A stinker, but a sweet one!

Ahh, toddlerhood. The land of "Mine" "No" and other unintelligible screeches. After working professionally with this age for years it's my turn to deal with toddlers on a personal level. The difference can be summed up in one word: embarrassment!

The other day we were at the Doctor's office. They have a cute wooden bus that kids can climb into. It has a magnetic alphabet, steering wheel and buttons, and cars to push on a track-Evelyn loves it. She sat and played in it while we waited to see the Dr. After a few minutes a little boy, probably about 4 years old walked in with his mom. Evelyn immediately looked up, other kids are like crack to her! She watched him as he went over to the other side of the bus and started playing with the beads. She said, "Ehhh!" as only a toddler can and went over to him, putting her hand over his and trying to play with the beads! I could not believe it, my 18 month old daughter was bullying a four year old boy! She gets it from Bard ; ) I firmly said, "Evelyn, use your words and it's his turn to play with the beads." (We don't teach sharing, delayed gratification is more developmentally appropriate for this age, sharing will come later.) She ignored me so I picked her up and told her she had to stay with mama since she wasn't listening and waiting her turn. That of course brought more screeching, although thankfully just a few seconds and then she calmed down and was able to play on her side of the bus. Sheesh! I was so embarrassed, and yes, angry at her for not acting how I expect her to in public.

Fortunately the great thing about toddlers is that they are all incredibly bi-polar. They can be in royal fit mode one second, tears, kicking, screaming (which she hasn't done. . .yet) and snuggly, loving, and sweet the next. On one hand it can be annoying as you try to catch up to their moods, on the other hand it can be their saving grace! Just a moment later as we were going to leave, the receptionist came out from behind the counter and said hi to Evelyn. Evelyn has seen her just a handful of times in her life and really doesn't know her well at all. But she dropped my hand, said, "Hug!" and ran up to the receptionist, arms outstretched to give her a hug. Of course, I melted : ) This has become her new favorite thing to do-maybe having a little to do with the great reaction she gets from everyone! We stopped by the Y a few days ago and with both of my bosses, neither of whom she has really seen since May, she immediately said, "Hug, hug!" All week she has been giving out hugs to everyone. See, she is not such a stinker after all : )

Sick, Snuggly, and Sad

I just lost a whole week of my life. It really reminded me of when she was a newborn and time had no real meaning.

Last Sunday Evelyn woke up from nap with a fever, and then had that fever ALL week. At first I thought it was just more issues from her molars coming in. We stayed home all day Monday but then her and I both woke up in the middle of the night feeling sick. Well, I was feeling sick, I'm guessing she felt sick because she wouldn't stop crying : ( Tuesday morning was an all time low because she was in bed with me and wouldn't stop crying, so I just gave up and joined her. We both got up and all morning she just sat on my lap. My daughter is normally way too busy to snuggle, so this was unheard of. I read to her and we watched Elmo on Sesamestreet.org, which, since she never gets to sit and watch for more than a few minutes, was crazy! But after a while she was ready to move around and I wasn't, so I called Bard home from work

I don't remember much else of Tuesday, but Wednesday morning she woke up at 3:30am with a 103 fever, the highest she has ever had. We called the Dr, since it had been more than 2 days and then called him back an hour later after giving her motrin and having it go up! Fortunately I felt better that day and motrin and tylenol brought her fever down. I took her to the Dr Thursday morning and they discovered that she her throat was irritated and after a whole day process of getting a urine sample, that she had a bladder infection too.

We were both exhausted and cranky. Much of the time she just sat in my lap and read or watched Elmo clips. If she fell down, she cried, if she wanted something, she cried, if she was tired, she cried. I had been cooped up in the house for four days, I should have been the one crying! Our second trip back to the Dr on Thursday, to get another urine bag put on so they could try and get a sample, I had just about had it. She barely napped because she woke up with horrible diarrhea (hence the new bag!) and I was so drained. On top of it all, I had been rear ended last week and my back was killing me-advil and a heat pack did nothing and carrying her just made it worse. I was rushing her in to the Dr's office, she was crying because she wanted me to carry her and I was irritated. But when I lifted her on to the examining table for the nurse to check her out, she was so quiet and vulnerable that I just wanted to scoop her up and protect her from anything and everything.

Sometimes the hardest part about being a parent is remembering that you are the parent and that she is just a small child.

18 Month Milestones

This morning as I sat with Evelyn, she asked for me to sing "Twinkle Little Star" and then she started doing the hand motions with me-I love this age!

Evelyn is just above the 50% for height, weight, and head, so she has maintained a great growth rate. She had completed the milestone task list at our pediatrician's that is through 24 months, so the Doctor was dutifully impressed ; ) It asks questions such as how many words she can say, building a tower, coloring without just eating the crayons, running without falling over, basically different milestones having to do with all the areas of development.

Her gross motor skills are much better now, after all that wondering when she would ever walk! She can kick and throw a ball (when she first kicked a ball Bard spent the rest of the day trying to get her to do it again-ahh, vicarious parenting!) She runs and goes up and down stairs. She still is not much of a climber, not really trying to climb on furniture or bookshelves although I think that is more due to being tentative and less to do with ability.

Her fine motor skills are great, she colors well, holds and maneuvers small objects-her favorite being tiny pieces of dirt that she finds on the floor and loves to throw away! She drives me crazy by refusing to eat with utensils very much, preferring to use her fingers. But even the Dr said it's nothing to worry about, she probably just likes it better. Sad for me when I feed her applesauce or yogurt! I need to work with her more on doing different things for herself. Funny, when I taught at Montessori I was always on the parents for this same thing! I have started having her pull up her pants and need to have her do more of her own dressing. We put her shoes on together, but I can have take them off too. All those little tasks help her develop skills and confidence-two good things!

Verbally she is insane. I go to bed hearing her voice in my head because she doesn't stop talking all day. She gets it from Bard : ) She says 2, 3, 4 word sentences now. Of course most of the time they are not grammatically correct but something funny like, "Head bonk hurt." Or, "Daddy bye bye work" Or she'll just pick a word for whatever reason, that it sounds good to her, and she'll say it over and over and over and over again. Like, "Cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold." Until you finally say, "Yes Evelyn, it's cold." Then she will triumphantly yell "Cold!" one more time, just so you know who is in charge.

Socially and Emotionally she is going through a lot of changes. She is realizing that other kids ca take her things (resulting in her shrieking-I don't know where she gets that) and that she can take other kids' things-resulting in me shrieking-hey, what can you do?) Kids at this age don't really understand share yet (does anyone?!) So we work on delayed gratification-you can have that when she is done, etc. But it does make for a chaotic circus when we are around other kids!

She had been crying for a bit when we dropped her off in Baby Garden on Sundays, but that has stopped and she has gone back to being fine when we leave her there. In fact, as my friend put it, she really does need a bit more stranger anxiety! Even yesterday when we were at the doctor's office, which I don't think she can remember from 6 months ago. She was perfectly comfortable to walk out the room, down the hall and into another room with two nurses, never even looking back to see if I was there. Little stinker! She regularly goes up to people in the store or on a walk and says, "Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi." Which of course normally produces the desired effect.

Cognitively she seems to be doing well. I can't quite remember the norms for this age. But for a while now she has asked for things that she can't see but knows are there-raisins in the cupboard, Bard coming home from work if she sees me making dinner, that type of thing. She easily associates people with places and knows that if I say we are going to church that means she will see Annabelle, Mary, Skyler, Abby, and so on. And she has started recognizing geography, particularly the streets that go to Henry's house! She knows some colors, pretty much all body parts, animals and that type of thing. Al though it took a while before she got that a dog said woof, not meow!

Hmm, let's see, what else??? She loves to go on walks outside and even though the weather is cooling off, we'll go out at least once a day, unless it's pouring, which isn't very often. She has a whole ton of teeth now, finishing up on her molars-hopefully soon cause they are hard! She loves other kids, her age, older, or younger. Our neighbor's have a baby and Evelyn calls her name every time we walk by-of course over and over! She is extremely busy and rarely sits still for very long, which is part her age and part her personality.

I'm sure I could write another page or so, but I'll stop. What a great kid! )

18 Months Old!!

Happy 18 months Evelyn! Check back for more info soon : )