Best Friends

(Make sure you have your volume on for this clip!)

First Phone Call

When: Yesterday evening

Where: In our living room

Details: Tali was playing with the phone (as usual) when it rang. So I took it from her, answered the phone and had this conversation:

Man on phone: Hi this is the police. Is this the D... residence?

Me: Yes.

Man: Did someone dial 9-1-1?

Me: No....oh wait, my 10-month old daughter was playing with the phone. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!

Man: (Chuckle - as if this happens all the time.) Not a problem, ma'am. At least you know the number works.

Me: I'm so sorry. I can't believe she managed to do that!

Man: No problem. Have a nice evening.

Somehow Tali managed to hit the "Talk" button and dial the numbers 9-1-1 in that order! Must've just been a coincidence but I can't believe she managed to do that. I always ask her if she's calling China when she plays with the phone. I guess now I need to be more concerned with her calling the police.

She's Learning

It's fun to see Tali start to learn and retain information. She's just at the point where she's starting to show that she can grasp "complicated" information. There were two recent instances that were very cool to watch.

Our cleaning woman, Vicky, comes once a week and Tali really likes her. When she arrived last week, she picked up Tali to say hello. Tali immediately began pulling down the collar of Vicky's shirt to find her necklace. Vicky wears the same necklace every week and Tali likes to play with it. I was very impressed that she knew Vicky had a necklace and where to go to find it.

This morning Jackson was on the sofa with one of his toys. The toy dropped to floor and Tali crawled over to the toy, picked it up, looked at Jackson and put her hand up for him to take his toy. Until now, she has played with his toys, somewhat teasing him to come and get them. But this morning she saw he dropped his toy and she gave it to him. This was very intentional and so cool to watch.

She's definitely growing up!

Balloon

Tali got a purple balloon today at a birthday party. She had a great time playing with both the balloon and the ribbon. Jackson was terrified of the balloon and gave it a stare down for about 30 minutes. No matter what we did, he wouldn't go near it. It was pretty funny.

Stranger Anxiety

Just as quickly as it came, it left. It seems as though Tali no longer has stranger anxiety. We went to a birthday party today and while I was talking to another mom, Tali leaned over and put her arms out for this mom to hold her! She was perfectly fine in this mom's arms and had a great time. She was in a new place and surrounded by tons of people she didn't know. Yet, she chose to go to a woman she barely knows. We were all a bit shocked. Guess I have a friendly baby.

My Little Secretary

Pig Protection

Tali got her first swine flu vaccination today (she gets her second one in a month). In general, I believe in vaccinations and think it's very important that your child be protected against possibly fatal diseases. However, this vaccination was a hard decision for me. There has been a lot of negative noise about this vaccine and it took me a long time to decide whether or not it was something I wanted to give to my 10 month old. I did a lot of research and spoke to Tali's doctor about the pros and cons of this shot. In the end, it seemed like the only actual complaints were simply things like soreness and fatigue - same with the regular flu shot. After doing my research, I concluded that the negative things I had heard and read were somewhat alarmist and I am chalking it up to people who like to be heard (like those who don't think our president is a U.S. citizen). Besides, if I didn't give Tali the vaccine and she suffered complications from swine flu, I would never forgive myself.

I'm sure this is just one of many difficult decisions I will have to make for Tali. I guess it's good practice - she cannot protest my choices yet. I'm happy with my choice and only hope that there will be enough vaccination left for me to get it (I have asthma so I am high risk).

Now it's time for me to go wake her up from a very long afternoon nap. Shots always make her sleepy but she should've eaten lunch 1 1/2 hours ago!

The Honeymoon is Over

Sunday was Daylight Savings and we were all supposed to gain an extra hour of sleep for the night. I spent last week worrying about how this was going to affect Tali (whoever came up with this stupid plan obviously didn't have small children). Was she going to wake up at her normal time everyday? Would the new bedtime be good or bad for her?

H and I decided that the one thing we would do is switch her bedtime from 8:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., which really meant that she would now go to bed at 9:00 p.m., according to her internal clock. On Sunday morning, Tali woke up at 6:20 a.m. (she'd been waking up and eating at 6:30 recently) and I was thrilled. On Monday morning, she woke up at 5:45 a.m. and I managed to hold off feeding her until 6:30. But this morning she was up a little after 5:00 a.m. Yup, it sucked. I tried everything to get her back to sleep but nothing worked. Finally I let her cry it out in her crib for a while. After lots of screams and tears, I fed her at 6:15 and put her down for a nap shortly after. Getting her on a new schedule, even if it's just an hour difference, is going to be tough.

I. am. exhausted.

This Morning's Project

This morning I gave Tali a box with some tissue paper inside. She had a blast. The clip below is about the middle of her playing. She eventually tears up the paper into tiny pieces and moves them back and forth from hand to hand.

First Taste of Curry

(Yup, curry.)

When: Yesterday

Where: Stone Barns farm

Details: Yesterday we went to the cafe at Stone Barns farm for lunch. Since Tali eats most everything now, I decided that I'd buy lunch for her there. When I looked at the offerings, I realized there were only two things that she could actually eat (the rest had either eggs or milk, or they were not cooked enough for her to chew). One salad was quinoa with broccoli and green beans and the other was squash, chickpeas, onion, spinach, etc. in curry. So I put a bit of the quinoa on the plate and more of the curry salad and hoped that she would like it. Well, she loved it! She ate it all. I tasted it myself just to see how strong it was and it there was definitely a curry taste to it. I know she likes most everything but I was still a bit surprised that she liked this. The best part? I was out running an errand when she had her "curry" poop today. H got to change that diaper. (Sorry, H - I change about 4 VERY stinky diapers a day so I guess this is payback.)