Sorry, Daddy :) Been hacking at this for the last two weeks! Adding pics now and putting it out there... :)
(FYI, this is the face you make after you faceplant into horse shit ;)
I best get this finished before I'm doing (or skipping;) her 15th month... lol. Paragraph by sentence by bit this one. Kansas updates, still to come... promise...
Z is.... full on toddlerhood. Full. On. Toddlerhood. She can pitch a fit and fling to the floor and laugh up a storm and play a game with the best of 'em. I can't believe my "baby" is so long gone.
What's new the last two months... hmmm. She's shot up tall, able to see out the front windows without her tippy-tippie-toes. The better to make the window filthy with her (seemingly constantly blueberry covered) hand prints and fill the air with her screeches of "Papa! Papa! Papa, bye bye?" Or, "Tac! Tac!!!" (That's cat, for the uninitiated. (Of which there are about a zillion in our nabe.) For a while it was "kitty cat." Then "Danda," now it's Danda or Tac.)
She's gotten taller and her hair has gotten longer. In the front, at least ;) Leaving her to rock a punker's do that leaves way too many people asking me where I get her hair done. Ha! Little do they know that it's the leftover food caking it sideways just right and a complete defiance of ponytails that gives her a seeming style. (I can trick her about once a month into a pony. Then she notices her hair is no longer in her eyes and flings her tiny scrunchy to the floor with disgust. Alas, and so it begins, so early...)
Since she knows exactly what she wants, it is nice that she is cluing us in more clearly these days. Not that we don't still have epic fails and total misunderstandings (like the other night when P accidentally dumped her off of his lap onto the floor. She was bemoaning the fall and pointing to her cheek and to Phoenix and I thought she was signing "brother" (we do a point to the cheek and hand wiggle for him). She has the sort of personality that very much appreciates an apology. She feeeeeels wronged, very deeply. But, um, no, Clueless Mama, she was just pointing to the enormous red swollen spot on her cheek where she went splat ;) But if she doesn't know the word or the sign for something, chances are she'll make one up (like she has for toothbrush and floss and upstairs...) Our days are filled with constant babble. Its obvious she is saying full sentence instructions. Its less obvious what those full sentences instruct us to do ;) But our faves (that we can actually understand) are, "Where'd it go?" and "I want that" and the best, "I DID that!" (when she's proud of accomplishing something. Yes, it's hilarious. When she figured out how to step up and down a sizable step, after practicing a million times, she turned around, slapped the step and simultaneously shouted "I DID THAT!" Sheer awesomeness incarnate.) I can't remember what she was saying two months ago, but nowadays the typical signs are food, drink, music, bouncy house, Uncle Seth, baby (oooo that's the big one - she signs baby allll day, as she is completely obsessed with her baby cousin), Aunt Alicia, down, sleep, snake, fish, wrap, NO (this head shake is a BIG one these days;). open and, did I mention FOOD?
Cuz she seems to have her mother's metabolism. I can easily eat Superman and my brothers under the table. And then be ready for seconds. A trait that has proven annoying on every trip we've ever taken, since food doesn't fall from the sky every thirty minutes. And no one else can understand how I can already be Star-ving. E has nicely muttered "tape-worm" more than once. I never realized how this could be irritating to others until.... Zia. Since I am left in search of something to feed her constant void All. Day. Long. At least I'll eat an entire plate of the same food. Little Bits would like 4 bites of 50 different things for lunch. And then a repeat soon thereafter. But of different things, cuz she doesn't like to repeat in a day. Unless its blueberries.
Or nursing. Which there is still a ton of. I'm totally on board with the child led weaning, worked fab for P and the philosophy is sound. But the night-nursing is wearing. me. down. She's having a really rough time with her molars (I think it's a molar issue?!?!) and some food reaction rash that has us confused and her too miserable to sleep well. By that, I mean waking at least 10, usually TWENTY TIMES a night...
Yes, this is seriously Pain-Ful. Sleeping longer than an hour stretch would be a glorious thing at this point. I know I would be nicer. More patient. Less Zombified. But she seems too young to night wean... and that doesn't seem to be the root of the problem. With the recent addition of the rash to the streak of grumps and night-time screams, we're re-evaluating the last month's food additions. Sigh. I kinda thought we had it narrowed down, but we are still adding foods, so there is still fun yet to be discovered, apparently.
The golden lining had been her naps. As long as I stuffed her with food and nursing right before zonking, she was sleeping two hours Straight. But, alas, that has gone to shit too and I spend the nap running in to soothe her cranky, tired self back to lala land. Oh, I know this too shall pass. Second time mum and all that jazz. But as a second time mum, it's sucking for the one I did the same for the first time round! P sleeps through it all at night (awesome) but I know he'd like to finish a project, uninterrupted during naps. I'm just still so surprised at how little sleep she seems to need. She gets just under 12 hours sleep in 24 hours (naps and nighttime combined). Which is... the same as her eight year old brother....
Moving on, because that subject gets my goat these days... Oh! Z has decided that using the toilet is awesome. Which is awesome. Right before we left for Kansas she started allowing me to take her to the bathroom again. Just occasionally. And then one day, it just clicked. She was cuing herself when she needed to go (or, if she missed getting to the toilet, when she was already going ;) Granted, when she is out and about or has visitors, her focus is shot to shit and she's not dropping everything for a run to the loo, but if we take her, she'll (usually;) go. When no one is around to distract her, she often goes to her potty herself and then tells me to dump it. That said, there are still plenty of misses and some days, she just isn't into it. Baby steps.
But it sometimes seems she understands a ridiculous amount of what is said. She really hasn't wanted to poo on the toilet since she was a baby (er, since she was totally mobile, so about 5.5 months or so) (Of course, this is the one we would most prefer ;) So the other day I just talked about pooping in the potty. Then mentioned it again yesterday. Today she did her business out of her pants. I'm hoping this is a trend and not just a coincidence :)
When she isn't busy eating or pottying, she is taking her baby doll to the potty or cuing it to poop. Seeing her cousin's diaper changed provided her with a whole new level of play with her baby doll ;) (Previously, the baby doll's toes were smelled and patooeyed, she was fed imaginary food, she was rocked and she was flung to the floor in order to require comforting and more food and rocking.) Now she is cued, stuck on the toilet and then inspected upside down for, ahem, remains. I'm thinking I'll put together an EC bag (wipes, undies) for her baby doll and provide infinite play-fun.
Another thing that seems to have clicked (for now) is the car. PHEW. Was it the fun times in the mule? Getting taller so she can see out better? Clueing in that we go cool places when we hop in the car? An end to the intense separation anxiety? I don't know - don't really care ;) I just love that there isn't choking, almost puking sobs if we need to pop in the car. We actually made it to the Gorge last weekend with only a bit of fussing. That's 45 minutes, aka, a lifetime, comparably speaking.
She is also typically very busy trying to sit on the cat. I'm not sure what that is about, but she is rather determined.
She's also determined to do everything her brother does. Or have everything her brother has. This means her Clean Canteen sucks, his is awesome. Her smoothie sucks, his is da bomb. Most importantly, his toothbrush (which he will NOT share) is her holy grail. Despite having access to all other toothbrushes in the house (her three included). This also means whatever project P is working on is more fabulous than her blocks or baby or even the spare Legos he throws her way. P vacillates between enjoying his upheld status and growling and hissing at her. I quietly cry into my pillow at night that P gets so much less lately because so much less is possible while she is this age. Fun times ;)
And Froggy lives to mess with yet another small child...
She, on the other hand, is toddler-vocal about any of these disappointments. Much of it is not pure dismay (P's was typically pure dismay). She does a lot of vocal "sharing." The words aren't there yet, but she is already bitching us out and telling us how much it sucks that she can't stick things in the light socket or that she fell there and hit her head here. Honestly, if P isn't talking at me urgently about something at the same time (about 50% of the time it seems;), it's fairly adorable to watch her wage her emotionally charged war. The floor flops still stand as my favorite (is that bad? She's still young enough that they are cute;)
Then, sometimes, she uses her voice as a weapon and the volume and shrillness is unbelievable. I mean truly and actually physically painful (my ear's have actually RUNG once.) I try to always get down to her and validate like I did P, but, sadly, sometimes there's not enough of me to go around and she gets a sad head pat or something else pathetic. Loudness, in general, is hard on me, and when both of them get going at the same time (like, say, she grabs his stuff or pees on his stuff or even tries to open a box the "wrong" way...), my clarity is shit and it seems one of them always ends up getting the short end of the shitty deal. Who's dismay to deal with first? I can validate and verbalize with both... but not simultaneously! I am constantly amazed at how much easier one was than two. And in awe at 3, 4, or 5...
That said, I love having two. LOVE. The family feels complete in a way it never did before. Round and cozy like a circle, with no loose ends. A circle that can, occasionally, gain enough momentum to roll right over you ;) And though there is constantly sibling something-or-other occurring, sometimes that something is chasing and laughter. And always, always, it is at the very least learning and love. Cuz Z has a quick smile and a hearty laugh and she brings a lightness to this family that is just balanced brilliance.
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