More

A few other things about Todd that I either forgot, or which have just occurred this weekend.

 

He sometimes says “oof” (woof) when he sees doggies and they always get his attention, just as kitties do.

He makes a little kissing sound like we make to call the kitties.

When we were holding hands, he clearly said “Row” and was happy when I started “Row, row, row your boat…”

He was playing with some little cars and doing his own version of “vroom, vroom” noises while driving them around.

He can squat and he is standing without holding on for longer and longer periods.  Last night at dinner he stood for a good five minutes.

 

Of course, I can’t think of an example at the moment, but it is clear that his receptive language is getting better.  Now that we have some confidence that he is understanding us (I’m sure he has for a while, it is just clear now that he is), the process of teaching him to hand my unwanted food instead of throwing it on the floor begins along with all of those other “fun” toddler testing habits.

 

Aaaaaaand, I saw a couple of very brief steps this weekend.  Just a couple of shuffle steps when he was more focused on what he wanted than how he was getting there.  But if he really thinks about going somewhere he crawls because he can get there faster and more easily.  It is just a matter of time, I’m sure.

 

On an unrelated note, the nice thing I can say about the cats right now is that they are letting the kids get closer.  Nora will let Heather come right up to her and pet her quite often, and will sometimes stick around for Todd, too.  Stewart is less interested in being approached, but he doesn’t run away as quickly or avoid the kids as much as he used to.  And occasionally, Heather can come up to him and pet him.   Sadly, this doesn’t make up for the messes they’ve been making around the house, but it at least balances out some of my resentment.

 

Summer and Words

First, we've been having a lot of fun outside the past few weeks. In the water, on the playground, out walking, in the backyard, etc. We've had some rain, but most of it has been sporadic and Father's Day was one of the most beautiful June days I've ever experienced. Hot in the sun, cool in the shade and minimal humidity. I'm not sure why we didn't get a little backyard pool before now...

Todd on Grandma and Grandpa's swingset.
Heather in a drink float in Grandma and Grandpa's pool.
Heather and Todd "helping" me with the yard sale.
Todd is just a few days away from 14 months and it is clear that his receptive language is improving, and we are hearing a couple of new words a week. Did I ever even tell you all which word was his first?

Kitty was the first one, a few weeks before his birthday, I think. Basically any animal is a kitty - doggies, squirrels and recently a goat that we saw on TV.

Other words:
Uh-oh
Book
Ball
Duck
Mama, which is now mommy
Dada, although since saying mommy, that seems to be his term for both of us
Hi
Bye
Beep
"Ma" for more, which he can also sign

And R thinks he said "cheese" when he was taking his picture last night. Most of these have been figured out because he does a LOT of pointing when he wants something, and that helps to clue us in. :-)

The last month

Things seem to be changing quickly around here. Todd is in the fast process of going from baby to toddler. Now that we have a pre-schooler, a 13 month old doesn't seem nearly as "old" as it did when Miss H was going through it. But Todd is definitely asserting his will, exploring the world around him and not going to let anyone call him "easy going" anymore.

1 - The best Todd news is that he has finally "clicked" with the sippy cup and hasn't taken a bottle at daycare since Monday. Not only does this mean that I can stop cleaning and making the bottles every night and it will be easy to keep him hydrated in the hot summer months and he can be "slightly" more trusted to not get milk all over everything at dinner,...but most importantly I can STOP PUMPING at work! Woot!

2 - I think it has been long enough, that I'm prepared to state out loud that Todd has started sleeping all night in his crib about 4 nights a week! Even on the nights he does wake up is isn't until after 3:30, and he's been going right back to sleep after nursing. (Now I have to knock on wood and pray that this public declaration doesn't undo all of this progress...)

And he's sleeping well at daycare for naps even though he's sleeping on a mat in his new room. That change is always a little worrisome as a parent. It is hard to imagine how it works, but these teachers have been doing it for so long that they make it work...and peer pressure is a wonderful thing in the toddler set. I think he's making the transition from 2 naps to 1 slowly as well.

3 - About a month after the first battle of wills, Heather finally seems to have made the break through to being fully potty trained. For a few weeks she was just peeing at home (or with her parents) and depending on diapers at school and for #2. We started trying overnights in underwear again, which went well and lead to a diaper-free weekend. Which in turn led to another (but thankfully quicker) battle of wills of using the potty for #2. And a few days after that, R was present at daycare when Heather needed to pee, which lead to diaper-freedom there, too. She still doesn't seem 100% sold on public pottys, but she has enough control that this hasn't cause any accidents.

I'll end the possibly blackmail worthy discussion before I get in trouble. I'm glad this is over and I'm excited about adding Cars to the movie selection.

4 - Todd has also started acting like a picky toddler. He still loves meat and fruit and bread, but any vegetables, plain noodles or new foods get unceremoniously hurled off of his tray. Joy.

5 - Todd is also getting 2 more bottom teeth, which will bring him up to 8 total. I keep meaning to look at the back of his gums and see if there is any sign of molars yet.

6 - Heather is totally compliant and happy one minute, and completely defiant the next.

Oh, 3...you cranky b*tch.

7 - And an observation. It was 4 years ago about this time that we found out we were expecting. So for four years I have either been pregnant or breastfeeding (or both). It's not clear when Todd will be done nursing and I'm not in a hurry to stop him. It is just fascinating to know what our bodies can accomplish, and I suppose I will be a little sad when this era is over. It is just one of many ways to mark how our lives and our kids have change in addition to all of the milestones above.

Truthfully, I'm perfectly happy to be finished with the whole pregnancy thing and I won't be sad to pass along my pump and bottles. But I hope that the nursing isn't close to being done. Somewhat selfishly, because then I have to come up with a new method for putting him to bed. :-P

Strange

The yard sale is over, the DVR is under control (and not growing much on a daily basis), there is nothing 'big' on the horizon, potty training is moving in a positive/less time intense direction, my need to pump seems to be coming to an end, I've done pretty well with the first week & a half of packing Heather's lunch...and yet I'm still feeling pretty overwhelmed.

Odd.

I need to go to bed earlier, need to get/stay caught up on dishes, need to straighten the house from the post-yard sale uproar, need to deal with cat messes, need to take advantage of the nice weather, need to plant the flowers (which are growing wonderfully even though they aren't in the ground), need to deal with very overdue thank you notes, need to cook dinner every night in a way that doesn't bore me to tears but does provide food that my family will eat and I need to have a little me time to relax, knit and maybe (*gasp*) have a conversation with my husband.

Not to mention the emails to reply to, the travel arrangements to be made, the laundry, the need to put together something that I can wear to a wedding, the gifts for said wedding and overdue gifts from two weddings last year, baby gifts for this year and last, and a bunch of house projects that are overdue. Oh, and then there are the four or five knitting/crochet projects that are 95% done, the pants that are 50% hemmed and the dozen or so projects that need to be photographed.

I don't want to sound whiny, because in general things are just fine around here. Everyone is healthy, and the kids are as happy as a 3 year old and a 1 year old will allow themselves to be. :-P I'm just at one of those points where there is so much to do, but the moment that I get a little time I just want to say "screw it", do the bare minimum and play with yarn until bedtime...or until an hour after I should really be going to bed. I need to snap myself out of this bad cycle. And somehow I need to do it without taking a whole day off to straighten up the house, kitchen and laundry. Besides, I'm pretty sure that if I did take a day off I would just want to sit around and be lazy, and I wouldn't actually get caught up.

If anyone figures out how to manipulate the space-time continuum in my favor, please gimme a call.

Whee!

Time continues to rush by in a whirlwind that is hard to express. I feel like I've been thinking about things I want to post a lot lately, but there always seems to be at least a few higher priority things on my to do list. And next thing you know it is the end of the day or an hour past the time I wanted to go to bed...

To get myself back in the swing of posting, I'm going to try to do quick snippets (kind of like my FB status updates), just to get something up here again. I hate to even suggest this...but when the new iPhones come out, R is getting one and I'm getting his old one, so maybe the ability to do quick posts from my phone will help me develop some new habits. (And bonus, I'm counting the new phone as his Father's Day present! :-) Not sure if he knows that...)

My random list from March is still pretty accurate. But there are a few new tidbits.

- Todd's favorite foods are fruit, meat, pizza and bread. He'll tolerate other stuff, but lately I'm noticing that he is much less willing to try anything that goes on his tray. Sometimes he'll try new things after a few bites of fruit or he'll let some noodles in while he chows down on the meat sauce...but some times he is clearly NOT willing to each some of the food being offered. I tried to enjoy his openness to food while it lasted. Looks like we've got two picky eaters in the house now.

- Todd is all about pointing - this started soon after his birthday. Wait, what? You say. Yes, he had a birthday and I haven't documented it in the least. And here we are more than a month past. Ahem.

Anyway, he's been pointing a ton, which is helping to curb some of his new toddler behavior. We've entertained the frustration territory where he knows.what.he.wants and can't tell us. Some use of pointing and signing "more" helps, but there is definitely some toddler angst brewing in our formerly "always easy going" guy.

- Todd's words: kitty was first and he still calls all animals kitty, but it's a process. :-) Other new words include ball, duck, mama, dada and uh-oh. I get the sense that there are probably a few more, but as a second child you just don't get the same kind of undivided attention and child #1. But you do have a constant source of entertainment and much more TV access than your older sibling did at your age, so I think it all evens out in the end.

- Since we were feeling like things were going smoothly (!) and we had a lot of busy weekends coming up, a few weekends ago we took away Heather's diapers. It was clear from her experiences in underwear that she had the ability to 'hold it' until she got a diaper on and could keep her underwear dry for hours at a time. For fear of significantly embarrassing my future teenage daughter and because I don't want to rehash all of our struggles...I'll just say that Heather is wearing underwear at home and putting all of her pee in the potty when she's with mommy and daddy. Why she refuses to use the potty at daycare or do #2 in the potty is something we can't quite comprehend or bribe her into doing. With busy weekends, we're currently playing the waiting game and hoping that she decides to go the rest of the way on her own. And I'm thankful that there was at least some positive result to our weekend of struggle.

Her tenacity and stubbornness is certainly inherited and will serve her well as an adult. No matter how frustrating it is as a 3 year old.

- We've added a new movie into the obsession rotation - one of my favorites. The Sound of Music. Awesome. And we continue to look forward to taking her to see Toy Story 3 in the theater. Though we still need to figure out who will watch Todd while we go...

- My knitting and crochet mojo has returned full force. I'm trying to use any evening time I have for sewing/mending projects and project finishing to avoid having any more projects that are 95% finished. I need to make some evening time for photography while we still have a little light after the kids go to bed. Or to let Heather help me on the weekend during on of Todd's naps.

- Speaking of Todd sleep, the improvements continue. 3 nights of the past week he has slept the entire (and I mean entire) night in his crib from bedtime to wake-up. And most of the other nights, the wake-ups have been minimal or short-lived. Bedtime has been a little bit of a mixed bag, but since the generally trend is all about improvements, I'm not complaining. I just need to go to bed earlier once we get through the yard sale this weekend.