsession for her. She has several strewn about the house at any given moment and she's read to (almost) every night before bed. Her particular favorite at this point is "A Circus of Colors", which Jen has read so many times she has it completely memorized. It's not uncommon for her to beg us to read it 4 or 5 times before she'll go down at night. In fact, Monday night when bedtime rolled around, that particular book had gone missing. Zoë went BALLISTIC because she wanted THAT book and NO OTHER. A frazzled Jen tracked me down to see if I knew where it had gone. Luckily I had spotted it earlier that evening and the crisis was resolved. When she gets a bit older I intend to start reading her the Harry Potter books, but we're still a ways off from that point.

She certainly has no concept of money at this stage of her life, but she has a definite idea what to do with it. SAVE IT! She has a piggy bank in her room and any chance she gets she will add money to it. Our friend Brian has had his loose change stolen on many an occasion only to hear Zoë dropping it in her bank and clapping each time. Can't say I'm too upset that she loves to put her money away.

We took her to her second Zombie Walk in Atlanta last weekend. The weather was rainy, cold, and miserable, but still a good time was had by all. She's obviously still too young for us to really put much makeup on her, but we did slash up an outfit, sling blood all over it and put a wee bit of blood on her face. Before you go thinking we're terrifying this little girl, it's worth mentioning that she LOVED her little outfit and kept insisting on wearing it around the house. Interestingly enough, we ran into several zombies who remembered her from the previous year. And she even made it into the promotional video that the group that organizes the walk created.

Halloween is coming up and we're letting her be a bit more traditional for that one. She has decided on a Minnie Mouse costume this year. (At a frighteningly high amount of money. I'll tell you, parents get screwed by costume companies. They know they have you by the short hairs.) No blood, no bones, no exposed viscera, just plain old Minnie.

Her desire for that costume was brought on by her love of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, a CGI cartoon geared towards toddlers that teaches basic numbers and colors in an entertaining (yeah, right) manner. It's bright and colorful and she seems to enjoy it. Luckily for us she has recently become obsessed with the show Wonder Pets, which believe it or not is pretty awesome, even for adults. It follows the life of three friends, a guinea pig named Linny, a turtle named Tuck, and a duckling named Ming Ming who rush around the world saving baby animals in trouble. It's actually quite cute and very entertaining. It's more like a mini operetta, as most dialog is sung and every episode is performed by a full orchestra. Zoë asks for "Ming Ming" every night now.

She doesn't get a whole lot of TV time, though. We generally only allow her 1 (very rarely 2) episode(s) of a show a night. We're a little more lax on the weekends, but we don't like to use the TV as a babysitter, and we're not heavy watchers ourselves, anyways. In fact, we don't even have cable, so she's stuck with whatever we have available.

We signed up for Netflix last weekend, primarily so we can stream childrens' DVDs through our PS3. They have a huge selection and it's giving us a chance to explore some new shows for her.

Zok (as she is also known by dad) is amazingly well behaved in public overall. She's usually very quiet and doesn't cause a scene very often. Part of this is due, I'm sure, to the fact that we have a zero tolerance policy for bad behavior in public. We will whisk her out of any store or restaurant the moment she acts up.

That's not to say that she's all wine and roses. She certainly has her tantrums at home, though they're not excessive. (Unless she's just having a very bad day.) The biggest problem we have with her overall is that she's an only child and she knows it. That means she's not very good about sharing with other children. That's something we certainly intend to remedy, but figuring out how to go about it is the tricky part.

She has many of the standard girly interests. She loves clothes, she loves shoes, she loves getting her nails painted. But there are definitely splashes of my personality hidden in there. (See above with her complete lack of terror at a group of more than 1,000 blood soaked monsters storming Atlanta.)

Okay, whew. I guess I went off a bit on this one. Well, I hope it helps give a better understanding of Zoë's world. She's certainly not in need of any love or attention, she gets that in spades. I'll try and get some new pictures up in the next day or so.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Zoë's Latest Update - Director's Cut - Contains at least 37% new footage

Howdy folks. Long time no see.

Life continues at its regular hectic pace and Zoë continues to grow, both physically and mentally. She's moving into 18 months and is just shy of 3 feet tall now. Her vocabulary seems to increase almost daily and she is definitely starting to pick up on new modes of thought.

An example: She has figured out when Dad is messing with her. She has a toy that involves five little doors that pop open when switches or buttons are activated. These doors contain little plastic animals. By holding down the button on the lion I can prevent her from properly closing the door. It just won't latch. She figured out that I was doing something pretty quickly, as it was only that door that won't stay shut, and only when she tries to shut it. Every time I shut it, it stays shut. I got some wonderful looks from her over that one. Looks, I might add, that came straight from my playbook. Zoë pretty much has Jen's overall look, though her facial expressions are all mine.

Summer has been quite hot down here, but in the last week or two the temperatures have mellowed so we've started taking Zoë to a local park to play. She LOVES the swings. Put her in a swing and push her as high as you can, but you'd better not stop. She gets immediately cranky when the swing stops a swingin'. Of course she has managed to try a few new things at the park including a spinny seat thing, which prompted her discovery of the concept of dizziness. I can't help but feel a little mean for sending that girl's head spinning, but hey, you've got to learn it sometime. Best to do it with adults around, I suppose.



We took Zoë to visit her great grandma over Labor Day weekend. Grandpa Whitner was there as well and we spent a nice weekend playing at the pool and spending time with family.

Zoë proved to have a bit of a death wish at the pool. We've taken her swimming many times in the past. She loves the water and usually hops right into her floaty and enjoys the surf. Unfortunately, we forgot her floaty back home and she had to content herself with being dragged around the pool by the two of us.

At some point I was in the water at the midpoint between the shallow and deep end, and Jen was on the edge of the pool following Zoë around. Zoë typically likes to walk around the pool and check out everything. However, this time she decided to just throw herself in, mindless of the fact that she doesn't know how to swim. I heard her hit the water and immediately dived. I managed to catch her about 4 feet down and brought her back up. She found this hilarious and just laughed and laughed at her brush with mortality. Soon she was attempting to throw herself in any chance she got. We ended up having to suspend all pool activities for the remainder of the visit. (Even after running out to buy some new flotation devices.)

She also has a new habit that she's picked up on her own. She likes to pretend she's a cat. She will frequently throw herself face first into her food and crawl around making meow noises. This lead to her acting the part in front of grandma. Note how she's not satisfied where Jen puts the raisins and will move them before eating. I promise, we did NOT teach her this...



We've decided that we're going to get her into swimming lessons next summer. We'd also like to enroll her in some sort of music program in the future, as she has a strong love for it. This is evidenced by her nightly dancing and hooting to the songs of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. A show, I might add, that we can sing all the songs to and pretty much know all the plots for.

As always, click the pics for a closer look.








Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Update--long over due

Seems we have been just monstrous at keeping up with Zoë's site. Not by intention, I assure you. Things are just hectic; Zoë runs all over the place now yammering all the time, begging for help to get on the couch then climbing off in three seconds. She's up to over 20 words now, learning a new one quite frequently. When she learns a new word, she forgets about 19 for a few weeks,but hey, it is progress :)

We have 4 new teeth as of today...I think they are molars. She tried to show them off to me, then proceeded to try and bite me.


We've implemented the naughty stool, and use it. Needless to say, while not perfect, she understands what that stool means and she knows she doesn't want us to resort to it. She is terrified to get off of it when in trouble. That is amusing...I mean, all we would do if she got off is put her back on it. :)

She'll be 15 months the end of this month. We are close to starting her on being potty trained. She'll clutch at herself moments before she goes so she understands something is happening. That ought to be fun. We have also been discussing moving her to a toddler bed soon. She has expressed interest in a big girl bed, so I don't think that we'd have issues, but who knows.

At the end of this month, we may run into a problem...I have to have surgery and that means I can't hold her. So, things may be rocky.

She doesn't like change....as you will see. This was an amusing night. :)We steam cleaned the carpet and well, she flipped. :)

Any ways, I call adieu for tonight. Days are long, evenings short, nights brief.




As always, click the pics for a larger view...


Sunday, April 18, 2010

Zoë is Walking!

Two days after her birthday, Zoë officially started zipping around as a true bipedal. Of course this just means that she can get into more trouble and even quicker than before. Here's a quick video demonstrating her new found skill.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Zoë's Kitchen

Howdy folks.

Sorry we've been so slack on updating the last couple of months. There have been deaths in the family, double pneumonia, massive allergy issues, the list just goes on and on.

Sadly, due to the overwhelming number of things going on at once, Zoë has not officially had her first birthday party, though we're looking to schedule it soon.

All that being said, we certainly didn't let her birthday go unnoticed. She got lots of new clothes and toys, including an awesome little kitchen playset from my mother.

It's kind of like a Transformer for little girls. It's both a kitchen a table. Zoë absolutely loves it and runs to it as soon as she gets home. (In fact, the day she first got it she caught sight of it from the front door and started squealing and clapping with joy.)

Of course having a little table means that we've started teaching her how to properly sit and eat her meals. She's doing quite well with it, though she still hasn't quite worked out the intricacies of spoon usage yet.

Zoë took her first steps just two days after her birthday. She's not walking full time yet, but the majority of her time now is spent traipsing back and forth across the apartment.

Hopefully we'll get back on schedule with updating. Until next time, here are some new photos of her.

As always, click on the picture to see a larger copy.







Thursday, April 1, 2010

Long Time, No See

Howdy folks.

Yeah, yeah, I know there's been a bit of a gap since the last update. Life has been its typical crazy and hectic self.

As Zoë's first birthday rolled around we found ourselves in a home of sickness. Zoë has an ear infection and a respiratory infection. Mom has double pneumonia. Dad has severe allergy issues and an ear infection.

Unfortunately, due to all of this we have had to delay Zoë's official birthday celebration for another week or two.

But, Monday, 3/29 was Zoë's birthday. And on 3/31 she walked for the first time.

We will have video of her walking coming up very shortly. (The camera was out of juice last night.)

Zoë is also babbling like mad right now and has figured out a few words. Her favorites are kitty, dog, uh-oh, mama, dada, yeah, no, and thank you.

In the meantime, here are some shots we had taken for her first birthday.

As always, click the picture for a larger view.