dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
Laila last week went into the hospital for an overnight EEG, just as a way to check up on her seizures. We got the results back yesterday, and they indicate no change and even a bit of improvement from her last EEG, and as it still says, we don't know what caused her infantile spasms (the best results--it means there's no obvious underlying condition that will continue to cause problems).

And so, here's a video of Laila being cute:

dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
Less and less of a baby by the day. This was delayed two days from her actually two year and eight month date (Saturday) partially because of Shabbat and partially because she didn't take a nap either Saturday or Sunday so I had much less time to actually sit down and write!

Laila is now firmly in toddlerdom. She has the combination of callousness and empathy unique to toddlers--she loves sitting in laps and giving hugs, and if you have a visible injury of any sort she'll say "kiss?" and give you a kiss on your wound with a big "Mwah!", but she'll also smack you right in the face with a smile or say "pinch?" and pinch you really hard with no understanding that it hurts. It's our job as parents to encourage more of the former and try to remove some of the latter.

We're still working on her language skills--she's still reluctant to use sentences much, though we've gotten her to say "I want [X] please" with no prompting at all, so she's learning the value of multiple words. We've also stopped responding to her pure gestures entirely. If she wants up, she can't just grab on to my legs, she has to say "up" at least, or preferably "Up, please." On the other hand, she understands what we say just fine. Lately I've been the favorite one, and so she'll often drag me in her room and sit me down ("Floor!") so I can read to her. I've been requiring that she put her old books back before I start a new one, and she does it, even picking up extra books from the floor if there are any down there. She'll throw things away in the trash if we ask her to, and during the evening cleanup session she'll help us cleanup, though she does get easily distracted.

In further big news, she used the toilet for the first time yesterday! Now we just need to get her to tell us when she needs to use the bathroom--she'll already tell us when she needs a diaper change. Baby steps (as they say).

She's still full of energy and coping with the bone-chilling temperatures outdoors by running all around the inside of the house. We did get to go out to eat for Shabbat brunch, though. Here's Laila all bundled up for brunch:

2024-01-13 - Laila all bundled up for brunch


Of course, the pictures where she was smiling, she wasn't looking at the camera, and the pictures where she was looking at the camera she wasn't smiling. Same as it ever was.

What other ways will she grow and change?
dorchadas: (Judaism Nes Gadol Haya Sham)
Yesterday was the first night of Ḥankuah and Laila was ready for it. A month or so ago, PJ Library--a service that sends free books to Jewish families with children--sent us a good called Hoppy Hanukkah about a family of rabbits celebrating Ḥankuah, and while it took her a bit to get into it, by the end of a couple weeks she was sitting through the entirety of the book. She'd ask for it by name--"Hakkah" in her pronunciation--and listen to the story of the two rabbit-children wanting to light the candles immediately (instead of sundown), wanting to blow out the candles (instead of letting them burn), and then eating latkes. And then yesterday, when she realized what was happening, she was sitting on my lap saying "Hakkah? Hakkah hakkah! Hakkah hakkah!!"

Right now, the message of Ḥankuah, that we must remain ourselves despite all attempts to stomp us out, really resonates with me.

May the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob break the teeth of the wicked.

Last week, [instagram.com profile] sashagee added pre-cut hash browns to the grocery list while we were at Trader Joe's and yesterday, the fruit of that purchase hit the dinner table:

2023-12-07 - Sasha Latkes

She wasn't a fan--she said that there were too many eggs in it, and she's been sensitive to eggs ever since she had a bad reaction to them after her pregnancy--but Laila and I both devoured them. As you can see, we had both sour cream and applesauce, though the truth is, my favorite topping for latkes is labneh. It's not as sour as sour cream, with a more yogurt-like texture. It's delicious and it's what I had with my latkes I had for lunch today, along with honey-smoked salmon and cucumbers. Delicious.

Yesterday I also went to the AnimeChicago physical meetup for the first time in a couple months, and as is common in similar gatherings, I ended up with the two other Jews there talking about Ḥankuah. And also Doctor Who and Spy x Family, because it was after all an AnimeChicago meetup. It was [facebook.com profile] made.unglu3d's birthday too, so she brought cookies and I got a couple of them. They caught me by surprise--they were the super-crunchy kind, that snap when you bite into them rather than being chewy or toothsome--but some of them were "snowflake" shaped. Or maybe they really were ✡️ and the cookie-maker was trying to be inclusive. Regardless, they were delicious. And I need to watch more Spy x Family.

Alright, it's almost Shabbat so time to log off and light the candles. 🕯️🕯️

"Mwah"

2023-Dec-05, Tuesday 13:12
dorchadas: (Kirby Walk)
Spent time reading the news yesterday and it was depressing, as always (and especially lately). As I was reading, Laila came over and climbed into my lap and I gave her a big squeezing hug. When I was done, she looked up at me and said, "Better?" and then stretched up and said "mwah" as she gave me a kiss.

It did make me feel better.
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan cooking)
Laila is two and a half years old!

In the two year and four month update I wrote about how I was worried about her sentence usage, but she's been making up on that score. We taught her "I want [x]" and she picked up on it very quickly, and we've been quick to enforce it too. Of course, she's a toddler, so she gets derailed halfway through. She'll point and say "This. Bite." and then I'll say, "I. Want. Bread." and she'll think a moment and say "I...want...mohlow!!! [marshmallow] and then point to the kitchen cabinet where [instagram.com profile] sashagee keeps her hot chocolate supplies. She know what she wants and what she wants is dessert.

She started her early intervention therapy after her assessment which showed her as almost a year behind in speech. After the speech therapist's first visit, she asked [instagram.com profile] sashagee if the assessing therapists told her anything when they did Laila's assessment, and when [instagram.com profile] sashagee said it was over Zoom, the therapist did a 😐 face. She has since said that she's positive she won't be seeing Laila after her next assessment and that most of the kids she sees don't talk at all, or barely. The occupational therapist had a similar reaction and that one I was there for--she interacted with Laila for an hour, and then rather than telling us what her plan was to help Laila get on track, she asked us if there was anything we waned her to work on. Laila is clearly not nearly as bad as the Zoom assessment would indicate.

Lately, she has really taken to Judaism, by which I mean that she'll sometimes take two cups from her dish playset, put them side-by-side like Shabbat candles, cover her eyes with one hand, and start trying to sing. And her current two favorite books were sent to us by PJ Library--one is called Fridays Are Special, about Shabbat preparations including baking the ḥallah (her favorite part), and the other is called Hoppy Hanukkah!, about a family of rabbits getting ready to celebrate Ḥanukah. That book is still a little advanced for her, but she's asking to read it. Book progress!

Also, she's finally helping mama in the kitchen. After watching a Kimono Mom video about a フルーツサンド (cream and fresh fruit sandwich), she helped [instagram.com profile] sashagee make the cream and put the sandwich together and then got to eat it while wearing her Totoro apron:

2023-11-09 - Laila making her own lunch

Once again, I can use the Chiyo-chan cooking icon.

What other ways will she grow and change?
dorchadas: (Legend of Zelda Toon Link happy)
As part of Laila's state-funded (in America! Gasp!) intervention. I'm in the office today, so I wasn't there, but I asked [instagram.com profile] sashagee what she had to say about it and I was told:
"She said not to tell the behavioral therapist but she is not worried about Laila at all. She said she's been doing this since '97 and Laila is fast to learn and adjust and likes to be engaged and said some sentences while with her. And she said she's doing really well. I told her the evaluation was through Zoom and she held back an eye roll haha
I've basically always assumed the "she has the language skills of a 14-month-old" as given during the Zoom evaluation (at 25 months) was complete nonsense, but it's nice to see an actual professional confirm it.

House of Plague

2023-Oct-17, Tuesday 11:36
dorchadas: (FFIX Vivi No More)
Well, now all of us are sick. I started feeling not that great yesterday and by evening my throat was clogged. [instagram.com profile] sashagee felt bad all yesterday and doesn't feel much better today, but Laila is back home now so we have to put on our game faces. She was coughing like crazy and very upset when she came out, and she's very upset now that [instagram.com profile] sashagee is sucking out all her boogers, but otherwise she's in an okay mood.

My mother broke her hip falling today. Just before she and my father were going to leave to bring Laila back into the city, too. I got an automatic "hard fall" message a few hours and when I texted make sure she was okay, my father answered that the EMT thought it was dislocated. Well, it's much worse than that--I just got another message that it will require surgery to repair. She just finished her recovery period from her hip replacement and then this happens. Emoji dejected
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
Poor Laila woke up the night before last in a panic, calling to get out, and when [instagram.com profile] sashagee went in to soothe her, Laila threw up on her. Queue everyone waking up, us trying to get Laila to calm down and drink some water, Laila going into her usual upset panic mode--she just kept saying "Water?", "Apple?", or "Better!" over and over again--and [instagram.com profile] sashagee's parents worrying that there was something about their bed that she wasn't agreeing with. But in the end, Laila went back to sleep, slept through the whole night, and the next morning she was totally fine other than a slight cough. And though she's at the grandparents and [instagram.com profile] sashagee are at home, she's been okay all of today too.

Less so [instagram.com profile] sashagee. We were originally thinking of going shopping downtown today--I need a new coat--but she's laying down in our room at the moment trying to recover. She's promised me she'll have the energy to go shopping tomorrow and hopefully she does.

We just got a phone call from [instagram.com profile] sashagee's parents. Laila does have a cold, which means [instagram.com profile] sashagee has a cold, so that's why everyone is sick.

I got a new phone. I haven't been upgrading very often lately--I had an iPhone 12, and before that I had an iPhone 7 (that poor 7's batteries needed to be charged three times a day by the time I let go of it), so I've had a backwards experience for quite a long time. I've only had the iPhone 15 for less than a week and so far I haven't noticed much of a difference that doesn't step from it having more hard drive space, though the new dynamic notch (or whatever they call it) is pretty neat. But it's not like when I could suddenly use my phone to pay for things, which brought America into the magical world that Japan had a decade or more previously. They may still use fax machines there but they're way more advanced in some ways.

Alright, time for bed.
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
[instagram.com profile] sashagee: "Laila, what happened to your friends?"
Laila: "Uh oh!"
-On coming in this morning and seeing all her stuffed animals on the ground outside her crib
The actual day was yesterday but it was a pretty hectic day.

Last update was about language, and this update is a bit about language too. Laila puts words into short sentences, usually around food: "bite this" or "food please" and will sometimes say "me" or "you" when referring to people (though she has a bit of the child's confusion around pronouns since they don't refer to a single consistent person), but she still most often uses single words, which worries me. All the milestone lists for two-year-olds indicate a lot more sentence use than she does. I'm comforted by her understanding concepts, though. She'll start dancing to music and say "dance? dance?" indicating she knows that dance doesn't refer to a single song, for example, and just yesterday she woke up from her nap and was laughing in her room and then we heard "Help! Help!" She eventually fell back asleep, but when we checked on her at the end of nap time she had thrown all her stuffed animals out of her crib. Just recently when she knows she's done something wrong like trying to grab food off the counter, sometimes when we tell her no she'll self-exile to the corner and say "No. No no no" to herself softly. 🥺 It's important to teach her how to behave but it's still sad seeing her telling herself no.

All her thoughts are in her head, she just needs help getting them out.

She's really been getting into physical activities lately. She eats perfectly with a spoon, though she'll often keep swapping spoons around with one of us to see if we have the perfect spoon. And she loves dancing, either to music or not. She'll sometimes just start dancing spontaneously and saying "dance!" and her latest obsession is the Wiggles version of the Hokey Pokey. She'll often raise her hands over head and spin around, saying "Ooooooooooh the Pokeeeeeey." She keeps trying to climb on things and wants to go out for a walk every day, and lately she's gotten very competent at running. She still kind of looks like she's off balance while she's running and like she'll fall any moment, but she doesn't--she'll run up and down our hallway over and over, laughing the whole time.

She has opinions about clothes. Lately, she's really been into fall hats:
2023-09-12 - Laila hat selfie

She looks like she's taking an Outfit of the Day selfie here. Emoji ~ Cat smile

On the other hand, toddlerhood is now in full swing. She'll keep doing things she knows she's not supposed to do because as a toddler she has very little self-control. As I write this she's trying to pull some plates off the end table and [instagram.com profile] sashagee is telling her no. She knows she's not supposed to do it, but she doesn't really know why yet and she has a hard time resisting her impulses. It's normal but that doesn't always make it easier to deal with.

She knows her name at last, though. She'll even say it sometimes!

What other ways will she grow and change?

Edit: [instagram.com profile] sashagee and Laila were just making homemade goldfish crackers and as Laila was looking through the oven at the baking fish, she said "Put the fish in my mouth." The words are in there!
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan big eyes)
The one thing from me I had hoped she wouldn't inherit. Emoji dejected

Monday, around the end of her nap, Laila just stared wailing out of nowhere. We gave it a few minutes to see if it would calm down, and then [instagram.com profile] sashagee went in to soothe her. And, well.

If you're not familiar with night terrors ([instagram.com profile] sashagee had never heard of them), they're basically waking nightmares. People having night terrors might walk around, they'll scream and cry and wail, they'll open their eyes and look around, they'll say things, but they're not actually awake and they aren't actually interacting with the world. That's what Laila did, she was shaking and screaming and looking around and nothing [instagram.com profile] sashagee did would get her to respond, which obviously made [instagram.com profile] sashagee start to panic. When I held Laila and tried softly calling to her I could recognize what was wrong immediately, so I pulled up the symptoms and showed them to [instagram.com profile] sashagee during a period when Laila was a little calmer. It didn't really reassure her--I don't blame her, if you don't know what a night terror is, it seems like demonic possession or something--and when Laila woke up and was listless and not eating, we went to the hospital.

It all turned out okay. They did a few tests, drew some blood and took some urine (with poor Laila very unhappy about it and making the sign and saying "Done! Done!"), and the results were nothing but a bit of dehydration. After about an hour at the hospital she lost her lethargy and was her old self again, walking around, reaching for things, and the only bit of strangeness was that she didn't really want any water or food. She'd ask for apples but didn't want the juice or the applesauce, and when we offered her water she kept saying "No." But when the tests came back negative and we went home, she ate some bread with jam and drank some water and went right to sleep and woke up the next morning her happy normal self.

I really hope this doesn't happen too often. I don't know if [instagram.com profile] sashagee's nerves can take it.
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
We went to baby Shabbat in the park Shabbat morning, at the same park I've gone to Torah study in the past. They also had a Torah study there but I skipped it this time to help wrangle Laila. She needed a bit of wrangling--when the rabbi started reading a storybook (Chicken Man), she walked right up in front of Rabbi Lizzi and stared at the book and ignored the rabbi's polite requests to move away so other people and see. I felt better though when the rabbi's daughter, age 4, did exactly the same thing. Emoji embarrassed rub head Adira was old enough to complain about not being able to see anything, though, so after that the rabbi moved backward and everything was solved. Laila even listened to the story!

Working more on that mod for Cataclysm and it's reminding me of all of those Game Developers Reveal the Nonsense They Had to Use to Make Games Work articles that come out. To pick one example, CDDA makes it difficult to determine who the other party is outside of dialogue, where the other party is the person you're talking to, because the internal scripting language developed out of the dialogue system and wasn't originally designed to handle all the uses it's being put to. However, it's always obvious who the PC is. So when I made a monster that drained the PC's stamina and health (in that order), I rather than actually doing it as a drain I set it up in code so that the monster checks the PC's stamina and health levels and then has the PC secretly use a "drain stamina/health" power on themselves. This is necessary because there's no way to set attack priority or otherwise influence monsters' AI.

I just made a telekinetic power to let people lift cars to change the tires and the way it works in the game is by summoning a jack made of telekinetic force that you hold in your inventory and can use when you work on a car. It's not the DC Metro is actually a hat but I feel like it's on the same pathway.

I'm most of the way through Hollow Knight. I last beat Hornet in Kingdom's Edge, one of the blocker fights for a lot of people. It took me as many tries as all previous bosses put together I think, and while I looked up strategies and found a cheese one--equip charms for fast attack, thorns, faster healing, and just spam attack until you win--I'm stubborn enough that I refused to do it. I used magic and dodged her attacks and learned her patterns and eventually I did win. It's just like all that advice about never giving up.

This weekend we're going out to the suburbs for fireworks! The award-winning Batavia Fourth of July fireworks didn't happen this year because cellular network outages meant the coordinating computers couldn't actually coordinate, so everyone went to the field and spread out their blankets and then nothing happened. The town couldn't have that, so they rescheduled it for the first weekend in August. I'm not sure if it's going to be the same program and super Emoji Sad Eagle Flag AMERICA Emoji Sad Eagle Flag themed, which I don't have an ideological problem with but which would be a little weird in August, or if they're going to come up with a new program. They've had a month to do so. I guess we'll see.

While randomly scrolling through Facebook I saw an ad for a candlelit Legend of Zelda music concert put on by Fever. While I've been to multiple Symphony of the Goddesses concerts, those are all full orchestra. This is a chamber orchestra so it will be a genuinely new experience for me. I asked [instagram.com profile] sashagee about it, and though she has never in her life played a Legend of Zelda game she was excited about it, so we're going to turn it into a date night! It's in Logan Square, where I don't know what the good restaurants are but I know there are good restaurants. I'll write about that after it happens.
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan big eyes)
Laila had an assessment today by the Early Intervention specialists, who we were recommended to by the hospital because of her history of infantile spasms. The long story short is that she has speech delays--not in terms of her vocabulary, which is average or above-average for her age, but in her usage of words. When talking to us, she sometimes won't use words to indicate her wants at all, just whining and hoping that we'll understand her. The specialist talking to [instagram.com profile] sashagee (I was out of the room) said that Laila should not just be trying to communicating her wants, she should be eager to do so because she can finally talk in a way that other people understand. But she often doesn't.

The grandparents tell us that Laila is more talkative when [instagram.com profile] sashagee is not there, so I do wonder how much if it is lack of necessity--Laila knows that she doesn't need to ask us "Up please?" when she wants to be picked up, and she doesn't need to ask for food specifically by name. At lunch today, after the meeting, I stopped counting "Please?" from Laila as good enough for a food request and made her ask for exactly what kind of food she wanted, and she did eventually say "Bread. Please?"...though not until after [instagram.com profile] sashagee said "She saw the bread," which gets back to the concern. Laila understands the meaning of words, and will imitate our usage of them, but she's not synthesizing her own requests as often as they like.

The good news is that everything else is basically on track--her motor skills, her ability to focus on play that interests her (she spent a while drawing circles), her movement up and down obstacles, her ability to feed herself, her response to requests we make of her are all good. They're going to put her in weekly therapy to improve her language skills and recommended that we get her a play group--[instagram.com profile] sashagee want to put her in gymnastics.

My parents are a little dismissive of the idea that Laila is so far behind (the evaluator said she had the asking skills of a fourteen-month-old). I do think that part of the problem is that we've been too indulgent with her, though. We were so happy that she got through her infantile spasms without suffering severe brain damage, and [instagram.com profile] sashagee has been sick basically from eight months before Laila was born until this past May. She's worried that her being sick has sabotaged Laila and it's all her fault, but getting Laila more help this early is good, as is that this is really the only thing the specialist was concerned with. Laila knows the words, and she can use them abstractly. We just need to teach her that she needs to use them.
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
[instagram.com profile] sashagee and Laila spent last night in the hospital for a routine EEG checkup. They haven't told us the results but as far as I know they didn't see anything--the next one is scheduled for January and they let them go early, so that tells me they think there's nothing to worry about.

Speaking of which, we went to another two-year-old's party last Saturday. There were a bunch of two-year-olds there, playing in the pool set up the birthday girl's back yard, and one of the things that really helped [instagram.com profile] sashagee feel better was that Laila wasn't acting any different than any of the other children her age there. She said a few words but mostly was quiet or made baby babbling noises, she was excited about the water, she played a bit with the other toddlers but in that way that toddlers play with each other, where they're kind of playing in the same space but not really playing together in any particular way. It's very cute and the interaction let us as the parents actually talk with each other. The people who complain about going to two-year-olds' birthday parties clearly don't have actual two-year-olds who will be distracted by the party. I spent some time talking with the birthday girl's father about Crusader Kings II! How is that not a good time?

I also took out a big whack of money and paid off [instagram.com profile] sashagee's student loans ahead of the upcoming restarting of payments. I say a big whack, but it honestly wasn't that much--she payed off over 90% of it herself, which is why she doesn't really have any savings. I already put some money toward her loans when we first met after she got pregnant and these are the last of time. I wanted to get them all paid off so we wouldn't have to worry about more outflows, especially since I'm pretty sure the American economy will suffer as Americans suddenly have to come up with $18 billion per month that they previously could use on other things. Some people used that money to pay off the loans while payments were paused, but a lot of people did not.

Alright, work is done. Time to take the L home.
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
When she sees herself in a mirror or a picture of herself, Laila still points and says "baby!" so baby update it is.

At the Twenty-Two Month Baby Update, I was capable of listing basically all the words she knew. I'm no longer capable of doing that. She seems like she learns new words every single day and is capable of extrapolating meaning from the way we use the words. For example, lately we've been trying to teach her to put her toys away (with very minimal success, but changing habits takes time) so we'll ask her to "Laila, could you put that back please?" Having learned what "back" means, she now uses it when she's somewhere she doesn't want to be. If I pick her up to change her she'll start crying and babbling and say like "😭😭 asdfjkslfd back. 😭😭 owieriwj back." She'll pick up rocks and sticks outside and say "rock" and "'tick" (consonant clusters still give her trouble). When she wants to leave, she'll pick between "walk," "'side" (for outside), or "go." When she opens a door, she'll say "beep beep beep."

Lately, [instagram.com profile] sashagee has been watching Kimono Mom, and in the way that Japanese women often do, Kimono Mom will elongate the end of her sentences when she's speaking formally. バターを入れま~す (butā wo irema~su, "add in the butter") or もうちょっとだけ待ってま~す (mō chotto dake matte ma~su, "We're just waiting for a moment").

Yesterday, while watching, Laila starting going "ma~su, ma~su, ma~su." Emoji ~ Cat smile She's also learned 可愛い (kawaii, "cute") and 美味しい (oishii, "delicious) from watching it. Because she likes watching Kimono Mom's daughter, when she wants to watch a video from her she'll ask "Watch baby?"

That's not to say that she's all fun and smiles, of course. Despite her normally cheery disposition, she definitely is more prone to throwing tantrums now as she's developed her own idea of what she wants to do and how she wants to behave, and it does not always coincide with her parents' desires. Even when her parents are trying to help, like earlier today when [instagram.com profile] sashagee was cooking pasta for Laila to have for lunch and Laila kept wanting to be held up to the stove so she could see what was going on. When [instagram.com profile] sashagee didn't want curiosity to kill the cat, Laila got very angry about being left in the dark.

Or, here's another example:

2023-07-02 - Laila helping with grocery

My happy, cheerful, helpful little girl, carrying the cheesecake that we bought for [instagram.com profile] sashagee home from the store. But this picture was take about one minute after she got absolutely furious that I wouldn't immediately turn over the cheesecake so she could carry it. Emoji embarrassed rub head I handed it to her and she slung it over her arm, carried it about a block, and then decided it was too heavy and was happy to turn it back over to me.

She still loves books, though she doesn't quite have the patience to sit through a whole one unless Nana is reading it to her. Lately, though, she's been asking for a book before bedtime, so it might be time to start incorporating bedtime stories into our routines.

Right now, as I write this, [instagram.com profile] sashagee is singing a song about stars and Laila is trying her best to sing along.

What other ways will she grow and change?
dorchadas: (Judaism Magen David)
Laila is learning new words all the time now, and a couple of the latest words she used are the Shema ( " 'ma" ), one of the major prayers said at morning and evening, and Shabbat { " 'Bat' ). Every morning I ask her if she wants to say the Shema, and she'll run over to me and we'll step out onto the balcony together and she'll look out at the horizon while I sing. Every Friday evening I ask her if she wants to light the candles, and she'll come over and climb into my arms. Sometimes she'll even sing, though this last weekend the real reason came out--I had poured some grape juice for her to have with the wine I was drinking, and she pushed it away so I didn't press it, but when I finished, unwrapped the bread, and started saying the Motzi, she excited started trying to sing it along with me, probably trying to get me to sing it faster so we could get to the bread.

Just yesterday, I was putting the Shabbat candles away and the following conversation occurred:
Laila: " 'Bat!"
Me: "Yes, these are the Shabbat candles."
Laila: " 'Bat!"
*she climbs down and starts coming toward me*
Me: "No Laila, Shabbat was yesterday. We already lit the candles!"
Laila: 🤔
She was probably trying to get more bread. Laila's current religion is bread.
dorchadas: (Blue Rose)
We take Laila to the park just about every day to get some of her energy out, and the park that's closest to us is designed for babies and toddlers far more than for older kids so there's plenty of equipment for her to burn off her energy. She's taken to running around the edges of the park through the leaves, and that's led to two stories in the past week:

One


Lately Laila has taken to walking along the raised concrete border of the park, either holding onto one of our hands or by herself, and a few days ago she ran into a boy around her age who wanted to do the same thing but going the other way. They got close to each other, then very close, and then Laila--who is used to everyone who gets close to her face wanting to give her a kiss--closed her eyes and leaned in to "MWAH" the boy. With a very 😐 expression, the boy turned his face away, stepped carefully around Laila, and kept walking along the concrete border.

Two


There's another kid at the park who seems to just have a bad disposition. Twice now he's yelled "NO! NOOOOOO!" when Laila came nearby and once yelled "NO BABIES!" at her when she went over to see what he was playing with. [instagram.com profile] sashagee even told me that one time he even pulled his fist back like he was going to hit Laila, and when his father stepped in and told him that he had to apologize he started throwing a tantrum. [instagram.com profile] sashagee overheard him talking to another father at the park, saying, "Sometimes I just don't know what to do. He's just so angry."

This is a Laila story because Laila still just takes it all with a smile--she doesn't take it personally at all. Even when the kid yelled no loudly at her, she just looked at him and kept on going. She's so pure-hearted.
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
Laila is two now!

[instagram.com profile] sashagee really loves themed birthdays, and online she found an invitation for a "groovy twos" birthday, so she got a bunch of peace and flower themed stickers, balloons, and garlands and got the house all decorated. We were originally going to hold it in a park by the beach, but the weather report kept calling for thunderstorms and changing when in the day they were going to be, so to be cautious we moved it to our house. The weather turned out fine, if a bit cold, but we had plenty of room for people so it all worked out.

Laila had a great time:

2023-05-13 - Mama and baby at party
Twinsies!

We didn't have any birthday candles, but we did have a leftover Ḥanukah candle, so we used that. Laila doesn't have a grasp of blowing out candles yet but she knows what they are since we light Shabbat candles every Friday night.

The party was mostly adults but someone else we originally met at the Mishkan baby group came with her older son and her daughter Laila's age. Laila and her played together with the Sesame Street toys that Laila got--Laila's favorite is the Count; she can already say "Two! Ah ha ha!"--and the other girl's favorite is Elmo, though she also uses Elmo to mean "a Sesame Street character." That meant they spent a while trading characters back and forth and having a great time. I was a bit more worried about the older boy since he was the only person there his age, but he turned out fine. We have a ball pit that's also full of stuffed animals and he immediately went over there and just melded into the ball pit. Even with around twenty adults milling around he was doing fine.

Laila had a great time running around, checking out her presents, eating tacos while sitting on her grandmother's lap, and seeing everyone. Emoji Kawaii heart

In Laila news, she's using more words. Just today she was in the bathroom and looked at the bath and said "Not now?" and when [instagram.com profile] sashagee confirmed that it wasn't bath time she ran away laughing--[instagram.com profile] sashagee thinks she's happy she was understood. Yesterday I took her to the park and she ran around for fifteen minutes and then decided she had enough--she walked over to the park gate and said, "Go. Go. Gooooooo" and we left. She's started finding foods that she likes and foods that she doesn't like. She's a huge fan of meat and bread, and likes blueberries and bananas. She likes broccoli and cucumbers too but not as much, so I spend some time feeding them to her. Her latest thing is that she's decided she doesn't like sitting down in her chair for meals anymore, she wants to sit on our laps. It makes it much more difficult to eat meals but we know that there'll be a day when she doesn't want to sit in our laps at all anymore, so we let her sit there now. She decided that's what she wants to do one day, and some day she'll change her mind.

In addition to the other toddler at the party, Laila played with a kid at the park! Little kids are so funny when they're playing since they don't really know how to interact with each other, but there was a little boy who wanted Laila to draw on the slide with chalk, so she did that for a bit. Then she wandered off and the boy was obviously sad she left, but he couldn't talk yet, so he kind of yelled incoherently at her and Laila was clearly like "I don't understand you" and wandered away. Even when he got her attention and handed her a chalk again, she held onto it for a moment, gave it back, and then left. Social skill are skills--they need to be learned.

I'll need to change the tag. She's not a baby anymore!

Laila quotes

2023-Apr-26, Wednesday 11:44
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
She's pretty cute.
As [instagram.com profile] sashagee and Laila are heading out to the park
Me: "You didn't say goodbye!"
Laila, without even turning around: "Byeeee~~~~"

...

Laila: "Dog!"
Me: "Look, Laila, there's two dogs."
Laila: "Dogdog."

...

Taking Laila outside
Laila: " 'No! 'No! [Snow! Snow!] Wooooooooooow!"

...

After breakfast, Laila wants to be picked up. She points straight at the bowl of fruit on the counter.
Laila: "Ah-puh."

...

Laila drinks some bubble bath water.
Laila: "Why?? Wow! Poo-poo! Why!?"
dorchadas: (Chicago)
I slept through my alarm an hour late today, but managed to make it to work on time through a quick shower and not shaving. And just like every other time I've slept in too late, I feel incredibly relaxed and refreshed. My sleep tracker shows that I didn't even wake up when my alarm went off, so I guess it's a good thing that I woke up an late (after a nice period of deep sleep) and then immediately got out of bed, ate my breakfast, and left. Laila's not going to like how scratchy my face is, though. Emoji Smiling sweatdrop

The weather is lovely now! Over the course of about two days, the temperature went from 12°C to 23°C and the weather went from cloudy to sunny. Laila didn't have to wear a coat when we went to the park on Monday and yesterday I didn't even bother bringing a coat to work. I went out on the riverwalk at lunch and while none of the businesses are open yet--the restaurants just say they'll open in "spring", which in Chicago starts in May when the cherryblossoms finally bloom--it was packed full of people eating lunch, going on walks, and otherwise enjoying the weather. It'll be back down to 8°C by next week so we have to enjoy the burst of warmth while we can. Portland already had their cherryblossoms, DC already had their cherryblossoms, but it'll still be a month or longer before we get ours. The reason Chicago summers are so jam-packed is that we pack a whole year's worth of activities into those three months.

In further news, Laila made friends with a polar bear:

2023-04-11 - Laila and a polar bear

My parents came out on Tuesdays as they usually do while I was at the office and picked up Laila so [instagram.com profile] sashagee would have some time for herself. They took Laila to the zoo and she had a nice time, since this time the animals were out and wandering, but what she really loved were the polar bears. My parents took a video of her laughing and giggling as this giant head that's almost as big as her whole body gets to within a few inches of her. She has no fear, which is certainly one of our problems to solve as parents. I want Laila to be brave, but not foolhardy!

Looking forward to taking her to the park today and making some stir-fry. Pesaḥ ends tomorrow night, though late enough that dinner will still be unleavened. On Friday, though, it'll probably be burgers.
dorchadas: (Perfection)
Mobile Task Force Lambda-10 ("Toddling Terrors") conducts manned exploration of SCP-3008:




My favorite part is when she gets to the arrow on the floor, looks down, and then turns to face it. Emoji ~ Cat smile

Our original task was to get a set of shelving to put into the kitchen. They didn't have it at all, but it turned out alright. [instagram.com profile] sashagee got a bunch of plant accessories instead and has already repotted the poor snake plant that was about ready to burst forth from the pot--when we took it out, it was a solid mass of roots and dirt--but somehow still had the energy to put out some flowers. My mother said she had never even heard of a snake plant flowering, but [instagram.com profile] sashagee did it!

We got a lot of shopping done and Laila spent the whole time wandering around and exploring. Everyone was a winner.
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
She was feeling bad yesterday so she reached out to my parents and asked them if they would like Laila to do an overnight stay. Then when she woke up this morning, she was feeling much better and worried about being away from Laila for so long and thought about texting my parents and telling them they didn't need to come in, but then this afternoon she started feeling bad again, so it turned out that no mistakes were made after all. She's currently resting in the bedroom playing an Otome game she downloaded on her phone.

It would be all the makings of a fun date night but [instagram.com profile] sashagee isn't feeling well enough for it, so I'll probably go to services tonight. I haven't been to Friday night services in a while, and the last time I went Laila wasn't having it, and [instagram.com profile] sashagee could use having her name put in for the מי שברך mi shebeirach prayer for healing.

Weekend Report

2023-Mar-21, Tuesday 10:05
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
We had set an alarm to wake up at 8 a.m. on Shabbat morning, and I did indeed wake up when my alarm went off at 8 a.m. on Shabbat morning...and then proceeded to lie in bed for thirty minutes until I heard an excited "wah!" from Laila's room. This proved to be a mistake, because we got out the door later than we wanted to (out into the -11°C wind...) and just missed the bus by two minutes. We sat in Dunkin Donuts while [instagram.com profile] sashagee drank coffee and Laila marveled at all the donuts behind the counter until the next bus came, and then we boarded it and made the trip down to Ravenswood to Mishkan's main office for baby ShabbatRise and Shine.

Last time I was at Rise and Shrine, Laila spent the first half of the service very nervous and only really got into it around the halfway mark. This time we didn't even arrive until the halfway mark, so Laila spent all the time hanging around us. She only got braver once the actual service ended, the singing stopped, and the people thinned out. Then she latched on to [facebook.com profile] rabrams210 for hugs and ran around for a bit before it was time to go. By the time we left, it was 11:20 a.m. and [instagram.com profile] sashagee was pretty hungry, so we walked down the street to a place called Early Morning Delight for brunch. Shabbat brunch is not really a thing the way Sunday brunch is--generally, Jews go to each others' houses on Shabbat rather than out--but I like [instagram.com profile] sashagee's suggestion that we make it a tradition to go out for brunch after Rise and Shine. Especially if we find more places like Early Morning Delight. Before we even ordered, they brought us out a churro cake slice with nutella and fresh strawberries, which Laila absolutely loved, and then:

2023-03-18 - Early Morning post-services brunch

The fruit cup came with the omelet without me needing to order it! Now that's service. Emoji ~ Cat smile It was very good, much better than the Greek omelet I got a couple weeks ago where I asked them to remove the gyro meat and it turned out that gyro meat was all that was holding the omelet together. This was the artichoke omelet, with artichoke, roasted tomatoes, spinach, caramelized onion and goat cheese, topped with pesto. It was delicious (which was good because every other omelet on the menu had was treif) and I ate the whole thing. We got a children's quesadilla set for Laila and she ate most of one quesadilla and took at least one bite out of each of the other. She obviously had to make sure they were all just as good as the first one.

With brunch eaten, we took advantage of already being in Ravenswood to go to the Chicago Vintage Fest March Market a couple blocks to the north. Right inside, we found a Thai woman selling jewelry who was happy to hold Laila while [instagram.com profile] sashagee picked out a little purse and some barrettes for her, and we bought them before looking around more. It was mostly clothes, which definitely wouldn't fit me and which [instagram.com profile] sashagee wasn't that interested in, but we did get a set of iron butterfly sculptures that we can hang out on the back! At that point it was approaching 1 p.m., so we waited for the bus, it was a ghost bus, we started walking to the L when another bus came, and we caught that bus and a second bus and made it home and put Laila down for her nap.

Near the end of her nap I noticed that [instagram.com profile] thosesocks had messaged me very early in the morning about not having any plans, and after some consulting with [instagram.com profile] sashagee we had an impromptu Shabbat dinner of leftover chicken nikujaga with hamantaschen for dessert. We all got Laila hugs, I talked with [instagram.com profile] thosesocks about how we'll both be working downtown about three blocks from each other, and everyone went to bed a bit happier.

The next day [instagram.com profile] sashagee wasn't doing super well, so we spent most of the day relaxing and playing with Laila. As I wrote in the baby update, Laila's latest new obsession is drawing. She'll go over to her play area, look down at the paper, and then look over at us while making the baby draw sign and saying "doraw? doraw?" over and over again. She did that a big chunk of Sunday, and I got a video of her drawing with a black marker. Like abba, like daughter. Please ignore that I used the black marker because she drew so much that the other markers temporarily weren't working.

Monday always feels a little like the weekend is leftover for me since I work from home, but because I had to work we didn't have big plans. The biggest plan was take Laila to the park, where she hadn't been in weeks, because the weather see-sawed up to 10°C and it was sunny out, so just after work we got Laila all dressed up and walked to the park where we saw Rabbi [linkedin.com profile] jonathanposner613 and his daughter Baila! Baila was very shy--[linkedin.com profile] jonathanposner613 said she's going through a phase where she's extremely leery of men other than him or her grandfathers--but we chatted with him a bit. I mentioned that I hadn't immediately recognized him because his beard had gotten much more magnificent since the last time I saw him at the Mishkan baby group. Laila and Baila didn't interact but--Laila reached out to Baila once or twice but Baila didn't respond--but I was talking to [instagram.com profile] sashagee about how cute it would be if they became friends. They're the same age, their families go to Mishkan, Laila's name means "night" (from Hebrew לילה), Baila's name means "white" (from Yiddish ביילא)... but one thing having children teaches you is that the blank slate theory is completely nonsense. If they want to be friends, they will.
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
Laila is twenty-two months old today and [instagram.com profile] sashagee is planning her birthday already. Since it's two, it's going to be very groovy ✌🏻. She's picking out flower placemats, floral decorations, etc. But, that'll come later.

Last time I updated, Laila was starting to talk. She's been expanding her vocabulary over the last few months and it currently stands at the following words:baby words ) I'm sure I'm missing a few here and there, but those are the ones I've heard.

She enjoys drawing! [instagram.com profile] sashagee bought her a bunch of egg-shaped crayons and she didn't really take to them, but [instagram.com profile] sashagee read something somewhere about how triangular markers were better because they were easy to grasp and they encouraged proper grip. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but Laila has really taken to them. In addition to her daily Sesame Street time in the morning, she now has drawing time in the evening. She's still at the "make lines" stage, but she'll sometimes carefully pick out colors and often try to match the colors of whatever pictures we've drawn. And you can't just sit with her and watch her draw, oh no--you have to participate too. It's no fun if she's just making a design if she doesn't have any additional assistance. Even Michelangelo had help when he painted the Sistine Chapel.

Now that my father has retired, he and my mother come to our house every single week to see Laila. They'll often take her out on trips so they get some time together and [instagram.com profile] sashagee has a chance to clean the house. Lately, they've been taking her to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, which has a bunch of butterflies and a nice children's section. They've told us that she's gradually gotten more and more adventurous while she's been there. There's a tent set up inside and originally Laila did not want to go near it. Then she'd go up to the door but wouldn't go inside. Now she'll go inside for a bit and then come back out. As she learns that things are safe, she's willing to take more risks, and my parents get more time with their granddaughter. It's win-win!

Laila's favorite thing in the world, though, is looking at pictures of herself:

2023-02-20 - Laila seeing herself and smiling

That was when I just stuck up the camera in selfie mode and she was so happy to see her face she immediately started smiling. This happens every time she sees herself, to the point where she'll often steal one of our phones and turn on the selfie camera so she can look at herself. If she sees the door to our room is open, she'll go back there and close the door so she can look at herself in the full-length mirror on the back (and sometimes get scared about being alone and then start crying). So far it's cute, and it's an easy way to keep her happy with just a mirror.

In sad news, though, the downside of Laila being a normal almost-two-year-told is that the tantrums and the boundary-pushing have begun. Today she threw all her food around during lunch, in a way she used to never do--throwing food is wasting it, wasting food means you can't eat it--and a few days ago she wanted an apple, [instagram.com profile] sashagee picked out an apple and turned towards the sink to go wash and then cut it and Laila collapsed on the floor in tears because she was denied the apple, completely ignoring [instagram.com profile] sashagee's protestations that she would get it soon. I know it's a sign of her emotional development, but a part of me misses our always-happy, smiley baby. Still, no one can remain in the nest forever.

To end on a happy note, though, I'll tell you the absolute cutest thing she does--when she thinks she's done a good job at something, she claps for herself. Emoji Kawaii heart

What other ways will she grow and change?

Election Day

2023-Feb-28, Tuesday 14:31
dorchadas: (Chicago)
Today is mayoral election day in Chicago, as well as the election for sixteen new aldermen. One of them is the alderman for our ward in Edgewater and Andersonville, and there are ten people running to replace him. Our mailbox has been stuffed full of election ads for weeks, all of which we immediately tossed into the recycle bin, but over the weekend my ballot came. I did some research online, filled it out, and then yesterday I went on a walk with Laila down to the armory where the early voting was taking place. I dropped off my ballot and boom, democracy has been enacted. 🇺🇸

It won't be the only election, though. Chicago requires a runoff for mayoral candidates who don't achieve an absolute majority and the race is currently split. If no one wins a majority--and unless the polling is extremely wrong, no one will win a majority--we go to a runoff in April and then if it's close there might be a recount and, well, election season won't be over for a while. I'm not super excited about any of the mayoral candidates but I definitely don't want Lightfoot to win again. Treating the CTA as her personal feudal domain and shutting it down with zero warning during the pandemic means I have a grudge that cannot be alleviated. Lightfoot's big problem, from my point of view, is an inability to admit that she's ever wrong. This is an enormous problem in American politics and culture, but I specifically remember her refusing to open up the beaches even after it was obvious that being outdoors in the hot summer air was much safer during the Plague Years than being indoors at a bar, even if the bar was well-ventilated and everyone was wearing masks. I wrote back in the day about people on supposedly-closed beaches (I was one of them) and it reminded me of the old military adage to never give an order that you know won't be obeyed.

Ah, well, I didn't vote for her.

Laila was back at the hospital today for an MRI, just a checkup on her health. She had one a long time ago, when her seizures first showed up, and they didn't find anything back then, but she was only six months old and her brain has gone through a lot of development since that time. [instagram.com profile] sashagee told me that she had no problem waking up after the MRI and ate lunch just fine with minimal complaining. We have no reason to assume they'll find anything concerning but it's good to check. It meant that I got to take the bus with them but it also meant I was late, so I need to stay a bit late at work. And I had better get back to doing that and save the other post I was going to write for later. Or maybe tomorrow. We'll see.

Valentine's Day

2023-Feb-15, Wednesday 15:06
dorchadas: (Cherry Blossoms)
[instagram.com profile] sashagee is probably the most into Valentine's Day person I've ever dated, but for different reasons--cuteness. She loves everything cute, pink hearts and cute chocolates and stores done up with decorations and squishy things and so on. In America cute things are heavily devalued unless they're animals or babies and liking cuteness is considered a childish trait, so she doesn't get much expression for her preferences...except on holidays like Valentine's Day. It's not the flowers or the chocolates, it's the cuteness around them.

She had big plans for Valentine's Day that unfortunately didn't all work out, but we did get the day all to ourselves--my parents came and picked up Laila in the morning and took her out to the aquarium and then back to their house for a sleepover, leaving [instagram.com profile] sashagee and me in a baby-free house for the whole day. We ate lunch together, then [instagram.com profile] sashagee took a shower and got ready while I did some dishes, and then she rested to recover her strength. Around 3 p.m. we got on the train and went downtown for the first part of our day, buying her Valentine's Day present--an Apple Watch. [instagram.com profile] sashagee always used to be an Android user, even as the rest of her family used iOS, because she preferred the widgets and the greater customizability of Android. But the multiple family albums with cute Laila photos that she was completely excluded from unless she asked me to send the photos to her finally won her over. She's had an iPhone for around a year now, and she's mentioned that she's ready to buy fully into the walled garden--watch, AirPods, the works. Having a baby means we do not have a lot of extra money so the full buy-in did not occur, but she got her watch in a cute rose-gold with a red band.

After that we walked over to the train, stopped briefly for donuts on the way, and took the train out to Oak Park and the restaurant where [instagram.com profile] sashagee had gotten us reservations at:

2023-02-14 - Amerikas Valentine's Meal

Amerikas.

This is a salmon tlayuda, described by the internet as "Oaxacan pizza", and it was delicious. Salmon, avocado puree, radishes, greens, and a spicy sauce. We also got the pollo which Sasha ate since I was having a dairy meal--and this turned out to be fortuitous anyway because she hadn't noticed that it contained chorizo--and the calabaza, with roasted acorn squash, wild mushroom risotto, and Chile de arbol – truffle butter. Everything was delicious, and we ended up finishing the calabaza and taking only a couple tiny boxes home. We each had two cocktails, probably a mistake when we're trying to save money, but one was gin-based (my weakness) and the other was mezcal based ([instagram.com profile] sashagee's weakness), so we each got our own preference at the beginning and then tried each other's drinks. Surprisingly, the gin drink was much sweeter than the mezcal one! Then, we got dessert--dragonfruit cheesecake and crème brûlée:

2023-02-14 - Amerikas dessert

We had arrived an hour early at the restaurant, but they had a seat for us, so we left around the time when our reservation would have been. And then it took us much longer than we expected, because I had four Lyft drivers cancel on me and [instagram.com profile] sashagee had two cancel on her. She initially thought it was because I had a bad rating until she had her first cancellation, but I think it was just because drivers didn't want to take someone from Oak Park through the city to the north side. We waited for half an hour, to the point where it would have probably been easier (and much cheaper) to just take the train home, and then finally got a ride. At this point [instagram.com profile] sashagee was very tired so she went almost straight to bed. I followed pretty closely behind because I did not take work off today, so I had to get up at 6:30 a.m. But [instagram.com profile] sashagee got to sleep in! I am looking forward to seeing Laila when I get home today, though--I'm sure it'll be different when she's older, but right now when she's small and cute and wants hugs all the time, I miss her so much when she's away.

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