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If you’re looking for safer, more natural baby products, you need to check out the California Baby brand at drugstore.com. Tater Tot and I use the Calming Shampoo and Bodywash as well as their no-fragrance sunscreen and we love them! The Skin Deep Report rates almost all of their products as “low hazard” based on the ingredients. They’ve also got a new rating system for sunblock based on whether or not the product actually blocks UVA and UVB rays and/or stays put in the sun like they claim to. Check out the Best and Worst Sunblock lists and see if yours is on there!

California Baby also has lotions and diaper rash creams that are formulated to exclude the potentially harmful ingredients that are in the big brands. Check ‘em out! I’m gonna order the California Baby Bubble Bath, Fragrance Free, Super Sensitive for The Tot to make bath time even more fun!

Tater Tot’s naps are so screwed up! It’s almost impossible to plan anything unless I just disregard when she may be tired and drag her along anyway. For the two days before today, she fell asleep at 9:30 am and slept for an hour but skipped her afternoon nap. She had “Quiet Play Time” but did not sleep. Today she fell asleep at 10:30 am and slept for an hour. Last week she fell asleep at 11 or 12 and slept for an hour and a half. What the…??? The only thing I seem to be able to count on is that she will not sleep in the afternoon. Now watch, she’ll sleep in the afternoon for a couple of days just because I said she wouldn’t. I swear that’s how it works with her! So I am having the opportunity to develop my “go with the flow” skills. Thank God she usually goes to bed pretty easily. Sometimes she’ll need a teeny bit more rocking but those times are few and far between.

We signed up for a Mommy and Me type class one day a week in the Fall so hopefully either her nap schedule will be calmed down by then or she’ll be able to tolerate not napping at the time of the class one day a week. Who knows?? Not me…I’m just winging it.

Or “Dan, dan, dan!” as The Tot says when she encounters a CD player. Or anything that looks like it could be a CD player. Or radio. Or keyboard. She has been lifting her feet up and down for a while now “dancing” but just last week added the absolute cutest spastically flailing arms to the dance. I just about fall out every time I see it! And today she started bobbing up and down, bending her knees and bouncing while she danced. I love toddler dancing! It makes me happy!

Last week I bought her a cheapo electronic keyboard at WalMart because she loved the piano at The Grandparent’s house so much. When we were shopping for it, I put it up on the cart with her so she could bang on, I mean, play it (thank God for the volume control function!) and she accidentally started one of the demo songs. “DAN, DAN DAN!” she shouted at the top of her lungs while waving her arms frantically in the air. I about fell on the floor I was laughing so hard! I swear I just love this kid! She is the absolute best.

So go ahead, “DAN, DAN, DAN!” everybody! It’ll make ya’ feel good.

The amount of transitional objects that Tater Tot uses to soothe herself to sleep is growing exponentially, it seems! First it was Mr. Duckie. He’s still in the picture, of course, although he does need to be cleaned again. It’s amazing how quickly these stuffed animals become grungy again. Then Dora was added to the fold. She needs to be cleaned, too, but unfortunately, she has yarn for hair and I’m not sure how well she’d do in the washing machine. Since Tater Tot still gets a bed time bottle, she added the bottle to her list of things that she’d like with her at bed time. No, I don’t just give her a bottle of milk and lay her down. We “shnuggle” and I sing to her, then I put the cap on the bottle and give it to her when she’s done drinking. And, last but not least, depending upon the day, she likes to carry around her “fishie suit”. It’s the cute UV protective sun/swim suit with a fish on it that I bought her from Coolibar.com . Most nights she doesn’t have/want it but some nap times she seems to feel that she cannot do without it. So at any given time, I am rocking The Tot with three “loveys” and her in my arms. Quite a feat. I know that at some point I am going to have to decrease the number but I guess I feel like it’s pretty harmless at this point. And they make her so happy. So Tater Tot, Mr. Duckie, Dora, the bottle and I are all pretty close friends about now…

She goes and changes things! Today I thought we would run errands in the morning since Tater Tot has been napping later. We get in the truck and…doh! The battery’s dead. Get a jump and we’re on our way to run errands. Halfway there I look back and The Tot is asleep! It’s 9:00! Crap. Go home. She wakes up within minutes so we go run our errands. Who knows when/if she’ll nap again today. She’s currently having some Not-So-Quiet Playtime instead of her afternoon nap…

Tonight we’re going to a dealie at The Daddy’s summer job and instead of coming home, we’re going to The Grandparents House. It’s just closer and it’ll be past Tater Tot’s bedtime. So, I really should be packing all the myriad of stuff that one needs to in order to travel with a Tot but I’m not. I’m blogging instead. Is that a good idea? Probably not.

I really thought I would escape Tater Tot’s childhood without this sort of incident but, alas, I didn’t. Today in the bath, as I was just about to take her out as luck would have it, she pooped. Good Lord! I did not need that today of all days when I should be packing all the stuff one needs to take with you…blah, blah, blah. You get the picture. So, instead of packing, I was trying to evacuate the tub of all fecal matter and then scrubbing it to within an inch of its’ life. The upside is that I have a really, really clean tub now. The downside…well, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

Well, I’d better go because The Tot’s time is about up and she’s none too happy about still being in her crib. So I get to wrangle her into “helping Mommy pack”. Yeah, that’ll work.

Now is a time in Tater Tot’s life where we are doing a little bit of experimenting. I am experimenting with a later nap time for her (yesterday it worked like a charm). She is experimenting with her food in interesting ways. Some things are working out well and others, well, not so well.

Her naps have been all over the map for months now but I’ve resisted pushing the morning nap back and going for only one nap because she fell asleep so easily mid-morning until lately. Then she would throw a ginormous fit and/or only have “Quiet Play Time” in her crib in the afternoon followed by Crank Monster by bed time. So I didn’t think that she was ready for one nap a day. But lately she has been completely resisting her mid-morning nap so yesterday we went to the beach in the morning. Left the house around 9:45, hung out at the beach until 10:45, home, lunch, bath, nap. Slept for an hour and a half! Completely unusual for her. It was great! Today she went down at 11:30 and so far has been asleep for an hour. Crossing my fingers that the later nap time means longer sleep but not holding my breath.

The food issue has me working over time! She has decided that she doesn’t like steamed veggies. Probably the texture. So I’ve been feeding her pureed veggies instead. Well, it turns out that she really likes how they feel sliding against her hands while she rubs them back and forth. And across her face, for some reason. When she does try to use her spoon, the glob that she has managed to scoop up inevitably plops right onto her lap. Doh. By the end of every meal she looks like it would be more effective if I just hosed her off instead of trying to use a washcloth! Maybe I should just strip her down before every meal.

Speaking of working over time, this girl loves to walk! LOVES IT. Doesn’t stop moving most of the time that she’s awake. The other day I took her to the mall because we were running an errand in that area anyway and they have an indoor playground of sorts for the kids. She was more fascinated by running from store to store (and through all of them) than by the playground! The only down side to that is that I don’t get much time to sit my tired Mommy Butt down. But if it keeps her happy, who am I to complain?! That’s a Mommy’s Life!

And please don’t tell me his dad bought it for him. I will puke. Today I was running errands and saw this kid that could not have been more than 11 years old wearing a shirt like this . (That’s a beer if the pic isn’t very clear) Even if this kid borrowed the shirt from Dad (he would have to be a pretty small dad)… Geez! Come on!

1) Her hair looks like Nick Nolte’s mug shot because she has been pulling at it and/or mashing food in it.
2) She is stumbling from room to room like a drunken sailor dragging Dora by the hair.
3) She is wiping pureed vegetables back and forth across her mouth with a glazed look in her eye.
4) She is in her crib still talking to Mr. Duckie even though it’s after her bedtime and she only napped for 45 minutes total today. Not good. At least the crying has stopped.

So apparently Mr. Duckie has been replaced by the Dora doll that The Daddy bought for Tater Tot a couple of months back. No longer can this Mommy depend on the soothing charms of Mr. Duckie to calm the Tater Tot. Dora usually is the one that she reaches for now, which is fine by me. But Mr. Duckie isn’t completely out of the loop. At bed time I still don’t know which one she is going to want so I stick both of them in there just to hedge my bets. Momma doesn’t mess with bed time and sleeping through the night!

When I first saw the Dora doll, I was kind of frightened. She’s got this mass of yarn hair that’s quite large and a Beanie Baby butt. And of course Dora’s head has always been twice as large as is normal so there’s that. But by and large, I’d rather have her hangin’ on to a Dora doll than Barney or The Bratz dolls. Have you seen these things? Good God! There are certain isles of the toy store that Tater Tot will never see….

Today we tried a little experiment. The In-Laws invited us to attend a local dog show and, instead of having Tater Tot nap at her usual time, we decided to push back her nap and just shoot for one nap today. Great idea. In theory. If we hadn’t done this, we would have been arriving at the dog show just as they were leaving so we gave it a shot. Well, all I have to say is thank God I remembered to bring the snacks! Without snacks we would have had one cranky little girl. In fact, before I busted out the Earth’s Best Organic Crunchin’ Crackers, she would only walk in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go! But crackers got her seated in her stroller and babbling like a cutie in no time! A Mommy’s gotta do what a Mommy’s gotta do…

So she napped on the way home and The Daddy said he wanted to try to get her up to her crib instead of leaving her in the car seat to finish her nap. I said “Okay, if you’re willing to do the rocking that it will take to get her back down in her crib when she inevitably wakes up.” He was willing so we gave it a shot. No chance. She decided she had other things to do. So we got on with our day hoping for another nap later. Ha! Yeah right. She did do about 45 minutes of “Quiet Time” in her crib later in the day which was good for everybody. Sometimes changing The Tot’s schedule so we can do stuff is just as hard on The Mommy as it is on The Tot…

Luckily we had an on-time departure for bed time tonight. I’m gonna crash early…