third-year Archives

July 17, 2015

This girl.

I am in awe of her every day. I don’t try to tamp it down at all because it really, really helps when she’s seriously pissing me off. She’s two. She’s frustrated and mad and figuring out exactly how little power she has, mostly by trying to see how much she has and being disappointed when she runs out. but anyway. It’s been a rollercoaster of a week. With our friend Cassandra in town, her evening routine has been completely disrupted. We’ve been getting her to bed late, but still have to get out at the same time in the morning. It’s been rough.

Last weekend was the first time since starting the super water babies (no parents in the pool with her) swimming class where she did NOT want to get out. Yay! I am counting this as a win because it means she is comfortable with her new instructor. And also because it means that Papa T. can take her swimming. Without me. And I can stay home, and luxuriate in being totally alone in my house. I’ll sleep. Or cook? Or watch tv? Maybe take a shower! Oh, the possibilities!

Potty training is progressing well. At school they are taking her to the potty every time the “big” kids go, to get in the habit. She’s been asking for panties and I’ve picked up a few pairs. I think we’ll run the current box of diapers out and then give the switch a try!

I was changing her diaper and she said, “wahn… doooo… feeee” and I waited to see if she said four. She did! Yay! I thought she might be able to count to four! But then she kept going to five. Then ten. Then 14!! Then I was so flabbergasted that I distracted her and she stopped. I was so excited! She started counting again for me… “Wahn… dooo…. feee…. footeen!” I wasn’t as excited about those counts :). But later in bed she counted to 16. She counted to 16! I’m not even kidding. I have no idea if this is normal or way above the curve or way below it, and frankly I don’t care because to me it is AWESOME.

She has also started telling me more about her body. The other day she said, “My tummy hurts” and I was able to comfort her (although I didn’t know what to do for her). She had eaten a lot of sweets and I wasn’t surprised that it hurt. I told her it was probably all the sweets, and I was sorry it hurt, and I could rub it for her if she wanted or we could just snuggle for a while. We snuggled. It seemed to help. Snuggles fix everything. I’ll be sad when that stops.

I am letting her play games on her pad, and from time to time watch some Peep and the Big Wide World. I have let her watch a couple episodes of Shaun the Sheep, too, one of which has a storyline about a baby sheep whose teddy bear gets taken inside and the other sheep go to retrieve it for him. In the beginning of the episode, right when the teddy bear goes missing, the baby sheep cries. I tell you all this to set the background, because when the baby sheep started crying J got a very concerned look on her face, and told me that, “Baby sad.” I told her that yes, the baby was sad because he was missing his teddy bear, and she responded, “When baby sad, mama come[s]! Baby happy.” I about melted right there on the spot. It makes me so deeply, totally, completely… content with my parenting choices so far. I haven’t really doubted myself (more than any mom, anyway) but I know that I fall pretty far into the gentle/attachment/hippie/whatever end of the spectrum. And if she cries, I do come. Every time I can. It makes me feel so good to think that she’s internalizing that. I asked her if her mama came when she was sad, and she said, “yeah!” and went back to the show, completely oblivious to what she had done to me.

In short. This girl.

July 9, 2015

I’ve had an introspective day. Thinking about how strange it felt to be pregnant. I was so sick at first, and so excited. The life within me was so strange and new and scary. And then when she was a newborn, everything was just fear and pain. I remember thinking after the first few days, “what am I going to do with her until the next time we’re supposed to check in with a doctor?” Then getting my PPD under control and relaxing into motherhood a little bit, then getting into the new daycare… now she’s walking and talking and expressing all kinds of opinions about things, and I’m really starting to trust myself, believe that I can generally just do this.

It started because yesterday, she pooped on the potty! A huge milestone! And she couldn’t seem to care much less. I asked her if she pooped at school (knowing full well she did, trying to work on quizzing her when I know the answer). She said she didn’t, and I said I heard she pooped in the potty! And she was just kind of like, “oh yeah. I did.” I was expecting more excitement! I said I heard it was a big poopoo! and she said, “No, little poopoo” and didn’t want to talk about it. Okay, that’s… weird but not a problem. So we moved on. I’m still excited! And anyway, while I was putting her to bed I was thinking about that interaction, and realizing that I am not going about potty training the way I’ve read you are “supposed” to. I’m not doing a sticker chart or giving her mms or ripping off the bandaid and just switching to underwear one day over a long weekend. I’m just kinda letting things progress the way they seem to be progressing. Two years ago, a year ago, maybe even 6 months ago, I couldn’t do this. I spend so much time researching every aspect of everything, that it’s weird to be just doing whatever works for us, whatever we’re doing. It feels good! But also weird. I just never really got around to figuring out exactly what options there are for potty training and researching them all and choosing one. I have to say, I feel like what we’re doing is going pretty well. At school she’s starting to tell the teachers she needs to go while she’s got a diaper on. At home, we’re skipping diapers a lot of the time (but not all the time and not in any particular way… sometimes I’ll just take off her wet diaper and not put another diaper on her). We’re not putting underwear on but are letting her run around either bottomless or with her shorts/pants/skirt on. She is doing a pretty darned good job of announcing needing to go! Sometimes she has a bit of a dribble before she says, “Potty! potty! potty!” but most of the time she catches it and we all rush to the potty. The other night she was excited to be hanging out with Daddy and did have an accident, which she was upset about (way more upset than either of us!). I told her it was okay and that accidents happen, and we took off her shorts and since we were heading to the bath anyway, just went to the bath.

She’s started declaring that she’s too heavy for me to carry. Which is strange to me. I’ve never told her she’s too heavy to carry (she’s not, at least not for me) and I’ve never heard Dad say it either. I can’t figure out if they tell her that at school, or where she’s getting it. I would be fine if she said she didn’t want me to carry her, but for some reason it bothers me when I ask if she wants to walk or be carried and she says that she wants to be carried and then changes her mind because she’s too heavy. Maybe because I don’t want her to be denying herself something she wants? I mean, no she can’t have as much pudding as she wants, but I’m always happy to carry her until my arms get too tired. Or maybe she’s coming to the realization that she’s bigger than most kids her age, which is going to be something she struggles with for a long time and I want to let her live free of that struggle for as long as possible? I don’t know. The most likely explanation is that I enjoy carrying her and I’m overthinking this.

I finished the swingset and we’ve been out there so much! I love it. I love having a back yard that we can spend so much time in! We are going through bug spray like crazy though. So far this summer, I’ve been able to wear DEET as long as I wash after we come in, and baby wipes seem to be enough of a “wash.”

Parenthood is so amazing and fantastic 🙂

July 3, 2015

J has now started her Super Waterbabies class. This means that we no longer get in the water with her. I miss it! Her new teacher is male, and we’ve been struggling with it a bit. The first day, I got in the water but mostly handed her off to him a lot. When she wasn’t with him, she was mostly burying her face in my shoulder, but her love of swimming soon started to win. By the end of the class, she was smiling a little, and willing to give Mr. Thomas a high-five. The second class, I didn’t get in the water but I sat next to her along the edge of the pool. She was still hesitant, but it wasn’t too bad. So far, we haven’t had to deal with her just jumping in and assuming someone will get her, although she did accidentally fall in once last weekend. I was there before her teacher, but only by maybe half a second.

I also think the last of her molars have started moving around. Lots of cheek grabbing, complaining about pain in her mouth, and chewing on things. I’d worry it was a cavity except it’s clearly both sides and in the back, past her teeth.

I turned her car seat around. We have a Diono Pacifica in my car and the thing is just too damn big and wobbly to get secured rear-facing in my car. I wish I could keep her rear facing longer. When I stop suddenly with her in the car (which I’ve had to do a couple times, thanks Austin traffic patterns), she complains that it hurts her neck. It worries me to have her forward facing, but it worried me more to have her rear facing in that seat, which would often tip over. Anyway. She’s forward facing now, and enjoys seeing so much more. She has learned that green lights mean go and red lights mean stop. She will exclaim, “I see reh! Wahn, doo reh! TOP mama! Top!” and then when the light turns green she shouts, “DOH DOH DOH!” This morning, as I was driving her to school, I took a different route than normal and was stopped at a red light in a left turn lane. I got a green turn arrow but the rest of the lights were still red and J was very very mad at me. “NO!!!! MAMA!! REH TOP! TOP TOP!!!!!” I explained about the green arrow, but since we’d already passed under it, she couldn’t see it. When I glanced back in the mirror at her face I can only describe her expression as skeptical.

She has definitely chosen a favorite color, even though I have tried hard not to ask her about what her favorite colors/foods/etc are. It’s purple. She wants a purple house, and to drive a purple car, and sometimes a purple bus. She gets excited when she sees a purple semi (“BIHHH tuck!”) and whenever I give her the option of what color of something to get, she chooses purple. Her Nana surely approves!

 

June 18, 2015

My parents’ visit was fantastic.

My dad and I (mostly) built an amazing playset. We weren’t able to quite finish it, but I’m completely confident that what remains is something I can do solo. Building things, fixing things, troubleshooting household issues.. These are the ways I bond with my father. Instead of the whole situation becoming laden with stress and irritability, we keep each other amused and sane even during the biggest projects (and this swingset is, without a doubt, the biggest thing he and I have ever done together).

We bought some plans online and set to work. Were there problems? Of course. Home Depot didn’t have the right wood. The directions were extremely long and complicated. We sometimes didn’t have the right tools. More than once we cut some wood wrong, or drilled a hole in the wrong place or of the wrong size. We often disagreed. But. We were able to have Home Depot cut wood to the size we needed. We checked and rechecked the directions, each other, and the sanity of the situation as a whole, making sure we both understood the next step before we moved forward. We were able to correct our mistakes without much trouble, with spare wood and lots of room to rearrange holes. The disagreements were probably the best part. My father treats me like an equal in many ways. There are still some fatherly tendencies, as is appropriate, and I will by default defer to his opinion on something if I think it makes sense. But when it doesn’t make sense to me, he will listen to me. He will listen to why I disagree, and think about it, and then either agree, or present his own reasons for thinking what he does and why I haven’t changed his mind. I have no idea who “won” any of these disagreements, because every single time, we found equilibrium without any stress or hurt feelings. We worked as two people fully engaged as a team, and many times I bet our conversations would have been incomprehensible to anyone outside the situation…

Dad: “I think we should put this here.”

Me: “No, it needs to go.. see the… here holding out the directions. That thingie needs to–”

Dad, “Yes, but see right here there’s this thing that–”

Me: “Oh! Right.”

W commence putting “this” “here.”

I would murder to have coworkers that work with me as well as he does! We worked ourselves to exhaustion and I won’t lie, he put in more hours than I did, since I had to work for 3 of the days my parents were here. But we had a blast doing it. Drilling, measuring, marking, cutting. More measuring, more drilling. Lots and lots of ratcheting, with the occasional race. And so much talking about what we were doing and how to do it best. Even with such precise instructions, there were ambiguities to be worked out. Pieces to be identified. Tools to figure out (speed squares are simply amazing!) And even plenty of swearing. But never ever at each other. Not even at Home Depot, who took 3 hours to rent us a truck for 15 minutes, and failed to give us essential pieces to some of the tools we rented. And we ended up with something that will last a long, long time. Something I am truly proud to have done, and grateful to have done with my dad. Is it a weird way to bond? I dunno. But I love it. And it’s pretty awesome to have this big beautiful tangible reminder of the week I spent sweating and swearing with the most important man in my life (sorry, Papa T!).

Okay, so, enough about me. J also very much enjoyed the visit. “Dah-puh” and Nana are very exciting and wonderful, and “kiss, hug, shake” is now a part of her life. On one of the first days my parents were here, Nana came with me to drop J off at school. Afterwards, when I came out crying, she and I had a fairly brief but really helpful talk about how I’m contributing to drop-offs being so awful. I’d been working on this with my therapist anyway on being more emotionally removed from J’s anxiety, mostly by telling myself that I was leaving her somewhere safe. But it wasn’t until my mom explained that she and I were in a feedback loop that I started to understand. The big breakthrough came when I was telling her that I want to get out quickly, but I don’t want to do that until I’ve made the decision to go. So I hang around with J until it’s time to say goodbye, then I make my goodbye as quick as possible, but she loses it every time. And as I was saying that aloud to my mom, I realized: By taking her to daycare, I’ve already made the decision to leave. And so the next day, I didn’t stay. Not at all. We walked into the room, and I gave her a hug and a kiss and a see-you-this-afternoon-love-you! and I was out. She didn’t even have time to start sobbing, and what do you know, she ended up never crying at all. Ever since, drop-offs have been a breeze. This morning, it was just like a drop off from old times! I put her down, she wandered off to do her own thing, I joked with her teacher for a couple minutes, then a hug and a kiss and off I went. It was fantastic! I hope we can keep this up! I’m glad I gave myself two weeks to deal with this before I started trying something else with her teachers. I’m glad my mom was there to witness and advise. I’m glad it worked! And I’m especially glad that Nana and Grampa’s visit was so great. J saw lots of Nana and a fair amount of Grampa, and I saw lots of my dad and a fair amount of my mom.

Overall, a good, happy, successful week.

Oh, and yesterday when I asked if J had shown  Ms. CeCe her nails, she said no. I asked her why not and she said, “CeCe no here [to]day” !!!! This is the first time she’s formed a sentence to tell me about something I don’t know that she does. I mean, not like she has a wet diaper or she’s all done dinner or whatever, but passing me some information about her world that I otherwise wouldn’t and couldn’t have known. I was so excited! I LOVE having her talk! I know everyone says once they start they never shut up and it gets old, but I lovelovelove hearing her.

June 5, 2015

Rough week. Rough, rough week. She moved up to Dino Buddies. It’s not going well.

On Friday (her first day) she cried. All. Day. Long. Her face was swollen when I picked her up. On the way home, she bit herself so hard that there were still marks all over her arms and hands four days later.

On Monday she cried. All. Day. Long. She also begged me not to bring her to “Dino Buh-yee” while I drove her in. When we got home, she was still so upset we couldn’t get her to take a bath. She had what I can only assume were nightmares. Crying in her sleep, saying, “no” repeatedly.

On Tuesday she cried. All morning, and then on and off all afternoon. At home, we still couldn’t get her to take a bath. She just wanted to be held and cuddled and snuggled. That night, she had more nightmares.

On Wednesday she cried. All morning. She was better in the afternoon. Still no bath, and no good naps though. By this point she’s looking pretty ragged around the edges, and I’m pretty much going insane. I feel like a caged animal. I know there’s nothing I can do, I know there’s no way to “save” her from this. She’s safe, we’ve made the transition as slowly as we could. She’s just lonely and confused and deep in the throes of being a toddler whose routine is FUBAR.

On Thursday she cried. Most of the morning. Fortunately not all of it. She had a pretty good day, and a good nap. Improvement, finally! Dad went out of town Thursday afternoon before we got home, so we had a good night just the two of us. A bath (boy I gotta say, happy toddlers definitely smell better). A good night’s sleep.

Today is Friday. She cried. She was begging not to go to “Dino Buh-yee” again. When we got there, she was so upset she actually tried to nurse in the classroom. Because I’ve never been totally comfortable nursing in public, she pretty much knows that we don’t. For her to have been having a meltdown so extreme that she wanted to nurse was.. well, let’s just say I’m out of the still-nursing-closet with CeCe, one of her new teachers. When I left, she screamed and screamed. I had to leave but oh, how it hurt. It was a splash day at school, where the kids get so wet that parents are supposed to bring a towel and a change of clothes, so her morning got off to a very happy start. She stopped crying after breakfast and didn’t cry the rest of the day. Hopefully Monday will be just as good? We’ll see.

Tonight Nana and “Gah-puh” get into town, so we should have a fun filled weekend!

May 28, 2015

Another week slipped between my fingers. Getting old sucks!

This week it has become apparent just how completely she realizes that letters make words. She will point to writing and ask, “A-dah?” (What’s that?) until you tell her what it says. She’ll point to letters she recognizes and make the associated sounds: “O! Ooooh. P! Peh peh peh! A! Aaaaah!” She’ll point out the letters that she knows and then demand to be told the rest. And then, the other day, we were outside playing with her new chalk and I decided to write her name in chalk. So I started writing and saying the name of each letter as I did: “J… O… S…” and when I was done, she took a piece of chalk, scribbled on the ground and said, “A… B… O… … …B… O… O…” I’m so excited for her tablet to show up, so I can let her play alphabet games that can feed that hungry mind! She’s also trying hard to count past 3. It’s so exciting! I’m eager for her to be able to read so that she can enter my wonderful world of books and all the places they can take you and all the amazing lives they can show you.

She’s also well and truly into the toddler phase where all rules must be obeyed. She gets so upset when Dad sits in my chair, or I wear his watch, or one of her classmates doesn’t do what they’re supposed to! It makes her really frustrated. We try to accommodate her on some things. Primarily, we try to make sure that she has a consistent set of rules and routines so that she knows what to expect next. It seems to help her have a better overall day if she’s not constantly trying to figure out what’s going on (hey, I would too). The other day at school, there was an enormous puddle on the playground and one of the teachers asked J to help her friends avoid it. J proceeded to very carefully take the hand of the twins* in her class and walk them over to a different part of the playground. Sometimes her desire to have everyone do what they’re supposed to backfires. When the kids in her class don’t follow instructions fast enough, sometimes she tries to help them in the same way we “help” her when she’s not doing what she’s supposed to. In other words, she uses her hands to try to move them to where and what they’re supposed to be doing. In other words, she pushes them. So many euphemisms in childcare! Well, euphemism might be the wrong word. For an adult it would be a euphemism. When we tell her we’re going to help her do something she doesn’t want to do, yes, it’s a little bit of a euphemism for force her to do it anyway. But I do really think that the regulatory systems of a two year old aren’t advanced enough to be able to deal with too much delayed gratification or how to do something negative now for a positive result later. So it really is helping! Or am I just convincing myself? Anyway, when she pushes the other kids it is clearly done in imitation of when we use our hands to put her body where it’s supposed to be. (“Use our hands to put her body?!” WHO EVEN TALKS LIKE THAT)

Tonight is a Thursday night. On… Saturday, J started to poop in the tub so dad quickly moved her to the potty, where she was no longer able to go. Then she continued to not go until Tuesday, when she had a difficult time of it, but was able to poop on the potty. The only reason I mention this is really for my own record, because Tuesday night she started throwing up despite the Prevacid that she’s currently on. At her 2-year well check, the pediatrician mentioned that if she has reflux, we might have regular bouts of vomiting alleviated by Prevacid, but that it wasn’t a good idea to keep her on Prevacid long term. So the fact that she was vomiting with Prevacid is worth noting, as well as the surrounding circumstances. So anyway, she vomited every 2ish hours from about 8pm until about 4:30 or 5am. And of course, we kept her home with a nanny on Weds. She seemed totally fine. This morning (Thursday) she gagged a couple times in the car on the way to school, but I decided to chance it and drop her off anyway. About 30 minutes later she had diarrhea, but they were willing to keep her as long as she didn’t have another bout today. Of course she didn’t. So is this a stomach bug, or more of the unexplained GI issues we’ve been facing? I have no idea. I’m not eager to subject her to a whole bunch of tests that I rather expect will turn up nothing, which is the next step should her unexplained vomiting continue.

Not much else to say this week. Lots of rain. She has enjoyed splashing in the puddles and finding snails and worms and pill bugs. I’m still working with her on being gentle, so sometimes it’s a little bit of a massacre :(. But she’s getting the hang of it. In the Dino Buddies room (where she starts Monday! EEEK!) they have a really sweet little hermit crab who will walk on anyone’s hand, and she’s been working her way up to holding him. Pretty adorable!

Okay, nothing more for this week. Since I got to type at a keyboard anyway, this was a rambly post already.

* She and those two are some kind of awe-inspiring whirlwind of toddlerhood. They love each other and the three of them get so worked up about each other! They run through the halls and shout at each other about having their water bottles. They always want to leave school together and never want to separate when we get outside. The goodbye hugs, followed by various parents carrying off various fussing toddlers, is almost inevitable. Apparently her name is the only name of other children those two will say, and they’re always the first people she mentions when you ask her about her friends at school.

SHE’S TWO!!!!

How… what… where… She’s two?!

I have this terrible habit where I don’t get around to doing something like emailing/writing/calling a friend until it’s really gone on long enough to be uncomfortable. And then rather than just deal with that, I let the awkwardness build until it’s almost like a staring contest with the mirror.

Eventually, usually, I recover. Sometimes my correspondence lapses for egregious amounts of time. Blogging is the latest edition of this terrible disease I have. It’s like a big open-ended correspondence. Who reads it? Some people. But the more I post the more people would read it! Post! Post dammit! But now I have so much to talk about! I don’t have time to post it all!

Okay, so I’ll post some of it.

Like how she’s the most beautiful, amazing, sweet, helpful, adorable, curious, bright eyed little girl I’ve ever met?

No, not like that. Every parent feels that way (it doesn’t make it any less true, though).

So, the basics! Her 2 year appointment went great. No shots, yay! She’s totally normal, except for the things we already know about like speech and gross motor delay. I got a referral to make sure that her speech delays are not related to minor hearing loss from the non-stop fluid behind her ears. Otherwise, 34.2lb (97th percentile) and 36.5in (98th percentile).

Her birthday also went really great! Recently there have been a lot of birthdays in her room at school, and so she definitely knows what they are. I woke her up singing happy birthday and she was ALL SMILES. When we went out into the den to get ready, I’d left a single present on the floor for her to open. It was a book. She tore into it and then we spent the rest of the morning trying to get her ready while reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears. At school I brought 4 pints of raspberries in for her birthday treat, and when I picked her up 3, almost 3.5 were gone! I let her eat the rest as a snack before we went home. Then, home! Daddy was there and dinner was ready, but she wasn’t ready to eat. So we opened the rest of her presents from Grandma and Grandpa, all of which were books. She was thrilled! For dinner she had leftover beef and broccoli, which is one of her favorites. Then we put two candles in a chocolate pudding cup and she blew them out immediately! Pudding for all! After pudding, she got to open a present from us. It was a small toy stroller for her dolls, and she spent from that moment all the way until bedtime strollering her dolls and trying to climb into the stroller herself. So sweet! Then a bath from Daddy-o and reading some of her new birthday books, and off to bed. A few times during the day she would stop what she was doing, look up at me, and say, “Jojo happy!” At first I thought she was trying to say how it is her birthday, but then later she said it was her birthday, and then even later she clarified: “Jojo happy! No sad Jojo. Happy!” I told her I was happy too, and she got a very satisfied look on her face and said, “Yeah. Jojo happy. Mama happy. Daddy-o happy.” I agreed with her, and she went back to playing.

This weekend I’m planning to have a very small bubble-themed get together, with a bubble machine, a bubble-cake, and champagne for the grownups and sparkling juice for the kids. I’m also going to give her the rest of her presents (except for one or two that will have to wait until my parents get here in June).

YAY! I love having a two year old!

Recently she’s really started to talk a lot. Her confidence in her own speech is exploding. The doctor asked her to say stethoscope and she gave it a good solid try!

She’s also moving up to her new room at school in June. I’m so excited, I think it will be fantastic, and she fits in so well there! But it’s also hard because the transition is a little difficult. They’re doing it over the course of two weeks, but it will definitely be strange not to go see her in the Owls anymore. She’s also one of the first to move up, even though she’s the youngest in her class. She’s ready, and I have no idea how they figure out how to transition all these children! What a job scheduling that must be! Her biggest issues with it seem to be communication (all the kids in Dino Buddies right now talk just fine, and many of them are transitioning out and up as she transitions in). She also seems to get confused on the playground, because the Dino Buddies share a playground with the Owls, and when she gets out there she seems to miss her friends and want to play with them. I hope she makes new friends soon! It’s only been a week but she still spends a lot of time latched to the student assistant she recognizes from the Owls room. In many ways, this transition is probably harder for me than for her.

That’s all I can think of. Commence non-awkward regular posting… NOW!

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