I love that when Shanna is doing something she shouldn’t there is a steady stream of, “Whatcha doin’? Whatcha doin’? Put that back!” from wherever she is. 😀
And things she says that make us go awwwww:
“That is so generous”
“You are so helpful”
“That’s so nice”
All said in this really heart melting voice.
I don’t talk about Shanna much anymore. 🙂 I should do that. Today Shanna dragged her Mega Bloks out and built a foot tall tower. She’s never done that before. I really should have taken a picture but I’m lame and I didn’t. Normally she maxes out on attaching about three blocks together before knocking them over. This kind of sudden leap always makes my brain hurt. It seems like she pretty regularly can’t do something, can’t do it, can’t do it, Oh no big deal I can do that. It’s really amazing. I think kids are so awesome. (I don’t think my kid is a special snowflake I just have limited exposure to seeing this kind of development in other kids. 🙂
I thank God just about every day that her speech is so developed. I am growing to understand toddler tantrums more and more. She has such strong feelings and desires that if she couldn’t express them I can see her screaming and hitting. I made a list recently and off the top of my head I came up with more than 250 food words she knows. And boy howdy does she exercise them. 😛 It’s really nice that she can very specifically say what she wants because then neither of us get frustrated. I’m kind of terrified of next kid being less verbal and equally strong willed. I think that Shanna feels mellow to me because she is very good at asking for what she wants and I’m pretty happy to give it to her 9/10. I only say no when I have a good reason to. I’ve never really understood the principle of telling kids ‘no’ just as a matter of course.
Toddlerhood is far more challenging than babyhood. We struggle to find the balance. If I am well rested and feeling patient we do ok. If I’m tired… oof. I have cracked two teeth gritting my jaw when she gets frustrating. Oops. Well that coping mechanism needs work. By and large our days are still very joyful. It’s hard that if you stop doing something (like playing on the computer) to go stop her from doing something (like running water in the bathroom) she RUNS back to mess with the computer. Every so often we get into loops where I am chasing her back and forth from thing to thing and that’s not my favorite. I somehow doubt that the toddler years are going to be my favorite stage. 🙂
She has (mostly) stopped eating her books, which is really awesome. At this point she only occasionally will put an already well gnawed book in her mouth. Oy. She loves reading so much. I read to her for probably at least an hour a day and Noah also does a lot of reading. No signs of her being able to ‘read’ and that’s so completely ok. I recently introduced the alphabet song out of desperation when I couldn’t think of any other song to entertain her with and she loves it. She doesn’t know much of the alphabet and that is ok with me. 🙂
I feel like an EC failure because she is still in diapers. I put way too much pressure on myself. She potties more often than she goes in a diaper most days but sometimes she just has no interest in using the potty and pushing it seems kind of silly. So the march of laundry continues on. I have used disposables a few times in the past year because of traveling and man do I prefer cloth. The smell of disposables makes me gag. I don’t know why it seems so overwhelming to me. I am sort of hoping for at least a couple of weeks of break between kids but if it doesn’t happen that will be ok too. 🙂
This pregnancy is So Much Easier. I have been really exhausted all through the first trimester but that is abating a lot in the last week. I need to start getting out of the house more and doing some exercise. I have no interest in being completely out of shape when TBD arrives. That was a pain when Shanna was born. And this time I’ll have a toddler to chase too! Very exciting. I am having a bit of trouble with controlling my temper. I am not resorting to hitting and I’m not yelling much at all, but I’m not as patient as I can be. This is a big enough thing to me that I think this is the deciding factor for me on two kids versus three. It’s not ok for me to be this frustrated as a matter of course with my kids. Just not reasonable. And if I am struggling this hard with one child it would be orders of magnitude harder with two children. So it looks like we are done. I have mixed feelings about that because I feel like in my heart I really want more children. But there are wants and then there is the ability to meet the needs of your children and I’m really not all that selfish of a person. Having children at all is a selfish act and I can only push it so far. 🙂 It’ll be great. It’s cheaper to travel with two kids instead of three. 😛
I spend a lot of time looking at Shanna wondering how something so amazing came out of me. She is so joyous and giving and upbeat. I wonder if I ever had that lightness of spirit. When I have dark days wondering if I ‘deserve’ to have children because I am a horrible person I look at her and think that whether or not I deserve to have children, the world deserves to have someone like her in it. She really is wonderful.
Shanna seems to be back to normal today. Whoo hoo! She was probably awake for a grand total of 5 hours yesterday and during those brief awake periods we shoved her full of chicken broth and water and juice and she has come out the other side unscathed. *phew* I had some icki symptoms later in the day yesterday and I seem to be back to (my) normal today as well. I’m glad that bug was quick. 🙂
Whereas Shanna has technically vomited before that was a direct chain reaction of too much junky food+ too much sugar + chugging way too much juice really fast = stomach says no. That was on Halloween. Generally speaking she wasn’t sick that day.
Now she is sick. She’s been miserable for the better part of a week with fever off and on, a really nasty runny nose, general malaise (from what I can tell), and occasional cough. Last night she went to sleep super early (really around 6:30 on Noah’s chest in the living room) and she was transferred to bed for the night around 8. Around 9 she woke up and vomited all over herself and the bed. 🙁 There was a rather alarming quantity of chunk. She had to go straight into the shower because her head/hair was so full of slime. 🙁 Noah cleaned up her person and I stripped the bed. She has been sleeping in her own bed lately but we pulled her into our bed for the night. She slept like the dead. She woke up fussy and whiny and hungry around 6 am (a pretty normal wake up time) so I made her some chicken noodle soup and mostly just let her sip broth. She nursed on one side and passed out hard. She is showing no signs of stirring.
This has been her worst illness to date. My poor baby. 🙁
ETA: and… now she has really nasty diarrhea. I wish I knew more about watching for signs of dehydration in small ones. 🙁
As much as it does get annoying to be trapped under Shanna while she naps I love that she is still my baby. She is a huge, precociously talking toddler… but she’s still my baby. *love*
And! We are going to Disneyland in December and I am so excited I can’t stand it. I know that the trip is ten months away, but I haven’t been to Disneyland in years! As I’m sitting on the couch trying not to feel icki I’m really enjoying thinking about all the planning stuff I want to think about for the trip. Planning trips, even ones I never actually go on, is really exciting and fun for me. I love thinking about every possible detail and arrangement of plans. Shanna will be two and a half and I think that is just about the perfect age for maximum enjoyment of the magic. Of course, this means I need to show her a few Disney movies between now and then so she gets it. 🙂 I’m really tempted to avoid the Disney Princess movies and stick with the books for those stories. That way I can slightly edit the ‘helpless female’ schtick. But movies like Pinnochio, Dumbo, The Aristocats etc. are awesome and she’ll love them.
I’ve been bugging people on IM about this trip all day. I’m really enjoying poking around the website and making plans. 😀
Shanna has been very enthusiastically trying to help ‘clean’ the kitchen lately using our broom/dustpan. The problem is that the adult broom is big enough to whack her in the head and she cries constantly and she loses/hides my dustpan which royally pisses me off. So yesterday she got her own broom and dustpan. She’s so excited! She is moving around the kitchen telling us, “Shanna is helpful girl! Shanna cleaning!” Now we just need to work on her technique so that she actually does some cleaning instead of just moving things back and forth on the floor. 🙂
I really love that Shanna is starting to ‘read’ me her books. It’s really funny to see which parts she remembers and which parts she doesn’t. 🙂
So I’ve been taking some time off. Maybe you noticed, maybe you were grateful that I shut my mouth for once. 😛 But yeah, stuff. I’m going to try a different technique for handling some stuff and see if it works for me. I miss writing here.
I’m nine weeks now. This pregnancy seems pretty willing to stick and that is wonderful. I’m much much much less sick than I was with Shanna (thank all deities everywhere) so I’m even feeling ok. I’m not feeling ‘normal’ and I’m not feeling energetic or anything crazy like that. But I’m not overwhelmingly sick and completely incapacitated so I consider that a win. 🙂 Humble expectations are important. I manage to do an okay job of interacting with Shanna during the day. We do a lot of cuddling on the couch and I am also incredibly grateful that she is so willing and able to entertain herself for long stretches. I know it is unusual. As a result of her playing alone a lot of the day she has been pretty needy in the evenings and the bulk of that is falling to Noah. Let me take a moment to say that my husband has stepped up in a variety of ways and man do I love him. He is doing ALL of the cooking and most of the cleaning and a much larger share of kid-wrangling than usual. As a result this is probably our last kid. That’s… as mixed as that kind of thing might be.
We went to Arizona to see Sarah. That was really awesome. It was occasionally challenging to deal with Shanna, but mostly she was her awesomely obedient and friendly self so it wasn’t too bad. It was really nice to get to sit down and talk to my Sarah again. It’s hard having her so far away. I miss her. Unfortunately we cut the trip a bit short. Has anyone noticed this storm we’re having? Yeah, I had to drive home from Arizona through that and I am really glad I left before things had gotten too established. The drive home was pretty hairy at times and it would have been much worse another day or so later from what I can tell. Also: the Grand Canyon is breathtaking. So far in all of my travels I have set Alaska up as my own personal definition of Most Awe Inspiring Place but the Grand Canyon kicked Alaska’s ass. I would like to go again while not pregnant and seriously hike it.
Oh, side thing: people who bring a two year old on a 2.5 hour train ride without ANY form of amusement or toy are flippin stupid.
I’ve been hibernating a lot more than usual lately. On one hand it’s lonely. On the other hand it feels like what my body needs and I’m drained from the basics of day-to-day life without any extra stress. See, this is why I miss my Sarah so much. I could whine at her about being sad and lonely and not wanting to leave the house and she would come visit. Ok, I’m not really sad. But I am lonely. It’s interesting how sometimes those two things are tied together and sometimes they aren’t. I’m starting to move into that placid slow-moving-brain thing I had when I was pregnant with Shanna. I feel like I’m seeing most of life from under water. Things are just slower and less sharp and that’s kind of nice. I feel … honestly kinda stoned. Ha. But it’s in a very nice way. I’m just drifting through life and that feels ok and good and right. If I could have this mental feel without feeling so physically debilitated I think I would want to be pregnant forever. If I couldn’t talk Noah into being quiverfull I would surrogate over and over. 🙂 But, I don’t get to pick and choose so no permanent pregnancy for me. 🙂
I saw my brother on the drive home from Arizona. That was shocking. I knew I was going to be driving within 2 miles of his house so I called him and asked if he wanted to meet his niece. After double checking that I wasn’t going to force him to deal with our mother he said he wanted to meet her. When I told him that I am not currently speaking with our mother he seemed to feel much better. We had about two and a half hours of sitting around talking. It was a really good conversation. He admitted things out loud that I’ve always suspected. I was shocked and impressed that he has gotten to a point where he can admit those things. He’s grown up a lot. He seemed similarly impressed with my attitude about his behavior of the past few years. I told him that I understand why he has felt he needed to make the choices he made but they still make me sad. I think I managed to convey how much I would like a relationship with him without being pushy or demanding or needy. I’m proud of myself for how I handled my end of things there. I’m really grateful that he gave me a chance. I’m not sure we are going to start having a close relationship any time soon, but maybe it will be a beginning.
So right this minute my back is a little better. I took half of a leftover vicodin to get to this point. Earlier I was having trouble with feeling really angry because of how badly my back hurt. Shanna is being super super super (add a few of those on) clingy because she is teething. She’s not being bad. She’s not doing anything wrong. She’s just hurting and she needs lots of attention as a result. It’s hard sometimes to give her all the attention she needs when I’m also feeling crummy.
That said: overall it was a good day. After a less than awesome traffic experience we had a great Ikea run. 🙂 I found lots of stuff we need and a few things that we don’t need but I really want and I let myself get it. Yay! I found all the stuff at Home Depot that I will need for venting the dryer and the stuff I will need to put backs on the shelving units. Verra successful, that. Shanna was extremely patient.
I’m going to go do some more to try and help my back feel better so I can better enjoy the afterglow of a good day instead of being cranky. 🙂
The boxes from Noah’s parents have finished arriving. I’m somewhat shocked by the generosity. I mean, my family buys a lot of stuff but it’s mostly crap. There was a really really nice doll unwrapped on the top so that when we opened the box Shanna’s face lit up like a candle. It’s rather impressive.
And then there are all her Christmas presents.
Wow. We have a very full Christmas tree and I haven’t wrapped anything yet. heh I think Shanna is going to make out like a bandit. Maybe it’s a good thing I can’t afford to get her the awesome kitchen on kids.woot.com right now because she’s already going to be pretty spoiled. Wow.
Wow. 🙂
(And the doll has a handmade jacket that matches the awesome outfit Noah’s mom made last Christmas!! How awesome is that! And a blanket out of the same super cute material! It’s very thrilling. Shanna hasn’t set the doll down yet.)
I might have to poke Noah extra to get him to call and say thank you.
Noah is teaching Shanna how to tell “jokes.”
“Why did the chicken cross the road?”
“Poop!”
“Ask me if I’m an alligator.”
“Are you an alligator?” (she said this surprisingly well)
“Poop!”
*sigh*
Apparently Shanna is choosing this week to start potty training herself. I had completely given up on EC because she was so hostile to pottying for a long time. But this week she has decided to start asking for the potty almost 50% of the time. I think with a little encouragement from me she will be out of diapers in another week because I think she just needs a little bit of reminding. Like she woke up this morning and announced, “Mama potty poop.” And she did. 🙂
Now how’s that as a follow up to my dirty dreams?
Getting ready for a party this weekend is more stressful than I thought it would be. My house is in a weird state of flux because of the garage project. There is a ton of stuff in the house that is normally out in the garage and finding spots for everything is a nuisance. It doesn’t help that I have weird/stupid compulsions about having my house look neat and orderly when people I don’t know come over. If I could manage to not care this would all be much easier. 🙂 [Just so people don’t think I am not inviting you to a party–it’s a going away party for a friend and the invitees are her friends, not mine. So I’m hosting, but it’s not my party. Kind of weird.]
Shanna’s development is no longer as dramatically quick. Her progress is still rapid, but it’s slightly less startling if that makes sense. Now it is on a more predictable trajectory. She is more and more kid-like by the day. Her speaking is amazing to me. She picks up signs as quick as I teach them to her which means I should focus on more signs that are relevant to her. I gave her crackers for the first time this week and she’s in love. I wasn’t withholding them for any particular reason, I’m just not a cracker person so I don’t have them around. I can’t stand stuff that is crispy like that in my mouth. I guess she won’t have my texture fuss. This will make her life easier. 🙂 I really should post pictures of her.
Using our not perfectly accurate scale it looks like Shanna has gained almost three pounds in the past two and a half months. That makes sense. She is eating like it is going out of style. I’m starting to feel slightly frustrated with her wanting food all day long because it is hard for me to work on projects when I have to stop and help her with food. She can feed herself but if I let her go at it alone the mess is prodigious.
We took her to her first Gaskell Ball this weekend. She had a great time playing with the other little girls at the event. One of the things that is hard for me about living in Fremont is I am far away from my friends and all events. I would really love to be able to host baby dance parties during events like that and have all the folks I know drop their kids off. I think that is even more fun than going to Gaskells but it’s not going to work out. No one wants to drive down here for that sort of thing.
I find it pretty funny that at this point I have far more stuff for organizing than I have stuff to organize. 🙂 I have a lot of empty space in my house. This pleases me immensely.
I’m starting to feel a mixture of excitement and trepidation about painting the garage. I have really cool ideas, but I’m not particularly artistic. I will have a hard time if I put in a lot of effort and it looks really bad. I’m not sure what is the best way to try and get something vaguely pretty given my level of (zero) art skill. I’m great at doing basic house painting. Well, by great I mean that I am neat–I don’t like doing it much. 🙂 But I really like the results so I do it.
I asked my bio-family if it would be ok for me to host Christmas this year because I like to share the load and not put everything on my aunt. But my cousins won’t come off the mountain and I don’t want to alienate them so it won’t be happening. So my 70-something year old aunt will be doing all the work for everyone again. I think my family sucks.
I haven’t heard from my mom in months. Not since she grudgingly sent me some money towards paying back what she borrowed from me. I’m feeling unfortunately justified in my not so awesome opinions of her. Thanks for using me then ditching me again mom. I appreciate the reminder of how much you care about me.
I’m still having to struggle with my upset at feeling used by people in general. I know that no one means anything bad. It doesn’t matter if people mean to be treating me like shit or not if they are it hurts. But I’m the only one responsible for my feelings. I can point at a bunch of different things making this harder right now but it doesn’t matter what excuses I have. I need to deal with this because I’m making myself miserable and the only one who notices is me. It would be nice to be happier. I’m trying.
Oh, and I cut my hair. A wonderful friend got a great picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9522728@N08/4043845455/in/set-72157622662085684/ That was after a long day of me running my fingers through it and putting it up then taking it down then messing with it then shaking my head to resettle it. Isn’t it a great haircut?! I’m pretty excited. I think it may be one of the best haircuts I’ve ever received.
This morning while Noah was on the phone Shanna was walking around saying, “How you? I fine.” It was flippin awesome.
Oh, and I’ve had more sex this week than any other week since before Shanna was born. I am pleasantly sore. 😀
Cookie season is upon us! It’s the time of year when we must all worship Fat Satan. (Blame Noah for that bit.) Six dozen chocolate chip pecan cookies. Shanna is very much Noah’s daughter. She’s kind of obsessed with the cookie dough. It was cute.
Shanna is currently down for her second nap of the day. We haven’t done that in a while. I think it’s because she woke up at FIVE THIRTY THIS MORNING. Freakin kid. Doesn’t she know I was out late drinking? Sheesh. No respect. 😉
I’m really enjoying the “whoo hoo winter is coming” feeling of the day. On that note, I think I’ll go have some hot cocoa. 🙂
I asked Shanna to pick up her books and put them away. And she did.
Shanna fell asleep on my lap. She hasn’t done this in a while. My foot is now asleep. I guess she’s gained some weight. 🙂
I discovered this morning that I am in Trouble. I wondered why the ASL class was moving so slowly given that it is a 5 unit course. Now I know. The reason we learn very little new in class is because you are supposed to spend a ridiculous amount of time in the lab learning everything by yourself. Uhm, thanks? Getting enough time in the lab is going to be a serious problem. They are open for very limited hours, 100% of which overlap with Noah’s work schedule. They seem to believe that only full time college students with no jobs or kids should be allowed to take ASL. Fuckers. (Technically it isn’t their fault. The problem is state budget cuts. But I can still feel whiny.)
I went out yesterday! I went to the fair and had a fabulous time. I ran into people from all over the country, many of whom I have not seen in 3+ years. 🙂 I didn’t even make a full circuit of the booths because I got there a bit late and the crowd was getting to me. I had a really great time though and I got a waist cincher from Dark Garden! w00t! I have the most generous of husbands. 🙂 Noah stayed home with the short one and he got to learn firsthand why I believe we need to acquire more board books. 🙂 It gets a bit old reading them over and over and over again. Before anyone suggests the library: Shanna is a book eater. She will grow out of this in time but for now it isn’t cool for us to have books for her that need to be well treated. I would feel horribly guilty about damaging library books. I feel confident that this stage can’t last too much longer. 🙂
I was thinking about it yesterday and I came to the conclusion that I am really glad I didn’t try real hard to have “my own time” when Shanna was smaller. I wasn’t ready. I felt anxious the entire time I was away from her. I didn’t enjoy myself. Now I can take off for a day and have fun and feel confident that it is ok and developmentally good for both of us. Yesterday was probably a bit longer than Shanna is thrilled about, but she didn’t spend the time having a temper tantrum so I think we did ok. I like feeling confident in my parenting choices. I’m super glad I ignored everyone who told me that I ‘had’ to get away from her early on. No, I didn’t. It would have sucked for all concerned. Now I can go do stuff and she does fine and I do fine and daddy does fine. We win!
I made banana bread and brownies and those are both good. 🙂
I made jam and it didn’t set. Poopy. I think it’s cause the fruit was over-ripe. My reading says it is a common problem. That’s fine, we’ll use it on ice cream. 🙂
And Shanna was a bit shocked after the first shot and burst into tears after the second shot. She only cried for a couple of minutes and then has been fine all day. We are now in negotiation with the pediatrician as to which vaccines we will be doing next. Have I mentioned that I love my pediatrician? He’s an awesome guy. He’s trying really really hard to sell us on flu shots and he had some great statistics to back up his point of view. I’m going to do more research but it may be that we get flu shots this year due to some issues with H1N1 and pregnancy. We’ll see. We also need to decide about DTaP. That one… I have a lot of conflict about but it might make our schedule. MMR and Polio will both happen before our next overseas trip. This thinking about vaccine stuff is very anxious making.
She dropped percentiles on weight again. However she did gain half a pound which is upward progress and I’m happy about that. She is down to the 30% on weight. (21 lbs 4 oz) She is at the 81% on height (this is kind of neato). (31.5″) And head circumference has dropped a little but it’s still high. I can’t remember the exact number and I can’t find the piece of paper. 🙂
He was impressed with her vocabulary. 🙂 I am too so it’s awesome to be validated. 😀
I think that’s it for now.
(Icon because I just got out of the shower and I’m naked. 😛 )
Adventure! We are going to Santa Barbara for the weekend. I’m excited. I’ve never actually been down there. And I asked the boyfriend of a friend to pick up our farm share and he said sure. Yay! That was a rather easily arranged weekend. 🙂
Today I need to: make banana bread, make jam, and pack.
Tomorrow Shanna has a checkup, more shots. 🙁 Luckily Noah can go with us because I just can’t hold her down for the needle. 🙁 I do believe that the choice we are making is right but it sucks.
And we are going to a festive grown up party tomorrow night. I’ve got some high hopes about that but I’m not completely sure how I would like it to go. There are so many choices! Mmmm I like thinking about my options. 🙂 And I am even more excited that I know some particular people are going because that makes my options so much more appealing. 🙂
Additional words:
nana (for banana)
bees! (for boobies. *sigh*)
bread (it sounds like bread but said shortened. I can’t explain it.)
cheese
isthis? (seems like, what is this?)
Moo (for cow milk)
sauce (for apple sauce)
car
cat
Puff (cat’s name)
mama
dada
pee
poopoo
nose
cheek
no! (I can’t believe I forgot no!)
bite
These are in addition to:
up
outside
hi
stop
shoe
boo!
slide (used for swing and slide)
sit
step
butt
shiny
book
nigh-nigh
Her signs:
yay
waving
potty
apple
dessert
more
all done
milk
hot
banana