Moving into the second year

Layla is now TWO YEARS OLD, as I may have mentioned, and here are her stats from our recent doctor's visit:

She is 29.5 lbs
She is ornery
She doesn't like having her ears looked at, her hips checked, or her diaper taken off.
She doesn't like having her diaper put back on after it's taken off.
She is in the 95th percentile for both height and weight (!!!)
She doesn't like shots, but if you give her an Elmo sticker when you give her the shot, she won't notice the shot.

The doctor told us we could bring her back in 6 months, if we felt like her verbal development was slow and we were concerned. After Layla loudly shared some of her opinions with the doctor on that, it was mutually agreed we probably wouldn't need to bring her back for another year.

Layla has learned a lot of new words, and routinely asks "What's that?", but she also often resorts to screaming as an effective means of communication. We are rapidly learning to ignore her, but this has made it hard to go out in public again. And I think our neighbors are considering extra soundproofing for their houses. She also likes to dress herself (she can get her shoes on, sometimes her socks, sometimes her pants, definitely a skirt, and loose shirts almost make it). This, combined with all the nerve-rattling screaming she's been doing, means she often ends up at daycare wearing outfits we didn't exactly approve of. But, it helps us think outside of the box. For example, who ever made the rule that you can't wear tights over pants, and your mommy's sports bra for a hat?

We are also amazed at Layla's ability to listen and remember what she hears and sees. At the Sunday Market about a month ago, we bought a dinosaur with some money. This morning, she found $10 and immediately took it to her dinosaur (the same one), although I'm not sure what she thought the money was supposed to be for. When we tell her a friend is coming over, she remembers and asks about it. If we promise something, she expects us to follow through. What a new kind of stress we face!!

Meanwhile spring has sprung and we can finally go outside again... thank goodness! It was a long, rainy, cold winter. We have busted out into the wild and Layla is spending most of her time at her favorite place... the playground. Or, as below, examining the wildlife on our own block.

I'm still here!

Whew! Another busy couple of months just flew past. We had TWO grandmas in town (one after the other) and several back-to-back trips by the Studly Hubby and I (literally - he flew out an hour before I landed..!). Plus a Big 2-yr-old's Birthday, a Catastrophic Missed Trip to LA, a crazy gluten-free diet and lots of extremely hectic stuff going on at work for both of us. Fortunately we made through it all and are now emerging on the other side. Whew!

Some details:

I found out I may have a mild allergy to gluten, a possible explanation for my hard year last year (gluten allergies create lots of trouble absorbing nutrients, and that combined with breastfeeding was probably a big burden on my system). I've always suspected this, and to help me sort it out I went to a food allergy specialist that has me taking a storm of probiotics and other stuff in addition to a crazy strict diet. I've given up gluten, dairy and soy milk to see if it helps (a little helpful so far, although I haven't gone through any official tests yet). It's been weird, to say the least.

The 2-yr birthday went very well, Grandma L was in town and the Studly Hubby was out of town. We spent the day doing all of Layla's favorite things including some birthday cupcakes at the gluten-free coffee shop. Layla finished the day off by throwing up all over her room which I hear is common on birthdays. Too much sugar + too much bouncing = upset stomach. Or, it was just another stomach bug (that would be #4 for the year). She was fine the next day.

The Catastrophe was unexplainable. One minute we were walking into the airport with plenty of time to catch our flight and the next minute we were somehow missing the flight. In between there were long lines, some problems with our baggage and security, a busy toddler, and a harried walk-run to the furthest gate in the airport (a little tough with a busy toddler). After we missed our flight we tried to re-book and found we absolutely couldn't do it without paying $600 per ticket change (apparently they hate when you miss your flight). We went back home, disappointed, exhausted, and shocked. In my rich history of flying, I've only ever even come close to missing a flight once - this was my first actual missed flight. We now have credits with Alaska for the tickets and we are considering Hawaii as a consolation.

Where did J-Funk go?

I'm not sure, actually, just that for about 5 months I couldn't get myself to blog. I think it had to do with the massive load of work I was buried under since being sick most of the year last year and a death in the family that I'm so broken up over I still can't even talk about. But, I've been getting caught up on work (2 papers submitted this week!) and subsequently catching up at home and I'm hoping now I can get back on track with the blog. So, hopefully I'll see you around more now!

Layla update

Layla is a big 22 months old now, and has changed a TON since I last posted an update. I don't even know where to start.

Mainly what we've noticed, is that she's been sassing at us constantly with ever longer and longer strings of words. Half the time we don't understand her at all and the rest of it is stuff we're pretty sure she picked up from us or from daycare, which she now uses mostly for evil. We started putting her in time-outs, then the other day she put her daddy in a time-out. We tell her to sit on her butt at dinner, and she doesn't, but then tells all the other kids at daycare to sit on their butts. So, at least she's listening. She's also telling us about her day ('play with Emmy!' 'row-row with Mimi!' 'Kiwi CRIED'), her thoughts ('is Kiwi ok?', 'where did the kitty go?'), what she wants to do ('HUGH'S HOUSE!' 'PIZZA!!' 'HIDE!!!'). She's tired of playing with the little toddlers in her classroom at school and is about to move up into the 2-3 yr old room... and I'm not sure I'm ready for that! Mostly, we're all really enjoying hanging out with each other, and finding Layla likes all the same stuff we do, which is making the weekends a lot more fun than they used to be. These days we spend a lot of time connecting with friends for playdates, lounging around the house, and going shopping at the farmer's market or in the neighborhood.

The big Seattle Snowpocalypse

We got buried by snow last week. Buried! We couldn't even get out our door. Actually, it was about 8 inches total, over 3 days. And we had LOTS of warning (schools were cancelled before the storm even started).

But, in Seattle's defense, 8 inches of snow is a lot to take in a city with only 48 snow plows, no sanders, no salters, and LOTS of HUGE hills. Many of them were simply blocked off, by the city, or, mostly, by people in the neighborhoods that didn't want their street-parked cars getting hit. In our neighborhood, some of those streets had a lot of sledding and even some skiing and snowboarding going on.

The Snowpocalypse lasted 3 days. I was sick the day before it started (Tuesday) and Monday was a holiday, so I took the entire week off, mostly. The Studly Hubby and I both had big deadlines the weekend before, so we really really enjoyed it. But actually, the best part was that Layla started sleeping LATE that week, several days she even slept until 8:45 am!!! This was the first time we experienced this (without any interruptions at night) since she was born!! We lived it up by staying up past 10 pm watching movies and eating popcorn. One night we even had some wine. What a party!

So, we really enjoyed our snow holiday week. Layla and I shoveled the walk (we were one of two families on our block that bothered) and we all played in the snow quite a bit, although Layla thought it was a little overwhelming especially at first.


We also cuddled in bed a lot, and stayed warm and cozy under the covers. If you're wondering why I look so sleepy, I think it's because I was still a little sick when this picture was taken.

We also dressed in crazy clothes and jumped all over each other. Mostly, this was at the end of the week when the snow had turned to disgusting slushy rain and we were getting a bit of cabin fever.


Other things we did: Skyped with everyone who was available, cleaned out and organized closets, the bathroom, the basement, and Layla's dresser, baked up some stuff (Layla and Derek really got into cooking together), built forts, put up a tent inside, did some art projects, had some playdates with neighbors that were within walking distance, ventured out to see the Big Sled Hill at Gasworks Park (spectacular!), and listened to a lot of music. Layla only started getting bored on Friday, when the pretty snow had turned to slushy rain and we were running out of stuff to do. Fortunately by Saturday the roads were clear again and we, like everyone else in Seattle, spent the entire weekend out on the town.