Smartypants

“Daddy ride the bike”

“Where Mommy go?”

“Music on. Daddy fixed!” (Turn on the music box that Daddy just put new batteries in)

“Baby change diaper” (regarding her baby doll)

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She’s putting sentences together! It amazes me. And every day it’s a new sentence or word combination. And she repeats everything we say. EVVV-ERY-THING. It’s really time to start watching our mouths and be careful that only child-appropriate things are being said in front of her. Even if she doesn’t always know what it means, she will say it! And that could be so embarrassing at the wrong time!

What’s weird and eye-opening to me is the stuff that she hasn’t learned from us but has learned elsewhere, like from her grandmas and from daycare. For instance today, she was exceptionally whiney and tantrumous (new word?), so I threatened her with “timeout.” Now to clarify, I have only done timeout with her twice, and it has been months. Like I’m talkin’ six months ago. I put her in her crib and went and got her once she calmed down. So I didn’t really think that today, six months later, she would be phased by a timeout threat. But how did she react? She shrugged up her shoulders, turned around, and continued the tantrum while stomping her way to her room, where she went to the corner and sat down cross-legged in the corner. So I played right along and told her to sit there until she could calm down. Five minutes of her screaming and whining (it went up and down in pitch and frequency SEVERAL times), she reduced herself to sniffles, and I went to talk to her. And she was still sitting in that corner. We “talked,” hugged, and all was well for the rest of the evening.

That whole timeout/go-sit-in-the-corner thing is something she definitely did not learn here. Which also makes me realize that my supposed little sweet well-behaved angel has maybe not been so well-behaved at daycare, if she knows so well exactly how timeout seems to work!

Sometimes I feel like I just can’t keep up with her mentally. I really don’t give her enough credit for what she knows and how fast she’s learning. No wonder she gets bored and frustrated with me so often; I think I’m still treating her like she’s an infant and not a little girl! Agghhh, she’s growing up so fast!

pa-wree (potty)

It has begun.

My single-most dreaded parenting phase (at least until the teenage years): potty training.

I haven’t been in a hurry for this one, and honestly, still am not. But, we are taking steps to sort of prepare for it, and while I don’t want to get ahead of anyone here, Skyler seems to be in much more of a hurry than we are. Sure, I’ll take it!

- She knows what poop and pee are, though doesn’t seem to recognize before the fact.
- She loves to be present during Mommy & Daddy’s necessary bathroom trips, and likes to tell us what we’re doing, get the toilet paper ready, and flush the toilet.
- She wants to take her pants off and sit on the big toilet, though of course we have to help hold her up there. She likes to go through the act of wiping and flush her own toilet paper.

I talked to Darlene at her daycare last Wednesday to let her know we were thinking about potty training, and ask her thoughts on the subject, as well as coordinate the efforts for consistency. She was very adamant that we don’t rush Skyler (no problem here since I’m dreading it anyway), and that she didn’t think Skyler was anywhere near ready. Though she did mention Skyler liked to join her friend Sydney in the bathroom when Sydney goes. Okay, well nevermind then, I thought.

The very next day, Skyler pooped in the potty. AT DAYCARE.

Darlene was as shocked as I was. She said when Sydney went, Skyler wanted to sit down next, so she half-seriously told her “You can’t get up unless you pee-pee or poop, and then you can have a jelly bean.” She said Skyler wanted to stay in there, and after about ten minutes of quietly sitting, she succeeded. Darlene and Sydney both cheered for Skyler, though she showed no reaction whatsoever.

So I went and bought a potty. And Skyler was been obsessed with it since we brought it home yesterday. It’s her “pa-wree” and she carries it everywhere, sitting on it all the time, or putting Pink Bear on it. Her Grandma Oswald told her yesterday to “make it brown”, after which Skyler has been chanting that same phrase like a mantra every time she sits on it. My daughter is weird.

Today after her bath, I let her sit on the potty before putting her diaper on, and of course she wanted to stay there and play for awhile. I checked on her after a few minutes and sure enough, she pee-pee’d in it! She still didn’t act like she knew that was any big deal, but I cheered, we clapped our hands, and went through the motions of wiping, flushing, and washing hands.

I guess she’s into it – at least she’s not afraid of it or completely clueless. We’ll just keep on playing it by ear and who knows, maybe she’ll be potty trained a lot easier than I was expecting! Or not, but at least she’s off to a good start.

The Good Life

Ronnie recently made a big decision to step down from his Fitness Manager position at the gym and just focus on personal training. A part of his decision was for financial reasons, and the other part was personal. The management position was causing him a fair amount of stress, taking the joy out of doing something he loves. So now he’s doing only the part he loves, which also includes working fewer hours during the day, and being able to leave as soon as his last appointment in the evening is done. While managing, he used to have every intention of leaving after his final appointment, but then managerial duties would call, and he’d be required to stay later.

I don’t know if either of us realized how much positive this change would bring us. First, I didn’t realize how stressed out Ronnie was every evening and weekend until the stress was gone. He is like a different person now when he walks through the door after work; much more relaxed and in a lighter mood.

Second, he usually has a few free hours during the middle part of the day that he used to do admin work. Now, he uses those hours to take a nap, go for a motorcycle ride, run errands, or best of all, come home and CLEAN THE HOUSE. That last item has been nearly the best thing about all of this. Though he’s not home much more to help me with Skyler, his coming home and cleaning has taken such a weight off the things for me when I’m home alone with Skyler. There is just such an amazing, peaceful feeling of walking into a clean house, even if your hands are full of Toddler & Toddler Accessories, after they’ve whined the entire way home from daycare.

I’m sad to say this for the risk of sounding terribly materialistic and shallow, but the new state of cleanliness in our home has made me a happier person all around, and certainly improved Ronnie’s and my relationship. One of my favorite mom bloggers described this phenomena rather comically (as usual) in the last paragraph of this post. Ha ha.

The ultimate result of these changes is more enjoyable family time. As they say, when momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, and of course the opposite holds true. We spent a lovely Friday evening last night at one of our favorite Westport restaurants, McCoy’s with Skyler charming all the restaurant staff and guests, followed by stopping at not one, but two parks around the neighborhood. Another family of young ones at the second park commented how it’s funny the way as parents we spend our Friday evenings nowadays. Yep, we still “partied” in Westport last night, but not the way we used to. And it’s still a great life.

10 Things

I love and hate get severely annoyed with about my toddler:

Annoyed:
1) When she drops her precious toy/book/drink/snack while strapped in her carseat while I’m driving, and proceeds to wail, whine, whimper and moan that I don’t stop the car and pick it up for her.

2) When she learns new words that she can’t pronounce, and I have no idea on God’s green Earth what the heck she is repeating over and over to me, adamantly, with tears of frustration and increasing volume. Skyler – crying does not help me to understand you better. Especially since you can’t pronounce whatever it is you want in the first place!

3) When she empties every possible container in the house into the family room.

4) When she throws her crayons on the floor, shattering them into tiny pieces, and then whines and cries when they become unusable and I have to throw them away.

5) When she impatiently insists on a particular dinner entree (hut daaaawwwwwg, hut dawwwwwg!), but shoves it away as soon as I’ve placed it in front of her. Or worse, throws it on the floor.

Love:
1) Free hugs and kisses. The kind I don’t even have to ask for.

2) The way her face lights up when I say we’re at Gramma and Papa’s house.

3) When she bounces on her bed while holding the crib rail, jumping up and down excitedly when I go to get her up in the morning.

4) When she crazy dances to the Beepbeep.com and Freecreditreport.com jingles on TV.

5) The way she loves Pink Bear, and likes to make sure he’s included in our activities. If Skyler gets to share ice cream with Mom & Dad, then Pink Bear has to get some bites too.

6) When she insists on “rockeeee” before bedtime, and the way she snuggles up in my arms, face buried in my neck.

7) The way her skin smells – whether it’s post bath or after a long day of play. It’s just her.

Her unique pronunciation of so many words: hup (help), cock-cock (chocolate), mump (milk), moey (more), duh-doohs (colors), welwo (yellow – and she KNOWS that color!), walkee (walker, or anything resembling a walking toy, like a cooler with wheels or even her highchair on wheels), nana (Nilla wafer), and mimi (grape – long story is she first saw grapes in a Minnie Mouse book, and she calls Mickey/Minnie both mimi, so apparently grapes are always associated with them!).

9) Her laugh.

Okay I could keep going on the “love” list. But I’ll stop here.

Spaghetti, Shirts, and Slides

Skyler’s gaining so much independence these days. During meals, she will no longer allow anyone to feed her non-finger foods anymore. So I’ve pulled out all my patience and mess-tolerance and handed her a fork and spoon with her meals, like yogurt and spaghetti. I wish she didn’t love spaghetti so much! It’s a guaranteed immediate post-meal bath these days.

She’s also really into getting herself dressed. She’ll grab a handful of clothes from her drawer and bring them to the room we’re in, and spend minute after minute concentrating on dressing herself. Sometimes she gets so frustrated when she gets stuck, it turns into a group therapy session of us trying to calm her down.

Yesterday, she and I headed to my favorite park, Antioch Park, a place I myself frequented as a child. She loves swings & slides, and points them out her passenger window anytime we drive by a playground. The morning was gorgeous and sunny, but not too hot, so half the town was there playing too. I thought with Skyler’s recent independence and love for playgrounds would have me chasing after her around the park, but at first she was very shy and wanted to observe all the activity while holding my hand. It was so nice to feel needed again!

When she wasn’t showing much interest in going down the slide, I climbed up there with her and we went down together. She squealed with delight everytime we went down the slide, but I still couldn’t get her to go by herself. We switched gears and headed for the swings. This, she could do all day if I let her.

Surprisingly, she told me “All done. Slide!” so we left the swingset and headed for a different play gym that was a lot quieter with only a couple other kiddos to share it with. She headed for the slide without any coaxing from me.

But, at the top of the slide, she thought very carefully if she could go down by herself. I finally held her hand down the slide several times until she was brave enough to do it all by herself. I think it only took a half dozen tries. She even took Pink Bear up and pushed him down the slide a few times, and she thought that was the most hilarious thing in the world.

For grins, be sure to check out a post from last September when I took Skyler to the same park. It’s amazing how much she’s changed! And I gotta admit, it’s a lot more fun to go to the park with her nowadays when she can participate.

I’m seriously thinking about getting her a swingset for her birthday this September. With her love for outdoors, slides, and swings, I think that would be a welcome and well-used addition to our backyard.

GUILTY.

I’m married to a personal trainer. I, myself, try to live a healthy lifestyle, at least during the week, by finding the time to exercise on my lunch hour and trying to stick to eating protein and veggies. Being health conscious is a top priority for my husband and I.

When Skyler was starting to transition from the bottle to solid foods, I attempted to make a lot of her baby food. I pureed & froze green beans, squash, and sweet potatoes mostly. I attempted chicken and ground beef, but I could never get the consistency right unless I added a jar of gravy, which to me, kind of defeated the purpose. So I bought the jarred baby food meats.

I will admit that I got very lazy at times and bought jarred veggies too – especially the blends of veggies that had DHA added – it seemed to have more calories and nutrition than what I was making at home, and back then, I was so concerned about getting her to gain weight since she had lost so much in the hospital, I actually chose some of the most calorie-dense foods for her. She was always a good eater – never too picky about any of the pureed foods she ate. It took her a bit when we started table foods as she wasn’t into things with texture. But eventually, she’d eat just about anything I gave her.

Fast forward to the last few months. It’s just her and me in the evenings at dinnertime since Ronnie doesn’t get home till late. The rides home from daycare have been generally stressful (despite us test driving the awesome Chevy Traverse). She’s tired, hot, whiny and hungry, and by the time we get home, she’s crying for dinner. Everything healthy takes a bit of preparation, and by that point in the evening, my patience is nowhere to be found. When she screams “hot doooooggg” I make a hot dog. When she screams “cheeeeeeeese” I get out cheese. When she yells “coooookie,” I give her five cookies. And most of the time, she doesn’t eat whatever she was wailing for in the first place! Sometimes, her dinnertime eating just ends up next to nothing, and I wonder how she’s even growing?

Her nutrition at home has gone straight out the window. We basically just try to survive at home. At least her daycare says she eats really well there!

Spongebob

Skyler has been getting more interested in what’s on the TV lately. Sometimes she likes to site with me and watch for a few minutes. Though some would argue that TV is bad for children, I am actually trying to influence my daughter to find the TV interesting and get to the point of watching an entire full length animated movie at some point in the near future. Because at the stage she is in now, she is requiring my attention at every second that we are home. It has been impossible to get anything done like prepare dinner or go to the bathroom without her screaming and crying and chasing after me and clinging to my leg in horror while I’m doing something other than playing with her. These last few weeks I’ve dreaded our evenings at home, and counted the minutes till Ronnie arrived, because when he gets there, she turns into this adorable funny toddler her can run around and play happily without either of our direct attention. What gives?

So back to the TV – YES, I am trying to get my daughter to watch more of it in hopes that it can become a substitute for me. That goes against every piece of parenting advice I’ve ever seen, but this momma needs some help around the house!

We’ve been watching Animal Planet, but it can be a bit too slow and boring for a toddler’s attention. She’s excited for a minute when an animal she knows, like a bear or a dog comes on screen, but her thrill fades to boredom quickly. I’ve also been pushing Spongebob. It’s on every evening and also Saturday mornings, so if I could make her a fan of that, I’d have a consistently available and free babysitter. She’s starting to get the hang – as soon as Spongebob comes on the screen she points and yells “Bumbob! Bumbob!” So we’re making progress!

Though now I’m wondering if I should rethink my choice of programming, after seeing this:

see more Lol Celebs

Easter Bunny no-show

Skyler didn’t get to go Easter-egg hunting this year. Part of me feels a bit guilty about it since it could’ve been fun for all of us and started a fun tradition, but another part of me just doesn’t really care.

My family never made a big deal out of Easter. I should rephrase: my family never made a big deal out of the Easter Bunny. We did make a big deal out of what Easter truly represents. I guess I should also apologize to Santa – we never wrote him letters or left him milk & cookies by the fireplace. We never believed in him. I never had that dash of hopes as a child when someone mentioned that Santa wasn’t real. It was always Jesus’ birthday, and though we did all the other traditional customs like decorating the tree and exchanging gifts, Santa was just never invited.

Some people that have heard this have felt sorry for me that as a child I didn’t get to experience any of these fun childhood traditions. But I don’t feel sorry or hold anything against my parents. I guess I just don’t know what I was missing. Despite the absence of Santa or the Easter Bunny, I cherish my holiday memories with my family. And I have the utmost admiration for my parents in their faithfulness to not let us get caught up in the commercial hubbub and to maintain the observance of what these holidays are about.

Everyone has their own family traditions for holidays; some are dreaded and some are remembered fondly. I hope and pray that Ronnie and I will be able to establish joyful and memorable holidays for Skyler, but that she’ll also know and be reverent of the true meaning behind them.

Poor Me

Even after the previous post of listing all the fun things I have to look forward to in the next few months, I find myself having PMS, or Poor Me Syndrome. Sure, it probably also coincides with the original meaning of the acronym PMS, but this week I’m especially feeling sorry for myself.

It’s just the evenings. Same old, same old. Pick up Skyler, come home, prepare dinner for her, and [lately] graze on every possible unhealthy thing in the house while simultaneously NOT preparing dinner to be ready when Ronnie finally gets home. Which then becomes an ordeal via text messaging between us:

Ronnie: What’s for din?
Me: I don’t know. We don’t have anything
Translation: I didn’t thaw any meat, nor did I attempt to throw anything else together
Ronnie: Fast food?
Me: Chipotle?
Ronnie: Neh. McDonald’s?
Me: If you get McDonald’s, forget me. I’ll eat something here.
Translation: I’ll continue to graze on every possible unhealthy thing here.
Ronnie: Ok

Don’t even ask why we don’t just call each other, but that is how it works.

Then I get depressed about not being a good enough wife to prepare us a healthy dinner, on top of feeling guilty for all the mindless mouth-stuffing I did for three hours straight, and thinking of all the other healthier and more productive things I could’ve done with that time. But then since it’s just Skyler and me till 7:30 or 8:30, there really isn’t that much I can get done that isn’t directly related to her. She’s been very adamant about quality time together lately. Why just now she was clawing at the computer chair and crying to me to let her up on my lap, while I ignored her just so I could finish this post. And now her feelings are hurt, and I feel even worse than I did already. It’s just that stupid downward spiral that I really can’t win. At least not one week out of every month.

Amends

Ronnie reads the blog regularly. Last night he didn’t outright say he read the last post, but throughout the evening he randomly quoted my sarcasm as it was written. Things like “I should get some new socks; mine are getting kind of holey” and “Don’t talk to me while I’m watching this. Ok, it’s a commercial, now what were you saying?” It was pretty funny, but it got us both to air a few grievances, and we ended the evening sharing a small tub of ice cream while watching HGTV on our new LCD tv. Another day in Paradise.

Today I’m home with Skyler, who I think just wanted to play hookie today. She woke up with a slight temperature, and again refused to eat much of anything for breakfast as she’s done for the past couple days. I wouldn’t have thought much of it except for the fact that Saturday evening she puked twice in her crib, and has had some pretty horrible diapers for a few days. Precaution told me to keep her home to rest another day before going to daycare. But back to the hookie thing – she is just as happy as can be, and besides not being thrilled about her food, she’s otherwise a happy kiddo, and seems to be enjoying her day at home with me.

I was hoping to get some photos downloaded and up on Flickr, as I’ve taken several lately, but that’s just not happening. Unfortunately, I’m again caught up in another fictional vampire book series, so every down moment I’ve had I’ve been reading. This one is nothing like my beloved Twilight (which I bought the movie on Saturday!), but it’s entertaining nonetheless, with a lot more action and scandal. I do miss my Edward and Bella though, so there’s no telling how often that movie is going to end up in my DVD player. Ronnie will be overjoyed!