Saturday, April 30, 2011

20 Months

Today you are 20 months old.
Somehow, this makes your second birthday seem like tomorrow.

Before we know it, we'll be tackling potty training and transitioning you into a toddler bed... Someone once said that with young children, the days are often long and slow, but the months fly by and I think this is probably an accurate way of describing the last 20 months.
This particular month has been.... challenging. I feel like we went from having a super contented toddler to a little girl that's entire purpose is to teach me patience and creativity. Don't get me wrong, we've still had some hilarious (or as you say, "Larius") moments, but you are also learning how to manipulate, test boundaries and throw tantrums.

You discovered the word NO in a big way this month. When I used to ask, "Do you want to go upstairs and take a bath?", you would more or less comply by holding your arms up and saying "up" or repeating "bath", suddenly your shaking your head and politely saying, "No". You currently have a terrible diaper rash from sleeping in a midnight poop and every time I change your diaper, you shout, "Nononononono Mommy! Owie!" I feel TERRIBLE.
As for trickery, the other night after you talked yourself to sleep in the normal way, you decided all of a sudden that you didn't want to go to bed. You started by just calling for me, then it turned to, "Edie - up! out! Come here Mommy?" And when that didn't work, you started repeating, "Change diaper" over and over. At this point I assumed you'd dirtied the clean diaper I'd just put on you for bed and went in to change it. But it was just a tiny bit wet. You were totally working me! You knew if you asked for a diaper change, it would get me in your room and you were right. This trickery is a new stage for us and it doesn't stop there. You are turning into a major jokester, with your own brand of humor these days.
Your verbal skills are probably the most note worthy in their development this month. You are now speaking mostly in phrases and simple sentences, rather than one word at at time. Your sentences are more caveman than aristocrat, but surprising in their effectiveness. Off the top of my head, here are the phrases/sentences that I've heard this month:

Wait a minute

Come here/Come on - you were playing in your room with the gate up the other day while I checked my email next door and when you wanted me to read you a book, you stood at the gate and said, "Mom come here! Book - read."

What?? - I absolutely love this one. You say it in the same high pitch, sarcastic tone that your Dad and I say it in. And you use it in surprisingly accurate ways. My favorite is when we were reading the Olivia book - on the page where Olivia covers her bedroom wall with splatter paint in an attempt to recreate a Jackson Pollack painting, you pointed at her Mother (who has her mouth open in shock at having discovered Olivia's "art") and said, "What??!!" As if to narrate the Mom's feelings.

Edie go boom - when you fall down, this is how you tell us about it.

Edie run - self explanatory. You also like to yell this over and over when sitting in the grocery cart at Costco; indicating that I should set you down to run rampant through the store.
Boy hit - a boy hit you at the playground the other day and you walked up to me and said, "boy hit." with an intonation implying, "Mom, that boy hit me! Why did that happen?"

Hand hurts - you got your fingers pinched in the sliding door at my parents house last week and you cried to me, "Hand hurts!" over and over.
With "baby" and "blanket" - you sleep with both every night without exception.
Cars zoom by. This is something you feel the need to point out all the time. Like every time a car drives by.

After dinner - Whenever you ask Dad to take you to the truck to hang out, he tells you "after dinner". The other day, I caught you looking out the window at the truck and saying to yourself, "Truck. After dinner." As if to reassure yourself that eventually, you would get to visit the truck.

Meece go? As in "Where did Maurice go?

more ____. You now ask directly for more of anything/everything in sentence form rather than just saying "more" while eating something you want more of. Frequently, we get lucky and get a "more ___ please."

Right here/Right there - this one cracks me up. The other day I was getting you some blueberries from the freezer and you pointed at your plate and said, "Blueberries! Right here!" Now you use the phrase "right here" all the time.
Change diaper - When you dirty your diaper now, you frequently run to the stairs and start climbing up them to your room, saying "Change diaper". Last week this started happening with plain old wet diapers too.

At random moments, I'll hear you say to yourself, "Ready set go."

Edie's turn - you're still speaking about yourself in the third person for the most part. At the playground and in general, when you want to do something next, you say "Edie's turn!"
Watching me mow the lawn.
"Edie's turn" to mow the lawn.
And I save your most impressive sentence for last: We were gardening in the backyard last weekend and you pointed to some flowers and said, "These flowers pretty." I took it in stride at the moment, but later realized what an impressive sentence that was. Since then, this format is becoming more common.

Aside from all the vocabulary you're developing, here are a few other things worth mentioning:

- You can count to 6.
- You confidently know all your colors, including pink, purple, black, white and brown.
- You remember and ask about your friends ALL THE TIME. Favorites are still Reid, Danny, Chloe, Mae and AJ (Alison Jane). After meeting a new playmate, you'll ask about them for a day or two, repeating any interesting facts about them from the one playdate.
- You adore your grandparents. Dad's parents have officially become (without us pushing the issue) Gramma Fifi and Grampa Mustache. My parents are simply Gramma and Grampa. You ask about all of them all the time and love spending time with them. You even remember you Great Grammas on both sides - Jean and GGBee.
- You have most of your favorite books memorized and fill in the blanks when I pause during a sentence while reading to you.
- You are way too comfortable climbing up and down the stairs.
- You love reading, music and dancing. Reading in particular - at library story times you will walk away from me, into the thick of the older toddlers and sit in the middle of the room to stare raptly at the librarian while she reads the whole story. Just thinking about your chubby little face staring up at the librarian makes me SO smitten with you. Almost enough so that I forget that you cried for 10 minutes on Thursday because I wouldn't let you smear bubbles all over the kitchen floor.

Love you,
Mom

Monday, April 25, 2011

Rocked Out

Edie discovered Jeff's computer headphones on Saturday and rocked herself to sleep (for her nap) listening to The National. And before you start thinking that we're self conscious hipsters, please note Edie's Disney princess robe.



Sunday, April 24, 2011

Birthday Boy

Reid's birthday party was last weekend.

By far my favorite photo of Reid from that day. It captures one of my favorite "Reid expressions" perfectly. I think I'll call this his Serious Sally face.

It's really hard to believe it's been a whole year since we were meeting him for the first time in the hospital. Edie is very into birthdays right now; talking about the happy birthday song and trying to sing it quite frequently. In fact when we bought one of Reid's presents a few weeks ago, she had a complete melt down when we got home because she was ready to go straight to his house and give the present to him immediately. She stood at the front door sobbing his name over and over. Cute and annoying.
Ready for the party.


Blurry, but I love Reid's enthusiasm.


I bet Darrah Reid wouldn't be into the cake based on the fact that he's used to a super healthy diet and enjoys eating plain, uncooked, soft tofu, but dude I was WRONG. And happy to be so. He loved his cake.



Auntie Katherine flew in for the party.

Watching him chow down...

Sunday, April 17, 2011

No Excuse

I really have no excuse for my infrequent posts of late. Edie had a cold (but what's new?) and then I had a weak version, staved off by Zinc, but really I think my mind is just really preoccupied with work. The event I've been working to plan since the fall is FINALLY happening and the ramp up has been steep. I went from billing something like 8 hours per week to almost 20, with only about 5 hours of childcare per week. Last week I even had to beg Jeff to take Edie for 2 hours midday so I could drive to Bellevue for a last minute meeting with the client. The party is May 7th and wow will I have earned my Mother's Day breakfast in bed the following day (HINT HINT Jeff). I'd love to go into details and entertain you with the hilarious stories that this event has brought me, but I try to keep work separate from this blog, so you'll just have to make do with stories about poopy diapers and photos of Edie in the tub.

Oh and I have a cute video of Edie counting to 5 from a few weeks ago (she's up to 6 now) that I keep meaning to put on the computer. And a slightly less cute (although surprisingly entertaining) one of her having a tantrum about not getting to go to Reid's house. That's another thing. I was sort of thinking that we might avoid the worst of the tantrum phase just because Edie is such a good communicator. But I was WRONG. Last week was filled with temper tantrums and the mental turmoil of how to handle them was almost as taxing as actually handling them... Thankfully, we've had a few peaceful days over the weekend so perhaps this week will see some new photo posts.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Faker

My Mom watched Edie today while I worked and she said that she talked for an HOUR in her crib before falling asleep for her nap.

I'm home alone with Edie tonight while Jeff goes to a concert with friends. I put her to bed at 8 and she's been talking quietly to herself for over an hour! I've been listening on the monitor downstairs, but just now walked upstairs to go read in bed (long day) and when Edie heard my footsteps on the stairs she started making exaggerated FAKE SNORING SOUNDS. For reals! We read a book called The Napping House at library story time last week and the librarian had everyone make the snoring sound whenever she said the word "snore" and I guess it stuck? Do you think she's really trying to trick me? That kid is a piece of work. Oh, and that temper tantrum void we were experiencing for so long? FILLED. Dear god has it filled. Help us all...

Monday, April 4, 2011

Home again home again jiggity jig

Jeff and I drove Edie north on Friday afternoon, meeting up with my Mom, Toby and Great Gramma (now known as GGBee since her middle name is the same as Edie's - Bee) for the "big swap". Edie had fallen asleep on the drive north, and woke mysteriously furious as we exited in Stanwood. It was hard to say goodbye with her so cranked, but I was able to give her a squeeze and a kiss in a moment of calm and then we drove away hoping not to unnecessarily drag out the goodbye. She apparently fell back asleep shortly after my Mom got back on the freeway. (frequent photo texts kept me happy throughout the weekend, including one of her conked out in my Mom's car shortly after saying goodbye)

Jeff and I then slogged through the worst traffic ever to arrive in Portland for dinner. Oddly, we decided against taking the camera to Portland - I guess if Edie's not in the photos, it's not worth it anymore?? My point is just that I have no photos to share with you of our weekend - but believe me that we had a really nice time. We stayed at Hotel Lucia, shopped The Pearl, walked up and down 23rd, hit up Pioneer Place, antiqued in Sellwood and ate some really great food. Oh, and slept until 10am TWO DAYS IN A ROW. Lindsey - we tried to hit up Voodoo but the line was around the block no matter what time we walked by! Those must be some donuts!

On Saturday, we had old fashioned cocktails at a tiny little club called Central, then walked to the Pearl and had a late night dinner at an old favorite - Andina. We had a bustly brunch at a fantastic deli called Kenny and Zukes and pretended to be hipsters at Clyde Common on Friday night; eating things like nettle pesto while sandwiched between dudes in their 20's with ironic beards and flannel shirts. I love Portland. I mean it. Every time I try to fall in love with Vancouver, I find myself missing the compactness, funkiness and walkability of Portland. There's also something nostalgic about Portland for Jeff and me - we've been going there (typically in the winter) for over 12 years and returning after over 2 years away was really fun. The drive can be a bit pesky, but the two night stay made it well worth it.

Edie apparently had the best weekend ever at Grandma and Grandpa's house. She was surrounded by admirers and had countless visits and play dates with family and friends in Bellingham. She slept well and only ever remembered Mom and Dad at night while happily talking herself to sleep with her stuffed animals before bed. At least that's what I'm told. I'm torn between hurt feelers and relief that my child is well adjusted enough to spend what ended up being 3 nights away from her parents in a state of contentment. I had a 9 hour day of work today so my parents agreed to keep Edie one more night and my Mom drove her home today while I was in meetings. It seemed easier than everyone driving an extra 2 hours yesterday to swap at a midpoint and then my Mom retracing her steps today to come care for E. And while it was logistically easier, I was so anxious to get home and squeeze her today that I gave myself a stomach ache. Wow did I miss that kid's face.

We bought her a new bath toy for being such a good girl while we were gone and she l-o-v-e-s it. Pictures of her playing with it in the tub soon....