The search for a Halloween costume

I had a really hard time trying to come up with a Halloween costume for Melina. I'm not really into all the cute little pumpkin, princess, and kitty costumes you find on the web (thought I did find a very cute hedgehog costume that cost $60). Since she had a little fake fur coat, I thought of dressing her up with that, some big sunglasses, and a tiara, and having her go as Princess Di. The only problem is she rips off the glasses and tiara every chance she gets. Then I tried making her a little dress out of a silver emergency blanket and duct tape - she could go as a Martian Queen. Unfortunately, the crinkly sound of the emergency blanket seemed to scare her, and she wouldn't even let me put it on. I spent an entire evening searching the web trying to find cool baby costumes, but nothing grabbed me (or if it did, it cost over $50 or was unavailable in her size). Finally I went to the fabric store and found some fluffy, fake white fur. Last night my friend Sue and I made her a little fur dress and hat, which I put on her this morning. She didn't rip it off! And the Abominable Snowbaby is born! I will post pictures when I have them.

The nickel saga

Last Sunday Melina was playing by herself with an old teapot when I chanced to look at her and see something metallic in her mouth. It was a nickel. I put my finger in (trying not to get bitten) and suddenly she gulped it down. It stuck in her throat for a second, I patted her on the back, and down the esophagus it went.

I'm not usually much of a worrier (except when it comes to poisoning... that's my #1 fear) but this kind of freaked me out. I called the doctor on call and left a message; then I called the nurse at Providence Hospital and left a message; and then, not hearing from either one for way too long, I asked Jeff to call his friend who is in medical school. When we finally heard back from them all, they said the same thing - wait for it to come out. The Providence nurse had me give her food and water to make sure everything went down alright, and the naturopathic doctor recommended giving her roughage to move things along in the digestive tract. Meanwhile we had to sort through her poop (with wooden chopsticks) and wait.

After 36 hours, Youngsoon was the lucky one who found it. It had turned blue during its trip, but was otherwise unscathed. Apart from the scary swallowing incident, it didn't bother Melina at all. I cleaned it off (and sanitized it) and I'm going to paste it in her baby book.

A few days later, Jeff said, "you know that flashlight she was playing with the other day? I think she might have swallowed the light bulb." Here we go again. Fortunately, he found it on the floor a few hours later.

Melina's 18-month stats

Melina went in for her 18-month checkup last week. Her percentiles are still the same, which is a good sign. She's at the 20th percentile for weight (21.9 pounds), 50th for height (31 inches) and 90th for head circumference! Apparently that means she is going to be smart. Time to bring out the infant flash cards. Just kidding.

New words

Melina is picking up a lot of new words lately. Here are some of the ones I remember:

Egg (and it's not like we talk about eggs a lot)
That (dat! dat!)
Toy
Bike
Hat
Pumpkin
Apple
Pear

I know there are a lot more, but I can't remember them now. I have them written down in the kitchen so I'll update this when I'm back at home. She has also been counting to three ("wun, too, twee") as we go up and down the stairs, and - which is pretty scary - she is starting to walk upstairs without holding onto anything except the wall.

Melina's running preferences

I have been running about three days a week for the last two and a half months, and Melina has accompanied me (along with my friend Isabel) on many of the runs. I notice that she gets bored at the track (as do I) and prefers going in neighborhoods, where there are lots of squirrels and doggies and kitties to look at. She likes to chew on an apple (or other snack) while we run, and bumpy roads (like Leif Erickson in Forest Park) sometimes put her to sleep. If she cries, I have to hang back and let Isabel push the stroller so Melina can't see me, and if that fails we start singing Old MacDonald, which sometimes helps. She also likes to watch high school football players, who practice at Grant Park. I think she must be getting used to being strapped in the jogging stroller, because now she climbs up into it herself and tries to strap herself in.

Miss Fussy

Little M is approaching her half birthday, which brings her closer to the Dreaded Age of Two. Although my mom says she enjoyed my "terrible twos," and I have been trying to keep an open mind, I can see that little meltdowns and full-on tantrums are a thing of the future. On Tuesday I had to pry Melina off a toy at a used-clothing store (we were leaving) and she had pretty much the biggest tantrum so far. Screaming like a balrog (that's the big fire-breathing dragon that nabs Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings), arching her back, kicking out with her little feet... I was glad I was the only customer in the store. I guess this is completely normal and predictable, but I feel I need to learn more about dealing with tantrums when they arise. Also, Melina needs to get more sleep.

Baby boot camp

This week I felt like Melina's swim school was a little too militaristic. There was a new teacher (hopefully a sub) who was just a little too hard core - after all, these are one year olds, and it's not like they HAVE to learn to swim by age two. She had them repeat an exercise where they swim from their parent to the wall five times in a row, which was way too many for Melina's taste. Also, Melina has decided that she HATES the blue noodles they use to float the babies around the pool. This is probably because she slipped down between the noodles and went underwater, where I grabbed her a little too roughly and freaked her out. I don't know if she will put up with the noodles at all next week. On the positive side, she is starting to jump into the pool voluntarily and is definitely holding her breath when we do the underwater hokey pokey.

All in all I have mixed feelings about the swimming classes. Since most of the other kids took the infant class, they are more comfortable in the water than Melina, but the sub, at least, did not take that into account and didn't even ask about Melina's swimming experience. There's also not much explaining of theory or why we're doing certain things or, well, anything at all. There's no explaining. I'm not sure if we'll re-enroll her when this term is up; I guess I'll have to see if she's enjoying it by then. At least now she knows to hold her breath underwater - that's a step in the right direction.

And more new words

Melina has been adding a lot of new words lately, and for the past few days everything she says is followed by "mama?" As in, "wadu, mama? Oatie, mama? Kitty, mama? gaga, mama?" (Water, horse, kitty, snack?). It's pretty cute but I feel like I'm supposed to comment on everything she says. Oh, and she also calls Jeff mama, so it's not like it's especially about me.

Here are the latest new words. Often she will repeat something right after I say it, but not use it again (like "Tony," the cat next door). These are words she has repeated pretty frequently.

Horsy (oatie)
Bunny (buhh-ee)
Mine
Up
Down
All done (accompanied by waving hands)
Banh (Korean word for bread)
Water (wadu - said for all beverages and beverage containers, as well as lakes, rivers, puddles, and sprinklers)
Thirsty (I'm not completely sure about this one)
Eat (this is a new one)
Pee-pee
Poop, poopy (though these don't actually coincide with BMs)
Binky (beenty)
One, two, three (sort of; said when walking down stairs)
Train (sometimes this means train, sometimes plane)

...and she's also doing the sign for help, though she does it more for Youngsoon than for me.