Adult Conversation

The first photo I took with a flash which is why it's darker. We have not had a fabulous day here in the Dillon household. We are super busy getting ready to leave for LJ and I discovered this morning, after washing my hair, that it's been totally fried by a cheaper (though not cheap!) hair salon. I have a bunch of friends that pay much less for hair straightening than I do but I think I have different, coarser hair than most salons here are generally used to. So, this morning after I washed and let my hair dry, I looked a little poodle-ish. Even Dan felt badly about it though he tried to cheer me up by saying it's not that bad, when I know it is. So, never again because, despite the economy, it will cost more to fix it than the savings. I bought a hair mask that should do the trick temporarily so I'm chill for the moment.

But, anyway, instead of going to Tuesday playgroup we went into the mall to run errands and on our way to the tea shop, Stella told me she was hungry. So, we stopped for a quick carrot raisin muffin. As you can kind of see in the background, this cafe has cubes for some of it's seating. Stella pulled out her cube, climbed on it, sat down, folded her arms on the table and started to babble and gesticulate like we were supposed to be talking about the weather or some soap opera. It was soooo funny. Then her muffin came and she kept on rambling about whatever. It was very funny. The big deal is that she's actually sitting on her own across the table from me.

There was an 8-month-old baby sitting at the table behind us. The mom brought out a wind up turtle that would roll over the mall floor after it's string was pulled. Stella thought that was great. We chatted briefly with the mom and baby. Stella would smile at the baby and then point to the baby's eye while yelling, "Eye!!!" and then she'd stealthfully grab the turtle and run away. As if pointing our attention to the baby's eye would cause us to not notice that she was running away with this poor baby's toy. I admired her cleverness, but when it came time to actually give back the turtle and leave to run our errands, she screamed her head off.

"We had a great time when you were gone. I taught her how to make music by banging stuff on her head..."

That's what Dan told me excitedly after I came home from my hair appointment on Saturday.

I can FINALLY leave Stella alone with Dan for short periods of time without him freaking out. I go to bootcamp very early in the morning which leaves Dan to get Stella out of bed and feed her breakfast before he goes to work. The first few times, I laid out her breakfast the night before and left him detailed instructions. I came home the first time and they were both happily eating Doritos together in bed. As you can see, the hotel has expensive Italian sheets and they were very orange after the Doritos incident. I wonder what housekeeping thought of that! The next time I came home from bootcamp, Dan had made her a box (it was organic) of mac and cheese for breakfast which she was also happily, happily eating. This was on the grounds that he thought she needed some carbs. So after a few other similar incidents, I don't bother laying out breakfast in advance anymore. Usually, he gives her fruit and yogurt but every once in a while something random gets thrown in. He got in trouble for the Doritos incident. But all in all, he does a great job and I'm only writing about it because both the mac and cheese and Doritos incidents made me laugh quite hard.

It's all good really--more freedom for me. I just have to accept that there will be some odd things happening in my absence. I'm sure there's a lot they aren't telling me about.

Word to Your Mother...

Quick update, as we're busy cleaning house and getting ready to go back to LJ for an ultra busy holiday season. She says a lot but here's the latest.

"Ah-meee" means Elmo
"Ay-vee-vee" means elevator
"Tick-uh!" (while pointing to her chest) means sticker. I think she points to her chest because the people at the front desk have been giving her stickers for ages and they seem to put them on her chest.
"Gooh" means read Mother Goose or put on my Mother Goose DVD. It's usually the latter.

She also says, "eat" and then opens the fridge to rummage around for something to eat. Luckily, she only ever wants fruit so that's what she goes for. I'm grateful we have a Sub Zero in LJ and am positive she can't open it.

Long and Lean (Still)

We went to the Dr. today and she's 12.5 kg (27.5 lbs) and about 87cm (34 inches). We could not get an accurate length measurement because she was too squirmy. Weight is about 90th percentile and height is about 99th percentile. Dan always laughs because that means she's "technically" skinny. I asked the Dr. if I should move toward lower fat but he said no and if she wants cheese melted on veggies and meat in order to eat it, then let her have it that way. I was complaining about her pickiness. She and I both got flu shots and she also got an MMR booster.

In the afternoon, we went to Discovery Bay to play on the beach with her friends. I'm using the zoom lens on my camera in the photo above, which I never have to do because she's usually stuck to my leg. You can kind of see the red roof of the Disneyland Hotel in the background. But, she had a blast. She ran all over the place in the sand and didn't at all care where I was. She also ate a fistful of sand, washed it ALL down with water from her sippy (I was frantically trying to get a cloth to scoop it out with) and never thought twice about it. We definitely need to do this more often. The only thing is that she pitched a fit when it was time to go because she, though exhausted and filthy, was not ready.

Sick, Starbucks, Spa...

She's sick and not eating so I took her to Starbucks knowing she'd take down an entire spinach pocket which, of course, she did. She perked up as soon as she saw the place. She kept pointing to her cup and my cup and I figured out that she wanted the "don't burn your fingers it's hot" thingy on her sippy. So, I had to doctor one up to get it on there. She was very happy after that and showed it off to several people in the mall who that it very funny.

She also has decided that she must moisturize multiple times per day. She self applies it, which is a mess.

Gone Clubbin'

Oh my we've been busy. Today was funny because Stella grabbed her purse and excitedly ran out the door when it was time to go to Baby Loves Disco. She ran quickly down the hall to the elevator and hit the down button. She knows now that when I carry her car seat, she's going in a taxi to somewhere cool. She ran through the lobby, waved to her fans and then shot out to where the taxis are. She ran to the front of the taxi stand and stood there waiting. It's Sunday, so there were no taxis and the bellmen were busy shuffling people in and out of the hotel, etc. She saw a cab (they are red and white here), pointed to it and began waving her arms above her head wildly to flag it down. The bellmen started laughing and one said something about Stella stealing their job. We got in and went off to the Tribeca Club for Baby Loves Disco. She is always overwhelmed at first but then settles in. I discovered that she'd dance to exhaustion on the little stage they have by the bar, but not on the floor--probably too many people there. I didn't have pockets in my pants so I only took dancing pics/video when she was tired. But, she even developed a new shoulder roll type move. She also loved the glow in the dark wrist bands. There was a Halloween theme but she refused to wear her costume since she wore it yesterday.

I did make the mistake of allowing to have 2 apple juices at BLD so she was wired beyond belief. We got back to the hotel and after she ran up and down our hallway about 10 times, I took her back out. She blasted through the lobby again and asked to go outside. There's a garden next to the rotunda where the taxis and chauffeurs are. She ran around the garden and to the entrance of the mall and back 7 times like a bat out of hell. Up and down stairs too, sweating like a pig. After about 45 minutes of this I picked her up kicking and screaming to go back inside the hotel. The bellmen were laughing because I told them about the apple juice and that she was hyper before we went outside.

Yesterday, we had our baby group Halloween party at Dakota Prime, a new fancy steakhouse. That was fun too. This week is incredibly busy too!!!

When you say "no"...I'll dance and then you'll forget why you're mad

This is entirely new. If she gets busted doing something she's not supposed to, she'll smile, her eyes will open really big and she'll start to dance with her fingers pointed in the air like John Travolta. She knows we think her dancing is funny so now she dances to diffuse "situations" she doesn't like. It's always when we want her to do something she doesn't want to do.

Smart. I can't help but laugh sometimes.