Teatopia

Yummy Goodness (and lots more)

I meant to post sooner than now, but things have been kind of busy. I have been super tired-- a combo of my long-awaited time of the month and also a major lack of sleep. Olivia is cutting her top 2 teeth and has been on a nursing strike since Friday night. It's not that she doesn't want to nurse. She tries, then cries, and holds her mouth funny because of the pain. Motrin helps some, but mostly, I think we're just going to have to wait it out. She doesn't even want to suck on a pacifier, so I know she's hurting. She'll take a bottle, and when she's not chewing on it, she'll drink milk that I've pumped. It's stressing me out though since I can't pump as much as she gets when she nurses, so I'm lucky to get 3 ounces. She finally nursed twice last night and I'm hoping she'll nurse more today. James doesn't get why I'm so worried. "Just pump" he tells me. Well, I can't get as much milk and it's frustrating to me, and I know it is to her. She tries and tries, but I can tell it hurts.

Anyway, here are the pictures from my Christmas appetizer party last Saturday night.

Pictured above: sugar cookies with pink buttercream icing, cucumber sandwiches with garlic spread, on the tiered tray: peppermint marshamallows (store bought), egg salad sandwiches, and ranch roll-ups, then there's sausage & cheese dip (sooooo good!), crackers & veggie spread (also store bought), chocolate covered pretzels with crumbled candycane sprinkles, and caramel apple cider with mulling spices and vanilla beans. My sister brought an amazing ham & jalepeno ham pate, but I guess we forgot to take a picture.

In other news-- good news!-- Olivia is picking up things like crazy. Playing is what gets her through the terrible teething pain since nursing can't do the trick. She is learning more words every day. Her latest is "dog" (but she really doesn't pronounce the "g"). She looks at the dogs, pats them, and yells "daw!" She also says "eye" and touches my eye when I ask her "Where's Mommy's eye?" She also pulls everyone's hair now and says "air!" She's pulled herself up a few more times, but I'm really thinking she's more of an intellectual. :-) She isn't behind in her physical milestones, but she's definitely not early. My mom likes to brag that when I was little, my pediatrician often told her that I was the brightest 2 year old he'd ever seen, but I always met my physical milestones late or on time, never early. It's weird, because I wouldn't really say that I was really smart in school. I was labeled gifted, but I had lots of trouble taking tests. I totally freaked out and also, I had to work for A's. James's smarts come more naturally I think, but I really had to study. I think I'm still like that. Anyway, Olivia seems to be stronger intellectually, like I was (or so my mom says).

She also wants to feed everyone. She has to put her finger foods in someone else's mouth before putting it in her own, but she gets upset if you actually eat it. My sister ate something that was offered, and Olivia just stared at her fingers like, "where did it go?" She also dances constantly. My cell phone rang yesterday, and she started dancing. Too cute. I tear up every time she dances. I'm such a dork. :-)

This morning, we kept the nursery at church, and of course. There were 3 adults, and we divided up who changed which babies, and I of couse, got the poopers (we didn't know, it just happened that way). I didn't do a good job of changing the boy. You moms with boys get some big props because I had a hard time wiping his butt and trying to keep his pee-pee covered so I didn't get wet. At first, I didn't even cover it because I was using 2 hands to change him, and the other lady said, "you must not change boys much because you're about to get sprayed doing it that way. I didn't get sprayed, but I did manage to get poop all over the cloth changing pad. Oops. He was cute though, even if she did spit up all over my cashmere sweater. Let me just say, formula spit-up stinks! And so does formula-fed baby poop (all poop stinks, but it smells much worse). Yuck.

I also meant to tell you about our date a few nights ago. My mom kept Olivia while we went to see "Blood Diamond". Oh my gosh! It was amazing. Leonardo DiCaprio's accent was impecable. My South African readers will have to tell me their opinion if they see it, but it sounded good to me. He was supposed to be from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe I believe), but it's so close to SA. At the end, they showed the waterfront in Cape Town, and seeing it so big, looking so real on such a huge screen, made me ache to go back. I don't know what it was about South Africa, but I fell in love. Someone asked me the other day if I was from South Africa. It seemed to random. I wondered if I looked Dutch or something, but then I later realized I had a tiny South African flag pin (purchased in Cape Town) on my denim jacket pocket. I'm such a idiot!!!!!!! Hello! Anyway, the movie was action-packed and wonderful. I'm impatient awaiting "The Namesake" to come out too. I'm reading the book and it's really, really good.

Ok, enough blabbering. Off to make some goodies for tonight: hot wings, and maybe some sticky buns. Wait, might not have yeast. Sratch that. Just the wings I guess.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Posted by Hannah at December 31, 2006 03:02 PM