Copyright 2010 – Page 4 – Jacob and Marcia

Other than everything, things have been going okay for the most part

Funny story, I have been keeping boiled eggs in the fridge. Okay, so that was not so funny. I keep them so that we can have a quick breakfast protein or cut some up for a quick chicken salad, or to add to a green salad…you get the idea. This week one of the eggs I ate came out of the shell very easily. The shell split in two clean halves. I know I am one of the few that would take a picture of it, but I thought it was cool.

This morning Mar©ia picked out her clothes. She got distracted after getting her socks and before putting them on, by the walker. She asked to sit in it. I think she thought she would put her socks on while sitting in that seat. At first she was pleased that I let her try. Then she realized she cannot reach her feet in it, and complained. She did try to make the most of the experience by playing with the attached toys, though she was still not happy with the arrangement.

She found a sweater and asked to wear it, so I let her put it on. Then she went and got two shoes, one left (white) and one right (black). I figured it does not hurt anything so I let her do it. Then she asked to go for a walk. This is her new favorite object that is not a toy, a stroller we got from a yard sale for $5.

I guess I wore her out. We walked past a koi pond at a nursing home-she likes to look at them and sign “fish” as she watches them swim around, we saw lots of dogs and a couple babies, we took a stroll through the pet store so she could see animals-I want to make that a regular part of our walks (she liked the bunnies and the birds, the small dogs in cages confused her, she liked to see the fish too, but the birds and bunnies were the big hit this time), and we got to see a friend out cutting flowers in her garden.

Not that I want to sound whiny or anything, but that was disgusting

So a year and a half ago, a month before Mar©ia was born, there was a great baby shower. It was fun, my sister put a lot of hard work into it and it was awesome. Lots of people showed up. I felt loved. There were some much needed gifts and we appreciated them, we still do. One of them was a Fisher Price Cheer for Me! Potty.* We left it in the box. Not because we didn’t want it, but because a newborn does not need it yet, and it takes up less space in the closet when still in the box.

For the past weeks (months?) Mar©ia has been curious about mee using the toilet. She likes to walk in the bathroom while I go, she seems excited to hear my pee hit the bowl, and wants to look in there after I stand. I narrate what I am doing and am trying to be candid about the fact that this is just the way we do it when we do not wear diapers. Sounds kind of like this, “First I lift the lid, then I pull down my pants and underwear and I sit down. Listen, that is my pee. I pee in the toilet. Right now you wear a diaper and that is where you pee. I do not wear a diaper, so I pee here. (If I have to poop, I talk about pooping in the toilet too, same basic phrases.) I am done peeing (pooping). I will use toilet paper and wipe so I don’t drip on my clothes. Now I pull up my pants and flush the toilet with this handle. I can watch the pee (poop) go down the drain. Now I wash my hands with soap. I am all done, now it is time to get out of the bathroom.” She is curious and I am happy to have her learn.

Mar©ia has also been doing OKAY about telling us when she has pooped. She in the last couple weeks has said “poop” to mee, I take her to change her diaper and she has only peed, then in a couple minutes after changing her diaper, she poops. She tries to help clean her bottom when she has a poopy diaper, not that it really helps, at all. She will grab a diaper or say diaper and go right to the changing station. Most of the time she is cooperative. I am glad she stopped trying to get away EVERY time we had to change her.

I am not saying that she is ready to be toilet trained. Time will tell. But she is interested in learning about it. So, Monday I got out the box with the training potty. I figure it won’t hurt for her to become familiar with it.

I told Mar©ia that we were going to open the gift from the baby shower for her. She came over got excited and I got through the tape on the end.** She started to reach in and at first I let her. Then I noticed that it looked dingy. There was dust and scuff marks. I figured it would be no big deal if it had just been on display and I wiped that off. Then I noticed there were some other “stains” on it that took more elbow-grease to wipe away, so I left the rest. I pulled the box out of her reach and pulled out the toilet. Sure enough, there are scratches on the lid and seat where they have been worn. The paint is worn off the handle where it has been “flushed.” There are urine spots on the inner rim of the seat. There are “stains” on the underside of the seat, which I can only assume is poop. The removable bowl is grimy looking. Obviously this has been used with some kid and returned to the store, which they then put back on the shelf!***

There is no way I am letting her sit on a stranger’s pee/poop. There is no way my friend would be comfortable even knowing that this seat came used. If you are reading this story, I apologize; please do not puke on your computer. I almost did when I opened it. (Pregnancy can have that effect on a person.) We decided the thing to do is take it back to the store; we still have the gift receipt.

I called the store to explain what happened and to see if the gift receipt is still acceptable. There are no notes on the gift receipt with an expiration date, or anything to indicate there would be a problem, however it is 18 months old, so I wanted to check. The lady on the phone said that they will not take it back if it is over 90 days old. My “only option at this time is to call the company”, Fisher Price.**** I almost laughed, that is ridiculous.

I rolled my eyes and did what any other person would do, if they had the “connections,” I asked one of my friends that works at this store and is a little more in the know, and a whole lot friendlier, for advice. I explained the whole situation and she told mee how to go about it. So later after we were fairly certain it was a different service desk person, we went in and exchanged it for a new, never-been-opened-clean one. And we made sure they took note of the used-ness of it and mark it down, I hope they do not try to re-sell that thing, again. It is just nasty!

After we got it home and opened we realized that a few things were missing from the dirty one. There was no instruction manual or warranty card, the sound system (it plays songs and cheers when peed in) was missing, and the splash guard was missing (which may come in handy if our next one is a boy). It was obvious that whoever did this had had the potty for a while since they could not remember how it was packaged, they had the parts disassembled, whereas the new one came mostly assembled other than the sound system had to be attached and the back had to be inserted.

*This was a fun gift because at Girls Camp I was so grossed out by our toilet options that I took a bucket and an emergency preparedness toilet seat with bags to camp. I may have been made fun of (maybe not) but I had a clean place to sit, free of bugs, when I had to go.

**The friend that got this normally would only have purchased the perfect-never-been-opened box, but it was the only one on the shelf, and was led to believe that it was just a display model that was put back in the box and taped closed.

***What makes a person so dishonest to use a toilet, even a training kind, not clean it and then return it as if there is nothing amiss? I really do not understand. And what possesses a store to let that go back on the shelf and be resold? I know they want to make as much money as they can, but com e on have some decency! I can only assume it means they do not look over the items that are returned to make sure they are good before selling them again. (My friend that told mee how to go about the return told mee another gross story about how someone came back mad because a diaper disposal system they had purchased came with a dirty diaper already installed…that means it was on the shelf with a dirty diaper inside it! She said she wishes she could make all the returns people check over the items before they let the products go back on the shelf.)

****I have yet to understand why I would need to call Fisher Price and have them do anything with a product the store allowed to be returned, with poop and pee still on it, and returned to the shelf and re-sold. I can only imagine the person on that call telling mee that they cannot do anything about it because it was not used when shipped to the store in the first place. And I would agree. I have not called Fisher Price, I do not know how their customer service is, and they may be wonderful for all I know. I would like to believe that since they make stuff for kids.

Once upon a time

We went to the store this evening, yet again. They did not have what we were looking for, yet again. So we will have to order it off the internet, yet again.

Anydangways, on our way home there were some spots of cool fog. And that got mee to thinking about how we often refer to “dense fog.” That got mee to thinking about the word “dense.” When I was younger I used to think it meant “light,” “airy,” or “fluffy.” So then when someone would give mee bread or cake to try and call it “dense” I assumed it would have the consistency of angel-food cake. I was confused by it being more like pound cake instead. I do not remember when I finally understood, probably a science class when talking about mass, or maybe a social studies class when talking about population. In any case I figured it out. Some people may wonder why I misunderstood the word in the first place. This is why. I often heard some individuals called “dense.” These are the same people I heard called “air-heads.” So in my young-brain-logic, dense=full of air. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

*Okay, so “often” could have been only once or twice for all we know, then again it could have been everyday. (Un)fortunately, I do not remember who was called this or by whom, I just remember hearing it.

And just for fun, here is a picture, or two, of an amazing little girl typing the text after the picture.

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633.

3…

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96.

Family Bike Ride!

This morning we decided to go for a family bike ride. Marcia Holland’s first. I think she enjoyed it. She took a nap in her bike trailer.

First we had to see if her helmet would fit her yet.

Still a little loose, but we decided it was close enough to go for a short ride.
After the ride she and Jacob had matching helmet-hair.

Next time we will have to set up the camera on a timer so we can get a shot of all three of us out for a bike ride.

We were all relaxing, Marcia on the floor, Me in the recliner and Jacob on the futon with the iPad. He fell asleep, and Marcia saw this as her opportunity. She crawled over, stood up, realized she could not reach, and put her xylophone in place as a step. Sadly for her, Jacob woke up in time to rescue it from her.

Then we decided to let Copyright take a turn at the piano. I hope you can get an idea of how much she likes the piano. Unfortunately, this video turned out odd. I recorded it with my phone. Now, watching the playback, it has the full three and a half minutes of video with audio, though somehow it un-synced. I don’t know how or why. When I uploaded it to youtube, it sped up part of the video and cut it short, and so there is only 25 seconds of audio. I (as her mother) still enjoy it, I hope you can too.

Another interesting fact…Marcia Had tooth number 8 break through the gums. Four on top and four on bottom! (Part of mee thinks this is unfair. I know all people are different and what not, but I know of kids that don’t start getting teeth till their first birthday. I wonder why she is in such a hurry.)

It is a big day for us Marcias

Well, it’s not really any different from other days. But today, today I, Marcia the elder, have held Marcia the younger in my arms as many days as I held her inside mee. My how time flies. This little girl has accomplished so many tasks in these short 37 weeks and 4 days. (I believe it is a big day for Jacob too, he just was at the university or high school during the picture and video sessions.)

She was walking all around the office. I had given her some puffed rice to snack on, with mee in the room I was able to keep an eye on her. While she is good with the walker, I am still quicker. I was watching her, she was eating and loving her freedom. Before my eyes, she got sleepy. No whining or crying, though she was happy I picked her up to lay her down.

Here are some of the pictures taken during the first video. And one that she wanted taken of mee. I figure I ought to include myself at least once in a while.

First video was recorded to capture Marcia’s reaction to seeing her pictures. The second is to showcase her self-feeding skills. The videos are not really “thrilling” and I know that many people get bored of seeing baby videos, but I am happy with what she can do and figure that any grandparents or aunts/uncles or cousins Nana might be interested.

When I checked, YouTube had aborted the video. No reasons, just did. So now, 18 hours and 14 restarts later here is the second video.

She has seven teeth, I can see the eighth right under the gums.
Her favorite color seems to still be red, though I do have some neon yellow fabric that she loves to play with.
She LOVES music.
She is always trying to take the camera or phone. Always is not allowed to do so. Always complains about that.
She is ticklish, and has an amazing laugh!
She pulls herself up on everything she can, she tried to climb up the outside of the walker this evening.
She likes to walk if some body holds her hands. Once she figures out balance, there will be no stopping her.
She claps when she approves, or hears the words “good job.” No matter who did the good job.
She claps when we get her out of the crib after naps.
She loves to look in the mirror. Especially right after napping. She smiles and talks and claps for the baby in the mirror, which I am sure she knows is herself (for a while now).
She roams all over her crib. Standing, sitting, laying. She does all that on her own. She also moves a lot in her sleep.
She loves taking a bath. She stands and sits and crawls all over the tub. She would probably live in there if we would let her.
She likes to eat. Her favorite foods thus far are butternut squash, puffed brown rice, and bananas. I think she would eat anything if I mixed it with bananas. She has not yet rejected anything, however the food she has been least thrilled with is apple. We are also now on the look out for sensitivities to that with a second attempt, after a break.
We have been working on ASL signs. She seems to understand the ones we use most. She has been able to consistently make her version of “more,” “food,” “done,” “what,” and just today I saw her do “milk.”
She loves to bounce. Jacob likes to tell people that “just like a puppy, you can tell how happy she is by how much her butt wiggles.”

Marcia is “independant”

Or so she would have us believe….

Marcia likes to eat. Marcia likes to eat bananas. Marcia likes to feed herself. She has trouble picking up small pieces of banana, so I let her have a big piece of it. This is what she did. I thought she was done, then she started to have more fun, thus the two clips together. I hope you enjoy. Just so you are forewarned, the video is about six minutes long.

After she was done, I cleaned quite a bit of mashed banana off the floor. And Marcia needed a bath, in which, she crawled all over and stood and sat and played and chased her rubber ducky and foam letters all around the tub. She sure is a fun and busy little girl!

Now for a few still shots:

I was working on a sewing project and Marcia was playing with toys in the middle of the floor. I heard her squawk for attention. I turned around and discovered that she had gone exploring. This is how I found her.

Once she saw she had my attention, she was happy.

And this last Sunday Jared (one of Jacob’s brothers) was set apart and left on Wednesday for to serve a mission. Marcia will certainly miss him. We all will.

I love that little girl’s laugh

I love even more that it is her daddy making her laugh in the other room. The sound fills the house!

Guest Post: Marcia the younger (kind of sounds like a super hero name)

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Marcia the younger is the offspring of Jacob and Marcia (the elder). She is eight months old (yesterday) and woke with a sixth tooth in her mouth (this morning). Her favorite activities are exploring the house and attempting to claim anything her parents hold. She enjoys typing, pulling herself up on things, and walking with assistance.

Exciting times are a happening here

So, first off, Marcia the Younger had her fourth and fifth teeth pop through yesterday (Saturday). Making a total of five teeth in that little mouth, three on bottom and two on top! (I had to wait for her to sleep in order to get any pictures of the teeth in her mouth.)