Baby K Turns 2!

I'm a bit behind on my blog entries, but thought I'd post something about my little girl's second birthday (other than the previous entry on what went wrong). We celebrated the actual day at home with a homemade cupcake (saved one from the two dozen we made for baby K's class at daycare).
After she blew out the candles, we all sang Happy Birthday again for about the umpteenth time (though I'm sure baby K's just wondering, "can i eat my cupcake yet?").

Unaccording to Plan

We had some friends over this past Saturday to celebrate S (our friend's daughter) and baby K's birthdays. Given how much baby K loves Elmo, I thought it would be a good idea to have him come perform for the kids. I called up a few party places, got some price quotes, and decided to rent the costume and have a friend of mine dress up in it (shout-out to TY for being such a trooper!). Unfortunately, my plan backfired since baby K (and about half the kids at the party) ended up being terrified of Elmo. I guess it's one thing to see him out in the open at Sesame Place, and it's another to see all seven feet of him standing in the confines of your living room. At least the older kids enjoyed dancing with him so it wasn't a complete waste.

As part of baby K's birthday treat, we decided to take her to the Rainforest Cafe tonight for dinner. M and I had gone to Menlo Park Mall yesterday to scope out the joint, check out the menu, and make reservations. I was excited and purposely left work early to pick her up today. We got to the restaurant, got seated, and all was fine until these giant mechanical apes stationed all around the restaurant began to move and growl. M made the mistake of pointing it out to baby K, who freaked out and latched on to me for dear life. I tried having the waiter re-seat us (away from the apes), but baby K kept crying and would not let go of me as long as we were inside the restaurant, so we ended up leaving and having dinner at the Cheesecake Factory instead (where baby K still spent the first 20 minutes clinging to my neck until the food came and she realized I had ordered pasta, her favorite). SIGH! I am hopeful that baby K won't wake up with nightmares tonight, but I have a feeling she will (just as she did after Elmo showed up in her living room this past Saturday).

Tomorrow M and I will be bringing cupcakes to baby K's class at daycare to celebrate her actual birthday. Then this coming Saturday, we have family coming over for another party. More presents to open and more cake to eat! The festivities continue, but I am through trying to plan something special for baby K. I understand things don't always go according to plan, but these two disappointments in a row at the expense of my little girl is just a bit hard to bear.

Fake Tantrums

As I was driving home yesterday, baby K requested for "Elmo's Song" (as she often does), so I played the song for her, but I told her I was only going to play it once. When the song ended, baby K goes "Elmo's Song" again, as expected. I refused to hit the repeat button and tried to coax her into listening to something else. When she realized she wasn't going to get her way, the screaming and water works display started up. I ignored her and kept on driving. After a few minutes, I could hear the crying taper down and all of a sudden, baby K goes "Sorry!" That came out of nowhere; I was so surprised I almost bursted out laughing. I said to her, "Are you all done now?" and she responded "Yah!" After that brief outburst, she was all happy again and started babbling away, with no more mention of her favorite Sesame Street character.

Happy Halloween

Despite not being able to quite say "trick or treat" yet, baby K enjoyed going around the block to collect candy. We didn't head out until after 4:00pm, but were still the first trick or treaters our neighbors had seen all day. Here's a picture of our cutie pie in her tiger costume:

Here's what baby K decided to do with the bucket she used to hold her Halloween candy in after she dumped all the sweets on the couch. Our little dancer looked like she was on a sugar rush... and we didn't even give her any candy!

Eating Out

We don't really eat out much anymore... at least not since we've had baby K. It's asking for too much with an active toddler to go into a restaurant and expect her to behave (or in our case, eat) for the duration of a meal. With that being said, we did end up going out to eat tonight.

Earlier today, we went to the Jersey Shore Premium Outlets to drop off our damaged luggage bags at the Samsonite store to be mailed out for repair (another story for another time). The rest of our shopping trip (if you can even call it that) entailed walking outside the entire time with baby K pushing her stroller. Every time we stepped into a store, she'd start screaming bloody murder. At one point, she was strapped in her stroller, so I ignored the ranting and raving as I continued to shop (I'm sure other customers in the store were disturbed by the crying and were labeling me as a horrible mother). Baby K did get her way though, since we soon left the store, only for me to see her smile that evil grin once we got outside. M and I ended up taking turns going into stores, but our shopping experience was less than pleasant (or successful) with an antsy toddler in our hands.

Baby K didn't have much to eat for snack, so we thought she'd be hungry during dinner. We went to a diner near home, but much to our dismay, she refused to eat. The one thing I do have to give her credit for was that she kept herself busy with the sugar packets on the table, allowing M and me some peace and quiet to chow down our food. When we got home, we heated up some leftover pasta for baby K, and of course, she ate it. Maybe she's not used to it, but the few times we've been away from home, we've learned that she doesn't do well eating out. I guess I should be thankful since it's saving us money.

2010 Harvest Festival

We had a great time at the Harvest Festival with baby K's daycare this year. The added bonus was that M got to come and enjoy it with us. We had baby K dressed up as a tiger (it was the first costume we got her to try on at Macy's without putting up a fight), and to my pleasant surprise, she was the only toddler tiger this year (I still remember last year, every other baby was dressed up as a ladybug and it took me a while to find mine). Baby K loved being in the costume, but was sweating bullets since it was so warm out (what's with this crazy weather!?). I'm looking forward to dressing her up again on Sunday, when we go trick or treating in the neighborhood to collect some candy for mommy and daddy!

Happy Halloween!

Sesame Street Characters

It comes as no surprise to us that Elmo is baby K's favorite Sesame Street character (Elmo is probably every child's favorite). Next on the list are Abby, Zoe, and oddly enough, Oscar. Add Bert and Ernie to the list, and that's about all the Sesame Street characters baby K can say. Grover and Cookie Monster are non-existent in her vocabulary, and while she knows who Big Bird is (i.e., can easily point to the big yellow fluffy bird when I ask her where's Big Bird), she can't seem to say his name (which is strange to me since I thought that was one of the easier characters to pronounce -- at least easier than Oscar!). What comes out of her mouth is "Peter" instead (not sure how she got "Peter" out of "Big Bird" since the two sound nothing alike, but at least she has her uncle's name nailed down). Unfortunately, I'm sure if she sees her Uncle P, she won't be so cooperative to address him by name or salutation. In the meantime, I'm still working on getting her to say Big Bird. Hmm... maybe the trick is to teach her "Peter" and she may end up saying "Big Bird" instead. Yes... I think I'll try that next.

Baby K's Latest...

M and I are really enjoying our moments with baby K nowadays. She's gotten a lot more talkative (at least around us), even though we still can't understand half the things she says. Here are some of the things she's been doing recently:

• When she's in the bathroom brushing her teeth and either M or I are not in there with her, she would yell on top of her lungs "MA-EEEE BRUSHIE" (or "DA-EEEE BRUSHIE" if it's M that's missing) while pointing at our toothbrush, and she would keep it up until we showed up to the bathroom, picked up the toothbrush, and started brushing our teeth. It's not enough for her to have one parent with her; she needs both of us. [Side note: For those of you who don't know, baby K calls me "MA-EEEE" instead of MOMMY and she refers to M as "DA-EEEE" instead of DADDY.]
• She is very good at cleaning up. When she's finished playing with a toy or using her crayons, she puts it back where she found them without being told.
• When we are going down the stairs at home, she purposely reaches up to the light switch to turn off the light once we get to the last step (helping us save on the electricity bill - that's my girl!).
• When she wants to watch her Veggie Tales or Elmo DVD (and if we allow her to), she would take the DVD out of the case, bring us the empty case and all the correct remote controls we'd need, and wait for us to turn on the player and press "open," so that she can slip the DVD into the machine. [Side note: Yes, as parents we have ultimately broken the "no TV" rule, but her tube entertainment is limited to no more than 20 minutes a day, and she does not get to watch it every day.]
• She can almost sing the entire A-B-C song, though she does not perform on demand.
• When I have her count from 1-10 in Chinese, she would automatically skip to the next number instead of repeating the same number after me.
• She will say "BLESS YOU!" when she hears someone sneeze.
• When I drop her off at daycare, she would point to every single one of her classmates and say their name.
• She has started to let me cut her nails. What a treat! I no longer have to do it in the dark when she's sleeping while holding a flashlight (trust me, it's not easy!). Now the next step is for her to let me cut her bangs.
• She started to wipe her nose with a tissue by herself when it's runny, and would throw the dirty tissue away without being asked when she's done with it.
• She can use the mouse to scroll up and down when watching her Elmo videos on youtube.
• She loves grabbing the phone receiver to the fax machine in the office and speaking to it. We only understand the first word, "hello?" (with a silent "h"), then everything after that is foreign to us.

The one milestone we haven't been able to meet yet is potty training. Baby K hasn't been interested, so we haven't pushed her. She does tell us when she has to poop (and sometimes when she has to pee), but just refuses to do it sitting down. There have been a few times where she was willing to go up to the bathroom and sit in her potty chair, but nothing comes out and she ends up spending half an hour in the bathroom playing. Even the prospect of flushing the toilet (which she loves) is not enough incentive for her to go potty in the chair. For now, we're just trying to be patient and follow her timing on when she'll be ready.