Solidary, part 2

Our lives continue to be dominated by the attack on public worker rights here in Wisconsin.  As a family with two public employees, we are watching these events unfold with a great deal of fear for our future and E's future.  It is pretty much all we can think about and all we can talk about.  We've been participating in demonstrations and having a great many discussions, but we are trying to keep the disruption's to E's life as little as possible.  She will however feel the effects in two weeks when she goes from five days a week in daycare to three.  She will see Miss Chris, one of her favorite people in the whole world less, which once she realizes it will be pretty upsetting.

 February 26-  E and Grandma and Grandpa all survived the sleep-over, although E didn't sleep the whole night, they said everyone got enough sleep.  Its clear that E's favorite toy this week is an empty puff container, she's even taken to putting her shape-sorter shapes into it.  She practices opening and closing the lid and reaching her arm in as far as it can go (it goes up past her elbow).  She carries it around with her, and even uses it for teething.  Given that her second favorite toy of the week is an empty tissue box we wonder why we need so many toys.

February 25-  Eat your veggies!  Getting E to eat is always a struggle, she has favorite foods, and then suddenly changes her mind.  For a while she loved Gerber turkey sticks, now she could take or leave them.  She used to love finger food peas, now she will only occasionally eat them, same with sweet potatoes.  She refuses to eat small carrot pieces, so to try and trick her, I gave her a whole carrot.  It worked for a few bites, but then she figured it out.  Today also marked a milestone, she had a sleep over at Grandma and Grandpa's.

February 24-  Getting ready for bed, E and dad read "Tall" by Jez Alborough, its one of E's favorite books.  Its also one of her dad's favorites to read to her, there aren't many words, so he gets to improvise quite a bit of the story.  E gets a story or two every night, its almost her favorite part of her night time routine.

February 23-  Sleep is really all I can say about this day.  E woke up so many times during the night we lost count.  She slept everywhere, her bed, our bed, and being held all for about an hour at a time.  My clearest memory of it all was waking up to a little girl giving me a love bite on my nose.

February 22-  Mommy snuggles!  E is always on the go, and from a young age wanted to be independent.  In the past month, she's become more and more willing to slow down for a few minutes for a hug, cuddle, or sitting on a lap.  We love the change, we used to have to wait until she fell asleep in our arms for cuddles, now we get them while she is awake.

February 21-  E's other favorite non-toy of the week, bowls.  She is very interested in stacking and nesting things, and her bowls work perfectly for nesting.  She also likes to bang them like drums.  You can't see it here, but she also used a spoon to play with her bowls, "stirring" the air inside them and using the spoon to teeth while carrying bowls.

February 20-  E and her blocks, the blocks were a Christmas gift and they were one of her favorites.  She likes to knock down towers, stack two on top of each other, and throw them.  Fortunately her blocks are rubber so they bounce funny when she throws them.  That is half the fun though, she goes chasing after them and does it all again.

February 19- A future chef?  We spend time looking and E's favorite activities and pretending that we can guess her future career based on what she does as an 11 month old.  We've guessed pretty much all the careers a person can have.  Here she is modeling the apron my parents brought me from Hawaii.  Her dad got an apron too, and once he put his on, she was very interested in wearing mine.  She walked around in it for quite a while, and even found a way to chew on something while wearing it.