JJ and I are on cloud nine. A Whole Foods just opened about 30 minutes away (the previous closest was an hour away). It's HUGE, and filled with all the foods that we ate in California and have missed. We spent over an hour wandering around, eating lunch, then stuffing our cooler with treats and goodies that conform to our special diets (JJ = vegetarian, me & A. = dairy-free).
A. tried (and liked) dragon fruit, and now has a dragon fruit-stained jumper. She gobbled up Bell & Evans all-natural, antibiotic free chicken nuggets. She desperately wanted my chipotle chicken sausage, but it was way spicy. And we split Kung Pao chicken, brown rice, and a sparkling peach soda. She giggled and "hi"-ed her way through the store, charming everyone while wiggling and twisting to the point that we couldn't hold onto her. Eating lunch at the outdoor fountain so that she could wander around, splash in the puddles, and watch the water helped calm her down enough to finish our trip.
The trip to Whole Foods was like a step back to our time in California. We had a great time pointing out all the foods we used to live off of. It was strangely homey and comforting.
We stocked up on the goodies we can't get at the local stores, and we plan a bi-weekly or so outing in the future. Although shopping there on a regular basis wouldn't be that much more expensive that at Publix, it's enough of a difference that we shouldn't indulge on a day-to-day basis. Plus, that's quite a drive every week just for groceries.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Settling
After a long string of events and visitors, life here is finally settling down into what I imagine will be "normal". JJ is working Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights, so we have all of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as a family. We also get nearly all of Saturday (before he leaves for work) and Tuesday afternoon (after a morning nap). On Sunday, A. and I visit with my parents. On Monday, we swim. And on Tuesday morning, we go to the library story time.
As our pediatrician advised, we're teaching A. to swim. The preponderance of swimming pools and lakes down here makes that nearly a necessity. We've decided to forgo the survival swimming -- two intense weeks of having your child dropped into the water and being forceable taught to back float. Instead, we've gotten a membership to a local gym with a pool, and I've been taking A. in the water about 4 times a week.
We're taking it slowly, mostly letting her play around. She loves to be held so that she floats on her stomach, head out of the water, and we propel her around the pool. She likes being dipped, on her side, into the water so that her cheek gets wet. We've done a few submersions, and they go over so-so. Sometimes she comes up surprised but quickly grins, but this last trip she cried a bit after her second dunk. We'll back off a bit and go back to things just being fun. There's no real rush -- I'd rather take longer but have her enjoy it, rather than the horror stories of crying kids and parents that I've heard about the survival training.
The rainy season has started here, so we get thunderstorms every afternoon. Our home's location, in particular, seems to attract even more storms than is normal. My parents, who live only about 7 miles away, get hit by about half the storms that we do. We live a mile or two from a fairly large lake, so part of it is the storms that just pop up over the lake, swoop over us, and die. The rest... just seem to like Montverde.
I'm starting to settle into my role as a stay@home mom, as opposed to the long-term vacation this seemed to be up to this point. I'm trying to see the care of our home as my job, something to be done whether I really want to or not. JJ's wonderful about helping, and has no expectations other than that I care for A. He knows that's a full-time job in itself. But I have a picture in my head of the household I'd like my daughter to grow up in, and there's no one else to make that happen but me.
As our pediatrician advised, we're teaching A. to swim. The preponderance of swimming pools and lakes down here makes that nearly a necessity. We've decided to forgo the survival swimming -- two intense weeks of having your child dropped into the water and being forceable taught to back float. Instead, we've gotten a membership to a local gym with a pool, and I've been taking A. in the water about 4 times a week.
We're taking it slowly, mostly letting her play around. She loves to be held so that she floats on her stomach, head out of the water, and we propel her around the pool. She likes being dipped, on her side, into the water so that her cheek gets wet. We've done a few submersions, and they go over so-so. Sometimes she comes up surprised but quickly grins, but this last trip she cried a bit after her second dunk. We'll back off a bit and go back to things just being fun. There's no real rush -- I'd rather take longer but have her enjoy it, rather than the horror stories of crying kids and parents that I've heard about the survival training.
The rainy season has started here, so we get thunderstorms every afternoon. Our home's location, in particular, seems to attract even more storms than is normal. My parents, who live only about 7 miles away, get hit by about half the storms that we do. We live a mile or two from a fairly large lake, so part of it is the storms that just pop up over the lake, swoop over us, and die. The rest... just seem to like Montverde.
I'm starting to settle into my role as a stay@home mom, as opposed to the long-term vacation this seemed to be up to this point. I'm trying to see the care of our home as my job, something to be done whether I really want to or not. JJ's wonderful about helping, and has no expectations other than that I care for A. He knows that's a full-time job in itself. But I have a picture in my head of the household I'd like my daughter to grow up in, and there's no one else to make that happen but me.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
More animals
I forgot to mention in the last post that she knows fish ("shhhh"). And in the last day, she's learned bunny (bouncing her arm up and down) and giraffe (reaching one arm above her head). I love this!
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Puppy spotter extraordinaire
A. can sign for a number of animals now -- puppy (panting), monkey (oo-oo), elephant (trumpeting), and frog (tongue flick). She can spot them like crazy, often causing us to stop and look around to find out what she's signing at. But her favorite, by far, is puppy.
For example... JJ, A., and I stopped by the National Training Center this afternoon to get memberships (this will give us access to the pool). We had to sit at a desk and fill out paperwork while a young woman entered information into a computer that sat on a perpendicular extension of the desk. A. sat in my lap, eating Ritz, pointing at the woman's water bottle, and signing "puppy" every minute or more. JJ and I glanced around the first few times, but there was no sign of a puppy. We told her "sorry, there's no puppy," and chalked it up to her thinking about seeing Gus that morning.
But she kept signing. I thought she had to be seeing SOMETHING for her to be alerting that much. There was a TV with ads cycling through in the direction she was looking -- JJ and I posited that one of them had a puppy. But then she signed when there was a drawing of a man getting a massage. We all laughed (by this time, the membership lady was into it, too), and figured A. was just making it up.
But then, as my eyes wandered to the computer monitor... I saw that stuck to the bottom frame was a small sticker of a white dog.
"YES, there IS a puppy! Very good!"
She looked terribly pleased with herself, and didn't sign puppy again.
For example... JJ, A., and I stopped by the National Training Center this afternoon to get memberships (this will give us access to the pool). We had to sit at a desk and fill out paperwork while a young woman entered information into a computer that sat on a perpendicular extension of the desk. A. sat in my lap, eating Ritz, pointing at the woman's water bottle, and signing "puppy" every minute or more. JJ and I glanced around the first few times, but there was no sign of a puppy. We told her "sorry, there's no puppy," and chalked it up to her thinking about seeing Gus that morning.
But she kept signing. I thought she had to be seeing SOMETHING for her to be alerting that much. There was a TV with ads cycling through in the direction she was looking -- JJ and I posited that one of them had a puppy. But then she signed when there was a drawing of a man getting a massage. We all laughed (by this time, the membership lady was into it, too), and figured A. was just making it up.
But then, as my eyes wandered to the computer monitor... I saw that stuck to the bottom frame was a small sticker of a white dog.
"YES, there IS a puppy! Very good!"
She looked terribly pleased with herself, and didn't sign puppy again.
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