Tissues October 5, 2011

A couple of weeks ago I had a cold, and I was blowing my nose nonstop.  It goes to show just how little gets past toddlers as they are taking in everything around them, because the next thing you know Layla is grabbing tissues, holding them up to her nose, and blowing!  She is big time into tissues at the moment.  We have a box by the couch and one of her favorite pastimes is taking tissues out of the box, blowing her nose (baby-like) into them, carrying around the tissue for a while, stuffing it back into the box, finding paper towels that are hanging around (waste not, want not!  If it wasn’t used it gets to hang around until it is) and stuffing them into the box, and we have even had a couple of dryer sheets that I had set on an end table while folding laundry that ended up in the tissue box.  Then she takes them out again and blows her nose, and back into the box they go.  The entire contents of the box are pretty much ruined at this point because everything inside is all screwed up and some of it is not even tissues, but it’s pretty cute even so. 🙂

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Baby steps September 8, 2011

Layla is still not properly walking, but she is spending a lot of time on her feet cruising around and takes a couple of steps at a time before she falls into us.  She doesn’t have the balance thing down very well yet, and her upper body gets way ahead of her feet.  But, she’s getting there slowly.

She has a handful of words that she uses.  Probably the clearest thing she says is still Mama.  She also says night-night really well.  “Yeah” is another one she has been using for a while, and she uses that correctly.  She is not great on Dada, but one day she said “a” (as in, Da without the D) a few times while I was trying to get her to say it.  She is very clear about what she wants with pointing and making kind of whiny noises (“uh, uh”).  She repeats the lion noise “rah” with John and I can get her to make the dog sound “woof” which is very cute because she just says fffff.  Hayden was asking me this morning when she would call him Hayden, so I was trying to get her to day “Den” because I know “Hayden” will be difficult for her.

Strawberry picking June 27, 2011

Over Memorial Day weekend we went strawberry picking.  I had wanted to do it last year, but I got to the farm too late for strawberries (I guess having a 1 week old cramped my style last year 🙂 ), so last year we picked blueberries instead.  Madeline (“Nanny”) was staying with us so she came along, and Grandma and Grandpa came, too.  I thought Hayden would enjoy picking the berries, but I was wrong.  There was a lot of whining and talk about wanting to “go back in my van.”  Even the promise of ice cream when we were done picking didn’t really intice him.  Apparently he was interested long enough for us to capture one picture of him. 🙂  We got just under 10 lbs of berries, and I made 2 batches of freezer jam (which equates to… lots of jars in my freezer).  There were still tons of berries after I made jam.  I had them in tupperware to last as long as possible, which really did keep them good for a long time.  I was bound and determined to eat every last one of the berries, and eventually we did.  Thank goodness the kids are fruit junkies!

And afterwards, we did all enjoy some ice cream.  Hayden was funny because as he and I were standing in line for ice cream, everyone else was outside.  I realized I didn’t have any money, so I asked Hayden to go outside and tell Daddy we need money.  He ran outside up to John and excitedly said, “We need money, Daddy!”  I don’t think it translates as cute in writing, but you’ll have to trust me that was (so I hear, again, I was inside).  It was also funny because it was sort of a test.  It’s relatively new that you can tell him to tell someone something and he will do it at all or convey the right message, and it’s not 100%.  There was an equally good chance that he would have gotten distracted along the way and never made it to John at all, or not remembered what he was supposed to tell him.

Crawling and Standing

Layla is sort of working on a couple of developmental milestones, in her own reluctant way. 🙂  Last week she was on the floor and she seemed to be very deliberately trying to work out how to crawl.  She was on her hands and knees, and she would bring up one hand and bash it back down on the floor a little further out, then move her knee a little closer to her hands, etc.  I was surprised because she is such an efficient scooter I figured she would forgo crawling altogether.  And she very well might, because she hasn’t really explored crawling much since then.

 

We have been trying to work with her on standing.  Whenever we try to set her down so she is standing she just keeps her legs out in front of her so she is put down on her bottom.  She will stand when she can lean against something, such as the ottoman, but it doesn’t take long before she will start fussing or trying to sit back down because she doesn’t seem to like standing.  She has pulled herself up about 5 times in about the same number of days.  I’ve only seen it once (she was on the floor by the bathtub and pulled herself to a stand to try to reach the toys in the bath) because the other 4 times were at day care (she did it 4 times in a row there).  I made some wonderful (if I do say so myself!) chocolate chip cookies with the kitchen aid mixer I got for my birthday and our new convection oven, so maybe later today I will see if I can bribe her to a stand with pieces of cookie! 🙂  I seem to remember getting results practicing walking with Hayden using food.

Happy 1st birthday, Lay! June 1, 2011

Layla turned one!  The year really flew by – it’s hard to believe it was already a year ago that she was born.  We had a nice party for her, and it got to be on her actual birthday since it happened to be on a Saturday.  We had all her local family here – grandmas, grandpas, great-grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Even a special guest from London, Nanny, was here to celebrate!  We also had our neighbors over.  We had great weather so we were able to be comfortably outside for most of the party (which was noteworthy because of all the rain we have had, and it did rain when the party was over).   Layla got some fun presents including a few dolls which she gets excited over and likes to kiss, and plenty of food-related gifts to go with her big present from Mommy and Daddy of a play kitchen.  It has been fun watching her and big brother play with that.  Hayden has been good about the fact that the new toys are her presents and trying to get her to play with them when he wants play so they are sharing.

It’s been a great year.  Layla is a really sweet baby.  She has never been much of a crier.  We know something really is wrong when we hear her cry.  She is getting more and more communicative.  She still only says Mama, but she jabbers a lot and seems to really be wanting to be heard when she does that.  The other day it was so funny because John came home and she just started jabbering so loudly!  She seemed very excited to be seeing him and had all sorts of things to tell him! I am pretty sure she won’t crawl.  She’s got her scooting down pat and she can get everywhere that way, so why make the lateral move to crawling?  She pulls herself up onto her knees, but hasn’t worked up to a standing position yet.  We are working on that with her.  She loves the animals.  She will often be seen leaning over to give the dogs or cat kisses.  She has six teeth now; two on the bottom and four up top.   She is a great eater.  I call her my bottomless pit at least once a day.  Before she goes to sleep I will stand by her crib and bounce her a little, and she will lay her head on my shoulder and it melts my bones.  She is a very special little person; I couldn’t be happier!

Recent developments March 3, 2011

I’m telling you, these kids are just changing too darn fast!  It seemed like Layla had a developmental burst in just a couple of days.  Sunday John gave her a cracker and she just gobbled that thing right up (feeding herself).  She had really only been eating baby food that we spoon-fed to her up to that point.  She also started waving last weekend, which is just about the cutest thing ever.  I’ve tried to get it on video, but she gets distracted when she seems me filming her.  It looks like she’s trying to use her fingers to get something off of her thumb, but it’s definitely a wave because she does it in response to us saying “hi!” and waving to her.  She also can stand now if she is holding onto something like the ottoman.  She doesn’t really LIKE it, but she can do it. 🙂

And Hayden is change as always, too.  Yesterday I was thinking how far he’s come because when he was a toddler he would cry when I would trim his fingernails.  I remember John sitting next to us feeding him little bites of dried apricot as a distraction while I trimmed his nails, to try to keep him from being too upset.  Then we got into a routine where he could watch Dora the Explorer while he got his nails trimmed, and that was a good incentive for him so he got to the point where he didn’t cry anymore because he was watching Dora.  Recently he’s fine just having his nails cut while there are no distractions.  But I was pretty gobsmacked yesterday when I mentioned that he needed to have his nails cut and he then proceeded to ask me no less than three times over the next hour if I could cut his nails.  THEN, when I finally got a chance to sit down and cut them, he – wait for it – asked me if I could also trim his toenails.  I mean, really.  This boy’s going to go off to college the next time I blink!

A Whole Different Baby February 3, 2011

Layla has reached the age where she is very active, interactive, taking everything in, and learning every minute.  It seems like she was just born, so it’s funny to me to see what she is like now and think that she’s totally different now to the little baby who pretty much just used to sleep all the time.  Let me count the ways that she is “new”:

1. Her hair is coming in thick and fast.  It was just a few weeks ago that the sides and back of her hair had fallen out and most of her hair that was left was just on top.  Every day I can see she is getting more and more hair and it seems to be getting longer quickly.  When Hayden was her age his hair had fallen out but was coming back in very light blonde.  This does not seem to be happening to her; I don’t think she will ever be blonde.  I don’t think it will be long before she starts getting some baby curls. 🙂

2.  She is an eating pro.  She gets three meals a day, and she’s an eager eater.  My stepdad said it best: “She eats with her whole body!”  Her little hands and feet move in excited circles as she eats.  Cutest. Thing. Ever.  I guess I will have to qualify this by saying that she is a very eager eater as long as I have added some yogurt to whatever I’m giving her.  She will open her mouth like a little birdie when there’s yogurt mixed in, but otherwise she’s not as keen.  The last couple of meals I have forgone the yogurt and she has still eaten it, but in the past she wouldn’t even open her mouth if it didn’t have the good stuff in there!

3.  She is finally taking naps in her crib.  This has been a looooong time coming.  I only have myself to blame for her nearly hitting the 8 month mark before she would sleep in her bed during the day.  I didn’t push it because 1) when I work it was easier to let her fall asleep on her nursing pillow while I worked than try to get her to nap upstairs and then have to manage going up and down the stairs continuously with the real possibility of her never falling asleep.  I knew if I kept her with me she would definitely fall asleep and it would be, well, easy!  And 2) the times I did try to let her “cry it out” in her bed she would start getting in a habit of crying whenever I put her in her crib, even at night.  If I didn’t bother with it during the day, then the nighttime routine wasn’t negatively impacted.  Obviously this approach wouldn’t work for most families, but it was fine for us.  But now that she is taking naps in her bed it just feels like she is so grown up!

4.  She has been sitting up very steadily for a while now.  She’s not crawling, but she does kind of wiggle herself in the right direction when she is lying on her belly and wants something.  But no scooting or crawling or anything like that.

5.  She LOVES laughing at Hayden.  She is very interested in him.  He loves making her laugh, too.  He will shake his head back and forth which usually gets her laughing.  In fact, he was doing that this morning when we were taking him to preschool, but she hasn’t been feeling well and she was watching him but not laughing.  He was telling me that she needed to be laughing because he was doing that.  lol!  When she and I have been home on a workday and Hayden’s been at preschool, she gets visibly excited when I put her in her carseat when it’s time to go get him (and she doesn’t get excited when put in her carseat any other time).

Three is Harder than Two December 6, 2010

Everyone knows the expression “Terrible Twos,” but I can’t figure out why there is not an expression about three year olds.  My friend Marianne would call her daughter a “threenager” when she was three, which is a great way to put it!  As so many people who had been there before us warned us: three is harder than two.

I had Hayden’s parent-teacher conference with his preschool teacher last week.  She was going on and on about how he is the best boy in her class, he is so sweet, quiet, and smart.  Her only complaint was that he was too quiet – she worried that he was not getting his fair share of attention or worse that he was setting himself up to be picked on when he’s in a bigger class because he is so gentle.  She asked me if he was like this at home.  I couldn’t think of enough different words for “No” to answer her question adequately.

Hayden has always been a sweet, gentle boy, but in this developmental cycle we call “being three years old” he is definitely exerting his independence, trying to see what he can get away with, finding things he can control, and figuring out how to deal with things that frustrate him they don’t go how he wants.  And the outlet to most of his frustration is me.  Daddy gets his fair share, too.  And, bless her, one of our dogs Lucy probably gets the brunt of it.  Lucy has been known to occasionally eat things she shouldn’t, from tissues to his toys, and lately he has it stuck in his mind that if she is around him she is going to do something bad, so he’s constantly trying to shove her out of the room he’s in, get her on the opposite side of a gate to him, get her outside, etc.  And if he can’t do that he’ll throw a fit.  Lucy has a lot of things coming to her, but these outbursts are usually unwarranted, so that is something we need to get through.

It’s not just Lucy who can get under his skin, though.  The list of what can upset him is quite lengthy.  Many times if I try to do something for him and Daddy is home then that will set him off because he doesn’t want me to do it, he wants Daddy to.  (Luckily when Daddy is not around we don’t have this trouble, otherwise we’d never get anywhere!)  “No not you do it, just Daddy do it.”  I do have to try not to laugh sometimes because it is SO “three,” but John and I both have had several talks with him about how that is not nice and that hurts Mommy’s feelings, but empathy seems to be a tall order at this age.

I could give examples until I’m blue in the… fingers… but the bottom line is the boy wants what he wants when he wants it – at home anyway.  You get him with someone who is not me, John, or Lucy and he is a little angel.  I guess that is the right way around – I don’t want him acting that way to other people, and I think it also just shows how comfortable he is with us that he can be that way around us when he is so reserved around others.  And he’s not testy all the time, just more than he used to be.   He still has moments in the day when he’ll smile at me, give me a hug, and say “Moooommmmmy” in his special way, or come up and give me a kiss out of the blue.  The key to managing his behavior seems to be to prepare him for what we are doing or what is expected of him; he behaves much better if he’s been told in advance that we won’t be doing X (say, going out to eat) unless he promises not to do Y (not get upset if some of his food falls on the floor) – this is usually very successful.  Of course, many things that come up are unexpected, such is life, and we all just do the best we can (including him)!

Solids

Little miss sweetness is eating “solids” now, which of course are not actually that solid but are quite soupy.  We started her on them when she turned 6 months old.  I started much earlier with Hayden (4 1/2 mos I think), but with him I was hoping it would help him sleep through the night.  It didn’t (and then I wished I’d waited a little longer), and I don’t have that issue with her anyway so there was no reason to rush it.  She started with baby cereal, and has had bananas, avocado, whole milk yogurt, and squash.  She is not overly keen about this eating business.  She spits out every bite but I just scrape it off her chin and keep re-feeding it to her and eventually she swallows some. 😉  I have found it really helps for me to warm up the food a little.  I think she really like avocados, because a couple of days ago I gave her some and she was opening her mouth ready for each bite!  She was into it.

I Wanna Hold Your Glasses November 4, 2010

Layla seems to have entered a new developmental phase in the last couple of weeks: grabby and squirmy!  She wants to grab onto anything within reach: hair, face, clothes, and yes, glasses.  And she’s fast!  She rips those suckers right off John and my faces before we get a chance to stop her.  We’ve been introducing more and more baby toys to her to try to satisfy her frequent need to grab.  She’s also quite squirmy.  She’s very strong in her back and neck now, to the point where she’s mostly held on our hips as opposed to cuddling against our chests like little babies do, but she’s also starting to move around a bit when being held.  Not with the force of a baby who walks and wants to get down to go off somewhere, but just trying out different movements I think.  Another thing she really enjoys is putting her feet in her mouth.  She sleeps in a sleep sack and when I am changing her in the morning the first thing she does is grab her feet and get them in her mouth.  It’s like she’s thinking, “Well, there you are, Feet!  I’ve missed you.”

But the big news of the moment is she rolled back to belly yesterday!  She didn’t move her arm out from underneath her so she didn’t stay on her belly long, but her whole body was flopped over onto her front. 😀  Such a big girl!