14 months: State of the Alex.

[rivka]

She's suddenly seeming so grown-up to me.

Okay, not like an actual grown-up, no. But she's left babyhood far behind, and it happened so fast.

She said her first two-word phrases today. "Let's put Mama's shoes away now," I told her. "Bye, shoes," she agreed. (And waved, of course.)

And then, just before bedtime this evening, as were reading stories in the living room, she pointed up the stairs. "See stars," she suggested. It's one of the phrases I've used to make the transition upstairs, at bedtime: "Alex, shall we go up and see your stars?"[1] But this was totally spontaneous.

She's also starting to show signs of sequential reasoning. Saturday morning, she stretched up on her tiptoes so that she could reach her highest clothing bin, and pulled out a pair of socks. She brought them over to me, exclaiming "Socks! Socks!", and didn't rest until I actually put them on her feet. (She physically opens my hand to put things in it, if I don't reach out and take them.) I thought about the problems that arise when a sock-footed toddler meets a hardwood floor, and put her shoes on. She then immediately headed for the door. "Bye!" she said, waving at me. And then, pointing at my sandals: "Shoes. Shoes. Bye!"

Clearly, she's picked up on the fact that we both need to put on our shoes before we go outside. (She ought to have, given the number of times I've explained it while she pulled at the doorknob and whined.) I thought it was a pretty clever combination of reasoning and manipulation. What else could I do? I took her outside and we walked up and down the sidewalk for a while.

Demonstrable episodic memory, another new phenomenon: That Saturday morning, as we walked up and down the sidewalk, a neighbor's dog came up to the gate and barked at her. For the rest of the weekend, each time we passed the gate, Alex remarked, "Dog." It was the first I'd ever seen her use a word to reference something that happened previously.

Now that I'm working Fridays, we've started going to the Saturday morning story hour at the library. This one is for ages 0-3, and in fact Alex is one of the youngest children there. I think being around older kids is encouraging her to model more sophisticated behaviors. For example: last Saturday they distributed jingle bells, which the kids used for a couple of songs. (We did the same thing in the Friday morning babies' group.) Afterward, when the librarian began to sing "Bells away, bells away..." Alex immediately said, "Away." Then she trotted up to the front of the room and dropped her bells into the basket. She never did that in the baby group - but then, neither did the other babies and young toddlers. The preschoolers are much more compliant.

There's starting to be a nice dynamic between Alex and older kids, actually. Playtime with other toddlers is always such a powder keg situation - it can erupt into toy-stealing, hair-pulling, tantruming tragedy in seconds flat. But she's had several very pleasant interludes with preschool- and kindergarten-age children at the library. "You can play," a little boy encouraged her today as she was hovering near the blocks he was using. They handed blocks back and forth to each other for a few minutes - Alex was thrilled. She shared the blocks so much better than I think she would with her playgroup friends. I think she would probably really like more mixed-age experiences, but I'm not sure how to arrange them. Maybe when the new neighborhood playground opens up.

Lest this all make her sound like some kind of angelic wonder, I hasten to add: oh my God the tantrums. What a little drama queen. First she throws her head back and howls. Then she lets it bend slowly forward as she cries, as if the weight of her sorrows is too much for her little shoulders to bear. She rolls forward in dramatic slow motion until her forehead actually touches the floor between her spread-apart legs. What might this be about? Oh... maybe I've told her that we aren't going to watch Blue's Clues right now.

She's developing a sense of humor. Sometimes this is good - she's starting to get my jokes and enjoy silly games. Sometimes it's bad, as with her current fascination with deliberately dropping food from her highchair tray. (She thinks my reaction is hilarious, pretty much no matter how I react.) She's definitely into the "I'm going to test you - let's see what happens" stage of toddlerhood.

She needs an awful lot more entertainment than she used to. She still can play by herself for long stretches of time, but for the most part, she wants to get out of the house and go do something. If we don't stay on the move, she gets cranky.

Toddler parenting is really, really exhausting. I was spoiled by the low-maintenance ater baby months! But she's also so charming and fun, and I have so much of a sense of wonder about her unfolding development. The balance is still so very good.



[1] Have I even mentioned how her bedtime goes, these days? I think I've been afraid to jinx myself. But for a couple of months, now, after her bath we read stories for a while and then go up to her room. We turn on the stars and the lullabye CD, and rock in the glider while she drinks her bedtime bottle. We say goodnight to the stars. And then I tell her I love her, kiss her, put her in her crib, say goodnight, and leave the room. She talks amiably to herself for a few minutes, maybe, but she goes to sleep completely on her own. It's actually kind of spooky.

Comments

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

It's amazing when they go from baby to child, isn't it? David's five and I'm still occasionally amazed. Congratulations on your new toddler. :)

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

She is such a cutie! :)

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

My gawd, the dimples. D'aw.

(I'm sorry she's a drama queen, but the description made me giggle.)

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

I love your description of the head bowed under her sorrows - E has stopped doing that, because now screaming is accompanied by much thrashing about. But I used to crack up when she'd start screaming and put her head on the floor between her legs. Downward Dog became short-hand for "uh-oh, she's really upset."

But yeah, my little girl is a *girl*. Definitely not a baby.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Alex has some of the thrashing tantrums too, where I literally have to restrain her for her own safety. The scariest is when they happen in the bathtub.

Alex and E don't look anywhere near as similar as they did when they were babies, do they?

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Oh, in some pictures I think they do. Maybe it's all the hair.

We haven't had any tantrums in the tub yet - she just won't sit down and insists on standing. I'm sure she's going to slip and bonk her head.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Okay, with this EK userpic the similarity is more clear. But it looks to me like EK's hair is getting browner, and Alex's is lightening up a lot and becoming more strawberry blond. Alex's face is also pretty square, and I think that EK is going to have a longer face, like yours.

I really hope that, once you guys are living on the East Coast, we'll be able to get together with our girls.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

we'll be able to get together with our girls.

Ab-so-lutely!!!

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

You should have seen it this morning, when she had one on the sidewalk down by the Washington Monument. I can handle the thrashing and the back-arching backwards fling when she's on the rug, but on a concrete sidewalk? Not so much. I wound up carrying her home -- every time I'd put her down to walk, she'd pick up where she left off earlier. We had a nice bottle when we got in the house, and that made things ever so much better.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh my God. Poor darling! (Mostly you, but I guess I also mean her.)

Do you think that she was just tired? Or are we looking at a probable case of demon possession?

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I think I had asked her to do a little more walking than she was really ready for. We walked all the way down to Monument Street, over to the park, walked around there for a while, and then she'd gone over to play in the tree box in front of the Severn Apartments. I think she'd gotten kind of tie-tie, and didn't know just what to do about it.

If I'd had something to distract her when I decided it was time to move along, that would have been better; instead, I was stuck with just what I had in my pockets. I just got overly ambitious about the "going walkabout" project.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I think she'd gotten kind of tie-tie, and didn't know just what to do about it.

Yeah, I know what you mean. She hasn't got much in the way of emotional or communication resources for situations like that, yet. I try to keep that in mind, with her tantrums - it's not that she's trying to be awful, it's just that, at her age, her feelings completely overwhelm her and her coping skills are pretty much nil.

We're still learning.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

We had a nice bottle when we got in the house, and that made things ever so much better.

Both of you? I can see how that helped!

(Please feel free to make scary faces in my general direction. That was pretty bad.)

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I so want to meet her.

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

how in the WORLD did she get so big?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I HAVE NO IDEA.

Although, actually, she eats like a horse. The occasional days in which she picks at her food like a normal toddler really stand out. I think we've been in growth spurt territory lately, because she looks impossibly tall, but kind of on the skinny side when we strip her down.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Wow! She is growing, all right. Incredible.

Sarah has tantrums, too. And she gets upset and cries, which is heart-wrenching. But what really makes me ache is when she cries while trying so hard not to cry -- that really melts me down, and I'm pretty sure it's sincere (particularly as she doesn't do it often!).

[aet.livejournal.com]

"I think being around older kids is encouraging her to model more sophisticated behaviors."

I have noticed this about toddlers and pre-school age children, too. That they sometimes learn more from the older children than from adults.

It sometimes feels like the child is thinking: "An adult human = different species, just like one cannot copy a bird flying, no use to try to be like an adult. Another child, though, means the skills seen can be mastered."

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Yes. I noticed that with Z, and with younger kids with him.

The way we age-segregate kids is very unnatural, and I don't think good for them. Extending this, I think those old schoolrooms with all the village kids of every age in them were probably healthier socially for teenagers than modern highschools.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

There's a small private school in Baltimore that takes children from kindergarten to eighth grade - so, roughly, 5-13 years old. They have both formal and informal age-mixing built into their curriculum, including academic projects where young children and young teenagers are paired to work together.

I have my eye on that plcae for Alex.

[ailbhe]

*salivates with envy*

THIS - the age-mixing - was the first thing I noticed that was wrong with the way my school system worked. I was six. And it's still a major reason we want to home-educate; home-ed groups mix regardless of age, sex, other arbitrary divisions - I'm just sure it's healthier.

That, and in a group all her own age +/-6m, Linnea is the one the others are copying; if she copies them, it's like today, when she went non-verbal on me because her playmate doesn't speak coherently. Very frustrating. It wore off after a few hours.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The Greenmount School (http://www.greenmountschool.org/).

Ohh

[tendyl.livejournal.com]

Now I'm interested in this place. That sounds wonderful!

[selki.livejournal.com]

Oh, very cool.

[aloha-moira.livejournal.com]

I just love reading these. The sense of awe and absolute adoration you have for Alex is wonderful and it comes through so clearly. :)

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

I have so much of a sense of wonder about her unfolding development

It really comes out well in your writing about it and I enjoy these updates.

[ailbhe]

Aww :)

This is the stage at which people told me Linnea was "getting to be like a real person, isn't she?"

The tantrums sound kind of cute. Linnea never did them like that - it was purple-faced uncontrolled devestation, or nothing.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Alex has those too.

[ailbhe]

I have quilts downstairs *specifically* for putting her on to throw them. We've never had one in the bath, though - how on *earth* do you manage that? I can't pick Linnea up when she's mid-tantrum any more. (Though it's been a while since we had one, touch wood, cross fingers, etc).

[rivka.livejournal.com]

We've never had one in the bath, though - how on *earth* do you manage that?

I got very, very wet. ;-)

I bent way over the tub and wrapped her upper body in my arms so she couldn't hit her head or go underwater. Needless to say, that didn't go over very well. I also tried taking her out of the tub and letting her cool off standing naked on the bathroom floor. Eventually I gave up on washing her at all.

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

These updates always make me grin like an idiot.

The transformation from baby to child is always wondrous.

As for hanging out with older children, you might want to investigate Montessori programmes in your area - they often start with toddlers, and part of the philosophy is children at various levels interacting and teaching each other. Some are available for part-time (i.e a couple of mornings a week) for toddlers. She may not be ready now, but she might by September.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I do want to send her to Montessori preschool, but probably a year from September. This fall she'll be 18 months old, which, around here, is old enough for a "Mommy and me" introduction to Montessori materials but not old enough for the Children's House. I think she'll probably be old enough by the time she's 2 1/2, though.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I forget when this happened, but one day, while talking to my sister (who had just come home from visiting our brother & his family), wailed that my oldest nephew "wasn't a baby any more, he's become a little boy!!

The aforementioned little boy is now 13, taller than some of my adult friends, and looks like a nice little thug.

[aet.livejournal.com]

This reminds me how at some stage I started to feel panicky while out with the kids - I did the head count obsessively and it came out right, yet I felt someone was missing!

Well, eventually I figured it out - there was no baby among the children any more and, the correct headcount notwithstanding, I succumbed to the panic of: "Where is the baby! The baby is missing!" quite regularly for couple of months.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

What a beautiful post! Thank you.

I have boys that are turning into men. It is the same type of wonder and admiration, with a smattering of "wow, I did a really good job!"

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

Wow, she is growing up! Wasn't she just born last week?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

YES! She totally was!

Great, warm post!

[(Anonymous)]

I loved the photo, she is so happy, I can tell how much personality she has! Thanks for sharing all the fun facts about Alex.

Social skill development is fascinating. Consistent, quality play skills with children her own age is a later-developing social skill. First, she will prefer the more rational and helpful social interaction with adults, and older children, because there is less stress...older "playmates" are fair and caring...more compliant, as you say. (Some toddlers also love to "mother" tiny children and pets at this age- another loving but unequal social option. Later, as she matures, Alex will not only continue to enjoy playing with all ages, including her own, she will become more adept at the sometimes difficut, give-and-take of interacting with those at her own developmental level. Keep an eye out for all this...it is pretty cool stuff!

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

It's impossible to be that cute! The structure of the universe just won't take it (in fact I think I noticed some damage earlier today).

As for bedtime...I have nothing to say but mazel tov.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention, but that's a great photo. She seems to look just enchanted with what's going on, and also looks good in green --if I'm any judge of things (but you should see how I dress sometimes. There's no wonder that my mother used to say that I looked like a refugee from a fish factory!

arghh! the cuuuuteness!

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

She's so, so, adorabobble from the pictures and the descriptions!

I'm hoping you'll be at Capclave this coming year? Please? I'd love to see/visit/care for her (should that be possible). And then there's the possibility of Mandalay Cafe (tempt/tempt).

Do ping me with the various age-appropriate books she has as we get towards meet-up time. I'd like to contribute to her library.

Oh, and jonsinger concurs (both with the books and Mandalay Cafe!)

Re: arghh! the cuuuuteness!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I think we probably won't do Capclave. It didn't strike me as a very kid-friendly hotel, and she's a lot less satisfied than she was last year with just sitting on a blanket and playing quietly with small toys. I think those two things would be a bad combination.

I'd love to see you guys, though, any time. Maybe we could come down and go to a park (or something), and then Mandalay. (I do not threaten to inflict her on your house.) Or you could come up here.

In fact, we have some friends in Laurel that we think would enjoy knowing you, and vice versa. One of them is currently occupied with building a space tugboat, and it just seems like a shame that she doesn't know Jon. We could try to arrange a Group Thingy. With Mandalay involved, of course.

Re: arghh! the cuuuuteness!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Most of my friends aren't going to Capclave this year. WSFA had quite an implosion that has, temporarily at least, unsettled a lot of the members. I'm thinking of selling my membership.

I'd love to see all of you when you come down, if it works out. I can't walk in parks, but I can eat at Mandalay.

Re: arghh! the cuuuuteness!

[tavella.livejournal.com]

What was the implosion over? I attended a few WSFA meetings back in the day.

Re: arghh! the cuuuuteness!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

You can get it all in writing by using the links in this post from Keith Lynch:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/msg/009bf02c3802bc08?hl=en&

(BTW, I did find errors in Future Washington which I listed for him since he insisted I wouldn't find any.)

Re: arghh! the cuuuuteness!

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

Mandalay _must_ be involved. In anything. Unless, it involves the wonderful Indian restaurant in Laurel. They use _different_ masalas for palak paneer and palak chicken. MMMM.

I'd be happy to have Alex and y'all in my house, but it is highly infested with cat. Partly that I didn't heat the place much this winter, thus the cat had a mightily plushy coat (to be shed when things got warm) and also said feline is so incredibly social that I don't think you could fend her off. With time, like a week, other than that I could houseproof the downstairs for Alex just fine.

In addition, down in this neck of the woods is a fine dim sum place that includes all the wonderful trad stuff (har gow, shu mai, etc.) and tops it all with some tromp l'oeil carrots (pastry shaped into small carrot shapes, colored orange, cream filled, with a parsley tuft on top). Oh, and taro hockey-pucks, and pears like the carrots.

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

Look at that LITTLE GIRL!!!

[lcohen]

september doesn't seem all that long ago, but my goodness, the baby has completely disappeared.

that's such a wonderful picture of her!