Taking Things Apart

As is true of most children, Nadia loves to take things apart. I am struggling with how to handle this when it comes to food. On the one hand it's a good thing to let a child explore and have various sensory experiences, but on the other hand I don't want her to think it's okay to play with her food. Most kids take apart an Oreo cookie and lick the icing before eating the rest of the cookie. The problem is that now she also does that same thing with crackers that have either cheese or peanut butter in the middle, and she doesn't just lick the middle layer but rather uses one of her fingers to get the cheese or peanut butter from the cracker to her mouth. She makes quite a mess and sometimes doesn't eat the crackers after she's consumed the "filling." Sometimes she also takes apart a bagel to just eat the raisins or takes apart a chocolate chip cookie just to eat the chocolate chips. Because she's been making quite a mess, I've been trying to get her to stop taking apart her food.

Yesterday I thought we'd have fun with Easter eggs. I recently purchased a package of 24 VeggieTale egg huggers for $1.99. I thought that would be better than dye at her age, and of course she loves VeggieTale stuff. I boiled 6 eggs and then put the wrappers on. You dip them in boiling water, and it seals the wrapper onto the egg. After the eggs had cooled, I gave Nadia a bag and "hid" 6 eggs (in rather plain sight) and applauded and cheered when she "found" one and put it in her bag. She seemed to be having fun, but she started banging the eggs together and they cracked and then she started picking away the shell at the ends of the eggs where the shell was exposed. The first time she did this I told her we don't pick apart the eggs because she was making a mess on the family room carpet. However the next egg she found she proceeded to do the same. So I ate those two eggs for lunch and put away the other four. I guess she's too young for Easter eggs. I'll save the other 18 egg huggers for next year. The next time I make egg salad I will let her peel the eggs though if that's something she enjoys doing. :-)

I had trouble squeezing my left foot into a shoe yesterday. I think it's less swollen today so hopefully a shoe won't be so painful when I leave for work this afternoon. Unfortunately Nadia stepped on my bloody/bruised toes yesterday. She frequently steps on them when I'm sitting on the couch and she's walking in between the couch and coffee table, but it really hurt yesterday!

Last night was a better night for Ian. His first stretch was 5.5 hours long (8:45-2:15) and the next two stretches were each about one hour long (3:05-4:05 and 5:05-6:20). Nadia woke up at 6:05 and played in her crib until Paul got her around 6:30am. This means she only got 10 hours of sleep last night. She does best when she gets 11 hours. Yesterday Beth had to wake Nadia up at 1:45 (after she had been asleep 2 hours) because she needed to take her eldest daughter to the doctor because she was injured by a hockey puck at school. She had her hands full as she watches another 20 month old boy until 3pm. She had 3 kids ages 3-20 months with her as she took her middle schooler to the doctor! I hope that Nadia will sleep her usual 3 hours today. In the past I noticed that if I woke her up early from a nap that many times the next day she'd have a shorter nap. I hope that doesn't happen this time not that I fault Beth for waking Nadia up. She needed to get her daughter to the doctor.

The new camera arrived yesterday. I am irritated at myself for being suckered into buying an extra battery. I said "no" several times. Why did I give in? I wish I had a recording of the conversation because I am almost 100% certain he lied about the quality of the battery that came with the camera. I definitely didn't need another battery, and the battery wasn't cheap, and it's a special one that likely won't work with other cameras. On the other hand I'm glad I got the memory card as it does seem like a high quality one that will work on other cameras. I am not sure if it was a good price though. I know the camera was a good price. Oh well next time I will hopefully not let myself be pressured by a salesman like that. I am excited to try out the camera today. Hopefully I'll get fewer blurry photos of Ian. I have taken soooooooooooooo many pictures of him where he's flashing the most beautiful smile but the photo is very blurry.

I wondered why Paul was up most of the night last night working on his oral presentation. That seemed early for him since his presentation is on Friday. Then I learned this morning that he's giving a practice presentation to two research groups (his group plus his advisor's husband's group) this afternoon. I hope his presentations go well today and Friday.