Alotta's deli

Nov. 30

Sierra is starting to not nap anymore.

For about 2 years now, Gran or I have been driving her anywhere from 30 minutes (unusual) to 1 or 1.5 hours to nap.

Gran nicknamed the route that we took for a long time "Lullaby Lane". It goes along Foothill Expwy and then follows the neighborhood frontage road to Foothill.  And you just loop around and around.

You pass Alotta's deli, which is a bit off Foothill.  But apparently she notices it.  The other day I was looking at Alotta's website. There was a photo of it and she said  “Mommy – on my car ride I always see that!”

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Don't tell him I'm 4 years old (nov. 26)

Sierra saw a neighbor boy setting up his Lego outside when heading out for a car ride with Gran. Gran stopped and the boy said he was setting it up for people walking by to see. Later (after she did not sleep on the car ride), they stopped there to look.  Sierra saw the boy's friend coming.  Both boys were 7 or 8. She told Gran "Don't tell him I'm 4 years old."   :)

Lost on the car ride

November 26

Gran took Sierra for a car ride, driving slowly as usual. Someone saw her and asked if she was lost.
Afterwards, Sierra said "If you look dumb, people think you're lost."

SHE drew Octopus

SHE can add (posted by Josh)

Yesterday we were making waffles. I asked how many to make and Sierra said "3, one for you, one for me, and one for mommy." I said "but I don't eat the same as Sierra". She said "you can have two, and mommy can have two too." Then I asked "how many should I make". She thought for a moment and said "five. Make five waffles." I was very impressed and asked how she figured that out. She responded "make six. I want two too."

The bigger picture

I think I've alluded to a lot of our situation in bits and pieces in the various posts, but never explained the big picture...

 

Why is Sierra not in preschool?  Because she has enlarged adenoids. What does this mean?
When she gets a cold (especially a long cold, or two or more colds in close succession), her (already enlarged) adenoids can swell so much they block her breathing at night. They also increase your risk for bacterial infections and Sierra has even had to take the extra strong antibiotics after the standard antibiotics didn’t work.

It’s far worse than having a cold. When you have a cold, your nose or sinuses are plugged up, but you can still breathe through your mouth. With enlarged adenoids, you can’t breathe AT ALL. Every few seconds, all night, Sierra holds her breath and then gasps and wakes up briefly. She never hits REM sleep and this wreaks havoc on her little body, brain/physical development. She is EXHAUSTED during the day. And it can go on for weeks to months AFTER a cold is over. We saw two pediatric ENTs who recommended skipping preschool and then most likely she will outgrow it by kindergarten (HUGE PRAY AND KNOCK ON WOOD.)

Gran was describing to Auntie Daisy Sierra’s enlarged adenoids and how heartbreaking it is to hear her suffering at night. Heartbreaking is exactly the word. My heart sunk whenever she had an episode last year.

That’s one of the reasons we are close to Fiona, who is a few months older than Sierra. Fiona just moved here from Portland and also has enlarged adenoids. Because of this, she is also not in preschool and the girls have playdates together.  Like us, she always asks people if they have runny noses before they meet her.  And they do everything outdoors to avoid sick people indoors.  (Fiona enrolled in preschool for one semester in Portland, but missed the entire semester after she was diagnosed with enlarged adenoids in the beginning.)  We are very fortunate to have met Fiona.

So I’ve been home preschooling Sierra, which is incredibly time consuming. I arrange playdates, classes, activities all week long for her and make sure that everyone she meets is cold free (i.e., call all over town to find class sizes that are small, pick the first classes in the morning, try to find outdoor classes (e.g., soccer), confirm with parents that parent and child have no runny noses each time), etc. It is a TON of work, to say the least. Thank God Gran is her to help and that we are able to have Ayi too.  But we hope and pray this is a short term thing.

SHE's trying chopsticks

SHE and Auntie Daisy are telling funny jokes

SHE and Gran found chickens

SHE's hiking with auntie daisy

SHE loves Auntie Daisy

That evening, when mommy and Daisy were just pulling into the garage, SHE got a very worried look on her face.  She asked if Daisy had brought her dogs. SHE said "did daisy bring her dogs? We don't have a doghouse. Where will the dogs sleep? Will they get on our furniture? They can't sleep on the couch" I told her the dogs stayed home with a special friend and missed Daisy.  SHE seemed sad to miss the dogs but overall relieved. 

SHE can play word bingo

SHE's trying spin art

SHE loves kiwi crate

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Daisy's hedgehog

Tonight she fell asleep cradling Daisy's cute hedgehog in her arm.

Stitch

I have blogged about how she loves Lilo and Stitch.  She also loves to act out the movie afterwards, and be Stitch. She never wants to be Lilo.

It occurred to me tonight that Sierra wants to play an alien more than a girl, let alone any princess. Love it.

Fever

Friday morning she woke up feverish.  She lay in bed with me for an hour (unusual) then perked up. Gran took her to the park, but then she complained about being cold (chills) and came back home. She has had a low grade (99-101) fever off and on since then. Tylenol once a day in the afternoon today and late evening yesterday. It is extremely difficult to administer medicine to her. Today she spat out part of the dosage.

Dizzy feet

Nov. 15

"Can you hold me? My feet are dizzy" (after pooing, they were asleep)

Songs she likes

Haven't done this in awhile.  Really random and I can't figure out her music taste...

Modei Ani and Hallelu from Octopretzel CD

I'd like to trim a tree with you (from some holiday CD josh downloaded to her ipod that she randomly found)

The Chipmunk Christmas song (Christmas, Christmas time of year)


I got a bunch of lullaby CDs from the library.

Moon Boat, a Japanese lullaby from the Asian Dreamland CD. This is played in repeat softly in the background while she falls asleep.

"Yesterday" (#1) and "Hey Jude" (#6)  from Rockabye Baby The Beatles CD. "Number 6" she shouts from the backseat during the car ride.

From the Sound of Music CD, she likes the Hallelujah song a lot. She'll play it on repeat. More than Do Re Mi and the classic faves.

From the Annie CD, she likes NYC, and Tomorrow.  She will ask to repeat NYC.

I'm sure there are more. I will try to continue to add to this list.

Movies Sierra likes

Nov. 13: 
she loves the penguin scene in mary poppins, esp when the penguins enter and that zany song.

SHE still likes to fall asleep holding my hair

The date of the acrobatics class photos below are from a few weeks before

"I'm sleeping with Auntie Daisy's animals"

"I'm sleeping with Auntie Daisy's animals," she has announced (with a gleeful look as if she wondered what Auntie Daisy would think of this) each night since they arrived.

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SHE loves these animals from Auntie Daisy for her b-day

hedgehog and buffalo

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Disneyland

We have planned a trip to Disneyland three times, but have had to cancel every time due to Sierra catching a cold. The first time we had even bought airplane tickets and canceled and not been able to use to the credit and lost the money. So we planned to drive after that. My coworker and everyone says to drive since you have so much stuff with a young kid.  I had already been to Disneyland twice by this age.  Sigh, poor girl. Maybe next time.  Though we had so many bathroom stops on this last trip (only a 3 hour drive) that I'm not sure we could drive there in 2 days and how painful it would be.

Gold country

We had originally planned a trip to Disneyland from Nov. 5-11.  This was I think our 3rd planned trip to Disneyland.  But alas, she came down with a cold (runny nose and coughing Oct. 27). She missed trick or treating on Halloween and still had residual coughing on Nov. 5.  But by Nov. 7, she was pretty much over it. So I had an idea to go to my boss' house on the American River (Coloma, CA) in Gold Country. He said the house was empty, so we went from Nov. 7-10.  We didn't do nearly as much as we hoped to (it's hard traveling with the little Miss and including nap time) but she had a great time. She loved the house with all my boss' kids toys in it!  And she loved going down to the river and collecting rocks and panning for gold.

Thurs: Left house at 11am and picked up Gran in Berkeley. Stopped at Nut Tree and arrived around 6pm after NO NAP. Got her to bed ASAP.

Fri: Apple Hill. She was wiped out after the first farm, High Hill Ranch, where she: had an apple donut (refused the apple cider), fished and caught a trout with Daddy, rode some fuzzy ponies (with winter coats) 3x, walked around the crafts area, made her own candle, and then had rotisserie chicken for lunch on the trout pond. She didn't want to get out of the car (other than to see the old barn museum at Larson's apple farm) when we stopped at a couple more farms (during which Josh ate: a hot dog, apple pie, and a sausage) and then fell asleep.

Sat: Sutter's Mill Gold Discovery Park had Living History Day. She enjoys looking at old houses and how people used to live. Her highlight and disappointment was buying a gold pan at the gift shop, which she was looking forward to, but was not a "kit" of things, just a pan.  I think Josh had told her it was a kit with a shovel because she kept asking for a shove. Then drove to Auburn. Had great pizza at Old Town pizza in Auburn and then visited an organic satsuma farm (sadly not u-pick) but they had a black lab named Lucy who was a lot of fun.  Stopped at the beautiful Confluence (of the N and S forks of the American River) afterwards. We would have loved to hike there. We'll have to come back when she is older. She did NOT nap that day!  Probably too much driving and not enough exercise.

Sun: Packed up and drove home. Stopped in Old Sacramento and took a carriage ride, ate on the historic paddle wheel boat, and wandered the Old Town. Again no nap. Again too much driving, not much exercise.

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Anastasia made her a playdoh birthday cake

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Lunch on the Sacramento river boat

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SHE tried panning for gold

SHE had fresh kazumas off the tree

SHE's only eating the crust

SHE took 3 rides after catching a fish

SHE's eating Fenton's ice cream at nut tree

She insisted on pumpkin ice cream and refused to try apple pie ice cream.  She had pumpkin only once before after she sampled it at Baskin Robbins when ordering daddy's b-day cake in late Sept.  She remembered she liked it!  So now Sierra will eat vanilla, chocolate, and pumpkin.

Sierra's favorite colors shifting in hue.

Yesterday we had a playdate at Zoe's house. Zoe's room was all pink and Disney princess EVERYWHERE. I asked Zoe what her favorite color was. She said "pink and purple." Sierra piped up, "My favorite color is dark blue and turquoise and indigo."  Shifting in hue from the purples to the blues. Neat! (And most definitely not girly. Yay!)

Sick for Halloween

Sierra got sick last Sunday, the day after History Park trick or treating.  Saturday night after History Park, we probably pushed her too much by taking her to the Magical Forest Journey, an evening walk and series of "vignettes" put on by the Waldorf School. It was a unique experience though, and I can imagine how enchanting it must have been for her at her age. She was coughing and had a low grade fever by Monday night.  

We didn't actually go trick or treating Halloween night because she was sick.  Josh got sick (with the same virus or something else, not clear) Wednesday.  I felt like I was on the verge Thursday (Halloween) and still do.  Gran & I did take her trick or treating at downtown Los Altos that afternoon, but she was pretty tired and so were we (many nights of waking up to one or more coughing fits were tiring). 

 It turns out History Park trick or treating last weekend was probably better than trick or treating in our neighborhood anyway because they gave out treats that Sierra really enjoyed, little tchokes like bubbles and toy insects. Sierra does not like candy besides chocolate.  And she had her new friends with her at History Park too.

Sierra also missed trick or treating when she was 1 going on 2 years old because she was sick.  Sigh.

SHE made nametags

She spontaneously made name tags when she was playing Ruby's pajama party (an episode of Max and Ruby). She pretended to be Ruby while the ponies were Ruby's friends Louise and Valerie.  She made Louise's name tag with just an "L" and then an "M" because "she didn't know how to write the rest of her name." And Valerie's name tag was a happy face.  :)

We only let Sierra watch TV/computer when she is sick, while she is shampooing, and while I am clipping her nails.  She can play with her ipod (very small selection of old games Josh downloaded when she was 1 year old, mostly because he is lazy to add anything new, but it works) while we do her hair.  We really try to limit screen time, but it's hard.

A rocket flying in front of a rainbow

No princesses or fairies for this spirited, independent girl. 

Weeks ago, I asked Sierra what she wanted to be for Halloween. She said a rainbow (last year's costume), and I was so glad we didn't have to make a new one.  Later, I heard Josh asking her the same thing and when she said rainbow, he pushed "But you can't be the same thing as last year!" and I almost wanted to whack him on the head.  But fortunately, she innocently still said rainbow. At some point a week or so later, she said she wanted to be a ghost and Josh made a point of this, although I thought she thought a rainbow was still OK.

Then as we were dressing up for trick or treating at History Park (a very well done event, see photo with her friends below), she suddenly announced she wanted to be a ghost. It suddenly occurred to me that this would be really bad luck in Chinese, so I told her to pick something else. She had a fit. After awhile, Gran jumped in and calmed her down and she then said she wanted to be a pumpkin.  Gran saw an orange re-usable bag and had this great idea of cutting holes in it to make a pumpkin costume. I drew some eyes, nose, mouth on black construction paper and made Josh get off his iPhone to cut them out and then I asked Gran to staple them on to the bag. Presto. "This would win a prize for the best 10 minute costume" Gran said.

Then on Thurs (Halloween) afternoon, we were dressing her for Los Altos downtown trick or treating. I gave her the option of rainbow or pumpkin and she said "rocket!"  She wanted to be a rocket for Halloween and threw another tantrum. I then told her "How about if we print out a picture of a rocket and staple it to the rainbow and it will be a rocket flying by a rainbow?"  This seemed to work well enough.  So it was done. Picture to come later.

By the way, it's amazing how few costumes, if any, that we saw were home made. They were all very obviously store bought and character costumes.  It's so different from all the great costumes I made growing up, and Josh as well.  Is it the times?  Or is it the way we were raised?