Well, Amelia's first trick-or-treating experience was a lot of fun. She seemed a bit confused about the whole thing at first, but I guess that's understandable. I mean, when else do you go around to strangers houses, at night, dressed in funny clothes, demanding treats? She seemed to enjoy herself, though, especially when she realized that what everyone was dropping into her basket was candy. Oh, and there were little dogs at the door at a few houses, so she got to scream "hi, puppy!" at them.

I've already gotten half of my Christmas shopping done, which is a real accomplishment for me since I'm bad about having to finish on Christmas Eve (there was even one year I had to frantically search for an open store on Christmas morning because I had forgotten someone!) The bad thing about this is that I bought a couple of gifts for Amelia, which she has already found and made me open. : )

So now I have to find something else for Santa to bring her. Maybe I should wait until Christmas Eve.

Amelia loves football.  She normally doesn't care for TV, but if she happens to see a football game playing she'll stop and watch, calling it "feetball."  When a player gets tackled she'll shout, "oh, no!" or "oh, me!"  The other day some little boys next door were playing catch with a foam football and she wanted to join in the game.  She wandered over to their yard, and stood watching, thumb in mouth, her own football tucked in her arm.  When they tried to persuade her to throw them the ball, though, she refused.  Maybe she thought they wouldn't give it back.

Toddlers are so cute at this age.  Amelia has started to sing... she can sing parts of the ABC song, and sometimes she'll sing along with the radio.  She sings other things too, but I usually can't tell what they are.

I am getting excited about Halloween... this will be her first trick-or-treating experience.  I'll just have to figure out some way to ration the candy to some reasonable amount.  It should be interesting.  I will be sure to post a photo.

Okay, that's enough rambling for tonight.  Bye for now!

Before I had my baby, I had no idea how much free time I had.  Oodles of it.  And I never appreciated it.  Now, of course, there is no free time at all, period.  My husband and I wake up early, get dressed, feed and dress our daughter, take her to day care, go to work, pick her up from day care, cook dinner, feed her, bathe her, put her to bed, and then work on the website for a few hours.  This leaves very little time for sleeping.  Weekends are not much different; there's always so much that has to be done.  I used to be a late sleeper on the weekends, but I haven't slept past 7:30 am in a year and a half. 

I'm not complaining... I wouldn't change a thing.  But it's getting harder to maintain a clear head during the day when averaging about 6 hours of sleep per night.  I find myself getting loopy at work.  Yesterday, I yawned all the way through a meeting with my boss (I think he noticed).  I find myself depending more and more on caffeine, which bothers me because I hate the thought of being addicted to anything.

Possible solutions: ease up on the website work?  Can't do that yet; I need to try to make it a success, and that takes a lot of time and energy.  Quit my job?  I wish... but not financially doable.  Take naps at lunchtime?  I've actually done this a couple of times, but it's not really enough time to get any decent sleep.

Oh, well, bring on the coffee!   

Amelia likes to be clean.  She never wants to have dirt on her hands or feet, and having food drop in her lap or water spilled on her shoe upsets her tremendously.  When we went to the beach back in April, she refused to walk on the sand, or even to touch it.  So then why is it that yesterday, as we were laying some brick pavers in our back yard, she was practically rolling in the dirt?  We had a couple of buckets of earth out there that we were planning to relocate, and this is what she discovered first.  She put a tentative hand into one, felt the dirt and pebbles, then scooped out a handful and flung it across the yard.  That got the ball rolling: from that point forward we couldn't keep her away from it.  She was diving into the dirt buckets with both hands.  We gave her a plastic shovel and she happily dug around with that.  She plopped down on the bare ground and started digging in with her hands.  I think I'm going to have to throw away the clothes she was wearing.  : )

I guess I have to stop telling people about how clean she likes to be.

Hello and welcome to the brand new Toddler Dish blog!  Inspired by my awesome 18-month-old daughter, I created this website for parents of selective toddlers - which would pretty much include all toddlers!  I am in the process of gathering recipes, links, and useful articles, and am adding new content daily.  I'd love to hear your feedback!  Let me know what you'd like to see on this site.

Also, I know that parents love to talk about their kids, so please consider this an open forum for anything you want to share.