Disciplining a toddler

Kaylee is getting good at following one-step commands. She can respond to a request to “help look for your shoes” and “pick something up.” She cannot yet follow two step commands and gets lost. You could try, “Pick it up and put it on the table” but it would be better to just point to the item and say, “put it on the table” and it just may get done! J

She often says “Keep up” when picking up things, but I figured out that she is trying to say “clean up” since she’s always stacking and organizing things when she’s doing it. We sing the clean-up song together whenever we pick up. It’s a song we learned from our niece.

“Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up,
Clean up, Clean up, everybody, everywhere.
Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up
Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share.”

Simple but effective. She remembers it and participates as someone her age is able (minimally). She does want to be part of everything so much though. I work to involve her in even boring things like emptying the dishwasher or doing the laundry. She likes to help put away the silverware and the washcloths. It’s cute to see her enjoy helping out. She is scared of our Room-ba (vacuum) and wants up in our arms if that’s going. When it goes back to it’s base, she watches with a wary eye and then says “Nite, nite, room –room.”

She loves to push buttons (no not just my buttons). She loves to help put up the garage door opener and to turn off light switches when we leave the room.

Life is certainly different with a toddler. You are “on” all the time, chasing them, following them with your eye, to make sure they’re not getting themselves into trouble. They don’t quite have sense yet. She’s finally stopped falling down so much so that’s a good thing. Also along with the toddler comes the striving for independence …which comes with the tantrums, fits and the need for discipline. Recently I’ve felt the need to lay down the rules for Kaylee and not accept certain behavior. Those changes have in general been:
1) No bottle or snacks before dinner. And voila, SHE DOES EAT!
2) No dawdling, or one minute warning, before leaving daycare. (cute note about leaving daycare yesterday. I said, "Kaylee do you want some water?" and she said "No, dinner." And lo and behind, as soon as I sat her down in her booster she was snarfing all her dinner up as fast as can be!)
3) Only nurse once a day, trying to move to morning to limit separation-related issues at night-time
4) No carrying around in the store, only in cart. No running or getting down in store. Kissing/hugging okay when she IS behaving well. Distractions and snacks used to try to make it through. If tantrums are thrown, so be it.

These changes have been brought on by a number of embarrassing moments, lessons learned and tantrums thrown. I have seen some success in these changes for sure, albeit a bit of being mad at Mama has occurred, but that’s part of being a parent I guess. It’s not just going to be her calling the shots. We’re the parent and she’s the child after all.

p.s. We had another terrible sleep night last night even while trying to repeat our success from yesterday – so who knows??? “Cry-it-out” here we come??? After 20 months of not sleeping well, we all need a change. Wish there was a better solution but I feel we’ve exhausted all our resources…

Update

New phrases from Kaylee:
“Bye Bye Daddy, I love you”
“Momma, Come on”
“I’m tired”
“Momma, play with ball.”
“Down. Toys”
“Time for baf time”
“I’m happy”
“Baby clap” (with baby doll)
“Thirsty” (trying but not said quite right)
“Chocolate” (she was being a stinker and picking out just the chocolate chips from her banana bread – but can’t say she’s not just like her Momma in this respect)
“Hi Jactis (Jackson), good boy!”
“Move Jactis”
And on and on

Kaylee has been having bad night for about the last 3 weeks. She wakes up violently crying from no crying to crying loud/hysterical. So, we got a little worried. We started her on some gas drops Saturday night and the violent crying stopped. She still woke up. But then last night – Hallelujah!- she finally slept through the night! She had a late night snack, bath time, bottle and gas drops and then slept from 8:30-7! No waking at all – not even any whining! First time in a long time (months)! Yes! We will attempt to repeat the experience as closely as possible to get her to keep it up! Wish us luck!

Kaylee is eating so much better – she’s trying things – she’s even trying to use her spoon (“poon-s”) and fork. It’s funny to watch sometimes. She takes the corn puts it with her hand on the spoon and then into the mouth, and then other times she does it correctly. Sometimes, she’s just like “screw it” and grabs a huge handful and crams it in her mouth (which I delight in since seeing her cram any food whatsoever in her mouth still amazes me). I’m hoping we will see her fatten up soon!

Kaylee did receive a flu shot the other day. Our clinics haven’t had the flu shot or the H1N1 in the last two month every time I’ve called after we received the ok from the second allergist. So, took her to MVNA (Minnesota visiting nurses agency) the other day, paid the $25 for the shot. We (I mean I) was nervous about the shot and a reaction, but there was none – yea! She just got a big frowny face as the shot was administered and then as soon as the nurse gave her a sticker – all was well. Now back in 4-6 weeks for the booster! And still searching for the H1N1 shot…

My Mom told me a funny story today about when she was babysitting Kaylee. My Mom had Laringitis and was trying to talk with Kaylee, and ask her to say different words to her. My mom said “Kaylee can you say Zebra.” And Kaylee mimicking my Mom’s deep voice from the Laringitis, lowered her voice a few octaves and said “Zebra.” My Mom and Dad roared with laughter over it, exacerbating the tole on my Mom’s vocal cords so that my Mom wasn’t able to tell me the funny story until a couple days later.

Kaylee sang along with Old MacDonald Had a Farm with the “E-I-E-I-O.”

She also enjoyed so much her “tubby time is so much fun” book with Ernie that she said “Beddy-Bye” over and over again after her bath last night. She would regularly become confused about the order of how to say it so she would attempt…”bu bu bye Beddy-Bye ba ba deddy di byeddy beddy bye”

Whenever Kaylee sees a goose she says “Honk, honk.”

We played with Play-doh last night and she loved taking it in and out of the containers especially, not what I expected. I thought she would like the rolling, making snakes and pounding it. She couldn’t at first get the Play-doh out and was becoming very frustrated with putting it in and not getting it out. So I rolled small little balls for her to transfer to the containers, and that kept her busy for ½ hour or so. So would then close the container, with the lid upside down and then start all over again with the process. She was very careful not to drop any on the floor so that Jackson (our dog) wouldn’t get it. Very unlike her, since we always have food on the floor under her highchair. No sacrificing the play-doh!

More Halloween Photos of Our Bee-autiful Girl

Kaylee is saying so much more and a couple examples are:

Kaylee likes to run around the dinner table or loop around the kitchen (don't all kids?) She wanted her Daddy to move his chair so she could get by so she said, "Beep, Beep." Then he didn't hear her so she said, "Move Daddy!" and then once he moved she looked back at him, batted her eyes and then said, "Sorry Kaylee." We think she was saying he should say sorry to her for not moving. Then she proceeded to run around the table each time she passed us, saying "I got you!"

She had fun yesterday playing with her Aunt and Uncle. They played inside a train coboose at a local coffee shop and on the little kiddie table. She took cars to race them across the table surface, saying "ready, set....go!" And laughing so hard whenever her Uncle would echo something she said.

Also, Sat. Kaylee started dancing to music. All the sudden what came to my mind was to sing, "Shake, shake shake...shake shake shake....shake your booty." Then I said, "Opps, that's probably something you shouldn't be saying!" She then proceeded to say "booty, Booty." Then I said "Did she just say booty?" and she says back, "Did I just say booty?"

Kaylee sayings

Kaylee is talking up a storm and some of her favorite things to say are things that assert her newfound desire for independence like,:
"Don't, Mama"
"Stop-it!"

We've been considering how to handle this, I've been saying "Don't is not a nice thing to say. Be a nice girl." Sometimes the "Don't Mama" comes with a hit as well and then she gets a little talking to. We are contemplating how to go about doing time-outs. We'll have to find the best place to put her for them. Seems like she's ready for this.

Having said this, Kaylee is still so fun. As her language skills develop, it's so funny to hear the things that come out of her mouth. Yesterday, Eric was telling her not to eat "ishies" off the floor. Then she sat on his lap, observing him eating, and said "Daddy, don't eat ishies!" When she does something fun or is making a joke, laughing she stops, sighs and says, "Oh, Funny!"

Kaylee seems to have quite the memory. She has said "5,6,7,8,9, 10!" This amazed us. I worked with her on counting in a book and it was obvious it was only memorization, because she pointed to the fish in the book counting, "4...6."

Yesterday at daycare must have been someone's birthday because this morning she was singing "Happy You." It sounded like the tune but all she had down was the "Happy you" part. She has been telling us lately when she is happy. She says "Oh Happy." "Kaylee happy!" It's so sweet!

Kaylee knows so many body parts, possibly all that we've focused efforts on teaching her. Now in addition to the obvious ones she knows, head, arm, leg, knee, neck, chin, teeth, and lips. I'm trying to teach her tummy - she points to her chest. Close... I'm currently working on teaching her hungry and thirsty. She can say the words and now I'm trying to teach her how to use them.

Her teacher said that yesterday at daycare she said "Shush" to someone and Kaylee was saying "Shush" for quite a while afterwards.

We've had a very bad sleeping week, with lots of waking. Kind of surprising because last week she slept through the night several times. Maybe it's because she's feeling better? Or maybe she gets more tired out on the weekends? Not sure. I can't seem to muster the strength, heart or willpower needed for the cry-it-out method. And now she's so used to having her crying responded to that if you don't, her crying becomes incredibly voilent-sounding. Obviously I wait a few minutes always to see if she'll fall back asleep or not, and only respond to the ones when she's fully awake and crying loud. Not sure how we can get more sleep but am open to ideas.

On a positive note! It's almost the weekend. As Kaylee has pointed out, "Pumpkin went nite-nite" and it's almost time for Thanksgiving soon! Take care all.

Bumblebee!

We're all getting better.

Well, Halloween weekend was not all that much fun at our house. We tried, but sicknesses were getting us down. Kaylee was sick with the stomach flu on Thursday and Friday, and Eric was a bit sick along with her. She was throwing up and had a high fever and it was miserable. Especially the nights and the high-pitched screaming/crying caused us to call the nurse’s line a couple times. I did take her in to the doctor, and they said if a cough didn’t develop within 24 hours after the sickness that it wasn’t H1N1. The doctor said sometimes the H1N1 can come with vomiting in someone her age, but she never did develop that cough in the 24 hour period. On Saturday she appeared to be doing much better, the time between Tylenol doses increased and she was happy again. She enjoyed as much as she could Halloween with Daddy, while on the other hand I was miserable. I came down with a terrible cold/cough/fever. I got the point I wasn’t taking care of Kaylee anymore, or playing with her, just sitting in bed shivering. But thankfully, after some rest Saturday and some TLC and help from Eric, I felt much better on Sunday.

We tried to make Halloween special for Kaylee. She loved looking outside and seeing the neighbors blow-up pumpkin with ghosts coming out of it. Eric taught her to say, "Pumpking - A boo!" which she says all the time. She doesn't understand why it's gone now and looks for it all the time. I told her the pumpkin time of year is over, that the pumpkin went bye-bye and nite-nite. She still insists, "Pumpkin? A-boo?" We bought a pumpkin and carved it. I put it out in the backyard where nobody could vandalize it (this happened in the neighborhood I grew up in) and as if our weekend wasn't bad enough, the dogs ate it! So we had to go out to Target and get ourselves a fake pumpkin to at least have something at our door for trick-or-treaters.

Kaylee enjoyed answering the doorbell to trick-or-treaters. She refused putting on her costume, so with as little energy that we had we weren’t fighting her. She asked each time after kids left our door, for “more” along with the sign for more. It was adorable. She wasn’t scared by their costumes, she’s not aware enough of those things yet to be scared. She learned the word “kids” and asked for “more kids” along with the sign as the night went on. She didn’t try any candy since she isn’t old enough for that yet, or interested in it yet. On Sunday, we asked her if she wanted to be a bumblebee now and she agreed. We dressed her up and snapped a few photos which we will post here when I get my hands on the camera card.

Kaylee has developed a cough after I got the cough. She is on Ibuprofen for some pain she seems to have with teething and possible body aches. But she is playful, not napping as much, sleeping again in her crib on her own, and generally seems alright. On Monday, I asked her if she wanted to go to Daycare and see her friends and she told me “yes” very excitedly. So I didn’t feel too bad about bringing her back in. We’ll be keeping an eye on her cough this week.

Along with talking and communicating comes the time when your child inevitably says something that’s not so sweet to you. The other day I was singing a song to Kaylee and she had a weird look on her face so I asked her what’s wrong. She said “You should stop it.” I felt so bad but could only laugh as I’m sure that’s the first of many requests she’ll have for us to not do or say things she doesn’t enjoy. C’est la vie. I’ll sing to her another day.

On the cute side, Kaylee hugs us regulary saying “Hug.” She also loves to touch my hair and her own hair, also pulling it from time to time.