Disclaimer

I've been hesitant to give Liesel raw fruit because I am allergic to it. Not all fruit, but the "sweet" versions like honeydew melon and cantaloupe--BLECH! I can eat the "citrus" versions with no problem so I feast on grapefruit and pineapple. For the most part, I can eat everything in between although it's just a few bites before I feel like my tongue has grown hair and my throat gets itchy. However, Liesel's really past the Gerber stage and trying to be a good mom, I want her to eat good stuff. I decided to see how she would do with fruit finger foods like raspberries and blueberries. She wasn't hot on the raspberries but she LOVED the blueberries. That's kind of a big word for her so I just dubbed them "berries" but even that seemed to be a bit much for her toddler vocabulary. She shortened it to "beer." On Saturday we did our weekend errands which include a trip to the grocery store. Now that her love of blueberries is firmly entrenched in her psyche, she caught one glimpse of them among the strawberries and blackberries and said, "Beer? Beer peese? Beer! BEER!!!" We got a few glances. For the record, we don't give our girl beer.

Liesel is growing in so many wonderful ways though. In spite of the small fortune I've invested in Gymboree clothing, here is her favorite outfit (no kidding, when left to her own devices she picks this out herself):

We're not sure why she likes to have a shoe only on one foot but that's usually how she ends up. Now, she KNOWS when people are complimenting her on how cute she is so she's at least marginally aware of her looks. Whenever I finish doing her hair she takes a good look at herself in the mirror and smiles (pigtails get the biggest reaction). She's into shoes which I thought would naturally lead into an interest in general fashion. To put it simply, she has a little vain streak in her. How she came up with this outfit is beyond me aside from the mostly nude part... she's just like her daddy and she runs hot. Maybe this is a big look in Asia?

A couple of weeks ago I was walking up some stairs with her. Liesel usually has a pretty good stream of chatter going so it took me a while to tune in to the fact she was saying, "two, fee, foa, five..." with every step. I was floored; she can count to ten! Well, mostly... she gets stuck on six and then she just repeats it over and over. Of course, she's a toddler and can't quite say "six" so she ends up sounding like she has Tourrette's. Aside from counting, Liesel also knows her ABC's up to G. When I asked her teachers at daycare if they had taught her that, they responded, "Yeah" in a tone that said, "what do you think we DO with her all day?" Good to know our hard-earned money is going to something useful!

They also tell us she is well-primed to be a big sister. When it's nap time she apparently goes around to all the kids on their several mats, says "night, night" and pats them on the head. They say Liesel herself doesn't want to go down, she just wants to check on everyone else. She's also taken to "mothering' one of the other kids in her class... to the point she will check her diaper to see if she's poopy. Liesel's starting to pull her own pants up which is a good sign she may be ready to start potty training. We'll see. She's clinging to her binkie for dear life and just when I determine I'm going to boil them and stow them away she either gets sick or, more recently, starts cutting her two year molars. I feel so bad for her, I just can't take away what seems to be her only comfort and at times my only sanity to keep her from crying. She's so cute when she asks for it too. Binkie? Then she sucks on her lower lip sort of like, "something's missing here, see?" Does anyone have any ideas on how I can wean her off of the binkie? I was hoping she'd be "sober" by the time our next little one arrives so there won't be binkie envy. I'm starting to worry...

Brent checked in on her one night and found her sleeping like this:

My side of the family will recognize this position as one my dad takes when he is on his laptop. Too funny... maybe she has some Nielsen in her after all!

I recently discovered this video which just put me under. Brent tells me it was shortly after Christmas and she had mysteriously found yet another can of Pringles. When he saw her with her hat, sucker and leg warmers clinging to the can he just had to get some video. I LOVE the attitude she gives him as he questions her about what she's doing:

One final note on Liesel's latest quirks. She doesn't watch TV but we found this YouTube clip of Beaker singing "Ode to Joy" and she will watch it over and over. If we switch it to any other video, even the one of Beaker singing Habanera, she shakes her head... that's not the one she wants. I finally downloaded it to my iTunes and once while we were in the car waiting for Brent I tried it out on the iPod. She looked like a midget teenager with the earbuds watching my iPod. They really grow up SO fast!

Tellin' the Truth Can Be Dangerous Business

Insensitive comments are a given during any pregnancy. It's just the way it is. But there's a certain point where they start coming fast and furious. Generally I try to ignore them but for some reason (hormones no doubt), they've been hitting me hard lately. On Friday I cried on the way to work anticipating another round of comments about how HUGE I am and I sobbed on the way home as I told Brent about them. The odd thing is the majority of them come from women... with children. You'd think they would know better but I guess they've forgotten.

Friday night we played games with a sympathetic group of friends which helped but I was still a little down. We put a very cranky Liesel down for the night, waaaaaay past her bedtime, and Brent flipped through the channels on tv. I wanted something upbeat, something that would take my mind off my day and really start my weekend. We found it on Wealth TV of all places; they were showing Ishtar.

Ishtar is a family and cult favorite. It did horribly at the box office, hence the Far Side cartoon above which is the video store in hell. Even though we own it on VHS (I really need to get the dvd... if they ever made it into dvd), I hadn't seen it in a while. Some of my favorite lines:

Lyle: It takes a lot of nerve to have nothing at your age, don't you understand that? Most guys'd be ashamed, but you've got the guts to just say 'to hell with it'. You say that you'd rather have nothing than settle for less, understand?

Chuck: You mean you bought a camel?

Lyle: No, I didnt really buy it. They SOLD it to me!

Lyle: Oh no. I think that something went wrong and now I own a blind camel. A blind camel!

Chuck: As one agent to another, I've heard the emir is a prick.

Jim: REALLY? Well we'll have to look into that.

Lyle: A piece of sand blew in my eye? This must be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing... like a glacier melting.

Jim: ...especially now that Kadafi's signed a pact with Morocco.

Chuck: Is that near here?

Jim: Kadafi's a person. He rules Libya.

Chuck: Yeah yeah, but that's near here, right?

Jim: Yeah, Libya's near here.

Chuck: *singing* My life is nearly over, and time goes by so fast. I wanted to give you a present, to thank you for the past [From the song I'm Leaving Some Love In My Will].

CIA Agent: Jim, I don't know what you had in mind here, but this mission is no longer covert. We are now overtly firing on two Americans and God knows who else. And they are armed to the teeth!

Even typing these out makes me smile all over again. I really should look into getting it on dvd!

Sledding

It snowed in Boston yesterday so we had a nice little layer of fluff to try out the sled Liesel got for Christmas. We bundled her up and hit the slopes. She LOVED it!!! As buried as she was in her her winter outerwear, she still managed to yell gleefully as they hit a little speed:

The only problem was her short legs which made maneuvering in the snow and walking up hill a little tricky. Ever the resourceful guy, Brent found a remedy for that:

Even though I'm too big and awkward to participate, I had the time of my life watching these two! I'm so grateful to live somewhere with all 4 seasons.

Merry Christmas

Yes, this is a bit belated but it's worth documenting. For Valentine's Day I'll let you know how our New Year's went. There are oh so many things that are a little bit better with children such as swimming, 'Toon Town at Disneyland, and Christmas morning. We were extremely careful to train Liesel not to touch the tree or train so it took her a little while to warm up. Whenever we ran the train around the tree she would sit impossibly still and just stare at it. Christmas morning I tore a corner of the first gift she opened to get her started and when she ripped off a chunk she just looked at me quizzically and said, "garbage?" It wasn't until she saw others making a mess and *gasp* not getting in trouble for it that she launched in.

We've been trying to wean Liesel off of her binkies for fear they will ruin her teeth. Instead, we've been giving her Dum Dum's... which will probably also ruin her teeth. Anyway, she was excited to find them in her stocking:

Although Liesel looks like a type and shadow of her father, she's definitely got some of me in there. This is made manifest the most in her love of shoes. In fact, she hates feetie pajamas because she can't get her shoes on over them. She'll spend a toddler eternity in her closet playing with her shoes. For Christmas she got two pairs of Crocs and a pair of Pedipeds that are just adorable. In case you ever need a maternity test:

When we were kids we had these really LONG stockings and my mom cleverly found the best way to fill up all the space was to give us Pringles and frosting. Now it doesn't feel like Christmas to me without some sour cream and onion chips to munch on. Random I know, but there you have it. Thanks to a generous grandpa who let her have his BBQ flavored Pringles, Liesel quickly embraced this time-honored tradition. She insisted on wearing her new pajamas and shoes all day.

Relatively speaking, it was a very simple Christmas which I rather liked. There wasn't a lot of pressure to get through a mountain of presents so we were able to just enjoy each other's company. I had planned to make a fabulous ham dinner but after the festivities of opening stockings and gifts, I completely passed out. Because I'm saving my vacation time for my maternity leave I'd worked on Christmas Eve and then frantically done my last-minute shopping. I was able to sleep in a bit on Christmas morning but the second Liesel went down for a nap I went down too. When I woke up Mom and Brent had taken care of the whole thing! The house smelled wonderfully of ham and we sat down to a lovely meal. I am so grateful to have my mom around at this time because we would have eaten cereal otherwise.

Totally Bizarre

The other day I was up in the Finance department handing in my latest Travel & Expense reimbursement form. Now that I'm in my third trimester and walking like a penguin, people no longer bother asking if I'm pregnant. They jump right away into the barrage of questions: How are you feeling? When are you due again? Do you know what you're having? Have you thought of any names? The nice lady who processes our forms and issues our reimbursement checks happened to see me and asked how I was doing. She followed the general pattern of questions and then the conversation took a turn I couldn't have anticipated.

When I told her I was having a girl, she asked me to turn around. Oooooohkay, that's a new one. After a little spin, I faced her again and she said, "You look like you're having a boy." What the whaaaaaa????? Is there something on my @$$ that says what I'm having? Well, then she explained that I was only carrying in the front and usually women with girls carry all over. In spite of her explanation, I headed back to my cube completely confused. Even if that old wives's tale were true, would you ask a pregnant women (IE someone who is already self conscious about her body shape) to turn around and then comment on where her weight was sitting?

Bizarre.

P.S. Actually published by Danika not realizing Brent was signed in.

Ringing in the Holiday Spirit

Paying it forward from a co-worker who sent this to Danika. We hope it makes you smile and gets you into the christmas spirit if you are not already.

Rite of Passage

I'm SO excited about something I did today: I signed Liesel up for her very own American Airlines frequent flier account! We're planning to have the new baby blessed in Iowa in May and since Liesel will be over 2, she gets her own seat. As I started looking at ticket prices, it occurred to me that I could add Liesel as a companion traveller (Brent's been on there since we were dating). The only problem is she needed an AAdvantage # and I thought you had to have an email account to do that. One call to the AAdvantage desk and voila! She's ready to fly the friendly skies AND earn points for it! The agent told me her daughter had an AAdvantage account from the time she was 4. For the time being, Liesel is under my email account until she's old enough to have her own.

Both of our families live far enough away to warrant a plane trip at least every 18 months, which is how long an account can go with no activity before the miles expire. If you know me, you know how very much I love my AA frequent flier miles. It's like money in the bank! The only two times in my life I've used them were for a funeral and a vacation I wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise. I regularly log in to my account to check the updates and love seeing my balance go up, up, up! I hope to aspire to be like my parents and one day make the "Million Mile Club." Oh how sweet that would be! In the meantime, we'll let Liesel work towards that goal along with us. By the time she's in college, she could have enough miles for all her Christmas trips home! Or to go to Europe on study abroad! Or to travel for graduate school/job interviews. She doesn't know it yet, but her mama is doing her a HUGE favor.

I feel so clever, I can't stop smiling!

Behind the Times

Confession: I'm not on Facebook and don't ever plan to be. We had a focus group of students who came to my company to review collateral and give feedback and one whole session focused on social media. Not only was it the liveliest of the focus groups, but one of the most bizarre in my opinion. Most of the students agreed Facebook was best used for "stalking" people. No lie, that's the term they used. I don't want to be stalked. They also agreed it was a huge time waster. I don't like wasting time. They went into great detail about the different applications and games they played. They also mentioned it was very addicting. No thanks, I already have a problem with my love of shoes, I shouldn't pick up another obsession. My intention here is not to offend, just to explain myself. I spend the majority of my waking time on a computer, why would I spend my leisure time on it too? Just not my cup of tea.

While visiting family over the summer I was severely chastised by my sisters for not being on Facebook. One visibly flinched when I told her I didn't have time to waste "harvesting" crops on Farm Town. Both of them have found long-lost friends through Facebook. This may sound snooty, but those who want to be in contact with me already ARE. They both reminded me even my parents are on Facebook; indicating if even the Boomers are into it, I shouldn't be rebelling against it as a Gen Xer. Somehow I just can't do it. I already have a fear of internet peeping toms who are granting themselves access to the private corners of my life. And yes, I know you can make your profile private. Why make a profile at all then?

Recently on the news a police officer talked about how sites like Facebook are their geatest friends. They've found parole breakers and people blogging about the laws they've broken... even people violating restraining orders. One guy told me when he's hiring he checks out all prospective employees on Facebook. One of them had photos of himslf with a huge bag of weed. He didn't get the job. I've been told there's one person at my company who regularly updates her Facebook during work hours with messages like, "Only four more hours until I'm out of here!" That just seems unprofessional to me. Facebook isn't for me I guess. Call me Greta Garbo... I just want to be left alone. Don't even get me started on Twitter. Do you really care if I've just taken a dump and am wondering if eating Indian and Greek food in one day is a good idea? Didn't think so.

Nevertheless, I was blown away by this clip about social media and wanted to share... Even if I'm not on Facebook, I still want to do my part you know :)



If you can't see the whole screen, link here

Sitting Pretty

Liesel has spent the last few days with Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen while Brent and I were in Arizona for a wedding. We got in this morning at 1:00 AM so of course she was in bed. After completely spoiling us for two weeks (not to mention taking stellar care of Liesel), my Mom and Dad left in the wee hours of the morning. When we heard Liesel stirring in her crib a couple of hours later, Brent jumped up to get her.

She was SO happy to see us! Brent brought her back to bed to cuddle with us. She leaned over and kissed him 3 times and then she threw her little arms around me and said, "I sorry!" One of the challenges of being a mother of kids Liesel's age is they don't quite know how to express appreciation, even if they are grateful. I'll take that hug as a token of appreciation though, and it was nice to see she genuinely missed us.

Our day was spent trying to get back on East Coast time, unpacking and settling into the reality of the mundane week to come. We had a Christmas party to attend and I took the opportunity to put Liesel in the red tulle skirt I got on sale at Gymboree last week. Brent went out to warm up the car and she went into hysterics, even as I tried to tell her he was coming right back.

Liesel was an absolute hit at the party. She smiled coyly at the guys and hugged the girls who asked to hold her. Liesel hugged one girl for so long she gushed, "Oh, THIS is all I wanted for Christmas!" I know I'm biased, but she really was charming. She got lots of compliments on the skirt as well as her shoes and hair. I'm grateful to have friends who eagerly invite not just Brent and I, but Liesel as well to their formal gatherings because we really wanted to be together as a family after some time apart. Sorry the picture quality isn't the best, it was taken from Brent's camera phone!

How I Love You, Let Me Count The Ways...

They say every pregnancy is different and I am coming to realize the veracity of that statement. Even though I don't weigh any more than I did at this point in my pregnancy with Liesel, I'm FEELING it a lot more. I remember cruising into my third trimester wondering why people said it would be worse than my nauseous, exhausted first trimester. That lasted about 3 weeks and then my awkward body shape and extra weight really started to take it's toll on my hips, back and shoulders. Not to mention Liesel's penchant for lodging herself right into my ribs. For whatever reason, with two more weeks until I even START my first trimester, I'm feeling the aches and pains much more acutely this time. Again, I weigh the same as I did at this point in my last pregnancy, but my body seems to be groaning a bit more with this one.

Sunday night I was tossing and turning to find a comfortable spot. Brent asked me what was wrong and I told him, adding how frustrating it was to not get a good night's sleep for nigh on a week now. As I lay on my left side (like they tell you to), hugging a body pillow, with my head on my own pillow, I felt Brent stuff something around my lower back to give me support and make me more comfortable. It worked and I drifted off. It wasn't until my routine 5 AM bathroom run that I looked over and noticed Brent was sleeping with no pillow at all. He had taken his own pillow and given it to me so I could sleep.

Forget fairy tales girls, THAT'S true love.