Hungry Jack

"Gobble it down and the plate comes back for a Hungry Jack..." Dan always sings that song to Stella when she's eating a bunch. I guess she might have been hungry since she slept almost 12 hours straight last night for the first time in a few weeks. That, plus an earlier bedtime, helped.

I Belong at the Zoo...

...The San Diego Zoo I think that's how the jingle went on the commercials aired when I was little. Anyway, we went to the zoo with Grandpa Tom on Wednesday. It was a lot of fun. Our first stop was the petting zoo, my personal favorite. It was after lunch so most of the animals were in their "do not touch" zone which is an area that the keepers chain off. The animals can duck under the chain if they want to get away from the riff raff. And, the big pig wasn't out, which was a disappointment. Well, he's not that big but Stella would have loved to have pet him. Maybe next time. I decided in advance that I wasn't going to be germaphobic and that I would let her pet the animals. I've read a lot about how you should never let your kid into petting zoos. But you read a lot about what you should and shouldn't do lately and a lot of it is contradictory. I know I went in them as a kid and it would be cruel to let Stella in there and not be able to pet. I had baby antibacterial wipes with me anyway as they are a must in Hong Kong. Plus, she likes to lick floors and that's got to be right up there with animal dung if you think about it.

It was interesting that there were 2 goats she really liked. Her head would whip around to follow whatever they were doing. The one in the middle photo was her favorite, definitely. She seemed to like any animal she could see, and wasn't that interested in the ones behind the glass probably due to the distortion. Thank goodness the panda was also a very big hit.

She is having some sleeping difficulty lately. I think she's overtired because her naps have shortened too much during the day. She never sleeps well when she's overtired. I also dug into my books again to see if there was any other explanation. They suggest that perhaps she's not getting enough to eat! So we added an afternoon snack in today that she wasn't too interested in. She ate a little bit. I also shoved as much food down her as I could today, even hand feeding her apples I had baked the night before. She probably ate 2 whole apples today in addition to what she normally eats. It's 9:15pm as I type this and she's been asleep for 90 minutes without waking. That's 30 minutes longer than the last few days so we'll see how it goes. I also put her to bed about 30 minutes earlier. Hard to believe 30 minutes makes a difference but it really does sometimes. She's just so active and I can tell her brain is spinning constantly. She wants to get up, crawl and do whatever it is that she wants to do.

Dear Norton Rose...

Enough said.............

Thanksgiving, Jasmine Chicken Luau and Other Topics of Interest

Our house is bigger and still very disorganized from the remodel, therefore, I'm finding myself with very little computer time. We had a fun Thanksgiving. Stella took a nap exactly when we were all eating dinner and she was very well behaved, though overstimulated. Dan and I sure paid the price for the upheaval later. For the next few days Stella proceeded to wake up at night every hour or two. I thought I was going to die. After Dan left, I let her cry it out for the next 4 (maybe more, it's all a blur), miserable days. And then she snapped back in to reality and started sleeping for 10-12 hour stretches again. She does wake up every night at some point but after about 10 minutes or so she settles herself back to sleep. Part of the problem was that around Thanksgiving time, she started to sit up in her crib. She'd just sit there and cry until I went in to get her. No mas, Senorita...well unless she's having a complete meltdown, but the sky had better be falling at that point.

Dan thinks it's hysterical that her new favorite baby food item is called "Jasmine Chicken Luau" thanks to the folks at the Healthy Times Organic Baby Food Company. I just bought out the entire stock at Henry's which of course the cashier noticed. It tastes like apricots which is odd because she hates most fruit. The ingredients are chicken, rice, apples and peaches. She's also settled back in to her 6-7 jar a day habit plus copious amounts of cereal, avocado, sweet potato, Gerber Puffs and other finger foods.

Stella hasn't shown that much interest in the Christmas tree yet. She got all dressed up in her Christmas garb to go get it and I was bummed I forgot to bring my camera to the tree lot. I put her in the baby carrier and we walked around looking for the right tree. She was more interested in the owner's dogs though, which seemed normal given her genes. But I haven't had a second to decorate the tree yet so we'll see how she is with all of the nice glass ornaments...ugh. It's a near perfect tree, if I do say so myself.

Been running around ragged. I miss the hotel.