Hellobee

Can you believe how big they are?  What happened to my squishy little baby and my toddler?  They’ve officially outgrown their nicknames :(.  I tried to think of something clever, but I’m just going to go with their nicknames from my blog (I’m not into using their real names online; it’s a thing for me).  Therefore, Toddler Girl (who will be three in a couple weeks and really doesn’t toddle at all anymore) will go by Ria (derived from her names) and Wonder Baby (who turned one last week and isn’t a little baby *sob*) will go by Sunny.  Because she is.  Also, this will be Ria’s last monthly update, as she isn’t changing as quickly by this age.  And I had an insane time trying to get them to stay in front of the camera yesterday, so this will probably be my last attempt at a formal monthly shoot.  Don’t worry, I’m doing a Project 365 (taking a photo a day) this year, so there will be no shortage of photos.  I’m just done with trying to do matchy ones on the white blanket.

Sunny turned one on February 3rd.  Happy times but also a bit sad.  She’s my last baby (knock on wood) so I am feeling a bit nostalgic about it.  On the other hand, one is such an awesome age!  She’s so funny and happy. Curious, and playful without power struggles or tantrums.  She snuggles.  She sits up on her knees and bounces in excitement while yelling at us.  It’s great.

The biggest change this month is that we sleep trained.  You can read more about it here, but she is finally sleeping decently after nearly a year of broken sleep.  She currently wakes up once in the morning to feed (between 3-5:30), which I tried to wean her out of but she was very persistent.  Whatever — I can deal with waking up once for a bit longer — at least it isn’t every hour!  Her naps took longer to sort out, but this past week or so we have finally gotten into a groove.  She naps once a day at 12:00 for 1.5-2.5 hours.  It’s not a ton of napping for her age, but she’s going down easily and seems a lot more rested.  Previously she was napping twice for 20-45 minutes each time with a lot of resistance when we put her down.  Sleep is good.

A side effect of (mostly) night weaning  and having a more predictable schedule overall is that her solids intake has gone way up and she’s starting to wean off and consolidate her daytime feeds.  She currently nurses 4-6 times a day and I’m hoping to get that down to 2-3 in the next couple weeks.  It’s really not so much me weaning her, as her deciding when she’s hungry and me trying to pay attention and not try and make her snack all day.  I’m hoping to get her down to nursing when she wakes up in the morning and from nap time, and once in the late afternoon.  She’s gone to sleep for the past two days without nursing as part of her sleep routine so I think this will be very manageable.  Also, now that she’s one she is having cow’s milk with a couple meals a day, and can have honey and wheat (we don’t eat a lot of wheat, but I was keeping her off it 100%) as well.  It’s nice that she can truly eat everything we do now, at least if it doesn’t require molars.  As you can see above, she is currently teething and is chewing on things all day long; I hope those molars pop in soon!

Sunny is still not walking but stands steadily on her own and has taken the odd step.  This week she’s also learned to climb up and off of the couch, limiting further the places I can put things (like a mug of tea on the end table). She still says “no!” cheerfully with a head shake and has added “oh no!” and “kitty” to her words.  To be fair, she actually says something like “kiddigdig!” but it’s always at the cat so we know what she means.  She can also clap now, which is adorable as she’s very proud of herself.  Sometimes when she’s babbling away she’ll just start laughing.  We’re not sure if she’s telling jokes or thinks that we are.  This morning I was coughing (I have a rough cold) and I heard Ria coughing too.  It  sounded terrible but when I looked at her she was grinning.  Totally mocking my cough.  Then Sunny started crawling around with this nasty hacking sound and I thought she was choking on something before I realized she was pretending to cough as well.  I’m surrounded by comedians.

Ria is 35 months old. She’ll be three at the end of the month.  She’s a really good kid, but I can see why people say that the “terrible threes” can be a rough time.  She’s definitely had more meltdowns in the past little while and is testing her boundaries more.  I know this is normal, and am trying to focus on keeping her well fed and having enough sleep to help her be as prepared for the day as she can be.  Now that Sunny is sleeping better and I have more energy as a parent (and as a human), I’m trying to get Ria’s sleep schedule sorted out as well.  She had been taking forever (2-4 hours) to fall asleep many nights and then would sleep in and have a long nap.  Not a great cycle even though she was usually getting enough sleep.  We’ve started waking her up if she sleeps past 8 in the morning (and usually she’s up by 7:30), putting her down right at 1 for her nap and not letting her sleep past 3. This is helping a lot, but she’s really into stalling at bedtime and somehow needs to use the potty five times a night before falling asleep.  This is especially annoying as she often goes in her pull-up and then asks to use the potty.  Maybe night time potty training will come soon?  I’m not sure but currently I’m doing some research on discipline and bedtime routines.

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea though — these are small issues.  She’s a great kid and has made big improvements in independence this past month.  I’ve been researching Montessori methods a lot, and while I’m not going to follow them completely, it’s given me a great perspective on helping Ria to be more confident in her abilities.  She’s eating on her own, dressing herself and going potty by herself probably 90% of the time as opposed to maybe 10% of the time before.  She is also walking everywhere holding my hand instead of asking to be carried all the time (not so easy with Sunny already on my hip).  I’m so proud of her for becoming more independent and I can tell that her confidence is much higher as a result.  I’ve also developed a strange deafness to whiny voices which has been really effective in getting to use a nicer tone in general.

Sometimes I can’t believe I’ve been a mom for three years already, but on the other hand, it’s hard to remember life without them.  Surely I didn’t laugh as much before I had these amazing little girls.