Little Things

Today the kids had story time at the library. There is a lady there who runs it whose name is Karen, and Nora seems to love Karen because she talks about her all the time. There is also a guy who helps out called Gorilla Ben. Is he in a gorilla suit? I assume so. Buddy takes them, so I've never been. Today I asked Nora if she could sing a song for me that she learned at story time. She thought for a moment and then started singing "duh duh duh duh...give a little clap!" (Claps hands) "duh duh duh...stomp your feet!" (Stomps feet). She then seemed to get sort of stuck, and declared, "I need to have my shoes on to do it!"

As we were going upstairs to go to bed I was standing in the middle of the gate, inadvertently blocking Milo's way. He waited patiently for a moment, and then he said "EXCUSE ME, Mommy!" That's the first time I've heard him use that phrase to indicate that somebody was blocking his way. Such a polite little guy!

Today for lunch Nora actually ate some rice and chicken (this was an Indian curry dish I'd made). I couldn't believe it. She is really making progress. She has also taken to eating meatballs recently, which is another development. Every step towards eating "real" food is great progress. I still haven't gotten Nora to eat any vegetables that aren't in pureed baby food form, but she did try a tomato, which was something. Baby steps. A while back we were really reaching crisis mode with the kids and meals, so much so that they would cry every time dinner arrived, and it would be a horrible stressful situation. At some point I just deliberately stopped caring about what and whether they ate, and now things are much better. I don't spend much time coaxing either of them to eat stuff. If they don't want to, fine. Dinner is no longer the nightly disaster that it used to be, and of course ironically now that I invest much less into their eating, they both eat better. There are some nights when they basically don't eat. And you know what, I think it's okay. They just eat more the next day at breakfast. Now some nights one or both kids will be so ready for dinner that they'll climb into their seats themselves and demand that the meal starts. What a change!