This Will Be Funny Later

It was somewhere between 3am and 4am, in the loneliness of the night between Monday and Tuesday. F had finally stopped throwing up and was getting some rest. J had also stopped throwing up, but had no interest in rest. I was worn out, still throwing up too much to get any rest, and not thinking very clearly. In the corner of our den is J’s little table, where she likes to color and eat her snacks. She’s not allowed to climb up on top of it, so of course she frequently does if she feels that we’re not paying attention to her. I walked over to the table and flipped it upside down so she couldn’t climb up. Then I turned on Sesame Street. Then I wrapped myself in a sheet, checked that the baby gates were all closed, and dozed on the floor while J clambered around on the couch and played with her toys and frequently just leaned up against me, presumably watching the television. I occasionally lifted myself up enough for another puking session, which would get J very excited. She would point at my bowl and exclaim, “Da! Da! Da!!” as my empty guts tried to empty themselves further. I would rinse out what little was in the bowl, then lie back down. Rinse, repeat. Why didn’t I wake up F? I have no idea. How long was I there? No idea. When the TV stopped making noise, I selected a new episode. I did that a couple times. I was definitely a little delirious, possibly slightly feverish.

And so it is that we hit a number of milestones all at once:

– We experienced having the whole family sick with the stomach flu, and somehow survived and took care of the kid.

– We experienced both parents being ungodly sick while the baby felt fine, and still managed to keep her fed and her diaper changed and she didn’t get injured.

– I used the TV as a babysitter. I knew it would happen eventually. I knew there would come a time when I had to turn on the TV and just let it go. My friend Beth is always reminding me that sometimes parenthood is not about being perfect but about being enough. And this week, I embraced enough for the first time. I don’t feel bad about it. She was safe, she was happy, and when I thought I might be able to not puke for a couple hours, she was ready to go back to bed.

On a happier note, we also hit the point where she can indicate assent! She hasn’t quite figured out how to nod her head yes, but she’ll kind of bounce her whole body up and down a little when you ask her a question and she is affirmative in her answer.

I think I’ve also already mentioned that she now loves to spin until she’s dizzy, then stagger around until she falls down. The whole times she’s doing it she goes, “Wowwwwww!” I need to get a video before it stops. I’m still sad that I never got a good video of the step step game.

J peed in the potty this morning! We’ve gotten off track because of all the diarrhea concerns we’ve had going on recently, but she’s been waking up dry on many mornings. This morning I managed to get her diaper off before she needed to pee, and I sat her down on the potty. She peed almost immediately! She stopped once she realized what was happening, not because she was scared or anything, but because she wanted to splash around in it (sigh, this kid REALLY LOVES WATER). I congratulated her very effusively and told her that she should be proud she peepeed in the potty, while at the same time holding her hands so she wouldn’t play in it. She got up and started playing with a stuffed animal, and immediately started peeing again. I put her back on the potty and she finished up! I should have then had her go flush it with me, but I forgot in my own excitement. Next time, we’ll go flush it and then wash our hands.

So much has happened!

– J had her first tantrum :(. She was playing with some fun new toys when I came to get her at daycare, and she didn’t want to leave. I would have let her keep playing, except they were closing and so I had to take her out. I gave her a few warnings before we left, but even so I know she was not done with those toys and did NOT want to spend an hour in the car. I don’t really blame her. When we got out to the hall she refused to move any further, and started rolling on the floor and crying. I felt terrible for her, because I know she was just frustrated and tired and at the end of her rope. I spent some time trying to talk to her and acknowledge her feelings, but because I was in a rush and my arms were full of bags of stuff, I couldn’t really give her as much attention as I think might have helped. Instead, I basically just scooped her up and told her I know she wanted to play with the toys and I was sorry that we had to stop now, but that she could play with them another time. I told her I had her snack ready for her and that we would eat it outside on the bench before we went home. By the time we got outside she had stopped crying. Tantrums are going to be hard for me.

– Spinning until dizzy! She’s discovered that she can spin around in circles all by herself (there’s a spinning chair at the playground that she loves). So she’ll spin spin spin spin until she is dizzy and then stagger around. It’s nerve-wracking. Adorable, but nerve-wracking.

– She has learned the word, “no.”  Well, more accurately, she has learned, “nooooooooooooo.” She pronounces it, “nuu” which makes it pretty cute. Offer her something she doesn’t want and you get a little, “nuuuuu.” Take away something she does want and you get a much more emphatic, “nuuuuuuu!” She did not learn these at home.

– This one probably goes hand in hand with swimming, but recently she has discovered that she can lie down in the bathtub! She’ll lie down and talk to herself or splash a little bit. I think she’s enjoying how things sound different underwater. It’s fun to watch her sit up and lie down repeatedly. One of these days I’ll work up the nerve to have the bath be deep enough that she can practice her floating.

– We also moved J into her own room. For many people, waiting until she is 16 months seems like a very long time indeed. Others don’t move their children out until they are 3 or 4 years old. In our case, it was time to move her into a toddler bed and there’s not quite enough room in our room for one. The crib is snugged right up against the bed, but a toddler bed needs to have room where the child can get in and out. It would have fit, but getting her down into it would have been a bear. So, out she moves. Since she’s not yet sleeping through the night, and still nursing at night, I also got a little mattress for me to go into the room. Last night was our first night with the new arrangement, and it was definitely hard for me to go to bed and not be able to just lean over and listen to her breathe or rest my hand on her back. Every time she woke up in the night she flipped out. At about midnight, I decided to make use of the mattress in the room. It was still a long night. I’m guessing it will take some time for everyone to get used to the new setup. J also woke up incredibly congested, and I’m hoping that contributed to her trouble sleeping. With luck, tonight will go better. I think it’s more likely that I’m in for a rather long week.

At school and at home, we shush J to sleep. Recently, she has started shushing her dolls and Ah! Eeh! when they go to sleep. She can’t quite figure out how we make the shushing sound though, so she purses her lips and blows on her finger.

She dances now! With her feet! Not just the arms back and forth that all children seem to develop, but a little pittery pattery of her feet. She’s so excited and cute when she does it!

On Tuesday, I had her tested for food allergies. The diapers at school have just been unrelenting and we’re trying to get to the bottom (no pun intented) of it. They did a skin test for a number of things (I’ll try to remember to scan the results tonight). Basically, she came up as maybe mildly allergic to: oats, oranges, tangerines, and fresh whole milk. However, the doctor tested tangerines and fresh milk on his own arm, and had a stronger reaction than she did. Apparently, when you’re an allergist, and someone brings in something to be tested for that they don’t already have a baseline on, you get to be tested for it as a control. So he recommended cutting oranges because that’s easy to do, but keeping milk because dairy is so important. He also recommended a blood test, since the skin tests have a 50% false positive rate. I originally agreed, but the more I thought about it the more I feel like we’re subjecting J to a number of medical procedures of questionable value. The EEG, I think was necessary. The hospital trip for constipation was not (even though my doctor’s nurse line sent us there.) The skin testing, debatable. We needed to know if she was clearly horribly allergic to something, and she isn’t. The blood test to confirm… just ugh. They would need to pull blood from her arm. We did that when she was a year old and she was very good, but honestly, I can’t bring myself to see it as necessary. I talked to the allergist and he agreed that a very well kept food diary would be good enough. So no blood test! Her diapers have been pretty normal the last few days anyway.

Speaking of medical procedures, I got my flu shot yesterday. As usual, they put a bandaid over it. I left the bandaid on, and when J saw it she got very excited! I told her it was a bandaid because I got a shot, and she pulled her shorts up to point to her thigh where she gets her shots. Dad thinks it was coincidence, but she kept doing it until I said, “Yes, that’s where you get a shots and then a bandaid!” and then she clapped. Then she did it a couple more times, and then switched to pointing to my bandaid and clapping. Maybe she was trying to tell me I was a very brave girl, and that she knew that hurt but she promises it will feel better soon and help keep me and other babies healthy?

The only other new thing I can think of (aside from some new words! All birds are ‘duchhhhhhh’ and trash on the floor is ‘chhhhh’) is that she has started blowing kisses goodbye. She puts her hand up to her mouth and then goes “WAH!” as if to make a big kissing sound. She does it a few times, though the “wah” sometimes never comes or sometimes she forgets to move her hand. Nevertheless, it’s obvious and cute. She’s so sweet and patient.

Oh! And new signs: Please and thank you!

The week of the monkey! She’s crazy about monkeys. Last night we put her in her favorite sleeper, which is covered with monkeys. Then we read Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, which is a book all about monkeys. Then she saw a monkey on one of her wooden blocks as we were saying night night to all the rooms in the house. Then she wouldn’t let got of AhEeh (her stuffed monkey) to settle down for sleep. Eventually I was able to convince her that AhEeh was going nightnight on the table next to the rocking chair. Only then were we able to get comfortable enough for her to settle down and go to sleep.

More teething. Oh the teething. She’s biting everything, she’s hard to get to sleep, she’s constantly sticking her fingers in her mouth. I can’t tell what tooth is coming but it’s clearly a tough one!

Frustration and anger have made their debut. She now expresses them by squinching up her face. I’ve got to get a video, it’s so adorable. On the flip side, if she’s frustrated with something and you encourage her that she can do it, the look of pride on her face when she succeeds is pretty wonderful. She’s always been pretty expressive and now she’s using that expressiveness accurately and it’s great!

We’ve stopped doing any potty stuff because we’ve been struggling with diapers, but I think it’s about time to get back to it. The other night she took off her own diaper (!) and ran around excitedly for a while. She also enjoys sitting on her potty. We’ve got a J-sized chair showing up soon, and once it does I think we’ll concentrate on potty vs chair.

What a month we’ve had! I’m ready for it to be over. J has been out of daycare for the last week and change due to the mildest case of diarrhea ever to be called diarrhea. The first couple days it was pretty bad, but she’s been basically just barely sick enough to be sent home from daycare repeatedly. Every time we bring her back, 30 minutes to an hour later they call me to come get her again. Dad and I have both used up all of our sick and vacation time, and the last couple days we’ve been hiring nannies from a local service that will send you someone with just a couple hours notice.

The first nanny we got was, I hope, the worst we’ll ever have. She was right on the edge of being so bad as to be unsafe. She didn’t change J’s diaper, she didn’t pay attention to her, she didn’t bring water when they went outside in the Texas heat, etc. She was terrible. J cried the whole day. But that’s over, and the second and third nannies we have gotten have been simply wonderful. I worked from home today and I actually had to close the door because J was having so much fun that her laughter was distracting. Also, when the nanny took her to the park, J was so excited that she barely even said goodbye to me. I love having this kind of problem!

Recently J has figured out animal sounds! One day she thought all animals went, “moo!” and the next she knew a bunch of different animals! Her current repertoire is:

– Cow: “Mmmm!”

– Kitty cat: “Mwah!”

– Snake: “Ssss!”

– Monkey: “Ah! Eeh!”

– Doggie: “Ah! Eeh!” (she’s still working on that)

– Duck: “Wah!”

– Sheep: “Baa! a! a!”

– Elephant: “Fffff!” (she can’t make the noise like Daddy does. Neither can I)

– Lion: “Rah!”

She also must have hit a growth spurt, because despite losing a pound in a week while she was sick (a pound she has since gained back, I might add) she has almost outgrown her 24m stuff. She has such a long torso! Her sleepers don’t fit anymore. 3T sleepers and 4T pajamas are fitting with room to grow. Only a few of her short sleeved shirts still fit her, but I bought some clothing lots on eBay and they should be here soon. They’re mostly fall clothes, so I hope the weather hurries up and catches up with me.

There’s more, but I’m out of time to remember.

Recently she’s been trying to take off her diaper, and as soon as she gets it off, peeing on the floor. She’s also had dry overnight diapers for 3 nights in a row now. So, I bought her a practice potty. This morning we woke up, and I took her into the bathroom and helped her get up on the potty (which she is excited by). She sat there for a minute, then stood up, then sat back down. Then started dropping my phone into the potty, so I took it and put it outside the bathroom. Then she peed a little bit on the floor and so I told her that potties are for peepee, and put her on the potty. She sat there a minute and then got up, then sat down by herself and peed! I helped her tear off some toilet paper. She wiped her shin with it. But hey! She peed in a potty!

I missed another week. Darn it. I was sick. Things have been strange since we got back from vacation.

First, she has finally adjusted to the new room at school. It was a hard time, but this week she finally seems to be happy to get there, unfazed when I leave her there (this morning I got a tiny little, “bah bah ee” and she didn’t even watch me leave), and not always eager to go home when I pick her up. All of this is great! I’m glad she’s finally happy there. I realize a week is probably a really fast adjustment and that I’m just spoiled by what a good kid she is.

She’s reached the point where on weekends I absolutely have to get her out of the house for at least a couple hours, or her energy is overwhelming. So far I’ve had a lot of success with the local pool (now closed), the nearby park playground (she’s a little young for it but does okay), and the nearest splash pad which is absolutely fantastic. I’ll be very sad when it gets too cold for the splash pad. I’m not sure whether a YMCA membership would be worth it yet, nor a Thinkery membership. She seems to be in between a lot of age-based activities. Not old enough for most toddler things, and too old/big for most baby things. Our back yard isn’t really safe for her to play in, but we’re hoping to get it ready for her to play soon.

Although she still doesn’t have many words, she is getting very good at communicating and showing she understands. I asked her yesterday where she dropped her water bottle (because I talk to her a lot, not because I expected a response) and she pointed. I was surprised to see it was exactly where she pointed to, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been. As for speaking, “Uh oh!” is pretty popular. Also adorable, because she says, “uh oo! uh! oo!” She also says, “ma ma ma!” a lot. It actually means, “more” and not, “mama” but that’s okay. I thought I would have trouble with her not saying mama soon enough, but it doesn’t bother me at all. In the same way it doesn’t bother me that she doesn’t seem upset when I leave her at daycare. I am glad that she’s so secure in me, in my presence and my eventual return, that she isn’t concerned that I’m leaving (usually). She squeals so excitedly when she sees me at daycare, I don’t need a “mama” to recognize her joy.

The only unpleasant thing we’ve been struggling with recently is a possible milk sensitivity. They have been giving her cow milk at daycare because she doesn’t seem very interested in breastmilk. Honestly, she mostly seems to just want water. We’ve had unexplained diarrhea, rashes, and vomiting since we got back from vacation and she started the cow milk. Each of them COULD be explained by something else, though. And we can’t get her to consistently drink enough cow milk to definitively say we should cut it out. Argh! We see the doctor this Friday. Hopefully we’ll get some answers. More likely, we’ll just get a note that they should give her soy milk at daycare, and punt the issue to later. Which is okay by me. I’ll talk to the doctor about her calcium intake while I’m there.

We were out of town for the 65 week update, so I didn’t. Not much to report anyway. Lots of continual learning and imitation.

Two big things to report this week. First, J started in the toddler room yesterday! It was a little bit of a rough start, but that is probably also in part because we just got back from vacation. She was very excited to be at school but then seemed a little concerned when I opened the door to the Owls room instead of the Frogs room. I was able to get her settled down to a little breakfast pretty quickly though. When I picked her up in the afternoon she was a bit fussy, but she had taken a 1 hour nap before one of the other babies woke her up. It was pretty clear she would have kept sleeping otherwise.

The other big thing is that she had her 15 month well baby checkup today! She’s hitting all expected milestones. Her verbal communication is lagging slightly, but the doctor said that’s very common with babies who can sign, since they can already communicate many of their wants and needs. She also got her vaccinations, which was pretty miserable there. I hate holding her down for those, but at least her doctor’s nurse is very fast. Even though I accidentally let go of J’s hand (which I was supposed to be holding out of the way), she had all three shots in before J took in her big breath for a full on scream (shot, pause, beginning of initial wail, request to hold her hand, shot, shot, end of initial wail, big breath, SCREAM). Her vitals are looking good too. She has definitely slowed down her explosive growth, but is still following the top of the curves.

Stats:
head circumference: 48cm/18.9in (95th percentile)
weight: 31lb 2oz (100th percentile/off chart)
height: 32.5in (96th percentile)

Indomitable. Adorable. Independent. Curious. Bold. Adventurous. Fearless. Beautiful. Happy. Gregarious. Relentless. Brilliant. Exasperating. Observant. Sweet. Persistent. Loving. Exploring. Boundary pushing. TODDLER.

edit: I forgot inexplicable.