flea | Entries tagged with dillo eats

Always:
Frozen smoothie fruit
Frozen blueberries
Frozen tater tots
Grapes
Watermelon
Cherries
Chocolate anything
Ice cream
Marshmallows
Steamed broccoli
Plain cooked noodles

Sometimes:
Hard boiled egg (whites only)
Sweet Italian sausages
Cooked plain chicken (must not be on the bone; must not have any spices, even pepper, added)
Hummus
Vanilla yogurt, yogurt tubes
Grilled American cheese sandwiches
Baguettes, ciabatta bread, white pita bread, plain flour tortillas, stoned wheat thin crackers
Boursin cheese, American cheese
Apples, bananas, corn on the cob, carrot sticks
Frozen peas, frozen corn
Noodles with parmesan cheese
Plain white basmati rice

Pretty Much Never:
Everything else

I am getting very tired of trying to keep this skinny kid alive and growing with these options; when does the picky phase end? It's harder in summer, because at least in winter he'll eat the pasta or rice or whatever we have with soups or stews.

mr. flea went in for a meeting with the Dillo's teacher today at lunch, so it seemed like a good time for an overall update.

He's 3.5 now, about 39 inches tall, 34 pounds according to the Wii. This means, IIRC, that's gained all of about 2 pounds in the last 18 months, which is not that surprising when you look at his figure and how it's changed (and is also developmentally appropriate). He's still got a round face and a round head and the snub nose he was born with, but the rest of him is no longer round - he's all slim and limby. He's definitely had a growth spurt this fall - I bought him 2T pants in September and they fit and now they are highwaters, so he's finally fully into 3T.

He's a bit fussy about clothes, and prefers "soft pants" (sweatpants and other elastic waist things - not jeans) and if given the choice would wear his black and orange striped pajama shirt 24/7. He likes stripes, and pajamas. We are laxer than we were with Casper - our rule is, you may wear ONE piece of your pajamas the next day to school (he usually picks the shirt) and you may not wear the same clothes two days in a row. (With Casper we had a "no pajamas at all" rule.) His hair is loooong and shaggy and I really should cut it, but he likes it long and you really can't cut the hair of a violently protesting child, can you? He dislikes having his hair washed at the moment, though liking baths otherwise, so I figure I'll wait until the phase passes before trying again with the scissors.

mr. flea reports that he's doing very well at school. It's a Montessori classroom, a primary classroom but the kids are almost all on the younger end of primary (3-4.5). His teacher says that in general she thinks he is advanced for his age, in social skills and skills. He and Evan and Adam are all very interested in their works, and spend more time together as a result. Dillo likes to do works and is really self-motivated and independent once he's understood them, and will sometimes move ahead before he is shown the next step. mr. flea came away feeling we are babying him a bit at home, and can give him more responsibility, on the one hand, and maybe expect a little more from him on the other. (Example: apparently he eats everything except tomatoes at school. At home, he's a pastafarian, and dinnertime is kind of a circus. So maybe we should impose a little more structure at meals at home.)

He's just starting figural drawing - drew a face of himself on the whiteboard last night, but was stumped about how to draw "his bones" and wanted my help. He speaks in complete sentences and is comprehensible. He knows some letters and sounds, and they work on this at school. He's interested in sound play and word play a little - replacing all the initial sounds in a sentence with the same consonant, like "BI'm the Biggest Barnibore, in the Betaceous Borest." Has been using his stomp rocket as a vacuum around the house, and we've had a lot of block and lego and train play - especially after mr. flea had the genius idea to use the Thomas duplo and dinosaur duplo together and make a Dinosaur Train!

His teacher reports that "butt" language is not a problem at school. It is one at home - every other word is "butt-butt" and he discovered the word "butt-hole" last week (I think at school - it's not something we say!) He teases his sister sometimes, and then cries when she gets angry at him. They're at a rocky point - he's old enough now to realize when she is being too bossy and to demand equality, but not old enough to be a real peer in many games. He's still a little shy/passive in the face of others' aggression at school, and shy with strangers - still buries his face in my neck. After a LOT of potty accidents over the break, he is mostly back on track, with occasional accidents rather than accidents as a matter of course.

I have been thinking of him as trying and exhausting and the other things I associate with being 3, so it was nice to get the glowing report from school about his maturity and self-motivation. He's a sweet boy, too, a cuddler, very lovey, in addition to being an energetic bouncy homework-distracting cookie-demanding three year old.

Since we do have another kid, although he causes much less angst than no. 1 (whether by virtue of temperament, birth order, gender, neglect, or all of the above), hereforth: Dillo is nearly 3!

He pooped in the potty for the second time this morning, and won his prize of 3 M&Ms. (Casper cried.) We're trying to work with him in the evenings and mornings to sit on the potty; it's really hard, and if we had a week off work to focus on it I bet we'd make more progress. (Casper got the major part of potty training down at daycare, but Dillo is not picking it up there.) He does a big pee in the mornings, so I have been sitting him on the potty after he wakes up. He insists there's no pee, puts on a pull-up, and pees 5 minutes later. I'm seeing a lot more awareness of when he is going, even in the past week, though. I talked to him last night about moving up to the Primary Room with Miss Debbie when he uses the potty, and hope that will motivate him as well. Several of his friends have moved up to Primary, and he gets to visit, and likes Miss Debbie.

He likes to eat yogurt, and gets it out of the fridge himself and can open the Yo Baby cups, but not the tubes. He fetches his own silverware and can get the milk or juice out of the fridge while I get the cup. He's distracted about food in the evenings and often doesn't eat a proper dinner. He loves fruit (grapes, strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, apples) and pasta and rice, not big on pizza or anything spicy or cheese or tomato. He eats cheerios for breakfast, mostly.

He won't nap at the weekend unless taken out on a country drive, but does nap at day care. Getting him to sleep is a fairly big chore - he's rarely asleep before 9:30pm, and can chatter away with the best of them. But he almost always sleeps through the night, and is up at a reasonable hour, usually 6:30-7.

He likes to run in his "faster sneakers" (we recently got him new ones in a size 8 - his feet finally grew!) and ride his big wheel and play with the squirt guns outside. He's been playing with our neighbor Spencer (turned 4 in May) much more lately. He and Casper have been building hideouts with blankets by the couch and he likes to do whatever Casper does. He enjoys painting. No figural drawings yet. We can read longer books (The Roly-Poly Pudding; he was quite concerned about Tom's fate!) and I need to switch things around on the bookshelves a bit to keep up with his newer interests. He can sing the ABC song and recognizes a few letters (A, O) and some numbers (2, 4). Knows a lot of songs from school - John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, Five Little Ducks.

He's still very cute and charming. Round, open face, round head. Definitely stockier than Casper was at this age. We weighed him at my mother's and he was about 32-33 pounds. I need to figure out what we're going to do for his 3 year checkup (thinking of finding a pediatrician rather than go back to our doctor - they are just not set up for kids, no kid flu shot last fall, etc.) And his birthday!

We have discovered that the baby loves pomegranate seeds. I am now living in terror of the diapers.

Putting the Dillo to bed last night was an exercise in comedy. He was veeeerry tired, eyes blearily one-quarter open, crawling staggeringly to me and pressing his face into my neck, giving me big wet open-mouthed kisses. You could practically hear him slurring, "No, really, I love you, man!" like a teeny-weeny drunken beer-guzzler. The he'd flop over and doze off, but wake up 30 seconds later with a twitch to come back and love on me some more.

He's such a jolly round little dude - round-headed, round-bummed, round-thighed. A round nut of a head. He can wave now, and has begun to cruise in earnest. Entering the phase where there will be many bonks, and skinned noses.

At school they're transitioned to giving him real person food that they make (rather than baby food that we send) and he eats everything. He's less of a real-food eater at home, because we don't cater to a baby palate - very garlicky hummus last night was rejected, for example. I think they also spoon-feed him most things, and I just put stuff on the tray and see what he eats, which results in a lot of crumbling, smashing, and dropping. (He has learned the "uh-oh" drop it and see Mommy retrieve it game.) But he's well on the way to eating simple people food most of the time. Still 2 bottles at school. We bought a Nuby cup, which has a bite valve, to practice drinking from a cup, and have given him some water in it. It tends to spill a bit but he does get some out of it. Must ask them how they deal with the transition away from bottles at school (5 weeks of pumping left!)

I don't know why I feel I *can't* give him cow's milk before a year, though, since he's had about a zillion other things I never would have given Casper before a year - strawberries, ice cream (I tried to give him vanilla bits and not chocolate!), a pickle, a lemon wedge. Ah, the second baby.

Casper read, at school, and then multiple times at home, the Curious George book in which George goes to the hospital for an operation because he swallowed a puzzle piece. Now we're doing operations on everybody, especially a small stuffed cow who can't seem to understand that puzzle pieces aren't candy. We take blood pressure, and give medicine, and everything. This is our hospital: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/410073248/ (note: two-person tents seem much smaller when you are sleeping in them than when they are in your study.)

The other weekend excitement was the saga of the dress. My mother made it. It's lovely. I finally (after more than 2 months) convinced Casper to try it on. Casper HATES it. Here is how it played out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/410073237/ (She said, indignantly, "Princesses don't have pockets!" which I had to email to Ms. Dressaday.)

We also went to the Museum, and Dillo helped build some dinosaurs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/410082543/

He is unusually fussy today, and eating like crazy (bottles at 2 and 4, nursed at 5, sweet potatoes, pears, rice cereal, cheerios, and graham cracker since 5:30). Still has a cold. Maybe I should just post when he doesn't have a cold. It was a worse-than-usual night; we're rather wiped out, and it's only Monday.

Sneezy sneezy runny nose. Happily little post-nasal drip. Got it from Dillo, who is mostly unsnotty now. Casper has it too.

Goddamn frat boys next door were playing music loud from 1-3:30am. It's rush month. But, Wednesday? Dudes, usually it's Thursday nights I hate you. As I was lying in bed awake I was wishing I were a Deadwood watcher so I could curse them more excitingly. If they do it again tonight I am calling the cops.

Still on the rollercoaster of good sleep/bad sleep. Have I mentioned that Casper can wash her own hair (Santa brought her Big Girl Shampoo) and Dillo initiates peekaboo by pulling his blanket over his face and vibrating in excitement? We are feeding him oatmeal, applesauce, and squash now, pretty much every night and he likes them and anticipates dinner time. Hasn't pooped in a few days now though and I am starting to worry. Also got some interesting, very hard teething biscuits from Whole Foods, which he likes a lot.

The Dillo is suddenly having some kind of developmental advance. I'm not sure what he's actually going to learn to do any day now, but he's suddenly very active, rather impatient, eating like a horse, and sleeping badly. Yesterday he nursed every 1/5-2 hours and took as much as I could make. I trtied some cereal on him Sunday and applesauce yesterday, but he's not having it - tongue-thrusting and he actually spit up what I think was most of the cereal he'd swallowed. So I will just have to make more milk. His sleeping got rather off because of the travel, but last night was unusually nurse-a-holic and also very wiggly when the sleeping occurred - he was all over the place in the bed, and I woke up thinking, "Okay, I'm ready for the crib." When I changed and dressed him this morning he was squirming off the changing pad for the first time ever, grabbing spare diapers and trying to eat them. When placed on his back on the floor, he rolls to the front almost immediately, and then gets annoyed after about 2 minutes of being unable to go anywhere or do anything (he seems to have forgotten how to roll front-to-back.) Yesterday I had trouble holding him because he would stick both fists in my hair and try to eat my face. So there's clearly development going on, even if it is only "I WILL EAT YOU UP, ALL UP."

I think Casper has gotten the hang of pooping in the potty. She's done it 3 of the last 4 days at home, mid-day, telling me she needed to and running to the potty (instead of hiding in the closet or in a corner and saying "Don't get me!" if I suggested the potty.) She's also almost always dry overnight, although she mostly still sleeps in a pull-up. I think we may actually have bought our last diapers/pull-ups for her. Note that we didn't do anything - we just waited, and finally she's figured it out.

I go back to work tomorrow - only from 8-10 am for the first 2 weeks, plus 2 hours a day at home, which will be spent catching up with mounds of financial paperwork. So of course I had work anxiety dreams PLUS "Dillo is missing" anxiety dreams. In fact, a guy from work absent mindedly walked off with Dillo in the anxiety dream.

Dillo took a bottle reasonably easily yesterday - a little initial fuss, but settled down and took all there was pretty quickly.

He's also sleeping better - now from 8-12 and then nurse and then 12-4, as a general rule. He'll sleep on and off until about 6 after that. Like a normal baby! I hope my going back to work doesn't frell it all up as it did with Casper.

In view of returning to work starting Tuesday,

1. mr. flea gave Dillo a bottle. Despite much squalling and a huge mess, Dillo took about an ounce. This is a start. Especially since the first time we tried, he wouldn't take anything at all.

2. I nursed Dillo after we were done, then thought, heh, he's sleepy, let me try enforcing a real live nap. So I wrapped him up tight in a blanket and put him in the pack n play (which is in our bedroom, intended to be his bed eventually, but up to now he's slept nights in our bed and naps mostly in his carseat, which we use as a portable chair). Set up his little monkey to dangle above his head, and left him there. It's been nearly half an hour now, and he's quiet, if not asleep (was awake at last peek).