Virtual Exercise

I've been bouncing ideas entire week, planning what to write a blog post about. So much to write, so little time to write it... I mean, I have as much time as normally have with Siiri crawling around. Except now I rarely spend my time at the computer since I re-discovered Xbox.

I played Assassin's Creed a while ago and I loved it. There is something inherently cool about being a sneaky cool assassin in a time without any electronics or even proper weaponry. This involves lots of stabbing and running and climbing. I love the freedom and the athletics of it. Except, sadly, there was no story behind all of it. Now they came out with Assassin's Creed 2 and I must say, WOW UBER COOL! It has all the coolness of the first game, and it has a very compelling story. I was so happy with the game that I went and got myself all of the 1000 Achievement Points. I even found every treasure and I did nearly all of the assassination side-quests before I realized I didn't need them for maximum Achievement Point score.

Meanwhile, Siiri practiced her skill of feeding herself. It's not as bad as it sounds. I placed her securely in her feeding chair, fed her anything pureed that I had for her and then placed her finger food in front of her, so she can practice eating without me constantly rushing her on, moving her food around. When I sit beside her I soon find myself micromanaging her meal. I start lifting "favorable" pieces closer to her and "unfavorable" pieces further away. I'm way too fidgety and restless to sit in one place for up to an hour and simply observe without interfering. The solution is to keep an eye on her from a few meters away while climbing up virtual walls and stabbing baddies. Feeding solids just got way more fun.

Solid food issue has somehow resolved itself. Siiri can handle textures so she'll gladly eat purees with meat in them. She also doesn't mind new food and some of the purees she eats are quite tasteless but she still likes them. In our feeding approach it's obligatory to taste everything I offer her but she is still free to choose how much she eats. Sometimes she only takes a couple of bites and decides she doesn't like it one bit. Oddly, she can't stand apples. It's not that she gets any allergic or other kind of reaction. She simply doesn't like the taste of apples. I've tried apples in several variations and all I get is a cautious tasting and a disappointed look, "it's got apples in it, mommy. Couldn't you have made me anything edible?". Fortunately it's now much easier to make it up to her. I give her some rye bread and a slice of pear and she's happy and fed. Later I top it off with breastmilk and she's happily crawling around again.

Yes, at nearly 10 months she still eats breastmilk. Initially I thought I'd stop at 6 months margin but breastfeeding is simply too pleasant to stop. She's so excited, cute and cuddly when she starts to eat. However, I still plan to wean at 12 months so I ought to be making some changes already, perhaps start limiting the number of breastfeedings per day or maybe it would be easier to introduce a meal of bottle milk. I've heard goat milk is easily digested by babies so I might investigate if that's a good alternative to formula milk. I know it's not recommended to very young babies because of a high solute load (probably means it's osmotic pressure is too high, essentially meaning it's too salty) which could lead to dehydration if baby doesn't recieve anything else, but my baby is already eating solids and drinking water as necessary, so it should be okay for her.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I don't like feeding her stuff with obscure list of incredients. I've seen what formula milk is made of and it seems so synthetic that it makes my skin crawl. I know it's just prejudice and baby formula is SUPPOSED TO BE synthetic. After all, it's laboratory-engineered breastmilk. Goat milk, however disgusting, is at least REAL.

Siiri has started learing words again. Our favorite game this week is point-and-tell. She points with her finger and I tell what she's pointing at. And then she tries to repet after me. Unfortunately, everything pronounced by a less than 10 month old baby sound the same: "emme" (english: Mommy). Table = "emme", window = "emme", door = "emme". But there is great progress! Today when Siiri pointed toward lamp, which in Estonian is astonishingly also spelled lamp, Siiri said "emp" or even "amp". Oh, and Daddy is still daddy ("issi"). That's one word she hasn't forgotten.

I MIGHT be getting my cake-mania under control. I haven't baked anything entire week. Oh wait. I made that large apple cake 2 days ago. I mean, uhm, I managed to NOT bake cinnamon rolls today despite the urge to make them. I was such a good girl, it was an amazingly strong temptation to supress. Honestly though, I think the only reason I managed to NOT make cinnamon rolls was because I was fresh our of cinnamon and I would have had to go to the store to get it.

PS! I'm still addicted to lipstick.