Preschool orientation...week 2

Last week Alia completed an entire week of orientation at the Montessori. A couple of weeks back, she  attended Monday through Thursday. During that week she did really well on Day 1 and Day 2. But by Wednesday she realized that she wasn't at home, she wasn't with Mommy, she wasn't in familiar surroundings, and who the hell are all these people, anyway!? So Wednesday the tears came. The entire morning. At 10:30 the teacher called to say I should come to get Alia because she couldn't seem to calm her down. And day 4 I bargained that I would just come with her and stay with her as long as she was comfortable. And I ended up staying the entire day with her. Not good. Oh, and did I mention on Friday she didn't go at all because her uncle was visiting from New York?

Flash forward to this week. This week I tried to stay on message and consistent. School is fun. Miss Cindy is nice and kind and takes good care of Alia. They have fun playhouses at school. I kept the drop-off loving and warm and reassuring but brief. I reassured Alia that Mommy will come right back to get her. And the week went something like this.... Monday, Alia was a trooper about getting ready for school, but as we drove up the whimpering began. I had to force her out of my arms and into Miss Cindy's. Tuesday was much the same, only more tears and more awareness of the situation. Wednesday? Forget about it...the crying began fastening her into her carseat. Thursday and Friday? Well, on those two days the crying began while changing her out of her night time diaper and through breakfast.

But the good news? Once we got passed those tears, she became more and more capable of coping with the situation on her own. Early in the week, the teachers told Alia that it was okay to stop crying and it was okay to be happy there. They next taught her to count to 3 and then stop crying. And later that day? They overheard Alia begin to whimper (which happens at the end of an activity in which she was engaged when the realization that she's not with me at home occurs to her), then cry, and then told herself "1,2, free, stop cwying, Aya. Happy!" (She calls herself Aya as she can't pronounce ah-lee-uh yet.)

Monday through Wednesday, Alia would only play outside with direct adult supervision (one to one) and would not join the others in the classroom. My guess is she is overwhelmed when surrounded by so much. Alia has also shown a fear of other kids from a very young age, so I'm sure that contributes to her lack of desire to join the others in the classroom. Once the headmaster realized Alia's fear, she suggested we try something new on Thursday...rather than showing up at the same time as all the others, let's bring her in an hour later after all the commotion. We'll hand her off to a teacher's aid who can play with her outside until it's time for snack and recess. Well...let me just say I was really relieved to see such a caring and attentive understanding of my daughter and her particular needs. So I was on board! Only what is it they say...something about the best laid plans...? Yeah...on Thursday I showed up when I was supposed to but the aid? She was heading out the door to go home sick. So instead of following through on the promises I had told her all the way to school (don't worry Alia, no classroom today...just playing outside with Mrs. Sam), she was handed directly to Miss Cindy, who was now solo, and kicked and cried as she was torn from my arms and dragged into the classroom with all the other kids. Who had already been there an hour and looked at Alia like a social pariah! Exhale. So a few minutes later I got the call from the headmaster who apologized profusely that our plan didn't go as planned. She understood my frustration and assured me she would monitor Alia and keep me posted over the next hour. And to my surprise, she called with good news that Alia was doing well in the classroom. Not great, but not better than expected. She ended up staying an hour and I picked her up.

And Friday? The same routine in the morning. Crying. Bargaining, or at least her 2-year-old version of it. But when the headmaster called with the mid-morning update? I got the news that Alia had been in the classroom all morning. She played alongside other kids without getting freaked out. Alia helped to pass out the napkins at snack. And that my friends, wrapped up week two of pre-school orientation.

No boo boos!

Today, standing before me in her diaper, Alia pointed to her teeny tiny little boobies.

Alia: No boo boos!

Me: What Alia, do you want Mommy to take them off?

Alia: Yes!

Me: Alia, everyone has boobies!

Alia: Yeah?

Me: Mommy has them. Daddy has them. Amelie has them. (at which time we all show Alia our boobies, one by one.)

Alia: NO BOOBIES!!!!!!

Until tomorrow's bathtime...

Amelie Crawls!

That's my girl!

Montessori, here we come!

Today is among the hardest days I've had...my baby started preschool!

I had all the emotion of a first-time-Mommy dropping off her beloved 2 year old at the Montessori. I cried in the parking lot like everyone said I would. Okay, that's not entirely true. While I did cry in the parking lot, the tears actually began in the classroom. That's right.

You know the whole "be strong for her"? I tried. Believe me I tried. But as soon as the teacher came over and asked how we were doing, meaning how was Alia doing, I burst into tears.

Yep. I am a big mushy loser.

But the good news? Alia did great!

Alia is 24 months old! That's right, 2!!!

Alia turned 2 this week, and as her Mommy, I couldn't be prouder. Alia continues to grow and develop before our eyes. Her verbal skills simply amaze us. Last month, Alia became a real pro at our iPhone...in fact, she played with it all the way to and from Turkey. And this month? Alia's skills of asking for the iPhone went from, "iBod!" to "Peez, Daddy iBod" meaning she wanted Daddy's iPhone. And when we give it to her? She replies with "Peez, Mommy iBod, one, two iBod" which means, "I would like Mommy's iPod too, you know, both of them!". So any time Alia wants both of anything, both toys, both spoons, etc., she says "one two toy" or "one, two spoons". She is a counting maven. The only problem is she gets excited and moves ahead of herself sometimes...."one, two, FIVE!" is a common expression in our house.

Along with Alia's counting, she says "whassup, Mommy!", "whassup, Daddy!", and of course, "whasup, iBod!"Alia also has learned to say "sorry" in addition to signing it when she's done something wrong. Only it comes out "sozzzzzy", which is about the cutest thing ever when coupled with her big round brown eyes looking up at you like a pathetic puppy while signing "sorry".

Last month, Alia surprised us with her first string of 3 words, being "ice, ice, baby!". And this month? We hear Ice, Ice, Daddy! Ice, Ice, Mommy, Ice, Ice Amonie!, Ice, Ice, iBod! ....Alia definitely has a great sense of humor!

Alia has begun potty training, although I'll be the first to admit, I'm somewhat feeling my way through this and could be a whole lot more diligent. Basically, first thing in the morning, I put her on her potty. Then later in the day we go to sit on the potty. The first time we did it? We got pee pee in the potty!!!! and out of all the times since? We've had success two more times. We did find that she will sit on the potty indefinitely if we keep her company and offer her very special new "potty toys" which Ajay was wise enough to shop for. These are toys that are only played with while on the potty and not allowed anywhere else. However, today? I noticed her interest in the toys was much greater than interest in making pee pee in the potty. Finally, I asked Alia, "Alia, where is the pee pee?" and she responded with her big smile and pointed to her little hoo-hoo and said "pee pee hide!"

Which is the perfect segue to Alia's other new favorite pass-time...hide and seek! Only in our game? Mommy sits in a dining room chair and feeds Amelie and Alia runs and hides under the table and yells, "HIDE! TABLE!" and I respond with "Oh, no! Where has my Alia gone? I can't find her anywhere!" and then she dashes out and waits for me to say "There she iiiiiiis!" and she comes and hugs my legs. Oh, and hugs? Alia now gives them freely and asks for them when she's sad. Only she pronounces it "ug!, Mommy!"

We celebrated Alia's birthday on a boat with the people she requested to be invited...being, my friend Z, her husband Barry, their baby son Sirous, as well as our friends/neighbors Jim and Carol. We did a two hour harbor cruise and had cake. Only Alia didn't want cake (fine by Amelie...more for her!). She wanted MINT! Ice cream that is. Her favorite favorite food in the world. Plain mint. No chips. Like the ice cream she ate in Turkey every day.

So there you have it. I have a two year old. Sweet? Oh, yes! And naughty? You tell me....(that's my cream couch with purple crayon if you couldn't tell...)

Amelie is 9 months...and we're busy!

With Alia beginning Montessori and Amelie getting active, oh, yeah, and transitioning from one nanny and finding another one to replace her, we are busy.

But Amelie?

Oh, she is sweet. She is ready to crawl. Only her current crawl looks more like a downward dog pose and then collapses to her bottom. She repeats this over and over and moves across the floor in a random direction at a very slow pace.

Amelie is pointing. Her favorite thing to do is explore the inside of my mouth with her cute little pointer.

Amelie also likes *gulp* Elmo in Grouchland. Yes, remember my strict rules for Alia that she should have no TV until the age of 2? Well, now Alia's 2 and the TV is on from time to time, and guess who loves it!? That's right.

Amelie is 8 months old!

This summer has been wonderful. First there were 3 weeks in Turkey, and then a week after returning, we headed out for another week in Napa. With all this together time, Amelie has really thrived!

Amelie sits up. Amelie has two teeth. Amelie says MAMAMA! She loves her sister. I mean, she has always loved Alia, but all it takes to perk up a cranky Amelie is to put Alia in front of her and the world's biggest baby smile spreads across Amelies round Charlie Brown face!

Amelie is now a bona-fide member of our family. She has her likes and dislikes, and has begun to express them, albeit in a much more subtle way than her sister Alia!

This month Amelie has changed to four 8 oz. bottles per day and three solid meals. Unfortunately, she's not eating them together, so she actually has be be fed something or another ---count them---7 times a day. She's a grazer! Her stomach isn't quite big enough to handle the big bottle plus food, but when I look back at Alia's 8-month blog, she was exactly in the same spot!

So there you have it...my little baby is actually getting quite big. We are 2/3 of the way through her baby-year. It's gone by so quickly, and to be honest sometimes I feel guilty that I haven't been able to celebrate each and every morsel of it because now there are two little ones to watch.

Alia is 23 Months old!

We celebrated Alia's 23rd month birthday (okay, actually it went unacknowledged in favor of a pre-2-year-old birthday celebration) here in Turkey. As I sit here in the living room looking at the royal blue Agean listening to music pumping, I reflect on the last three weeks we've spent here and how Alia has blossomed.

During our stay here in Turkey, I've watched Alia grow beyond belief. Physically speaking, Alia has actually put on a little bit of weight. She has come out of her shell and has been eating very well. She loves the fruit here fresh from the neighborhood fruit stand. She's eaten unfamiliar things, different cheeses, and even branched out into mint ice cream. She is brown, thanks to her dad's genes. She also seems taller. All in all, the time away from home with non-stop Daddy time and non-stop Grandma time has done amazing things for her.

Socially, Turkish people have really helped her to come out of her shell. Before the trip, Alia was very shy. Although she did begin to show signs of improvement before our arrival, the Turks are lovers of babies and kids, and every evening when we strolled through the village, men and women alike would approach to admire her, offer her flowers, kiss her feet, pinch her cheeks. I'm not kidding...the Turks love children, and not in the "if I were in the U.S., I'd feel creeped out" way. The affection is genuine, and as a result, Alia now greets people with "Hi" and her version of "Marhaba"(hello in Turkish) which sound  little like "AAbba".

Alia's verbal skills have also made tremendous strides this month. She counts. She strings two and three words together. Her first string of words was "Ice, Ice, baby!"...which may make us bad parents, but we really enjoy our little trained monkey! She also free-styles nursery rhymes....one, two, buckly my Froggy! three, four, shut the Goka! (Alia speak for yogurt), etc.

Alia went swimming nearly every day we were here with her new water wings. In the beginning she was a little concerned about them, but once she realized their value, she happily complied.

It has been a wonderful month for me as well. I feel that this holiday has done both of us good. Our relationship is no longer one filled with daily battles. I have been able to let go of the every-day stress and really enjoy Alia again. She is a bright, funny little girl, and no longer a baby.

Amelie is 7 Months Old

Well. I have to say. Amelie is coming into her own. This past month has been an amazing month of progress. Amelie is happy. She is healthy. She has taken to eating solids. She has consolidated to two solid naps per day and sleeps through the night roughly all the time now. Exhaaaaale. Amelie now sits proudly in a highchair. She models designer scarves...there's nothing she can't do....well, except sitting up unassisted, which we work on daily!

Amelie rolls back and forth, and has become a tummy sleeper. She loves watching her sister above all else. Amelie is nuzzling her way right in to the center of things in our family.

Amelie typically goes to bed at 7 and wakes up anywhere from 5am to 7AM. If she wakes early, I feed her and put her back down. Sometimes she'll go back to bed, sometimes not. She is typically up before Alia, so every morning when Alia awakes, Amelie and I go to greet her. I put her in her crib, and she enjoys playing with toys there. She still does not sleep in their bedroom as we just have too many wake ups between the girls and don't want to risk the girls waking each other up. As it is now, we don't go to either girls in the night unless they don't settle themselves within 10 or 15 minutes.

So there we are...another month has come and gone and Amelie just keeps becoming more of herself. She is happy, sweet, and loves to be apart of things.

thoughts on international travel with baby and toddler

Okay, here I sit in Turkbuku, Turkey. That's an hour flight from Istanbul if you're one of my non-family readers. We made the journey last Friday with Alia and Amelie. This is the second international trip I've taken with baby, and as a relatively seasoned traveler pre-baby, let me just say that it's a different world once your mini-me is along for the ride.

So what have I learned? It's probably not a good idea to try out new hip boutique hotels in the center of the hip up and coming area of a given city. Although that would have been right up our alley 2 years ago, this year, we arrived Istanbul at midnight on a Saturday night. After 20 hours of travel, we found that the 20 minute ride to the hotel took more like an hour due to pedestrian traffic in our little party zone. Now, I could go on but I'm sure you get the picture of two crying, exhausted babies stuffed in yet another mode of transportation and arriving at the hotel with boom boom boom music going full blast. Sure, it looked like fun for anyone who enjoys nightlife, enjoys catching the scenery, but that was not us at that moment. So what did I take away from this? Maybe next time we leave L.A. on Wednesday night rather than Friday night so that we arrive on Thursday night rather than Saturday night. And instead of trying to grab a new Istanbul experience where there really isn't time for one (we were just over-nighting for one night and heading to Turkbuku the following day), maybe our tried and true spot is a better bet...or perhaps even the airport hotel at Attaturk airport would be even better and more streamlined. Oh, and with two babies? Confirm and double confirm that they will in fact have two cribs waiting for you after your long journey. Trust me...you don't want to wait yet another hour for a single crib to be delivered and then learn that there isn't a second one. It's not a good time to begin your toddler sleeping on an impromptu floor pallet.

Staying at the airport hotel would alleviate any issues with Istanbul nightlife and traffic jams, but another thought on leaving mid-week (and thus returning mid-week from our typical 3 weeks away) is that it might be nice for Ajay to return to a two day work week rather than a five day work week. Just a thought.

What else....if you have a baby that is just learning to eat solids? Bring lots of bibs. No telling when you'll get to a laundry facility, and let's just say Amelie still has a way to go with dining and etiquette! Oh, and it is not a mistake to bring your video monitor if you're used to having one at home. This year I brought ours and am so glad I did. Yes, they do require plug converters, and make sure they are the ones that convert current as well as plugs), but it's really helped my piece of mind while they nap as well as the mid-night wake-ups from jet lag.

This time I really packed quite a lot of baby accouterments. I brought formula, bottles, baby food, baby spoons, sippy cups, toys, books, bibs, baby shampoo, baby sunscreen, baby sun hats, and even the spring-open tent that the girls play in at home. And while we have somewhat taken over the house with all of our baby paraphernalia, I am happy I though ahead enough to get all this stuff together. The girls are comforted and entertained by having their familiar things here, in addition to new toys that we packed for the journey. Oh, and I really thought I over-packed the girls clothes? But in fact, I really didn't. Considering Alia's level of activity and propensity for covering herself in water from the hose and dirt from baby-jesus-knows-where, as well as Amelie's general baby-messiness, and Europe/Asia's lack of electric dryers, laundry takes longer to get done. Everything dries in the sun. So I'm glad I packed so many pjs, onesies, outfits, socks, etc. for the girls. Otherwise they'd be wearing either damp or dirty clothes.

Now lets talk about the flight. Last year traveling, Amelie was still on the inside. We flew coach, and Alia had her own seat. She still just barely fit in her infant car seat so she flew in that, slept in that, and when she got antsy, we put it on the ground in front of her seat and let her stand and bounce on the airplane seat. That flight for me was pure hell. Six months pregnant, stuffed in a seat with no way to alleviate my swollen ankles, leg cramps, and general discomfort, I was pretty unhappy for the entire trip. This time we flew business class. We got 3 seats for the four of us and since Alia is still under two, we brought Amelie's car seat on board and gave her the third seat, and Alia was our lap child for take off and landing. Once we were in the air and Alia was ready for sleep, we made a pallet on the floor for Alia in front of Amelie's seat and she slept rather happily for 6 hours which is more than most of us slept. Amelie on the other hand had a hard time sleeping in her car seat and awoke from time to time trying to twist and turn onto her belly. All in all, the flight was a thousand million times better this year. Maybe it was me not being pregnant. Maybe it was that they treat you like a human being in business class rather than cattle in coach. But if you've got miles, I think using them up on business class tickets is miles well spent.

So that's where we're at. Turkey. Enjoying a good change of scenery, time with family, new adventures for Alia, and new sights and smells and sounds for Amelie.