Time just flies by... 19 and 20 Months

Mommy!!! Stop giving me funny hair-dos! ...
OK... They are fun after all. You can continue.

This blog post has been in the works for almost two months at this point, due to lack of time to sit down and focus on this. Rini's height and weight are as of October 15th-ish, but will add November's stats (in parenthesis) this weekend. The further down the blog goes, the more recent the entries are, with updates in Italic to reflect recent development in earlier writing.

Height: 82 cm (82 cm)

Weight: 10.15 kg (10.5 kg)

Vaccinations: Rini received her booster Polio shot just today (Nov. 11th), and boy, was it an interesting experience! As soon as we stepped into the doctor's room and Rini saw all the nurses in their pink outfits, she turned around in my arms, started crying and clawing the air towards her dad behind me. We could not calm her down, but at least the shot was over quickly, and she didn't become a puddle of tantrums on the floor. I'm wondering if her strong reaction against doctors and nurses has anything to do with the fact that the only time she's really been to the doctor was when she needed her shots. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, but at least now she's done for quite some time. We also decided not to get her the flu shot after all, as she's been a really healthy child, almost exceptionally so, and instead we'll just be a bit more vigilant of fevers and coughs this winter season. So if all goes well, Rini will not need to get another shot while we're in Japan.

BAAALLS!!!... Yes, they're that much fun! (^_^)

Clothing size: Still 80 cm, but just barely. I think any clothes we buy for her from this point on will be 90cm.

Shoe size: 12.5 cm

Diaper size: L; we switched up shortly after my last post, because we ran out of mediums. Thinking about switching up to L on FuzzyBunz, too, since she's starting to show a bit of her bum in the medium ones.

Teeth: This past month she's been busy growing her canines. I can feel all four of them just under the gum line, and see one (TL3) pretty clearly, too. Any day now they will start braking through the surface. Note: TL3 popped out on October 25th, and BR3 on October 29th, with next one probably being BL3.

Food: Nothing really new to report, except her amazing love for tangerines. She eats at least two at every sitting, and if she sees it on top of our fridge, doesn't matter what time of day it is, she wants some, and wants them now. I'm glad, since tangerines are chock full of vitamin C, so hopefully it will help keep colds away this winter season. Update on November 11th: She still really likes them, but now we think it's more of a fascination with peeling them, than the irresistible urge to consume them, as she often keeps peeling more after she had enough, which we end up eating instead of her.

Getting ready for Halloween maybe?

Nursing: It seems to me, that she's been nursing more later than earlier, as in closer to 5AM than 2AM. Not every night, but it is happening slowly. I'm kind of hoping this means that she might wean herself off. (I know, I know... dream on...)

Sleeping: For a few weeks now, Rini has been waking up sometime between 6:30 to 7AM, unless she fell asleep late the night before. I don't know if this has to do with the fact that she's been more consistent in napping for an hour to hour and a half around mid-day, or that she wants to make sure she still finds me home in the morning before I go to work. Maybe it's a little bit of both. The main result of this early waking is that I have almost no time to blog. I generally try to blog on Saturdays (even if it doesn't get posted until later), while she is asleep. I used to have an hour or two for this every week, depending on how early I got up. Now, however, I'm lucky to have 30 minutes or so.

Milestones: She's getting faster every day. Though not quite running yet, she will be before Christmas for sure. A few days before Halloween, she learned how to peel a tangerine, and since then, she doesn't allow us to do it anymore. She is also much better at handling her utensils and food, so much so, that she rarely makes a mess on the floor.

On a side note, I finally (around Halloween) got her to "jump" into my hands when we're at Yurara, the public bath house near us. That is, from the shallow water, she "jumps" into deep water where I catch her before she goes under. This is a pretty big step, because the past 6 months or so, she was quite fearful of being in the water. She also lets me "swim" her around a little... very little, but still much more than before. 

Further Update (Nov. 11th): She's been practicing jumping up from the floor. Her feet don't quite leave the floor yet, though, but what matters is that she is trying!

Laughing with Daddy!

Potty training: This is a new section, which I'm starting because we began discussing potty training at home. We have not started yet, as she is too young, but we've been keeping an eye out for signs of readiness. Some things, like saying the words for pooping when we catch her in the act, or saying "stinky" if it's a particularly odor-full diaper we're changing her out of, have been going on for some time now. She even says the word stinky and uses the hand gesture when it's appropriate, usually during diaper change. But lately, I started showing her what's going on while I'm on the toilet, and she finds it rather fascinating. She's been following me to the bathroom for months now, so doing this little extra step was not a big deal. I think she might have learned the word for pee in Hungarian (pisi) in the past few days (from Nov. 11th), but I'm still testing this theory. Overall, we're thinking of getting her one of those child seats that go over the regular toilet soon, just so she can try it out once in a while, if she's interested, but we won't start anything "serious" until Christmas break.

Words: During the last week of October, she has learned the words "no" and "nem," both meaning the same thing, just one is English and the other is Hungarian. Though she prefers using "no" over "nem" in general, when it's just me and her, she does say the Hungarian word a little bit more. She also mimics a lot of new words, but they're so rare and fleeting, that I'm not sure if they're quite set and can be considered learned, yet. Anyways, I'm sure they will come soon, as she is quite the chatterbox.

Wearing great-grandma's
dress for the first time.

Favorite toys: Same as last time, but add cards to it. She looooves playing with cards. We have a set of plastic playing cards that have pictures of common words on them, and the words in Japanese and English, which I bought in the 100yen shop. I use these to try and teach her words as we play with them. Not sure how much good it does, but hey, I'd rather try than not.

Likes: She really likes cereal in the morning, and oatmeal, too. Also, she loves copying whatever we do or say. It's funny watching her wipe her nose with a tissue, just because one of us just did it a moment before. She also wants to eat and drink what we're eating and drinking, using the same style utensils and cups. So, sometimes when we're drinking soda during dinner, we trick her by using the same cup, and giving her water in it. Of course, the cups we use for soda are not see-through, so generally she's none the wiser.

Dislikes: I don't know if she has any new set dislikes, but she's definitely more capable of telling us when she doesn't want something right at the moment. I did notice lately that she hasn't been quite as eager to wash herself when we shower together, like she used to.

Mommy/Rini update: I've been noticing this the past couple months, but last week have confirmed it, that I've been gaining weight again. I'm up to 64kg, which is not bad, but I rather not go beyond. For this reason, I've been thinking of what I could do to keep my weight at this level. One thing that came to mind was, I need to eat a more balanced breakfast. I mainly eat cereal with milk, and bread for breakfast every day, and that's probably not the best. I need more fruits and vegetables in my diet, smoothies and salads. Also, maybe I should bring some fruit/veggie snacks to school, so that I won't want to eat so fast and so much during lunch time. School lunch is generally pretty healthy and balanced, but I get served a lot of rice, that I probably don't need. Also, a little veggie snack shortly before I leave school would maybe help me not get nauseous during my bus ride home, which in turn makes me want to eat a buffalo, when I get home finally. So, in general, less bread and more fruits and veggies from now on is what I'm going to do. I don't really eat sweets and fatty things, so that should be alright. I've considered working out again at home, but with Rini waking up so early, it's almost impossible to keep it up on a regular basis, and I need the routine.
On a different note, as the weeks pass by, I have a stronger and stronger yearning to stay home with Rini. I still like my job, but I'm anxious to spend more time with her, while she is my only little girl. I probably mentioned somewhere before that depending on things, we would not be opposed to having another little one as early as sometime the end of next year. This also means, that there's a high possibility of me being pregnant before I say goodbye to this job. Learning to be a stay-at-home-mom, while being pregnant is a little scary to me, though not enough to make me wait. I know I'll be able to do it, I just want to make sure I give as much attention to Rini as I possibly can, before I have to focus on our new baby.

Enjoying one of the last warm November days.