Annika's first wedding.

No silly, Annika didn't get married! Uncle Tony did.

Loved the dancing. Loved the cake. Loved the veil. (Yeah, that's the real one...don't ask).

Congratulations to two amazing people who don't read this blog!

Confessions of a bad Momma

I'm not a perfect mother.

Confession #1: I let Annika eat "bad" food. Yep, that's a french fry you see dangling from her perfect pink lips. And you know what...it's not her first trip to the french fry rodeo. She eats fried chicken with more ranch dressing than at a salad bar and sometimes simply uses the chicken as a ranch transfer system where she just licks, licks, licks. I tell myself...maybe some protein is finding its way to her by way of chicken crumbs?

Confession #2: She watches TV. A lot of it. She can quote some (ok, a lot of) SpongeBob episodes. She can sing most words to Diego's opening song, even the Spanish ones. She knows that Momma's favorite TV show is Scrubs and that JD can be a moron. She expects the TV to be on. I'm so very proud. (that's sarcasm)

Confession #3: I give in. She wants something...a lot of the times she'll get it. I will proudly proclaim that I'm probably the one person who pushes back the most in her life (a-hem, Chris), but come on...she says please and tells me I'm beautiful...what is a Momma to do? Well, I'll tell you what a Momma is to do - Baby gets to stay up for another two episodes of SpongeBob!

Confession #4: I buy her a lot of crap. For a short time, there was even an unofficial rule that she could get one thing every time we went to a store.  Every time. Not that she was asking for designer jeans, but well, expectations were set. We've (sorta) broken her of that habit, but she gets a lot of stuff. Cute rockstar sunglasses at Gap?  Check. The 15th bouncy ball from the drugstore ball bin? Check. A Halloween sippy cup with a witch on it that scares her? Oh yeah - check. 

Confession #5: I like to go out with my husband. Without the baby. 

Confession #6: I still call her Baby. (sub-confession: I'm ok with that one.)

I write these confessions as a cathartic measure. But maybe the dirtiest confession is that I'm ok with these mistakes (most of the time...someday she's getting brussel sprouts with dinner without ranch!) Annika is so amazing and knows we love her, and that I think is the most amazing achievement in parenting - making sure that kid knows she's loved. But for all you mommies out there who maybe have a few confessions of your own...perhaps you can look at this list and feel a little better about yourself.  

Or maybe you do everything right. If so, please write a book and provide detailed instructions.  Thanks.

Giving the people what they want

It's been a while since I've given you an Annika update. Let me break the silence!

Annika is officially a little person. Maybe that sounds odd to you "non-parents" but there is something to be said for someone who can verbalize their wants, ambitions and opinions vs. someone who simply enjoyed the rhythmic musings of a wooden stick and a copper pot. The shorter point is: I can relate to her.

She asks so many questions. LIKE ALL THE TIME. But I have (nearly) endless patience for them, because it helps me understand what interests her and understand what she's observing all around her. She asks a lot about skeletons lately. She wants to know why we have them. And why they're inside our bodies. And why doesn't her stuffed monkey have a skeleton?? (Try answering that one).

She's also afraid of monsters, specifically the monsters in the shadows in her room at night. We've tried to tell her they are friendly shadows and that The Unicorn and Mr. Bear are there to protect her all night (two of her larger skeletonless stuffed friends) and that we would never let a shadow do anything to her. But she doesn't buy it. They bother her. And I understand so much. I was so fearful as a kid. No real reason, I just was. It's worrisome only because I don't ever want her to be afraid of anything, and I want her to trust 100% that we will protect her.

The fears lead to some nightmares. The most vivid and specific she's related to us is about the giant clam that ate her. He was big. He ate her. She screamed, "No No!" Why is a giant clam trying to eat my baby!

Happier news is that she has taken very kindly to her new big girl bed. She likes to draw. She loves to play with her dolls. She loooooves her Daddy. He is her best friend. She loves him so much. She wants him to read her bedtime books. She wants him to change her diaper. Blah, blah, blah... :) I'm not jealous! (Usually).

Every day is a new adventure and there are literally no words to describe how much I love her. I hope that if she decides to have kids some day, she'll understand at that moment what she means to me. I can wait until then.

Just another Sunday night

Halftime

Don't Stop Believen'

The holidays in brief

What Annika Says is Her Favorite Present: Baby Jaguar.

Her Real Favorite Present: Car ramp.

How Many Hours it Took to Get to Grandma & Pop's House: (not including layover in Santa Monica) 9.

How Many Hours it Took to Get Home: 6.

How Many Presents Annika Opened: Too many to count.

How Many Presents We Bought Her: 5.

How Many Cookies Did Annika Put Out for Santa: 3.

How Many Carrots for the Reindeer: 3.

Who Actually Ate Said Cookies & Carrots: It was a group effort.

Most Memorable Moment: Watching Annika take in all the presents under the tree on Christmas morning.

Second Most Memorable Moment: When she begged me to remove her "itchy" (yet perfect) holiday dress.

Best Playmate: Joshua Henry.

Most Exhausted Playmate: Daddy. 

I'd like to thank my parents for hosting us and spoiling us, my brother and his new wife for being the "fun" aunt & uncle, my husband for driving all over creation and my baby for going with the flow, not (yet) showing signs of over-spoiling and being too cute.

Tis the Season

Annika's first Christmas presents of the season came in the form of a Santa Clara University sweatshirt (that's where I met her Daddy!), a Candy Land game she actually can play and a Dora inflatable house ball-thingie from Godmommy, Lisa, Gabs and Nico came. Annika and Nico actually played with each other and everything.

Much fun was had. Chris even bought egg nog ice cream. 

Tastes better than it sounds.

Little known Annika facts

- Annika likes to play with cars. I think we're going to get her a car garage/ramp thing for Christmas.

- She hates to be wrong. If you ask her to do something that she a) doesn't understand or b) doesn't think she can do, she'll either decline, look away or proclaim, "I can't do it!" If you push her a bit, she'll sometimes try to address the task at hand, but she doesn't like taking chances. She 100% gets this from me, because, man, I hate being wrong. (Try not to gasp.)

- Yellow is her favorite color.

- We read her at least two books every night - one on the floor and the other while she's in her bed. She gets to choose who reads: Mommy or Daddy.

- She cannot - and I mean cannot - stand getting water in her eyes. To the point that if she cries, she begs you to wipe away her tears. I'm keeping a watch on this in the event it's actually a medical issue, but I'm thinking that it's actually a case of the drama queens. Chris bought her goggles for the bath. We're having mixed results with that.

- Annika is fascinated by balloons. When she sees one, she must have it. But when she gets it, she either starts to cry or won't let it go. She then gets disturbed when she's in the same car as a balloon. It's all rather strange.

- Annika's favorite song is "Sexy Back." (Note to CPS: Please don't take her away.)

A big girl's bed

She told us that she was too big for her crib. Multiple hundreds of dollars later, we present you with...Big Girl Bed: The Movie & Accompanying Photographs.

She's old

I honestly can't believe how old she is. Not in age, mind you...she's technically not even 2 and a half. But she looks old. She looks like a 4-year old. How does a 4-year old look, you ask?  Old...?  Mature?

Not that she weighs as much as a 4-year old or is as tall as one...she just feels old. What do they call it?  An old soul.

She has a new trick where she repeats everything you say in a form of a question. i.e. "Annika, you can't have that piece of candy." "Can't have that piece of candy???" I call it playing dumb, because she fully understands what you say, but maybe she doesn't want to really know. When pressed on an issue (Annika, what do you want for dinner?) she'll suddenly say, "I don't know!  I'm just a baby!"  Maybe she's picking up on the fact that we treat her beyond her years (less than 2.5 of them) and sometimes needs a break. Me too.  Sometimes I'm just a baby, too. 

Happy Halloween!

Traveling shoes

Annika is a good traveler. We took her to North Carolina last week to visit her GG (Great Grandma) and Uncle Erik (Chris's good friend from college). She powered through a 16-hour travel day getting to the East Coast (losing those three hours is painful), infrequent naps and nothing but Cheerios for three days. But she was awesome. Her GG thought so too. We aren't able to get out there very often and GG doesn't want to travel too far these days (can't say I blame her, traveling is rough!) so this was a special time for Annika to get to know her GG.

Uncle Erik has two adorable (and big!) dogs that Annika quickly befriended. They fell in love with her immediately and if they ever sensed she was in trouble (i.e. complaining because Chris refused her second request for a candy bar) they rushed to her side and barked at the offender. Awesome. We also got to spend some quality time with Erik's wife of one year, Sophia, who makes me wish we lived closer to them. They were wonderful hosts and it's just lame that we live 3,000 miles away from each other.

Also found out that Annika is essentially "between" sizes in Crocs which are a key part of her wardrobe. Never fear - we still cram her feet into the smaller pair she owns. She's ok with that because they're yellow and her favorite color.

Croup-a-cabana

My baby has the croup!

Midnight Saturday morning, Annika woke up with a crazy-sounding cough...we later heard the doctor ask us if it sounded like a seal. Oh, it did. Chris immediately jumped out of bed (he's quick like that) and went into her room where she was just starting to realize that it was hard to breathe. She was sobbing, we were sobbing (on the inside). Chris walked her around the house for a bit to calm her, with little effect. Within minutes I was looking for the phone as her cries got louder and the cough more distinctive. I started to think she might be having an asthma attack. Kaiser has a great nurse advice line which for some reason was...closed! Closed?

I asked Chris if we should call 911, but he said he thought we should go right to the emergency room. My only hesitation there was that if you arrive alone without an ambulance, then you might have to wait longer. But Chris thought the ambulance would be too slow (you can tell we've never called an ambulance) so we started to get ready to head to the hospital.

We raced to the hospital (not too fast, don't worry) and realized that they just opened a new hospital and we didn't know where the entrance was. That was sort of funny. Not really. At this point, I was sitting in the back seat with Annika to keep an eye on her and to make sure she was still breathing. We still weren't sure what was going on, so I still hadn't ruled out choking, and wanted to make sure she could talk. She nodded a bit and said "no" a few times when I asked things, so I was relatively satisfied that choking wasn't the issue.

We arrived at the hospital as she started to cry and cough again, barely being able to take a breath in. It was terrifying. Her wails were so loud that the sick people in the waiting room became silent, listening to the little baby with a bad sickness. I wanted to cry. We were behind a woman who had pain in her legs (pain in her legs?!) and as Annika continued to cry and cough, the nurse pushed the leg lady aside and immediately tested Annika's blood pressure. The nurse asked me quickly "Does she have a history of croup?" I said no, knowing only a little what that was (a bad cough?). They ushered her to a screening room right away while leg lady stood aside. I guess we didn't need the ambulance after all.

Annika couldn't stop crying for much of the beginning of the ordeal. They took about 5 minutes to check her out and then told me they were going to register her. I had visions of her little self in a hospital bed and I almost lost it, but just tried to stay calm. Chris tried to comfort her while I handled the paper work.

In her room she was scared and wanted to leave. At this point, I still didn't really know or understand what they thought she had...I assumed croup, but still didn't have a handle on what exactly it was. (Left my Mayo Medical Bible at home...woops).

When the doctor came in and calmly explained their diagnosis, we came to understand what she had - croup, an imflammation of the airways often caused by a cold or flu virus that gets a little out of control - and we relaxed a bit. She wasn't crying as often and didn't appear that she would have to stay overnight at the hospital.

The treatment was a cool mist mask to soften and enlarge her airways to relieve the cough and help her breathe. Well, feel free to tell me how to convince an already scared toddler that a mask with crazy mist coming out of it is a good thing...well, we failed to convince her. She fought and cried and couldn't understand. So we just decided to calm her and take our time. Thank goodness her curiosity won out as when she calmed, she wanted to get closer to it and we eventually saw the difference in her breathing.

The last hurdle was to take some steroids to fully enlarge her breathing passage to get her some rest that night and to ease the cough. The medicine tasted awful - and though I didn't actually taste it, I could smell it, and the mere smell made me queasy. My poor little girl. She forced it down though and in less than 10 minutes, she was dancing to music on my iPhone. We are so lucky to have that little girl.

She is well on her way to recovery, though she now has a nasty regular-sounding cough - especially when she sleeps. But she's in a good mood and is very patient with the limitations that her sickness presents (i.e. no park, sandbox or pool).

She has been so brave and I can't even tell you how scary and terrifying even the slightest of sicknesses can be to a parent. Well, all of you parents understand, but I just thank God every day that she is as healthy as she is.

Video treat

Recall this!

Imagine my shock to discover that many of Annika's favorite toys were recalled.

Annika received Dora's Talking Dollhouse for her birthday, and it's been her favorite toy ever since. Chris and I had planned on a tricycle for her birthday, but she is long in the torso and short in the legs, so she wouldn't be able to use it right away. We walked by the Talking Dollhouse during a trip to Toys R Us, and a light bulb went off for me. "Pretend" games with dolls (my dolls of choice: Barbies) were my personal joy growing up, and Annika has such a developed imagination that I really liked the idea of continuing to feed that imagination at a reasonable price. It was win-win!

We promptly realized that the Dollhouse was really a Money Pit. Her favorite characters like Diego and Swiper ("No Swiping!") were not included. Furnishing for the home was limited to a purple couch - so we needed a kitchen set, bathroom fixtures and more. We also realized that Dora's parents recently welcomed twins to the family, and we had to get them, too.

It became Chris's mission to fully accessorize the manse once he realized Annika was in love with it. He would watch her walk Boots around (her very favorite) and stick Dora in Mommy's face and demand to "play Dora!" It was actually so sweet to watch Chris really want to encourage Annika with what was turning out to be an educational toy.

I was sickened and saddened after learning of the recall. In the article I link to, Mattel's action is "praised" by a consumer advocacy group for their quick action. Well, I'm not sure if I find it quick enough if my daughter has been playing with these toys for a month. In addition, the recall program is a joke. After you go through their (slooow) website to identify the offending toys, you're asked to "click here" to start processing your request for shipment labels so that Mattel can examine the toys to determine if they're affected. Oh, and the page never loads. Then you have to wait 6-8 weeks to get a voucher to get similarly-priced merchandise.

Wow! Lucky me - we get to tell Annika that she can't play with her favorite toys any more because they may make her sick, then we get to wait 2 months to get vouchers to buy more cheap crap from a brand I no longer trust. Yes, Mattel, you sure deserve all that praise. We really appreciate your swift action.

Out and about

We just love putting her hair in pigtails (ponytails?). This addresses my quandary from a previous post...she is getting better about allowing us to put her hair up but when she's out and about she prefers to let it hang loose. Fair enough. I can compromise. Life with a 2-year-old is all about compromise.

Annika had her 2-year check-up last week and the doctor, a rather reserved chap (WARNING: BRAGGING ALERT) offers up this gem: "Wow! She is really talking very well. Very clearly and in sentences. I rarely see this with a child her age, and generally I hope that they can speak 50 words. Her vocabulary is very impressive!"

A moment of silence for her burgeoning genius.

She also weighs in at 30 pounds and is 34.5 inches tall. To spare you an Internet search, that means she's about 80th percentile in weight and 75th for height. He said that tracks nicely and "whatever you're doing is working." We'll also pull her off whole milk and start with lowfat. It starts so very early.

The Negretes took us for a free ride (no pun intended) to Gilroy Gardens this Sunday. Most people outside of Northern California (and let's face it - most of us within NoCal) have no idea what Gilroy Gardens is. My understanding is that the place makes no money, but for toddler-aged kids; this place is perfect. Not too crowded, rides built for the little ones, and nicely manicured landscaping. Maybe the last part isn't so interesting to a toddler, but I found it pleasing.

What I found a little odd about the place is that there was a walking garlic character (apparently named "Gil") with very short arms. Annika happens to worship anything in a big puffy/fuzzy suit (see Chuck E Cheese and Lou Seal) so she was all over it. I am also pleased to report Gil did not smell of garlic. He gave her a high five and was quite friendly. Little Nico reported that he had purple shoes.

I told Chris that taking Annika to theme parks and/or other family outings to engage and entertain her makes me feel more like a parent. It feels responsible and selfless to find activities uniquely designed for her. It also feels good. I just love watching her have fun. (P.S. Also makes up for quite a few trips to the mall & Starbucks).

But seriously...

Garfield asked me yesterday to give her an update on me...not Annika. What does that even mean?? But seriously folks, there is no me without Annika anymore. She is my life, my love, my everything. Doesn't mean that I don't do things without her...I go to work everyday, I sometimes go to dinner with my friends sans el bebe and Chris and I even manage to sneak away once in a (great) while. But we always want to go back. We are in love - with each other and with her. Ok, ok - enough cheese.

To illustrate some of this, Chris and I had a short weekend together in May to attend my brother's wedding. I like this picture because it looks like we actually enjoy each other's company...don't worry; it's all for show. I kid! But seriously folks, we do enjoy each other, though our alone time is limited and the strains of full-time jobs and a full-time baby sometimes get to us. We are absolutely not perfect, but we definitely try to get it right. If someone could carve me out enough time after work to make dinner, play with Annika, give her a bath, put her to bed, provide some lovely chat time with my husband and get me to bed by 9:30 - CALL ME!

So you don't go Annika-less, here's a picture of her at the Apple Store in Palo Alto when I was there for the iPhone launch. Man, that was crazy. But seriously folks, I am so lucky to have a husband (and even parents - if you squint, you can see my mom in the background) who rolls with the punches and simply handles the business when the demands of my job literally keep me from handling the demands of my real life. That weekend was Annika's birthday, but everyone's patience and understanding really got me through it. I don't even think Annika noticed that I was working...which was awesome. We even managed to squeeze in a party. And a lot of presents.

Garfield - enough rambling. To answer your question: I'm (but seriously) doing great. Thanks for asking.

I'm not old!

Annika, how old are you?

I'm one.

Nooo! Annika...how old are you?

I'm one.

Annika! You're two!!!

I'M NOT OLD!

True story.

She is older, and of course, wiser. She needs longer legs, though - still can't pedal the two (yes, two - it's a theme) tricycles she received for her birthday. She asked us to sing her the happy birthday song twice...yes, yes, a theme I tell you!

I'm sorry for the delay between posts. Nothing delights me more than telling you about her triumphs, but it's been a rough month. Never fear - there is light at the end of the iTunnel.

Random updates: She speaks in complete sentences...she can swim on her own (with a delightful inner tube-like device that makes her feel like she's swimming)...she heard Uncle BB's voice on the answering machine and knew it was him, despite the fact that she's only seen him twice in the last 6 months...she's going to North Carolina in August to see her GG and Uncle Erik...she wears a 2T...she is a Daddy's girl...she loves to bounce on the bed with Grandma...she always asks where Pop is when he leaves the room...she still pinches Nana, but Nana loves it...only Papa can get her out of the car...Uncle Ben makes her giggle...Nico is her best friend...Braden is trying to kill her (don't be alarmed)...no plans for a brother or sister (right now at least).

Much love!

It's been a while...

...but she's still cute.