Christmas Tree

This is the only pic I was able to capture at the tree lot. The owners have a dog that she was mesmerized by so not a lot of opportunity for a perfect Kodak moment. We brought the tree home and were so busy it sat undecorated for about 10 days. Then, my mom came and declared it was about to die so we had to exchange it for another one. Hassle, but she was right and it's now finally decorated. Stella loves all the lights and so far, knock on wood, has not been interested in the hundreds of vintage glass ornaments on it. I would die if she broke any, they are so cool.

Other than that, we've been on the birthday party circuit while getting ready for Christmas and wedding!

Thanksgiving

We had a nice Thanksgiving. This is a photo with cousin Sarah. Stella loved her iPod and they danced a ton. Hip Hop, of course. Even the next day, Stella had a dance lesson from Sarah and cousin Will!

Stella ate a ton. I got a full plate of food and she ate nearly all of it. So then cousin Liz had to go get me some more since Stella was sitting on my lap. It was very nice to see family and at that point we were pretty settled at home, though it helped to be celebrating the holiday up the street at the Cebron's. The day after, we even took Stella shopping, which she was totally over after a bit. She loves the shoe department though. I was looking for shoes for the wedding. Stella picked up some black patent leather (exactly the color I needed) Jimmy Choos, nodded her head and said "Niiiiiiiiccceeee." So, I bought them though have to admit I've since found more comfortable shoes on sale. The girl's got taste! However, she was also angling for me to buy some furry Coach boots that I wasn't so wild about.

More later!!!!

Flight Home

Per usual, there is very little time to blog when we first land. Stella has continued to be very easy on these flights. The first picture is breakfast in the Cathay Pacific lounge. She would march herself over to the buffet and demand cheese. The flight to Tokyo on Cathay Pacific is always the easiest. I managed to finally watch Batman. We ate, played, she watched her DVD player and it was largely uneventful. Business class was almost empty so I wasn't stressed about her bothering anyone. We got to Tokyo and she was grovelling for sushi in the Japan Airlines lounge. The sushi there is very good but they put it out in limited quantity and people dive on it. While I was waiting our turn, she took her plate and began grovelling for sushi from Japanese businessmen who didn't care one bit that she wanted some. It was funny. The second photo is her joyfully eating sushi she scored. The third photo is her dinner on JAL. It was totally bizarre. Fruit, donut, tater tots, squid, ketchup rice, egg, tiramisu, taffy, potato salad dressed like a clown, crab, and sweet corn. Maybe I should have titled this blog "Food."

Anyway, she barely slept the entire way home but it didn't matter since she just sat in her seat and watched the Disney channel or her DVD player. I would occasionally look over to see her entire body vibrating while she was focused on TV. She knows how to operate the shiatsu massager in her seat. She also did not sleep at all in the car to La Jolla--I,on the other hand, was about to die. She remembered everything about our house though which surprised me a little.

More later.

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.