THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

At 15 months, Rosie is a pro at walking and talking.
She is really expanding her vocabulary lately - she tries to imitate everything we say - her list of words now include:
Daddy, Mama, Nursie, Duckie, Doggie, Ball, Balloon, Book, Baby, Up, Down, Open, Elmo, Thank You, Uh-Oh, Nose, Mouth, Eye, Teeth, Belly Button (bupmn), Moo, Meow, Quack, Ladybug (ldrldrba), Hi (mostly said in a whisper), Shoe (shhhz), Diaper, Dance/Dancin’, Apple (appm), Egg, Cheese (zshhh), Chicken, (kackn), Pumpkin, and most recent is her use of the word “No”.

She loves to play ON and IN things, she is constantly climbing in her little toy bus,

and sitting on top of her toys,

and sometimes she will lie down on top of her toys too. She is constantly getting into kitchen cabinets and getting out bowls and cups and tupperware and fitting the smaller things into the bigger things. She also will take a spoon or fork and pretend stir things in a bowl or cup. She loves to play with pens, and will take the cap of the pen on and off over and over again, and she knows how to write on paper and thinks she is super clever when she does it.
She loves to dance and will stand up and say “dancin” and bounce up and down every time she hears music. She is getting close to singing too - she kind of hums and bounces along when I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - and she says “up up” for the “up above the world so high” line.
She is also getting close to going forwards down the stairs, she has been practicing lately, and she can take a few steps holding onto the wall or the railings, and sometimes she sits down on the step and slides down the the next step on her butt. But usually she rolls over and continues to slide backwards, feet first, on her belly.

Joe has been turning her into a little sports fan. We took her to her first Tigers game a few weeks ago

and although they lost that game, we still had fun. We are hoping to watch the Tigers win the World Series this year!
Rosie has also been enjoying watching Michigan football with her daddy - though I don’t want her to learn the words she hears daddy use during the game. She shows her support by dressing the part every Saturday!

Luckily, they are a great team this year, so all is well in the Greenwald household - as long as Michigan keeps winning!

Lately, I have been letting Rosie watch Sesame Street almost every day - it comes on at 10am, and it is perfect timing so I can get dishes done, or check email, or pay bills, and keep her distracted and entertained -though it is fostering her great love for Elmo. She calls every puppet “Elmo”, and sometimes just mutters “Elmo” under her breath while playing with other toys.
Her cousin, Ella gave her a little Elmo finger puppet last year, and she likes to carry it around

and chew on it

She still loves to read, and will sit for hours and amuse herself.

Some of her favorite books are Goodnight Moon, Pajama Time, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Tumble Bumble, and anything with animals, like Mr. Brown can Moo, and a book with fuzzy dog ears and other animal parts to touch.

Her favorite friends to play with are Cousin Ari

Her and her friends M and Rocco.

She has 12 teeth in the process of coming in now (a couple molars still aren’t completely in) and has been chewing and eating a lot more, though her favorite foods are still eggs, turkey, chicken, bananas, and cauliflower. Plus, she loves bread, I can give her a crust of bread and she will have fun chewing on it for hours. She still nurses about 5-6 times a day - though some days it seems she just wants to snack and she takes a couple sips every hour. Her main nursing sessions are early morning, when I bring her in bed with us, and at night, as part of our bedtime routine.

We got our first snowfall of the season this week, and Rosie was fascinated by it.

We walked around on the back deck for a while, and she tried to pick some up - but was surprised by how cold it was! We only got about 2 inches - and it melted by the next day - but it is definitely colder now - Fall is here and winter is just around the corner.

We took her to the cider mill the other day and she had fun looking at the animals, and she climbed to the top of a big pile of hay with her daddy


and played in a pumpkin patch.

She still is mommy and daddy’s girl, she has separation anxiety whenever we leave her to go out by ourselves. She is fine and will play with Bubby and Aunt Pauline and her cousins once we leave, but she still doesn’t really like to be away from us.
We are not too sad about that - we don’t really lke to leave her anyway - how could you want to be away from this face?

I swear she gets cuter each and every day!

We have renewed our goal of healthy eating for our family recently. Joe and I have always tried to eat healthy - aiming for fresh, organic foods, eliminating fast food and anything with high fructose corn syrup. It is especially important to us now that Rosie is eating more, and basically eating off our plates, and we want to make sure she gets only the best - so we have to follow the nutrition guidelines we want for her.
This was made even more apparent after reading some great articles in The Nation about the food we eat and how it is produced and how long it travels to actually get to our table.
A couple of these articles can be found here and here

Even the word “organic” cannot be taken at face value nowadays as the execs at Kraft and other food giants have paid and lobbied to get the requirements for “organic” food to fit their manufacturing - allowing certain chemicals and practices that are NOT organic at all. Not only that, but the average american meal has traveled over 3000 miles before it gets to your table - so the food you are getting is NOT really fresh, and think of the cost of the gas to get the food across the country!

So, the best way to eat is to find a local farm near you, and get your food from them. Joe and I joined a CSA this year (Community Supported Agriculture) and paid to be members and shareholders of this organic farm near us Maple Creek Farm.
We split a share with friends of ours and we get a ton of fresh fruit and veggies each week - as an example - last week we got:
Spinach (no e-coli scare for us!), green beans, snap peas, turnips, red potatoes, eggplant, butternut squash, apples, pears, arugula, bell peppers, and I think that is it…. We get a really wide variety of produce each week and I actually have a hard time finding ways to use all of it. We have really expanded our horizons and tried new veggies and recipes this year (who knew I would LOVE beet greens?)

We also had a potluck picnic at the farm last month and met the farmers and took a tour and it was amazing to really see where our food comes from.
Rosie and her friend M were playing and sharing the fresh food at our farm’s picnic.

They have 80 acres and it was interesting to hear about crop rotation, cover crops, and other aspects of real farm life.
I want to find a dairy farm and start to get my milk and eggs and any meat fresh from a local farm as well.

Continuing with the farm theme, we went out to our friend’s horse farm last weekend, and they happen to have chickens on their property as well, so we bought some farm eggs from them ($1 a dozen!), and the difference between store bought eggs and farm eggs is striking.

Which one of these things does not belong here? (a little Sesame Street memory for you)

While we were at the horse farm, I actually got on a horse and rode


(well, was lead around) for the first time in over 20 years and it was great! I am hoping to take lessons and make it a more regular (well, semi-regular) part of my life.

Rosie really loves horses - except she still calls them “doggie”. But she had fun feeding them

and really liked petting them too.

It was fun and we hope to spend more time at the farm with our friends again soon.

Rosie, what do you have?

Come here - what are you eating?

what is that? Is that a tampon?

umm- no thanks, I don’t really want to chew on any tampons….

thanks anyway…..

guess it is time to put locks on the bathroom cabinets

So, I read that book several years ago and enjoyed it - fun, cheesy, engrossing - everything I look for in a quick, easy summer read. I never thought I would be making some nanny diaries of my own. Now, I’m no Mary Poppins, but I started a part time nanny job at the beginning of Sept - just to make some extra $$ since the real estate business is - um - not doing so well right now (to put it kindly).
I met this great family (through craigslist) with a son who is 6 months older than Rosie and they were looking for part time help to watch him about 4 hours a day. I met with them and Rosie really got along with the little boy, Rocco - and I got along with his mom and dad - and so far it has worked out amazingly! Rocco is adorable

and he and Rosie are really cute playing together. I split the job with another girl and only go 2 days a week to their house, so it is really manageable and I don’t feel overwhelmed, and most days it doesn’t really even feel like it is “work”. Rosie seems to really love it - and she is already learning a lot from the Rocco - the other day she walked down the steps (instead of crawling backward) by herself for the first time - holding onto the wall. I think Rosie will really learn alot from our days at their house - I can already tell that being around another kid who is a little older is expanding her horizons and encouraging her to learn and explore more. I am really looking forward to watching them grow up together.