We have a mat for Celia to hang out on with toys hanging above her head. She loves the Octopus. Winks at it, coo’s at it, and makes all sorts of faces for it. Here’s a small glimpse into her silliness.
Fred has once again rediscovered his love of our bouncey seat for the girls.
Someone flipped some switches with Josie here at age 2.5. She’s started the ‘why’ phase, with lots of them, thankfully not usually more than two or three in a row though yet which makes them mostly answerable. She’s also decided that ignoring mommy is a fun game to try out. I’m not so pleased with that one, but it is developmentally appropriate. We’re trying to let the natural consequences stand, such as when she chose not to show up for lunch today, she just didn’t eat and we went on with our routine and she went down for nap. I expect she’ll be hungry later, but she won’t starve in a few hours so it’ll be ok.
She wishes Celia would be awake more often, and doesn’t seem to understand that I can pay more attention to her if Celia is sleeping. That is the time she picks to play quietly by herself. She likes art projects but sometimes seems to be unsure of what to do lately, I’ve probably been structuring them too much for her lately to make some fun decorations, but she likes those too.
She’s very interested in understanding time, days and schedules. Today we worked on making a calendar for her so she can see the days of the week and the different activities we have planned for each one. Hopefully this will also help with the bedtime and naptime routines.
She’s taking her big kid gymnastics class now and she loves it. It’s the only time she’s under the authority of non-family adults at this point and she does well. Although I’ll often see her telling the teacher many random things about her life during class (“I got a shot from my doctor last week”, “I have a new baby!”…) The class is all older kids (3-5) and at this point she mostly watches them to see what to do rather than seeming to follow the teachers directions directly. She is definitely in awe of some of the bigger girls and follows them around to be near them. Thankfully they’ve taken a liking to Josie too.
At this point I’d say Josie is day-time toilet trained, we still have an accident a week or so randomly but mostly because she’s in ‘ignoring mommy’ mood and wants to prove she can ‘hold it’ when she just can’t anymore. We’re doing diapers still for naps and bed time. I can’t wait to ditch those too, but they’re clearly needed still, and I’m already washing diapers, so two extra a day is no biggie.
Basically we spend the day socializing with her friends (and mine) in the morning and then free play in the afternoon after nap. We do lots of reading, but just getting through the basics of the day takes a long time because she is very slow to transition and switch activities. She is very easily distracted and keeps changing her mind as to what she wants. Just trying to focus on reconnecting with her now as she has big big emotions when things go ‘wrong’ in her eyes and is also pushing the limits to see what she can do to us. When she’s happy she continues to be a joy to be around, very silly, funny and affectionate. She’s also very kind to Celia and wants to hold her and help with her too.
She also doesn’t walk much. It’s all running. Even across the room, she runs. Kinda funny!
Today Celia is one month old and went in for her 1 month checkup. She’s 9 lbs 9 oz now and 21.5 inches long according to the measurement today. At two weeks they had her at 22 inches, so someone messed up somewhere. We’ll see what next month’s checkup looks like for length. Healthy as a horse and gaining weight quickly. She’s getting a bit fussier, but she still smiles frequently when she’s awake. Gas and needing to go #2 are her usual complaints, or that I’m trying to get her to go back to sleep when she’s just wide awake. When she’s awake there’s not much to do but give her something to look at that she finds interesting, like the blue bucket or something made of wood, or her baby gym octopus. She’s got some baby acne now, doc says that will clear up in a few weeks. She’s got a LOUD piercing scream when she feels I’m misinterpreting her signs, but generally that’s because I’m trying to do something for myself or Josie before sitting down to nurse.
Josie likes to play doctor a lot too, we’ve thankfully got a month now without any appointments for the kids.
Here’s the girls talking and wiggling around on the floor. Celia is still very sleepy, but wakes up a couple of times a day for half an hour or so. I aim for those not to be in the middle of the night.
Celia likes two poses for her photographs, tongue out, or dead serious.
This one I couldn’t get her to face the light, so it’s dark. Silly non-compliant children.
One of Josie’s favorite things each evening is when our neighbors Patrick or Laura get home and bring their dog Hannah out for a visit. Josie loves to pet her and does not like to give Patrick or Laura much of a chance to change or relax upon arriving home as she demands Hannah. Thankfully they’re very gracious and thoughtful about our toddler’s fascination. Now that’s it’s dark at that time, I imagine we won’t get to see too much of them.
Last weekend Josie had her first Halloween where I think she actually got the idea. She was scared of the idea ahead of time, she told us she didn’t want to do it. So we say alright and didn’t force it. That morning we had a get together with my friends from my mom’s group at Crosby park to hang out and show off costumes. We did some group shots, but they were all kinda ehhh because of harsh lighting and lots of squirmy kids.
Then in the afternoon we had an event at Waldo Park, our local playground with food and drink and meeting up with the neighbors. It was very well attended, Josie almost walked out the second she saw it the place was so crowded. We got to see our friends and have a hot dog but the night was cold, so it didn’t last too long. We headed out for group trick-or-treating with the neighbors.
The first house Josie was very unsure of what was going on, so we only went to houses where we knew people and let Ethan, the almost 5 year old, go first to show the toddlers how it’s done. After the first house went well, and then the second, Josie was running between them as she had definitely gotten the idea. We had a little trouble getting her to say the ‘trick or treat’ but she was great with the ‘thank yous’. Celia spend the afternoon asleep in the carrier on my chest, which was good, because again, it was dang cold.
So have you guessed her costume? It’s hello kitty! I expect we’ll see a lot of the hat this winter, it’s soft and cuddly.
You are currently browsing the JenJordi.org weblog archives for November, 2010.
Entries (RSS)