24, 25, 26 months and beyond
Goals:
Pacifier weaned and potty trained by November.
Pacifier weaning has taken a leap forward thanks to the pilot program “Pacifiers for Pingu” wherein no sucking is allowed while the tv is on. So far, so good. Honestly, I’d be fine if I could get her down to just sleep use.
Potty Training – started off well, fizzled out. I need to get that back in gear though I imagine turning her crib into a bed will be part of it. That and taking several changes of clothes everywhere.
Other than that… dental appointment checked out. All teeth accounted for, no cavities, no plaque. Not bad considering that we’re pretty lax on the tooth brushing and mostly let her do it herself.
Months 20 and 21
So I’m a little behind. Now that I work 4 days a week, I don’t usually get a chance even to check email before Evelyn goes to bed (which has been pushed back to 7:30 because she was getting too tired waiting for 8).
Here’s what’s been going on.
Evelyn rather abruptly decided to start potty training one day back in January. She put her seat on the toilet, hopped up, peed, flushed, and that was that. She asked to do it four more times that day without incident. I went and bought her underwear thinking this was going to be a breeze. Then she figured out that she could get a free hand-washing out of it. She loves doing “hands” or as it’s now known, H-A-N-D-S. They’ve had trouble with her at daycare about it because she never wants to stop. So now every time she says “tee-tee!” and goes to pat the bathroom door, she does a cursory sitdown then immediately jumps up and flushes before dragging her stool over to the sink… where she then usually pees on the stool while washing her hands.
I’ve given up on pacifier weaning for the moment. Life is too miserable without them since they are the only tantrum-defuser we have.
Evelyn is starting to have little sentences. Nothing big, just things like “no sleepy!” as she puts her head down and starts fake snoring. She knows most body parts now. She likes to sing “No my, no my ABCs!” over and over (and over).
I have no idea how tall she is or how much she weighs, but I should probably check both of those things.
Christmas
Yes, Christmas. Let’s pretend we’re not closing in on the end of January.
For the first time in my life, I did not go to Mississippi at all for the holidays. It was a bit sad, mostly because I missed out on seeing relatives and getting a break from the Gloom. My mom and brother came to us though, and we had a good time.
Santa was good to Evelyn even though Evelyn was scared probably because we were acting all hyper-enthused which is how we act when she’s about to have to do something she doesn’t want to do. She didn’t want to go in the living room until I picked her up and took her in, and then she didn’t want to get down until she saw the laptop.
Out of her toy haul, two items have since been confiscated for causing too much consternation. Her OLPC laptop and the stroller are stowed in the office until she’s older. She can’t make the laptop do… whatever so she was having tantrums. She thought the stroller was her own personal wheelchair and spent a lot of time sitting in it. We had some fun pushing her up and down the hall as fast as possible, but then she started trying to stand in the seat and that was the end of the stroller.
She got a lot of things from grandparents and other relatives so we are up to our ears in toys.
(Almost) 19 month stats
I finally made Evelyn’s doctor appointment. She is doing fine. No concerns about weight or anything else. She is currently almost 25 lbs. which puts her slightly above the 50th percentile for weight and 33.5″ tall which means she remains in the 90th percentile for height. She cried during the shots but calmed down pretty quickly. I hope she doesn’t have much of a reaction this time.
A world without pacifiers
I know that posting this will instantly negate it, but whatever. This afternoon I accidentally put Evelyn down for a nap without her pacifier, and she didn’t notice at all. After I realized that, we decided to experiment with putting her to bed without one and so far so good. She stayed up and talked to herself and kicked the wall, but that’s pretty normal. As of right now, she is asleep. I’m going to round up all of them tonight and hide them so that she doesn’t accidentally find one and suddenly remember. We’ll see if this is permanent.
Edit: Last night went fine. She was up at 6, but she’s been doing that for a couple of weeks. Naptime today is not going so well but not sure why.
18 Months
While we still refer to Evelyn as “the baby”, she’s not much of a baby anymore. Every day she does something new to remind us that she is rapidly evolving into a little girl.
For example, she can now tell time. Every night around 6 pm, she goes to the bathroom door and pats it saying “baaaa-KUH?” She will not leave until she has had a bath.
She knows what she wants to eat and asks for it by name now. “Appo? Gucca? Bacon? Ehs?” Her favorite thing to eat is sauerkraut which is as horrible going in as it is coming out. We’ve had to start rationing it because she will eat 3 or 4 bowlsful if we refill it every time she asks for “mo”.
I’m surprised at how much she understands. We were in the bedroom the other day where one of the plants was relocated in the attempt to spare it. I was pointing out the brown leaves and told her it needed more water. She gets up and goes to the kitchen and points at the sink until we give her some water which she then takes back to the bedroom (after pitching a fit when she found the door closed) and then tries to water the plant (she missed).
I haven’t made her vaccination appointment yet because everyone has been sick off and on for the past couple of months and we’re in a lull right now. It took her a full month to get back to normal last time so I’ve been dragging my feet. I need to get some boosters and a flu shot myself.
Unwell
Evelyn spent most of last night vomiting due to unknown causes (new sausage is a suspect though). We went through every set of sheets and pajamas that she owns. All of the stuffed animals ended up in the wash whether they were supposed to be there or not. Quatchi now has a new hairdo thanks to the dryer.
She was doing better today so hopefully she will be back on regular food tomorrow after eating nothing but crackers and apple juice all day.
She has learned a couple of new things. We like to ask her what her name is. Sometimes she’ll say “Aggan!”, but apparently she also responds to “Doy Doy” and “Ming”. I’m not sure where she picked those up.
She’s also got a firm grasp of “hot!”. I tried to give her a tuna melt the other day, and she told me “No. Hah.” Then earlier today, she kept saying “Hah!” while bouncing on the kitchen heater. Apparently she figured out how to turn it on. I’m not sure how to childproof it since it’s just a knob.
17 months
Evelyn changes more slowly now such that I don’t always have anything to report at the month mark.
How about a vocabulary update? No real sentences yet (like me), but at least she has a pretty wide vocabulary (unlike Josh who didn’t talk until he was two).
Hello, hi, hey, heggo! (here you go), baaaach? (bath), bocka (block), appo (apple), gucka (cracker), haaaaaaam?, bayguh (bagel), nana (banana), bockli (broccoli), ticken (chicken), cheethe (cheese), bye, ba-ba (milk), wa-wa (water), mama (that’s me!), papa, home, go, shoooo, shirt, sack, sick (sock), doh bi (don’t bite), tackoo (thank you), she-she (computer, was supposed to be Sa-Sa but due to iChat, she’s gotten confused), *loud screaming* (something is displeasing me greatly, please fix it),
and of course… NO!
We can have little conversations with her which makes life much easier at least for simple things like food and drink.
“Do you want an banana?”
“No.”
“Do you want a bagel?”
“No.”
“Do you want an apple?”
“Appo!”
Etc.
Sometimes she has something to say and wants the whole world to hear it. Like the other day when she went out on the (now completely empty) balcony and let the entire downtown core know that biting is not nice. I could hear it echoing off of the other buildings.
She continues to enjoy daycare now that the fighting is under control. Thanks to mastering spit-takes, she usually comes home in a different outfit from the one she left home in.
Now that we’ve cleared out a good bit of space, I’m trying to find a little slide/climbing thing for her to have indoors for when the weather gets bad. I’m sure something will turn up on Craigslist.
Rearranging
In a small apartment, keeping the clutter down is necessary to keep the sanity up. Evelyn does a good job of showing us which items we can get rid of because they’re too dangerous, great for climbing, or she no longer requires them. First on the auction block is her purple stroller which I love and hate to be rid of, but we could use the storage space. Next up, we’re getting rid of our table and chairs. After that, I may see about pawning our high chair off on friends because even though it’s cheap and easy to replace right now, I’m afraid IKEA will stop making it before we might need it again.
I went through some of my old stuff to see if I could pull together a donation pile. Evelyn likes one of my old purses so I let her have it instead. She likes to put it on her shoulder, put MY shoes on, and say “bye-bye!”. Because that’s what you do when you put on a purse.
