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

[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.)