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Walking a mile in those cute, little shoes |
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Written by Kerri
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Saturday, 04 February 2012 21:31 |
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This morning, we all went to the Mall of America for our first volksmarch in several months. Since each lap around the mall is conveniently a kilometer, I thought we could let Jen out of the stroller and see how far she wanted to walk. To my surprise, she ended up walking nearly a lap and a half (about a mile!) before the allure of amusement park became too much for her to resist. She loved the window-shopping and people-watching; I loved the added peace-of-mind that came from her wearing her backpack/harness. (She has a thankfully-short history of running off without me.)
Since learning to climb the slide, Jen has broadened her horizons to the diningroom chairs. Only days after she first climbed onto one of the chairs, she started climbing up into her high chair/booster seat, although she has some trouble getting back down.
It feels like we're on the cusp of an explosion of language development. It feels as though she's held off on speaking for a while (to get a better grasp on usage and build her vocabulary) and now it will happen all at once. I know it's unlikely but, with her learning so much so fast, that's just the way it feels. She said "eye" almost two weeks ago. Then she started signing "water," "banana," and "balloon," which she sees in Goodnight Moon. She said "Bye-bye, poo-poo" earlier this week. She's also been working on saying "pain" (while signing it), although it still sounds more like "pay." Then she points to her right eye... day after day; I couldn't see anything wrong with her eye, so I don't know what that's about. She said "bike" while we were out walking by the lake. It didn't really register with me until I looked up and saw the bike coming towards us. She's also been working on saying "meow," but sometimes it sounds more like "mom," although she was able to get a response from Daisy today. (She's also been able to pet her more often lately!)
Jen found some dowels laying around the house and has had fun running around with them and working on her point control. She's getting really good at coming up and poking me with the dowels... even managing to poke her teddy bear's nose repeatedly. Perhaps she really is a natural-born fencer.
There have been some other new steps towards independence in the last few days. After waking during the night, she was unable to get back to sleep while nursing, so she climbed off my lap and, rather than going to the bookshelf as I'd expected, she crawled into bed and laid down! (She had an upset tummy from too much Mongolian chicken.) On another day, she woke up from a nap crying (which happens often), but then sat up and burped (without any comforting from me), and then went back to sleep on her own! How can something so simple seem so miraculous? She also managed to take off her pajamas all by herself! |
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Written by Kerri
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Tuesday, 24 January 2012 14:05 |
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Jen now has 14 teeth! The other upper canine poked its way through this past weekend. So, now we're just waiting for two more canines in about a month and then the second set of molars around Jen's second birthday.
Shortly after her birthday, we're planning on going up to the North Shore for a little vacation. It will be interesting to see how that works out and what stage she's at in her development at that time - talking, ability to walk on the rocks/beaches, potty training, etc. If we were to follow the pattern of previous vacations, this would be a year for exploring Europe. However, I think that taking a toddler up north will be adventurous enough.
 Several new books and toys have come in the mail over the last week. The first (and biggest) was the slide. I could barely get it out of the box before Jen was climbing all over it. It only took her about ten minutes to figure out how to sit down at the top on her own. Since then, she's worked on climbing up the slide (the ladder being too easy), rolled things down (thanks to Mark's examples), and has even started sliding down on her stomach. She's very adventurous. This is a fairly big slide (for ages 2-5), but I'm glad I didn't get the smaller toddler slides, instead. She's a little daredevil that started out on the big playground slides and probably would have been bored with anything smaller.
One of her other new acquisitions/learning toys is a set of large wooden beads for threading. I spent a minute or two demonstrating how to switch the "needle" from one hand to the other in order to allow the bead to drop down the string and was pleasantly surprised when she was able to do it herself.
We also went to a local Ukranian gift shop recently so that I could buy her a set of nesting dolls. They're a bit snug, so I need to help her open them. She got a little frustrated trying to put them back together and switched to her familiar nesting cups, instead.
Unfortunately, I think I've been introducing too many new things too quickly again. (I just get so excited unpacking the new toys and want to show them to her rather than hiding them away.) The new toys, combined with the new videos (which don't seem to bother her much now), are probably overwhelming her. There is just so much to learn. That might be why she's having some trouble getting to sleep now.
I was feeling melancholy earlier today and, after some introspection, concluded that it is probably due to feelings of guilt. Jen & I have both become so accustomed to her falling asleep nursing that, when she doesn't fall asleep, neither of us really knows what to do. I know that she should have learned how to fall asleep on her own a long time ago, but I still feel really guilty when I lay her down in her bed, tell her it's time for a nap, and then leave. Today, especially. She had squirmed out of my lap and went to the bookshelf to grab "The Mitten," wanting me to read it to her. She cried when I refused... laying her in bed, instead. She eventually fell asleep, but, when I checked on the monitor, I could see her laying in bed with the book still clutched in her arms. :( I've also become so used to giving her my nearly-undivided attention for so many months that, now that I'm getting distracted by other things (such as trying to wash dishes or laundry or pay bills), I feel bad about not giving her as much of my time and attention as she wants. I know that's a perfectly normal part of being a parent, and that she needs to learn that she can't always get what she wants, but, more often lately, I get stressed and feel that I just can't give her the same quality of time as I did in the past. She gets uncooperative and I get short-tempered and we both end up unhappy. Then Mark comes home and, ideally, he can sit and read with her for a while and then we can all approach bedtime in a better mood.
I was just reading about the toddler's developmental timeline. There were a few things that she's been doing that I don't think I've taken note of:
- imitating behaviors - giving her sippy cup to her stuffed animals
- recognizing herself in the mirror and pictures (she was able to identify herself while looking in her photo album recently)
- squat - she's been doing it for maybe a month now and it's apparently common at 20-22 months
- walk backwards - she's also been doing that for a while (that preceded sitting on chairs/our laps) and normal at 22-24 months
- know when a book is upside down - I can't remember when that started
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 January 2012 15:28 |
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Written by Kerri
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Tuesday, 10 January 2012 21:12 |
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This morning, I actually woke up before Jen for a change. She woke up while I was eating breakfast, and then she climbed up onto her stool to open the shutters and look out the window to watch Mark leaving for work. I could hear some two-syllable babbling on the monitor which, while Mark was waving from the car, quickly transitioned into "bi-bye, buh-bye, bye-bye." It was one of those melt-your-heart moments. (She practiced it through-out the day, as well as working on "uh-oh.")
Jen has been watching the same set of Your Baby Can Read videos for too long now; she's been getting bored with them. We decided it was time to switch over to the Your Child Can Read series. I was hoping that the style would be the same, but it's not. There's an odd mix of live-action and animation that Jen seems to find disturbing. The most upsetting parts seem to be: a video of a girl in an animated hot air balloon, kids dressed up in mouse costumes, pictures of a child's drawings, and finger puppets. We weren't sure if we should continue to show it to her, but she's determined to keep watching it and learning new words... even if she needs to lean up against us for reassurance at times. If we try to stop the dvd, or even when it ends on its own, she starts to wail. At least it's only for a few seconds. Then she finds something else to do.
 1-15-2012: It was warm early this past week (50+degrees!!), so I spent a lot of time out in the garage trying to get some woodworking projects done. (Jen also spent some time playing in the yard while I was out there.) I managed to custom-make four new frames to hold calendar pages. These will be hung in the hallway upstairs and in the stairway so that Jen has some nice artwork to enjoy at her eye level. I had tried making two frames over Christmas, but made several mistakes. However, I learned a lot from those mistakes and did it right the second time.
According to Mark, Jen was starting to count tonight while reading one of her counting books. Apparently it was starting to sound similar to "one, two, three," followed by random babbling. She has been practicing other words, too, including saying "bug" today while watching her video. (This one is really getting into phonetics and rhyming words.) And she is finally learning how to nod her head. Perhaps a week ago, I demonstrated - showing her how to look up, look down, and repeat. Now she's doing it on her own. It's still slow, but she's learning the motion.
For a very long time, I was reluctant to give Jen raw fruit because we were concerned that she might have Mark's food allergies... especially since previous trials indicated an intolerance and certainly a dislike of bananas. However, at her one-year check-up, the doctor insisted that we give it another try. As it turned out, she really enjoys a lot of fruit - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, grapes, bananas, peaches and, to a lesser extent, kiwi. However, she does not like green beans or most foods with a firm texture, such as the cubes of meat in some of the packaged meals. What did surprise me, though, was when she recently threw away her cheese (a former favorite) in favor of Leeann Chin's Mongolian Chicken! Wow, she likes spicy food! Perhaps my eating it so often during pregnancy really did influence her taste.
And how could I have forgotten that Friday night was Jen's first night away from home!? Jen stayed at Grandma & Grandpa's house so that Mark & I could go to his company's holiday party. (Mark got up and spoke in front of ~500 people during the awards ceremony! And for that reason, we were seated right up front with some of the top execs.) It sounded like Jen had a little trouble sleeping, but generally did very well. She certainly got more sleep than I did.
Jen has been having a lot of mini-tantrums lately. She'll cry and flop to the ground, but it usually only lasts ~5-30 seconds. Considering that she's turning 17 months old, and 18 months is supposed to be the peak of tantrums, I think that we're incredibly lucky to have such a well-behaved kid.
And she has a new tooth, too! Even before her first set of molars have fully come in, she now has her first canine tooth! It's just one after another. |
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Last Updated on Sunday, 15 January 2012 22:59 |
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Written by Kerri
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Sunday, 08 January 2012 21:40 |
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Today was the first day that I brought Jen to bird banding at Springbrook Nature Center, and the first day that I've been back in several years. Even before we got in the door, she was able to see a chickadee up close and even touch it! In all, I think she touched three chickadees. (She was given the opportunity to hold one, but she was a bit too nervous.) She really wasn't all that interested in watching the birds be weighed and measured, though. She preferred exploring the interpretive center - looking at the aquariums with turtles/fish/snakes, climbing up on the stools, looking around the kids area, watching the squirrels outside the window and/or people taking chickadees out of the traps. She was also more interested in running around outside - looking at the trees and leaves, and playing with sticks (until they broke)... regular kid stuff.
Jen has grown so tall that her feet have been resting on the chair under her high chair seat. When it was time to get out, she'd start to stand up on her own. That convinced me that it's time to switch over to a booster seat and try sitting at the dining table. So, I finally got the diningroom cleaned up and rearranged so that we could actually use the diningroom table for the first time! I've become so accustomed to Mark & I eating on folding chairs in the kitchen along with Jen that sitting at a table was a bit weird, but nice. A bonus is that now Jen can look out the window or at some flowers rather than just the kitchen counter. Unfortunately, the new setting might be a bit distracting. Jen has been making more of a mess at some meals (perhaps comparing the difference between the wood and the plastic placemat) and it's harder for me to clean the wood table.
I'm learning that it's easier to avoid tantrums if I relinquish some control, for example: asking if she wants to hold my hand to stand up for rinsing after her bath rather than grabbing her and lifting her up. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work and I often struggle to get her ready to leave the house. She just doesn't want to go and struggles against putting on her coat. I'm struggling to find the right balance of compromise and assertion of authority.
Some other things that have been happening in the last few days:
- Jen has been learning how to decorate the Christmas tree - trying to put an ornament on a hook and then put the hook on the tree,
- leaning backwards to lay down on the floor (so that I can drop knit balls on her and she can catch them with her feet),
- saying "Mama!" when she's hurt or really frustrated, (I think she's still saying "abba" when she wants help)
- learning about shovels, despite the oddly warm weather
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Last Updated on Sunday, 08 January 2012 22:26 |
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