Milk Woes

Jared doesn't like milk. I was so excited to get him going on whole milk once I stopped nursing him at a year old, but I gave up after dozens and dozens of failed attempts. I even tried chocolate milk. Recently I have tried to convert Jared to eating cereal with milk for breakfast, but he still hates the milk. In fact, I noticed some red rashes on his chin/neck that he was rubbing, which makes me think he has a slight milk allergy.

This week I bought a carton of vanilla soymilk. Jared has tried it three times and hates it. He sticks out his tongue and makes a "sour" face. (I actually like it. I think it tastes sort of like horchata.)

So now I don't know what to do. I have been paranoid about Jared not getting enough calcium (although he does eat some cheese and yogurt), and then to top it all off, today I read an article in a magazine about children getting rickets when they don't get enough Vitamin D. Now I am even more paranoid.

Any suggestions? The only thing I can think of is to buy those infant vitamin drops again and give them to Jared daily.

(image from http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/images/milk.gif)

Pantless

Here's what we have been seeing a lot of lately at our house. Yes, Jared loves to take off his pants. Does that mean he's ready for potty training? I wish.



In fact, Jared is obsessed with knees--his own and everyone else's. We have a Winnie the Pooh storybook that he calls "Rah knee" (Christopher Robin's knees), and while we read it he points to Christopher Robin's knees in every single picture. We also have a BYU boardbook that he calls "chih knee" (cheerleader's knees).

Jared just learned to say "I love you" in the past couple of days. Sorry this video is sideways.

Beautiful

Yesterday Jared and I went with my parents to the Draper Temple open house. It was so beautiful and I enjoyed feeling the peace and quietude there. The chandeliers, carpets, and ceilings were especially beautiful. I am so excited for it to be dedicated so that Alan and I can go there frequently.

(photo from ldsphilanthropies.org)

Oh, Dear...

A couple days ago Jared figured out how to open doors even with the childproof doorknobs on them. Hello again to playing with toilets, toilet brushes, and toilet plungers.

There are some drawbacks to having a genius child.

Valentine's Day Naivete

I really don't know if I spelled that word correctly, but I'm too lazy to check for sure. Oh, well. It is the perfect word to describe our Valentine's Day dinner adventure, though. We were going to go to the Olive Garden since we had a gift card, and since we knew that Olive Garden doesn't take reservations, we planned to get there "early." We dropped of Jared at Grandma and Grandpa's house around 4:30 and arrived at Olive Garden at 4:50. I got in line as Alan searched for a parking spot. As I got to the front of the line, I was told that there was an hour and a half wait and to come back in 45 minutes so that I could pick up a pager! Well, we couldn't wait that long since we had a movie to catch, so we called Macaroni Grill across the street to see how long their wait was. It was also an hour and a half wait, but they could make us a reservation as early as 9:30. Yeah, right.

Well, to make an already long story shorter, we ended up going to Cafe Rio for dinner. There was no line! In fact, we were one of about five couples in the entire restaurant. Maybe no one shared our opinion that Cafe Rio was about the most romantic place in town. :) The moral of this story is "Go to a restaurant on Valentine's Day where you can make reservations well in advance." Or maybe celebrate Valentine's Day early or late. We were so naive.

We finally saw the Twilight movie (at the dollar theater since we are cheapskates--by the way, since when did the dollar theater become the $1.75 theater?). I liked it well enough, but I feel that I was adequately warned about the cheesy special effects, poorly done make-up, and awkward moments. But I thought it was fun and a cute way to end our Valentine's Day.

Reading with Daddy

Reading with Jared just keeps on getting more and more fun. He definitely has his favorite books! I just love these pictures of Alan and Jared together.

A Prodigy in the Making

I think all babies love to plunk keys on the piano. However, lately Jared has started composing masterpieces. Really, with a melody and everything. He used to only want to play the piano when I was, but now he sits down at the piano periodically without me doing any encouraging. It is fun to be upstairs in our apartment and suddenly hear Jared at the piano downstairs. It makes my day.

Doesn't he look ready for a piano recital?

Neither of these pictures were posed, although they look like they were.