What do you do with a one-year-old?

Continued.
Yes, I'm still wondering what to do with my one-year-(and-three-months)-old. Paper dolls always seems like a fun activity, but she's far too destructive for paper products to last long.

Then, I remembered that my friend had given me magnet dolls - genius! And Cora did love taking them off the filing cabinet, putting them in a different place, and watching as they still stick. She doesn't really get that the outfits go on top of the little people, but I let her organize the world as she sees fit. Here's what the set of 8 people and 8 outfits looks like:

This inspired me to make another spin on the paper doll - the felt doll. Normal felt does stick to itself/other felt, but Cora really loves velcro. So, I thought why not stick velcro on the back of stiff felt? Works like a charm! I got the patterns to cut out from the smile and wave blog, and after a little tracing, cutting, and applying self-adhesive velcro dots, here was the finished product:
Well, not quite. The doll actually had a blue wig, but Cora put in her "secret stash" somewhere, so for this picture, I just stuck on one of the shapes I'd cut out.

Truthfully, Cora could care less that this is a cute doll with a fashionable little dress on. So, I'll have to weigh the pros and cons for future cut-outs. Do I painstakingly carve out flattering dresses, skirts, pants, and shoes for our little doll? Or do I just cut out your basic triangle, square, pentagon shapes and slap some velcro on them, let the kid entertain herself with the mere "scrrnch" of ripping velcro over and over and over again? Probably some of both. I think I'll do a board, like the smile and wave blog did, and have a couple dolls with some outfits, along with quite a few random shapes.

Bottom line: success! One-year-ish-old entertained by both magnet and felt dolls for 15 minutes!

Just plain cute

 

The Girl Needs Bacon

Our pediatrician informed us that Cora needs to gain weight. She's in the 5th percentile for her age group - nothing like being way on the short of the statistical norm to make you feel like a bad mama!

I came back from my weekly night class to a wonderfully quiet house that smelled...a little greasy. I asked Chad how everything went with Cora and what she ate for dinner. He said, "Tonight went fine. She had 4 pieces of bacon and milk for dinner."

Well, I guess that'll pack on the pounds!

Entertainment Attempt #1

Crayons are classic, right? Even better than classic crayons are these baby-fied crayons, which have a little sponge at the end and liquid in the tube part. You have to smush the spnge several times to make the (washable!) colored liquid flow. The benefits are no lid, no wax to eat, no paper to tear off, and it dries up. I was fascinated by these nifty baby crayons. Cora was more interested in dropping them on the floor. Most of the marks on the page are mine. She made a few dots before she decided to drop the crayons and pull at the pages in the sketchbook.

Mild success. I was entertained. Cora was intrigued for about 3 1/2 minutes, but she stayed in the chair without fussing for at least 10 minutes.

What do you do with a one-year-old?

(Sing above title to the tune of the 80s Klondike Bar jingle.)

I ponder this question every day, what to do with my curious, active, demanding almost-toddler. First, I'll give you a rough sketch of what our days look like. On a good morning - and today was the first good morning - I will wake up early, work out in the gym downstairs from 6:00-6:45am, and run upstairs to take a quick shower before Cora wakes up a little after 7:00. Of course, more often, she wakes up closer to 6:30 and Chad has to deal with her, which usually involves Cora playing with toys while he dozes on the couch. Anyway, so then it's Chad's turn to work out downstairs while I give Cora some milk, make my coffee, and finish getting myself ready. We all eat breakfast together, and Chad leaves the house around 8:15.

Cora and I then have two hours before her next nap. We drag out every toy that is stored in the living room. She picks her favorites, and I put them on the couch for her. She climbs up on the couch (using her little stool), and we watch the news together. Then I can usually do some of my more active chores, like dishes, laundry, or cooking while she climbs up and down on the couch and picks through all her living room toys.

10:15 rolls around, and Cora starts making the sign for bed (hand on the side of the head and leaning the head). She goes down without a peep, and I bee-line for the computer to do email, finances, and any google search/information gathering I had intended to do. If there's any leftover time before 11:30, I work on homework for my Monday night graphic design class. All of this productivity is, of course, on a good day. On a not-so-good day, I take a nap too.

11:30 she wakes up, and I get her settled with a toy from the closet (the reserves) while I make lunch. We eat together for about 30 minutes, then we pull another toy or two from the reserve closet. I sometimes try to sneak in more computer time, but Cora generally gets impatient with that and cries at my pant legs from underneath the chair until I come play with her. We go back and forth like that for a while. Occasionally, I attempt to woo her with children's TV programming. She didn't take to Curious George or Clifford, but she likes the Backyardigans and a Swedish program called Pingu (about a clay-mation production about penguins). I say, "likes," but that means she dances to the intro song and laughs, then returns to toys or pestering me to play with her and her toys.

Just to change it up, we go into her room, where she pulls all the board books off her little bookshelf while I try to read some of them to her. That's plenty entertaining until 2:30 nap time!

She goes back to bed, and I try to clean up a bit (why? I don't know...). Then, I do homework, return phone calls, make various travel arrangements, plan meals, check facebook, etc. Sometimes I even manage to go through some of the photos and videos I've taken recently or read the blogs I subscribe to. You'd be amazed how quickly the time goes. Wait, I'm sure you know.

3:45-ish, and she's up again! If we haven't gotten out by this point, we'll try to go out for coffee, make deposits at the bank, stroll through the library, or run to the store, all of which involve at least a half-mile to mile walk each way. Sometimes we do this after lunch, in which case you could switch this paragraph with the two describing her post-morning-pre-afternoon nap segment.

Once we're home again, I start dinner, while she sorts through the tupperware drawer. Cora would say, "Mama never organizes the tupperwares right, so I have to come in and fix it every day! Sometimes several times a day." Chad usually walks in the door around 6:20 (thankful for that!), and he helps with Cora. We all eat dinner together. Every other night, Chad gives Cora a bath, and then it's PJs, book, and bed. While they do that, I clean up dinner and the day's disaster aftermath.

By 8:30, Cora's sound asleep. Chad and I collapse on the couch with a beer to catch up on the news or watch one of our shows. We recently finished Dexter and are on the look-out for another. We rarely make it passed 10pm, and we're out too. For those of my readers who remember us from our student days, both of us asleep by 10pm would have been unimaginable, more like 3am (Chad at least). Now, we're parents.

Cora and I are about to embark on a series of new crafty activities. After a recent trip to the craft store, I'm armed with crayons, kid scissors, construction paper, pipe cleaners, and big wooden beads. I'll let you know what works.



**There are a few consistent differences in the above "day in the life of." I go to graphic design class Monday evenings, Wednesday morning we go to an indoor play class, Wednesday afternoons the babysitter comes so I can run errands, and once a week Cora and I meed Chad in the city for lunch.**

We went outside!

 

Every kid (and nanny/mom) in the neighborhood turned out for the first warm day in months. It was absolute madness. Little kids, big kids, and over-protective moms, all climbing around the play space and dragging the slush in with them.

But Cora had great fun! She also looked super cute in her little coat, a gift from her birthday buddy (also born January 8th, although about 25 years earlier), Kathy.

My mom also gave me an awesome pocket-sized video recorder, so I looked just as nutty as the parents in the jungle gym, following Cora around and filming her attempts at climbing ladders and such.

I guess we both had fun.

Cora's First Birthday: Travel Theme

Why do people always say children grow fast? They don't! Cora's first year has been the longest year of my life, and she has seemed to grow remarkably slowly. I guess, though, looking back, time always seems to pass faster than when you're in the moment. No matter how quickly or slowly the year seems to have passed, however, every 365 days (roughly) demands a birthday party! And we delivered.

Cora's first birthday party was travel themed. Here was the invitation:

Now, I did not design these lovely invitations. Jennifer of Nounces on Etsy.com (plug: http://www.etsy.com/transaction/40790734) customized her design for me for a mere $15, then I could print as many as I wanted. Genius. I did have the paper cutter, corner rounder, and perforated-line cutter to add those realistic touches.

For decor, we had a map with pins showing all the places Cora had been this year, a sign saying, "Thank you for flying CM Airlines" with a bowl of peanut/pretzel baggies, and plastic cups with the CM Airlines logo, most of which was handled by my awesome sister, Darcy.

The big hit of it all was the cake made by Lauren, my talented sister-in-law, who flew in that night and stayed up till all hours of the night, finishing this masterpiece: a partial globe with a cute fondant airplane and a trailing streamer reading, "Happy Birthday Cora!"

For the remainder of the decorations, my wonderful mom handled flowers and balloons in the blue, pink, and green colors of the party. So, yes, team effort was the key word here! Cora conveniently woke up at 12:45 from her nap, almost as if she knew her cue. She was happy as a clam for nearly three hours of BBQ lunch, bubbles, candles, singing, cake-eating, and assisted present unwrapping. Cora made out like the baby bandit that she is with a plane full of toys and was proud of it.

Lastly, I did actually make the party favors, pocket-sized passport photo albums. The first page has her actual passport photo, and each of the rest of the pages has a picture of Cora traveling (in a carrier, baby bjorn, gift sack, rolling bag, cannon, backpack, etc.).

If you would like to DIY, here's the gist: I ordered these little passports from JoAnn's. (http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/productdetail.jsp?CATID=cat2607&PRODID=prd27727)
Then, I picked out 13 photos, resized them in iPhoto (crop to iPhone 2x3 size), printed the photos out on sticker paper (available at Staples and such), and peeled and stuck! Well, it was pretty tricky to cut them all out and peel them all, so I got help from my very large family. We had a passport-making evening. 4-6 hours of work split up among 4-6 people worked very well. And now everyone has a pocket-sized photobook of Cora's travels.

Happy birthday, baby!

Moving, Goin' to a Wedding, and Pumpkin Hunting

We've moved to New Jersey! We're 30 minutes from Chad's job in Manhattan but in a less dense urban area, so it's a good compromise. Cora has enjoyed the moving process much more than we have. Boxes, books, clothes, shoes, and all sorts of grown-up things have been scattered across the floor (first the Nashville floor, now the NJ floor) for weeks, giving her a make-shift playground. She's crawling, pulling herself up to standing, gnawing the bindings off books, and grabbing every sharp-looking object she can reach.
Since we'd sold much of our furniture in Nashville, we first made a stop to Ikea up here. Actually, we made several stops to Ikea and ate a delicious meal every time. After probably 15 hours of driving to, shopping at, and eating in Ikea, we built a table, a desk, and a wall of bookshelf/cabinets. Before and after:
We're not quite finished. We'll mount the TV to the wall and put two glass shelves above it to make the height even across. Of course, Cora was quite helpful in the building phase.

 

 After we'd been at our new place for all of 10 days, we jetted off off to Texas for the wedding! It was awesome to see family and to not have to worry about unpacking and such. Cora was, unfortunately, a little grump right before and during the wedding. I suppose it's my fault, since I've trained her so well to take naps throughout the day, and her screams echoing off the church walls was just her way of saying, "I didn't get my nap today!" Well, she was only loud for about 10 seconds, but to the mom of a screaming baby, it always sounds louder and lasts longer. Really, everyone said she was quite cute and content. And she loves it when you blow in her face!

We went from 80 degree Texas heat to 55 degree New Jersey fall weather with an icy breeze. Nothing makes you want apple cider and pumpkin pie more than gray, chilly air. So, we found a farm further into NJ that lets you pick your own pumpkins, and off we went! We let Cora crawl around in the pumpkin patch to find her own. Well, we actually rolled one to her, and she grabbed on to it with a smile. It sure seemed like that was the one she wanted.

Now we have three pumpkins on our balcony, awaiting the carving knife!

Munchen

We met our law school friends and former neighbors, Kathy & Adam, in Munchen (aka "Munich"). Since they'd already been there a couple of days, they toured us around the major sights.


Here we all are in front of the Rathaus. As you can see, the baby backpack was fully operational, and little Cora was even protected from the dreary Deutsche drizzle.

-->Baby travel note: In the case that other parents have found this blog with such desperate search terms as "baby Europe backpack how to?!" (which I myself used only a month ago), I'll be posting these baby travel notes. Here you see Cora (7 months, 17 pounds) in the Kelty backpack. We tried on several brands, and this was the only one that fit both of us and Cora. So, before you spend all night reading amazon reviews (like I did), go try them out with your baby to see if there is even more than one option. In here, we stored all of her daily needs: diapers, wipes, bags, several bottles, spare formula in a tupperware container, toys, pacifier wipes, burp cloths, and blankets, as well as Chad's sweatshirt and hat.

Cora very much enjoyed being able to see the sights from her backpack, and she could take short 10-30 minute naps when she was completely exhausted, but she did miss her regular nap times.

That afternoon, uncle Curtis came in from Bonn to meet Cora for the first time! We also introduced Cora to the beautiful combination of beer and pretzels. (Do note that this is a joke. Cora did not drink any beer. She did, however, munch on some pretzel, although it took us a few minutes of Cora's sickened facial expressions to figure out that we should scrape off the giant grains of salt.)

As much as we love Germany, we were off to the Czech Republic. We rented a car (+car seat and GPS) and drove to Prague. I'll opt not to relive the rest of the evening, since it involved attempting to find a castle, getting utterly lost, having no Euros with which to buy dinner, starving ourselves (even pregnant Kathy!) until we finally reached Czech and could stop for a midnight kebab, and finding a place to park the car at 3am in Prague. Upcoming in the next post: the more pleasant experience of Prague.

Packing for Europe with Baby

We've just come back from three weeks in Europe with 7-month-old Cora, and, yes, it was mildly absurd. We'd decided years ago that after Chad finished the bar exam, we'd take a trip to Europe to celebrate. There's nothing absurd about that, it's tradition for most law school grads. After Cora came into the picture, we decided that we weren't going to let a little baby put a halt to our plans, and, besides, she might like traveling Europe. I'll soon post about Munich, Prague, Krakow, Bonn, Berlin, Moscow, Inverness, and Edinburgh, but for now, here's a list of what we packed for Cora:

120 diapers
2 large packages of wipes (88 in each)
150 diaper trash bags
6 bottles (3 large, 3 small)
70 oz of formula (3 large Enfamil bags)
12 onsies
3 pants
1 sweater
12 socks
1 pair of sandals
5 toys
2 books
3 pacifiers
pacifier wipes
Travel bottles of shampoo, bubble bath, lotion, sunscreen
Thermometer, Children's Tylenol, Children's Benadryl
Fingernail clippers
6 blankets
30-40 burp cloths
A pop-up tent, complete with air mattress
An inflatable bathtub
A baby bjorn
A baby-carrying backpack

-->The one item I really wish I'd brought: A hat!

We made it almost the entire 22 days with the allotted formula and diapers, but we had to restock in Inverness to cover the last 2 days. We didn't want to buy supplies in Eastern Europe or Russia, so we figured we'd just attempt to use our own for the whole trip, which I think was good because her system didn't end up reacting well to the UK formula, and it was more expensive there anyway.

Before Cora, Chad and I would travel through Europe with one backpack each. For this trip, we had one backpacking backpack, a baby backpack, two rolling bags, and a small duffel. I suppose that's not too bad, but it certainly felt bulky when we were moving from place to place every couple of days.

More about the actual travel tomorrow!

Cora

Cora was born on January 8, 2010 (although not named until January 10, ha). I posted some photos of our new miniature family member on picassa. If any of you have seen my facebook album, these are the same.

http://picasaweb.google.com/MorganGMac/Cora?feat=directlink

Her birth went better than I had even hoped, and our two days in the hospital were actually quite nice. The nurses would bring her to our room every four hours so I could feed her. We'd play with her, listen to music with her, contemplate what to name here, and so on until she went to sleep or pooped. Then, Chad would stroll her on down to the nursery, where she'd get changed and rocked back to sleep until the next feeding. Wonderful. We were convinced we could manage a baby like this, no problem.

Then, they sent us home. The first four hours were an endless loop of us putting her in her crib (or car seat or swing) until she cried. We'd give her a pacifier, pick her up, calm her down, and try again. There's nothing like incessant crying to fray your nerves. Finally, we broke down, called my family to come over, and passed her into their patient arms while we took a nap. The first week pretty much went like that. There was little sleep, a lot of crying, and much gratitude toward family for being there to hold Cora while we took a nap. Chad got used to walking into the nursery to find Cora and I both crying hysterically at each other. Not my proudest moments!

Eventually, we figured out how to feed her, put her to bed, and get some sleep without the help of family. We learned to tune out the crying too, so our frayed nerves are now numb. Five weeks later, and Chad and I are both working at our computers with dinner in the oven and Cora asleep in her swing. (Oops, she spit her pacifier out...Put it back in and return to typing...) At night, we sleep in three-hour chunks, but we're grateful for that. Cora can lift her head pretty well, coordinate her arm movements, hold her weight on her legs, and follow objects with her eyes. Chad's also teaching her to conduct and to dance. We expect those to have slower progress. We read to her from the Wall Street Journal, Tom Clancy, and the Robin Hobb novel I'm currently reading. She also watches 24 or trashy Telemundo shows with Chad late at night. All-in-all, we're doing quite well these days. Look for more pictures and updates soon! (And, yes, I'll still be posting Argentina things, sorry for yet another delay.)

Two ladies starting out on a journey

A rolling bag, a backpack, and a messenger bag for the two of us girls, I'm sure we'll never travel this light again. At 2pm Central, we're off to Buenos Aires, via Miami, and Chad will be waiting at the airport at 6:15am local time (one hour East of the Eastern time zone). He's already made all our living arrangements, and he even prepped the apartment for my arrival. He bought hangers for my clothing, picked up snacks for my frequent hunger, and asked the maid service to come a day early so I could sleep Friday afternoon. I could adjust to this sort of traveling. Hostels are entirely overrated.

Well, I'm off, and the next update will be from Buenos Aires. Adios!