Night (or early evening) out

This is going to be a short post. It's after 10pm and our car service is picking us up at 6:45am tomorrow to go to the airport to go to California. We have been telling Eliana for the last week that she'll be going on an airplane soon, and tomorrow's the day. I still have to determine whether my suitcase will, in fact, close with clothes for Eliana and me for two climates--Northern California, then a week in Hawaii!

In fact, we told Eliana that her friend Lucy had also gone on an airplane, to see her Grandma Diane, who Eliana has met and likes a lot. Tonight when I asked Eliana who she'd see in California, she said, Nene and Bampi! I asked who else, and she said, Grandma Diane! (The right answer was Uncle Larry, and Tanya...)

But briefly, I wanted to share some pictures from our night (or early evening) out this past weekend. It was the post-Christmas weekend and things were a little slow, so we decided to take Eliana on an excursion on Saturday..out to dinner! I had read about delicious Middle Eastern food a short subway ride away, at Tanoreen. So we decided that if we left at 4:30, we could get her back roughly in time for her bedtime. We hardly take her to restaurants, so it was a treat, for all of us.

She did well, and we're not just saying that because we're her parents. For some reason, the high chair was a little low. Nevertheless, Eliana got right into being at the table, especially since we'd brought some crayons along:





After not too long, the food came. Eliana got a plate like the rest of us, and tried everything:



She likes hummus a lot. The roasted eggplant was the best, and she had some of that too..this girl doesn't mind spicy food. The restaurant owner came to our table at one point and asked whether Eliana had eaten anything, we said that she had tried everything.

Meanwhile Abba tried to grab a bite between feeding Eliana:



At a certain point, Eliana wanted to walk around the restaurant. She saw a Santa Claus doll on display and wanted to "have it." We explained that we had to leave it there for the other customers.

Well, after more than an hour, she melted down a bit. We can't blame her, it was close to her bedtime. So we bundled her up and took the subway home. She even got her own seat:





So that was it, our daughter did well with dining out.

Eliana is still very interested in letters--now she knows E for Eliana, L for Lucy, A for Abba, R for Renee, M for Mommy, B for Baby, C for Carol, and S for Shiloh. She seems very curious and interested in them.

We lit the menorah with Eliana during Chanukah--when we lit the candles, she asked if she could "have it." We had to explain that it was hot, and it was to look at. Also, she didn't understand where the candles went as they melted. This morning she asked us, where did the candles go?

This week she started asking, "What are you doing?" The funny thing is, that's the question we often ask her..now she's asking it back to us.

I'll stop here, and share more from the West Coast.

Snow days

I'm writing with not a lot of energy, but things are changing around here (as you'll see in a moment) and it's worth posting some pictures. Eliana still has her cold, but she has gotten through the worst of it. She is eating much better, just coughing occasionally with a bit of a runny nose. We run the humidifier in her room at night, which helps. And for some reason this past week she has been on the "winter schedule" of sleeping until around 7am rather than 6 or 6:30. We have no explanation, nor are we asking questions!

So this past Friday the forecast predicted a huge snowstorms..sure enough we woke up Friday morning to white/gray skies, and by 10am the snow started falling, and falling, and falling...everything outside was covered in white, and it was cold enough to stick.

Of course we had to take Eliana out to experience it..before we even got outside, she got interested in wearing my snowboots:



You may notice that there's something wrong with the above picture (besides the fact that they don't fit)...they are backwards! Here's the back view:



Later on we took her outside. Here are Eli & Abba on the steps of our building:



And here she is taking a walk around the block:







Now, it may look from these pictures as if Eliana walked for miles in the snow. But we'll set the record straight now: she walked for about half a block, then said, "up up?" and asked Abba to carry her. We're not sure why..maybe she was cold, maybe she wasn't used to walking in the snow. Anyway Abba picked her up and carried her around the rest of the block, which kept him warm too.

On Friday, I got worried that she'd have a hard time walking in the snow, so put an ad in the neighborhood classifieds and managed to immediately secure some pink snow boots from another local family. She wore them on the walk on Sunday. I think they'll keep her feet dry and secure for those long (or short) snowy walks:





Plus I have to admit to being a little envious at the style statement.

We are enjoying the first few days of Chanukah. Last night our friends Audra & David came over and lit the first candle with us, and helped us fry a lot of latkes. We ate some of the latkes last night. I brought the rest to a mom & toddler Chanukah party today, hosted by Melissa, mom to Max who has weekly play dates with Eliana since their nannies are friends. I had so much fun that I put my camera down, completely forgot to take pictures, and then couldn't find it at the end of the party and had to do a search to locate it. It's difficult to be in the moment and remember to document it! Anyway Melissa may have some pictures so if she does, I will post them.

Eliana seems to understand more time-bound events now. This morning, I told her that we'd be going to Max's party later..and when I was talking to her about it a few hours later and asked her what we'd be doing, she said, "Max's party!"

She also continues to ask, "Where did x go?" So tonight we got a ride with Lillian, Lucy's mom, and afterwards, Eliana said, "Where did Lulu's mom go?" I said, "Lucy's mom went to Lucy's house." Sometimes she'll ask questions that she knows the answer to, so I'll ask her back, and she'll answer. So the question isn't only about getting information, it's also about acknowledging that she's thinking about that person.

Oh, and I forgot to mention...Eliana not only knows the letter "E for Eliana!" but she looks for it and sees it everywhere. She saw one yesterday on the side of an ice machine. She saw a few on the handle to flush the toilet--for the record, it's GERBER, so 2 E's. She saw one on the vacuum (Eureka!) When she sees an "E for Eliana!" she gets very excited, points it out, and takes note. And we do too.

And lastly (from the wonderous life of the toddler file), Eliana is obsessed with rubber bands. I don't know why! But when she sees them inside or outside, she has to pick them up, and we have to put them away, either in our pockets, in the garbage, or somewhere else. Sometimes I wonder (as I pick it up)...where has this rubber band been? But there is no saying no, she is absolutely insistent that every rubber band we encounter must be dealt with and refuses to keep walking unless it is. So...I often find rubber bands in my pockets later..stepping back, I try to see them as a reminder to enjoy each precious moment with our sweet little girl.

Recovering

It has been a quiet week..no major adventures to report. Eliana has been under the weather--twice! First last Tuesday she was hit by a stomach virus. She did recover quickly and was almost as good as new by the next day. So she was feeling all right for a few days, but then came down with a cold by Saturday. Since Sunday she really hasn't been feeling so great..she has been coughing a lot and keeps saying, "nose running!" We wipe her nose, and then "nose running" again within a minute or two. Poor little girl!

She also doesn't have much of an appetite. Here is an example of our conversation at Sunday lunch:
Eliana, would you like some avocado?
No.
Would you like some squash?
No.
Would you like some pasta?
No.
Would you like some soup?
No.
Would you like some of Abba's nice tofu?
No.
Would you like some crackers?
No.
Would you like some humus?
No.
Raisins? Cranberries? Ice cream?
No, no, no...

It has been a bit discouraging...especially when she is already below the zero percentile for her weight. Of course, we know that will get better in a day or so. If not, we'll call the doctor and see what we need to do.

Not so surprisingly, being sick has brought out the "no, no, no" toddler in her. (This is rare: most of the time we have a kid with a generally positive outlook.) Yesterday morning I said we should give her some medicine, and she said, "no medicine, no medicine!" and last night I was feeling her forehead to see if she had a fever, and she said, "no fever, no fever!" The thing was that, despite her protestations, she had a fever, and needed the medicine. Now we sneak it into her juice.

Except for Marty, all of us are recovering. Eliana's playmate Lucy has a cold and cough. Lucy's parents had the flu and stayed home from work today. I have some flu symptoms as well and am trying to get rid of a sore throat.

But lest you think it's all serious stuff...Marty's friend Raj came over this weekend with his Japanese friend Akiko. They met Eliana for the first time and brought her a huge Hello Kitty doll. She sang "Twinkle, twinkle little star" to them and we all did some coloring together.

But about the doll. It is a little unwieldy:





But I'd say that it was a hit with Eliana. They presented it to her and she said, "kitty cat" which was amusing and descriptive. Then she wanted to sit with Hello Kitty, read Hello Kitty a story, etc.

Also a good sign was that Eliana was interested in munching on Hello Kitty right away:



Here we are all sitting down in the big chair.



Actually what happened was that I tried to join Eliana & Hello Kitty in the big chair, and there wasn't enough room and Eliana got squished. Remember (not so long ago) when she was a little peanut lying on my lap? Now she needs her own armchair!

Yes, in less than four months Eliana will be two...in many ways she seems much closer to two than one.

First Haircut

It may have become obvious in previous posts that Eliana's hair was getting a little long. Abba was hoping that we wouldn't cut it until she was 18 (or something like that), but it was beginning to get in her face, with long, split strands in the back. While it was tough (psychologically!) to cut our little baby's curls, it seemed like something that needed to be done.

Since we live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and there are a large number of children in the neighborhood, we had a few options for the haircut. We got a recommendation and made the appointment. The next step was prepping Eliana. A few days before, we told her that she was getting a haircut soon, and that she'd be meeting Julean, her stylist. Eliana didn't know what a stylist was, so we did some pretend haircuts.

When we got there, I thought that they would put her in the salon equivalent of a high chair. However, I soon found out that both of us would be putting smocks on, and she'd be sitting on my lap:





Eliana noticed that her smock had fun decorations on it. How come they stop doing that stuff once you're not a kid anymore?

A kid's haircut is different from an adult cut. The point is to distract her from the fact that her hair is getting cut. First, she munched on some string cheese:





But after a few minutes of that, she said, "All done, down!" Julean had barely started. This is where Julean pulled out the big guns: the nursery rhyme books.



I found it challenging to read Old McDonald and concentrate on the haircut. After a short time, I gave up and just concentrated on Old McDonald. I think Eliana did the same, because she wasn't paying much attention to the haircut at all.



Which was probably a good thing, Julean knew what she was doing.







Eliana was remarkably patient, or at least interested in the books. The entire haircut took about 20 minutes, which was longer than I expected considering how little hair she has! Here are some final views:





We were able to get a sample for her baby book, and apparently there's also a first haircut certificate we can pick up. What a milestone!

Eliana continues to be very communicative. One thing I noticed a few weeks ago is that she has started to make connections between different images she sees in her books or among her toys. For example, every night we read Good Night Moon, and she likes to point out "cow jumping (over the) moon." A few weeks ago we were reading the Runaway Bunny, and she noticed that in that book, there is also a picture of a cow jumping over the moon. As we read the Runaway Bunny, she looked for the Goodnight Moon book and opened to the page with the cow jumping over the moon, pointing out that this was the same image in the two different books. Or she sees a turtle in a book, and then she'll go find her little plastic turtle.

Eliana is also very attached to her little baby doll. She will talk about how the "baby sitting down" or push the baby in the toy stroller. Lately, she'll hold the baby and pat her gently on the head (as if comforting her) and say "do, do.." I asked our babysitter if she knew what this meant, and she said that in Trinidad (where she is from), this is French expression that means, "sleep, sleep..." It's so sweet to see how nurturing Eliana is toward this little baby doll.

Thanksgiving adventures

I wanted to share a few pictures from our Thanksgiving this past weekend. We went back to our cousins, the Feinsteins, for the Thanksgiving meal. Eliana did great; she napped on the car ride there and woke up ready to party (and eat!)

Everyone hit a lot of traffic on the way there and ran late so the Feinsteins extended cocktail hour. Eliana used the time to find the best chair in the house:





It's just her size! Apparently it was made for her little cousin Eva, now almost 7, when she was Eliana's age. Eva said that we could take it home since she didn't need it anymore, but we said we'd leave it there so that Eliana could sit in it next time she comes over.

After a lot of exploring the house and munching on the appetizers, it was time for the meal. Eliana was too distracted by sitting with so many people to really focus on her meal and eat more than a few bites. She did sit for a few minutes, though:



The good news was, once Eliana got tired of sitting at the table, she could visit the amazing playroom downstairs. She ran right down there and even remembered where it was from Rosh Hashanah.

Eliana found the dolls and was right at home:



Notice how she took out all of the baby dolls..why play with just one when you can play with ALL of them?

In the photos below, her cousin Matthew, who is 10, was trying to explain to her how to dribble a ball. He was very patient!





I had to tell Matthew that Eliana isn't quite ready to learn to dribble a ball, and that she has a few skills she needs to learn beforehand. Anyway it was sweet of him to share his toys and include her. Her three young cousins, Andrew, Matthew and Eva--they are actually third cousins since their great-grandmothers were sisters--were all very interested in playing with her and showing her the toys. At the end, Andrew gave her a "big hug," which was adorable.

Everyone talked about how cute she is, and told her to "just stay cute." We felt thankful to be together as a family, and to be with family on Thanksgiving.

Eliana has become more confident in her ability to count--she can count to ten easily. She can also identify the numbers 1,2,3, and some letters, such as L for Lucy, and E for Eliana.

Did I mention that she is very interested in spices? Yes, she LOVES the spice drawer and begs us to open it and let her smell and taste the spices. She'll have cinnamon bark, cardamon seeds, fennel, caraway...she even likes the garlic powder and then ends up with garlic breath! She wants to sample every spice. When we finally insist that we need to close the spice drawer (because our attention span has run out, perhaps 10 minutes have gone by), she protests! I am curious to know how long she could sample the spice drawer but don't know whether I could outlast her to find out.

Eliana also likes to color; we have a set of crayons now and a big pad of paper. The one rule is "crayons on the paper." Often, she will eventually violate this rule and color on the floor (or something else), but she does pretty well for a while.

Eliana also likes to ask, "Where did x go?" So we'll get home at the end of the day and she'll say, "Where did Abba go?" I'll explain that Abba is at work, and she'll say, "Abba's working."

The day after Thanksgiving, we went to Bear Mountain State Park..I'll share those pictures soon.