The Adventures of Amor Chiquito

Amor Chiquito is 19 months today.

This week, she was quite busy, lots of fun mischief!

Two new words: wawa (agua, Spanish for water) and keys.

Speaking of keys, that is her newest hobby: playing with our keys. She asks for them every day, multiple times a day. She knows that mine live in the diaper bag, so she points at the diaper bag and says "keys." She gets so excited if she hears keys!

Last Monday, we went to a doctor's appointment and her favorite stuffed animal came with us. When we were about to walk out of the doctor's office, she realized she did not have the stuffed animal. She stopped, looked back, and said "Momo." She remembers the things that are important to her!

Speaking of Momo, I got Amor Chiquito a dress for Easter. The dress came with an identical dress for a doll. I put it on Momo. If you know him, you know he was not pleased at all about wearing it! That, of course, was the point!

For those of you who do not know, The Geeky Entrepreneur has stuffed animals with personalities, voices, stories, you name it… Momo is one of them. He is an imp, a pain in the butt. He talks about "world domination," says humans are ugly because they are bald, among many other crazy things. Well, Momo has become Amor Chiquito's favorite stuffie. He hates the idea of sleeping next to a human, "human cooties and all," but he figures he will make that huge sacrifice because she is his future! Yes, we're crazy, I know!

Amor Chiquito has a unique way of putting on her sweaters. She puts it on the floor, lies down, and puts her arms in it! She is quite creative! She certainly did not learn that technique from us!

We have an old swing on our backyard, but it is not baby-friendly. I got her a baby swing (the type that looks like a car seat and you attach it to a traditional children swing) yesterday. She loved it from the minute she saw it. She was dragging it around the house, sitting in it, asking me to strap her in… Once she learned what the swing was really for, she loved it even more! She was smiling, laughing, giggling the whole time! We have an adorable recording of her in the swing, holding Daddy's keys, and laughing!

Amor Chiquito has upgraded to the big people tub, as opposed to the toddler tub she had been using. She has enjoyed bubble baths two nights in a row, Geeky Entrepreneur's idea. She had a lot of fun.

She has been enjoying blackberries and blueberries a great deal the last few weeks. I got a container of organic blueberries a few days back. In 24 hours, it was gone! Mom and dad never had any! I don't blame her; they were delicious. Abuela was not too thrilled, though; she was on diaper duty the next day because I was in school!

Earlier today, The Geeky Entrepreneur and Amor Chiquito went on a walk. I heard she did a great job and a had great deal of fun walking, holding Daddy's hand, holding his keys on her other hand, pointing at things and saying words that we are not able to comprehend yet. When they returned, she ran across the driveway and started saying, "mommy, mommy"!

I put her on our bathroom scale. At first, she didn't get it. I had to try a few times. Eventually, she wanted to get weighed over and over again! Once I said "all done," she took off, naked, and pooped on the floor! The joys of parenthood!

I asked the pediatrician for a referral to a specialist to try and figure out what we can do to improve our sleep situation. She recommended an early intervention agency. I will be meeting with someone from the agency and several therapists will be evaluating Amor Chiquito. Not sure if they will have helpful suggestions on the sleep issue, but, in the worst case scenario, I will know if she might be a bit delayed on language or if she is fine.

In the meantime, she is sleeping for longer stretches of time and only breastfeeding once at night. I know she should not need us or breast milk at all, but this is progress for us, so I'll take it.

By the way, Thursday night, I went to bed at 8pm and stayed in bed for 11 hours. I nursed her once, but The Geeky Entrepreneur took care of her the one time she woke up. Wow, I felt like a new woman Friday morning! I should go to bed at 8pm more often. But that just feels wrong! Then again, if I want to feel rested, I'll get over it!