Monthly Archives: October 2013
Bunches of Grapes
As I stand there for about 25 minutes, hunched over my kitchen island, with my neck straining from concentration, I meticulously peeled a bunch (literally) of grapes for my precious Lily pad for her snacks for the school week. I thought back to when my mom would peel grapes for us, and boy do I have a new found appreciation for that! Thank you mommy for all the little things you do just to keep me safe and happy! Now as I do the same for Lily, I know one day she will appreciate all the little things I do for her. Some fun facts about grapes are that they are very high in vitamins A and K and have lots of potassium and some calcium as well. They are small but delicious healthy snacks for kids, and reduce risks of heart attacks, and reduces blood clots. Grapes also can prevent muscular degeneration and cataract, associated with aging as well. Also, 2.5 pounds of grapes make about 1 bottle of wine! I guess that’s why they say 1 glass of wine a day is good for the heart (adult hearts at least)! Anyways, I will do anything to make sure my precious Lily pad is healthy and happy, even if that means peeling grapes and cutting them in half for who knows how long!
More fruit snacks that Lily likes to eat are Kiwis and Tangerines and Cuties. I won’t get into the science of it, but here are the benefits to kiwis! They helps and improves your digestion with enzymes, helps manages blood pressure, boosts the immune system, helps clean out toxins, helps fight heart disease, creates alkaline balance (supplies a lot of minerals to balance out excess in acidic foods), which results in great skin! Kiwis are easy to just peel and chop into little finger food bits that can be done ahead of time and packed ready to go for the next day! Also, it adds a nice green to their colors of food! Tangerines and Cuties talk a little more time. I usually take out all the seeds in each piece of tangerine, and I tend to peel out most of the skin so that it’s not so chewy for Lily. Cuties are a little easier since there’s no seeds and she doesn’t mind the skin compared to the tangerines. Benefits of tangerines and cuties are that they’re loaded with flavonoids, which boast certain anticancer properties and can even prevent growth of cancerous cells and stop the growth of tumors! They are loaded with Vitamin C and A, which helps the body heal wouds, and hold together tendons, ligaments, bones and blood vessels, and units of vitamin A also helps with the immune system, vision and much more. Tangerines also have a lot of potassium that are important for the proper functioning of kidneys, muscles, nerves, heart and digestive system. Although it takes some time to cut, chop, and peel these snacks for Lily, it’s important we take the time to make sure Lily gets the nutrients she needs. It’s all about the little things!
Speaking of little, I wanted to share my most recent finds! Check out these cute little drinking glasses that I got for Lily! Her school at Le Port has them and when I saw it, I just had to find out where they got it from, and it’s from Ikea!! I know what you’re thinking, it looks like a shot glass, but the glasses are beveled on the sides and that makes it easy for the tiny fingers to have a firm grasp around the glass! I just had to get some for Lily and they were only $3 for a pack of 6! Each glass holds a little less than 2 ounces of fluid! It’s perfect for training Lily how to drink from a glass, and so far she’s able to hold it and even tried to drink from it a few times! Half the time she tosses the water out of the glass but luckily it’s just water! Also the nice part about it being glass is that she learns to hold something with real weight, and IF she drops it and it breaks, then she’ll learn about consequences (that’s the Montessori way). So far, no broken glass yet, phew! Also, her teacher put clear silicone caulking on the bottom to create a rubbery bottom to make it grip to the table surface and not be so slippery, brilliant! So we did the same! I also got these Duralex Gigogne glasses on Amazon that holds about 5.75 ounces of liquid for when she’s older, maybe next year! =) These glasses are under $16 and come in a set of 16 as well. They also have a slight ridge on it for little hands to easily grip as well!! Isn’t just so cute! It’s a perfect size for our little Lily to master drinking from a glass! Here’s a video of her using her baby size glass!
Also, my friend Luce gave me the recipe to make porridge, I mean it’s rather simple and I could have tried looking it up myself, but word of mouth is always the best kinds of recipes! I recently made lily porridge with tofu, chicken and mixed veggies (corn, green beans, peas, and carrots) and added some chicken broth for flavoring, and boy does she love it!! She was starting to want “REAL” food and so when I try to give her steamed veggies in it’s normal form, she would just spit it out. So now I blend up the veggies and chicken, and mix it into her porridge and she eats it all up and gets a good amount of protein and vitamins all in one meal! The best thing about porridge is you can put whatever you want in it, so this second batch I made has tofu, ground beef, and veggies! I’m using ground beef cause her pediatrician says she needs more fats, so bring on the red meats!! She’s getting so much better at feeding herself too, check out this super cute video of her eating yogurt all by herself!
More Infantino Packaging
One of my friends (Mel) from Lily’s modeling agency, whom I met at an Infantino photoshoot, came across another toy that Lily was on the front cover of!! The Infantino toy is the Go Go Activity Trio Jungle Pals! She was so kind enough to mail me the toy, not one but two of them so that I can have one for my Lily’s modeling shrine, and one for Lily to play with! She found this at Home Goods, really random right? Either way, it’s so exciting to see her on the box!!! We are always so proud of you Lily!!! Here’s the LINK to my previous post of her and this toy!
Also, you can get her Infantino Snap & Pop Pals toys online (and in stores) at Babies ‘R Us and through Amazon!!
Hold You In My Heart
It amazing how much I can fall in love with you from just the very second of knowing you existed. My mind was having the time of its life planning out how to make room for you, thinking about when to move Lily downstairs into her new room, picturing you playing with your sister and causing so much trouble together, and imagining our house more full with laughter. For 37 days we loved you and our love for you grew stronger each day, even though I didn’t know that you were getting weaker. Our excitement and joy awaiting, preparing, and planning for you, our second miracle, suddenly got cut short, and in an instant, my angel was gone. How can my heart be filled with so much joy suddenly be filled with so much pain and emptiness? I couldn’t understand why you had to go and I never will. Sadness consumed me when my body was suddenly empty, and my heart shattered into a million pieces. I cried myself to sleep many nights, blamed myself, went into denial that you weren’t really gone, and felt so much pain. It’s now been 19 days since we lost you. I want to let you know that I love you so much and will never forget you. Our tears have been shed not only by us, but by our friends and family, your friends and family. We all have lost you, and we all will miss you. Even though you are gone for now, I feel your soul will come back to us again, and I hope it’s soon. As each day passes, my heart slowly starts to heal. Your daddy and I will never give up, and we will keep trying and hope that we will soon reunite again. Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, and so tonight we light a candle for you. I first fell in love with you in my womb, and instead of holding you in my arms, I will always hold you in my heart.
Happy Sweet 16 Months Lily!
Lily’s artwork from school!
Happy Sweet 16 Months to our precious Lily pad!! She’s still small, hasn’t grown too much since last month, weighing in at 19.6 pounds and is stretches about 30.5 inches tall. She recently got bronchiolitis and had to breathe through a nebulizer for a couple weeks, but she’s all better now, no more wheezing! Also, Lily is finally off the bottle, woohoo!!! We were so happy and proud of our Lily pad when she started drinking a significantly more amount of milk from her thermos straw cup. We tried sippy cups, normal straw cups, and finally the thermos straw cup. We tried to ween her off but it wasn’t working so we decided to do it cold turkey. Eventually she realized the only way she can have her milk was through the straw cup, so instead of pushing it away, she now takes it without a fight! It felt good to put away the bottle drying rack, we now have more space on our counter, and Khoa’s super relieved he doesn’t have to wash anymore bottles (for now). Good job Lily pad!! She also is so good at listening, we’ll ask her to put her toy back when she’s done playing with it and not only does she put it back (most of the time), but she’ll put it back in the right spot on the right shelf and everything! I’m just so amazed by how much she understands and how well she listens! She loves to babble and she’s learning to say a lot more works too even though sometimes she likes to add a “buh” sound at the beginning of some words, like “baiper” instead of “diaper” and “bup” instead of “up”! haha. She even knows to say her name, except she says “yiyi” instead, close enough! haha. That’s our cutie pie! She’s also signing a lot more words and picking up new signs a lot quicker now too! She’s also very good at feeding herself, eating bananas by herself and hold a spoon and scooping yogurt, oatmeal, or porridge into her mouth! It’s still messy but it’s all part of the learning process! Lily loves playing at the playground and going down the slide, feet first but on her belly haha. She loves being outside, playing with friends, and riding on her elephant Elijah (thanks Cynthia!).
Last week she graduated from her Parent & Me Beginner swimming class and will move on up to her Parent & Me Intermediate level swimming class! She got this cute certificate and got to dig through the treasure chest to pick out a toy for graduating from the beginner’s class! It took her awhile to pick a toy cause she kept shaking her head no at all the things the worker showed to her, but she finally settled on a green stretchy plastic guy that you can bend and shape! You can also check out a short video from my instagram of her swimming too below!
I also found Lily on the cover of another Infantino toy, the Teether Links, at Babies ‘R Us! I went to several different Babies ‘R Us and was finally able to track this down. I was so excited when I saw her darling face that I grabbed three of these, then I stood there for a minute pondering if I should just but the rest as well, since there was only two more on the rack, and so I did! BUY THEM ALL!!! haha. I was so excited, I didn’t even have a cart, so I’m juggling all of these and plopped it onto the cashier counter. I had a proud momager moment and told the cashier guy that that’s my baby on the cover!!! I’m so proud of her and this is the first time I was actually able to find one of her toys myself!!! Just look at that sweet chubby little face, don’t you just wanna squeeze her? So proud!!!
I also took a gamble and bought her Funflower, seen HERE, and her Soft Safari Foam Puzzle Set on Amazon, and look who’s on the cover!!! My dad also found her Jittery Pal at Babies ‘R Us, it was the last one at the time! Woohoo!! So excited that my collection of Lily’s toys are growing bigger and bigger!
