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May. 11th, 2006 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI procrastinated on Alex's one-year developmental update for so long that it's become a 13-month update.
She loves to label things. Her stubby index finger is always pointing something out. When she knows a word, she applies it vigorously, repeatedly, delightedly. For example, going down the jetway to a Continental airlines flight, every single instance of their globe logo was met with a jubilant "Ball!" She points to pictures and names them, sometimes: the birds in I am a bunny, the cup and the balloon in My very first look at colors. She can often, but not always, point out a picture of a familiar object when asked. New words since I posted about her vocabulary two weeks ago: duck, book, car, keys, socks, shoes, cheese, peas, slide, again, crayon, remote, blue (applied to any dark color, as far as I can tell), lalala (denotes the book Moo, Baa, Lalala). She is absolutely in love with the ability to communicate - you can just see in her face how happy she is when we show that we understand what she's talking about. Even her babbling has become more conversational in tone. Instead of long, lilting strings of syllables, or repeated entertaining combinations of sounds ("fwa fwa fwa!"), her intonations, pitch, and rhythm match conversational English... except that they're completely unintelligible.
She still loves her books with a passion. She's started to be very demanding about being read to, and will actually cry if, for example, I'm on the phone when she wants me to read her a story. She's much more opinionated about books. A story I select might be pulled right out of my hands and replaced with one that she prefers. Early on, she was primarily interested in the sound of a book - she liked things that rhymed, and was just as happy to have a story recited without the book present. Now she is very involved in the pictures. She most prefers books with photos, animals, or babies. Music has become much more important to her, as well - she'll actually bring me the stereo remote and request that I play some music. (Not in so many words, of course. She says "Mo?", which is her word for "remote," and points at the stereo.) She applauds the opening notes of her favorite songs and "dances" with arm waves and a sort of bobbing wiggle. Alex's #1 hit: The Beatles, "I saw her standing there." We don't know why. She doesn't sing, but sometimes enjoys shaking a bell or a rattle to music.
She's started to imitate us more, and to really enjoy role reversals like combing my hair or washing my face. She tries to put on her own clothes, without the faintest idea of how to go about it - she'll wave an item of clothing at her foot, or pull it past her head so that it winds up wrapped around her neck. There is no guarantee whatsoever that pants will get the first treatment and shirts the second. She wants to drink from a full glass of water, not a sippy cup. She does a passably good job of feeding herself with a spoon, if I hand her a spoonful of food - she can't really scoop it up from the bowl. She's started to be a lot more interested in opening the kitchen cabinets and taking out pots and pans, or packages of food. The stove knobs and dishwasher buttons have also become more attractive.
She walks everywhere now, and even tries to run. She can do it all: sudden stops and starts, direction changes, even a little bit of walking backwards. She's constantly on the move, so much so that she's lost interest in her toys. A couple of months ago, she was all about intense focus on manipulating small objects. Now she's all about trotting back and forth. Instead of obsessively emptying bookshelves and clothing bins, she's more likely to pick out one book or one shirt and carry it to another part of the house. She likes to carry around small toys, especially her alphabet magnets and crayons. She still likes to put things in other things and take them out again. The shape sorter and her shapes puzzle are popular right now, but I can also get a lot of mileage out of filling the camera bag with small toys and household items and giving it to her to explore.
Her absolutely favorite game is chasing and being chased. We spend a lot of time chasing each other around the gold rocking chair, with much hiding, peeking out, reversing direction, saying "Boo!,"and laughing hysterically. She especially likes being caught, so much so that her response to "heeeeere comes Mama!" is often to turn around and head straight for me. She also adores making playful eye contact - say, when she's under the end table and I peek over the arm of the couch, or when we're ducking and hiding by the rocking chair and suddenly catch sight of each other.
She's developed a real interest in the natural world. As we walk down the street, we progress from planter to planter. She points at the flowers, exclaims, touches them gently, and then leans forward to point out the next carefully-tended patch of pansies. Or she swivels to point up the sidewalk: "Bird! Bird!" At the park, she can spend a happy hour picking grass and dandelions, exploring dead leaves and sticks, and watching for birds. Dogs send her into paroxysms of delight. Surprisingly, she never, ever mistreats them in her excitement. I've never seen her pull a dog's hair, pet too hard, or grab at its face. When her reaching fingers get a little too pointy, a simple "gentle, Alex" instantly flattens her hand into a soft stroke. (Interestingly enough, she's started using the same petting stroke on other kids.)
She's beginning to show the typical toddler emotions. She sometimes objects to being corralled or handled - say, to have her shoes put on or her hair combed. She cries if her will is thwarted - either by one of us refusing her something she wants, or by her own inability to accomplish some task. I've found an approach to this that I'm satisfied with, for now: I consider whether she can have what she wants after all, and if she can't, I remain firm, acknowledge her feelings, and comfort her. (For example: "No, the sharp knife is not for babies." (Hug the crying baby.) "It's so sad when you can't play with something you want. That is sad. How about if we read a story?") I think it's![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
boxofdelights who passed on the useful formulation, "You can't always have what you want, but you can always have a hug." I keep that one in mind a lot.
She's almost entirely switched from baby food to table food. We still use some of the baby fruits for variety, because it's nice to have a whole range of nonperishable organic fruit at our fingertips, and she still eats baby oatmeal every morning. But mostly she eats normal foods: fruits of every description, vegetables, cheese, whole wheat bread, scrambled eggs, yogurt, ham, beans, Cheerios, ravioli with tomato sauce, mashed potatoes, felafel. At her Poppy's birthday party last weekend, she ate pulled pork barbeque, baked beans, and part of a Wonder bread roll. (I know, I know, Wonder bread. But it's canonical with barbeque, and it's important that the child be raised right.) I need to get better at saving some of our dinner for her; because we eat after she goes to bed, usually I wind up preparing some kind of separate dinner for her. At this point, she should be able to at least taste almost everything we eat. (Except the shellfish.)
I am almost afraid to write about her sleeping habits, because I might jinx myself. But here it is: not only does she sleep through the night and take a 1.5- to 2.5-hour nap, but for the last few weeks she's been willing to go to sleep without a parent in the room soothing her. I give her a bedtime bottle, rock her for a while as her lullabye CD plays, and then put her in the crib and leave the room. She sometimes calls out or whimpers briefly, but there's almost never any crying. She just puts herself to sleep. And! All week, she's been sleeping until 7:30 or 8am. At first I thought she was recovering from our weekend away, but it's been four days in a row now. If this becomes a regular habit, do you have any idea how much it will change my life?
Ironically, now that I am feeling pretty comfortable as a mother and pretty confident in my parenting instincts, I've finally gotten a good support system put together. Before, it was pretty much my mother and my Friends list - all of whom were far away. Now I have a group of local friends with kids Alex's age, including one woman whom I hang out with weekly and several more whom I visit with at least every other week. I know more of the families with young kids at church, and have them to lean on for advice and support. I really wish I'd had this kind of network from the start! Now I feel like I need it much less, although of course I still enjoy it quite a bit.
She loves to label things. Her stubby index finger is always pointing something out. When she knows a word, she applies it vigorously, repeatedly, delightedly. For example, going down the jetway to a Continental airlines flight, every single instance of their globe logo was met with a jubilant "Ball!" She points to pictures and names them, sometimes: the birds in I am a bunny, the cup and the balloon in My very first look at colors. She can often, but not always, point out a picture of a familiar object when asked. New words since I posted about her vocabulary two weeks ago: duck, book, car, keys, socks, shoes, cheese, peas, slide, again, crayon, remote, blue (applied to any dark color, as far as I can tell), lalala (denotes the book Moo, Baa, Lalala). She is absolutely in love with the ability to communicate - you can just see in her face how happy she is when we show that we understand what she's talking about. Even her babbling has become more conversational in tone. Instead of long, lilting strings of syllables, or repeated entertaining combinations of sounds ("fwa fwa fwa!"), her intonations, pitch, and rhythm match conversational English... except that they're completely unintelligible.
She still loves her books with a passion. She's started to be very demanding about being read to, and will actually cry if, for example, I'm on the phone when she wants me to read her a story. She's much more opinionated about books. A story I select might be pulled right out of my hands and replaced with one that she prefers. Early on, she was primarily interested in the sound of a book - she liked things that rhymed, and was just as happy to have a story recited without the book present. Now she is very involved in the pictures. She most prefers books with photos, animals, or babies. Music has become much more important to her, as well - she'll actually bring me the stereo remote and request that I play some music. (Not in so many words, of course. She says "Mo?", which is her word for "remote," and points at the stereo.) She applauds the opening notes of her favorite songs and "dances" with arm waves and a sort of bobbing wiggle. Alex's #1 hit: The Beatles, "I saw her standing there." We don't know why. She doesn't sing, but sometimes enjoys shaking a bell or a rattle to music.
She's started to imitate us more, and to really enjoy role reversals like combing my hair or washing my face. She tries to put on her own clothes, without the faintest idea of how to go about it - she'll wave an item of clothing at her foot, or pull it past her head so that it winds up wrapped around her neck. There is no guarantee whatsoever that pants will get the first treatment and shirts the second. She wants to drink from a full glass of water, not a sippy cup. She does a passably good job of feeding herself with a spoon, if I hand her a spoonful of food - she can't really scoop it up from the bowl. She's started to be a lot more interested in opening the kitchen cabinets and taking out pots and pans, or packages of food. The stove knobs and dishwasher buttons have also become more attractive.
She walks everywhere now, and even tries to run. She can do it all: sudden stops and starts, direction changes, even a little bit of walking backwards. She's constantly on the move, so much so that she's lost interest in her toys. A couple of months ago, she was all about intense focus on manipulating small objects. Now she's all about trotting back and forth. Instead of obsessively emptying bookshelves and clothing bins, she's more likely to pick out one book or one shirt and carry it to another part of the house. She likes to carry around small toys, especially her alphabet magnets and crayons. She still likes to put things in other things and take them out again. The shape sorter and her shapes puzzle are popular right now, but I can also get a lot of mileage out of filling the camera bag with small toys and household items and giving it to her to explore.
Her absolutely favorite game is chasing and being chased. We spend a lot of time chasing each other around the gold rocking chair, with much hiding, peeking out, reversing direction, saying "Boo!,"and laughing hysterically. She especially likes being caught, so much so that her response to "heeeeere comes Mama!" is often to turn around and head straight for me. She also adores making playful eye contact - say, when she's under the end table and I peek over the arm of the couch, or when we're ducking and hiding by the rocking chair and suddenly catch sight of each other.
She's developed a real interest in the natural world. As we walk down the street, we progress from planter to planter. She points at the flowers, exclaims, touches them gently, and then leans forward to point out the next carefully-tended patch of pansies. Or she swivels to point up the sidewalk: "Bird! Bird!" At the park, she can spend a happy hour picking grass and dandelions, exploring dead leaves and sticks, and watching for birds. Dogs send her into paroxysms of delight. Surprisingly, she never, ever mistreats them in her excitement. I've never seen her pull a dog's hair, pet too hard, or grab at its face. When her reaching fingers get a little too pointy, a simple "gentle, Alex" instantly flattens her hand into a soft stroke. (Interestingly enough, she's started using the same petting stroke on other kids.)
She's beginning to show the typical toddler emotions. She sometimes objects to being corralled or handled - say, to have her shoes put on or her hair combed. She cries if her will is thwarted - either by one of us refusing her something she wants, or by her own inability to accomplish some task. I've found an approach to this that I'm satisfied with, for now: I consider whether she can have what she wants after all, and if she can't, I remain firm, acknowledge her feelings, and comfort her. (For example: "No, the sharp knife is not for babies." (Hug the crying baby.) "It's so sad when you can't play with something you want. That is sad. How about if we read a story?") I think it's
boxofdelights who passed on the useful formulation, "You can't always have what you want, but you can always have a hug." I keep that one in mind a lot.She's almost entirely switched from baby food to table food. We still use some of the baby fruits for variety, because it's nice to have a whole range of nonperishable organic fruit at our fingertips, and she still eats baby oatmeal every morning. But mostly she eats normal foods: fruits of every description, vegetables, cheese, whole wheat bread, scrambled eggs, yogurt, ham, beans, Cheerios, ravioli with tomato sauce, mashed potatoes, felafel. At her Poppy's birthday party last weekend, she ate pulled pork barbeque, baked beans, and part of a Wonder bread roll. (I know, I know, Wonder bread. But it's canonical with barbeque, and it's important that the child be raised right.) I need to get better at saving some of our dinner for her; because we eat after she goes to bed, usually I wind up preparing some kind of separate dinner for her. At this point, she should be able to at least taste almost everything we eat. (Except the shellfish.)
I am almost afraid to write about her sleeping habits, because I might jinx myself. But here it is: not only does she sleep through the night and take a 1.5- to 2.5-hour nap, but for the last few weeks she's been willing to go to sleep without a parent in the room soothing her. I give her a bedtime bottle, rock her for a while as her lullabye CD plays, and then put her in the crib and leave the room. She sometimes calls out or whimpers briefly, but there's almost never any crying. She just puts herself to sleep. And! All week, she's been sleeping until 7:30 or 8am. At first I thought she was recovering from our weekend away, but it's been four days in a row now. If this becomes a regular habit, do you have any idea how much it will change my life?
Ironically, now that I am feeling pretty comfortable as a mother and pretty confident in my parenting instincts, I've finally gotten a good support system put together. Before, it was pretty much my mother and my Friends list - all of whom were far away. Now I have a group of local friends with kids Alex's age, including one woman whom I hang out with weekly and several more whom I visit with at least every other week. I know more of the families with young kids at church, and have them to lean on for advice and support. I really wish I'd had this kind of network from the start! Now I feel like I need it much less, although of course I still enjoy it quite a bit.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-11 09:11 pm (UTC)Handy toddler trick: Once they start getting fussy about dressing, *put them to bed dressed*. Most toddler clothes are very pajama-like anyway. A toddler who goes to bed in clean sweats and underwear is a toddler who can't argue about anything except shoes in the morning, when you're rushing. Saves a lot of wear and tear all around.
Of course, my high-school girl *still* thinks this is the optimal strategy... whatever works.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-11 09:17 pm (UTC)This made me laugh out loud.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-11 09:17 pm (UTC)But that is a good idea!
(And yes, she is lovely. Thank you.)
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Date: 2006-05-11 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-11 09:28 pm (UTC)I hadn't realized it was canonical with barbeque, but that explains why the really good hole-in-the-wall barbeque place near where I used to live gave a slice or two of Wonder bread (or something similar) with every order. I could never figure out why, since the food was so good and the bread was so lousy. I mean, it wasn't even toasted.
I speculated that it was like the bread at medieval banquets, that was intended more for wiping one's fingers than for eating, but that sounded unlikely.
But it's just one of those traditional things?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-11 09:48 pm (UTC)Why? Because it involved a little boy finding a statue of a woman holding a vase in the field next to his parents' farm(?) when he went over with a pie to welcome the new neighbor. The book is a very cool story about how the neighbor teaches the kid about having fun with art. (ie, playing with clay, making and painting flowers cut out of tin)
It's lovely to hear about Alex growing up. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 01:23 am (UTC)Well, if anyone was in any doubt about the child's brilliance... :-)
I love reading these updates. Even though I've never met Alex I grin like an idiot the entire time I'm reading. It's just so frigging *cool* to hear about how she's changing.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 12:53 pm (UTC)Before the invention of Wonder bread, the canonical starch was saltine crackers. So there has been some progress. (And if I ever found a BBQ place with non-Wonder bread, I'd turn around and leave.)
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Date: 2006-05-12 02:05 pm (UTC)-J
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Date: 2006-05-13 05:01 am (UTC)We taught Agent Weasel "gentle" by taking her hand and stroking it gently along the cat's side or back.
The first day she went to Kohanga Reo I noticed she was being a bit rough turning the pages of a book so I said "Be gentle with the book, sweetie." She closed the book and stroked the cover.