Update on Kaylee and how she's been doing at night - I can report that after 4 days of letting her cry after transferring her, she stopped crying(pretty much). What happens is that we still have the bottle (I know- slap on the wrist!) and rock, and after cuddling for about 1-2 minutes we transfer her NO MATTER WHAT! That way she can count on it...her reaction, for the most part, is to allow us (Eric or myself) to cover her with blanket and after about 30 seconds of standing nearby we leave the room. If I leave the room too fast, she cries out in protest. But I no longer sit back down in the chair to wait to leave...so that's improvement. Sometimes the transfer comes with some whining and we worry we'll have to start over again and so we hold our hands on her for a minute or so and that calms her. I can also report that I have successfully moved my one nursing a day to the morning....first step in phasing out the last nursing... hooray! I can also report that last night and the night before - she slept through the night! OH JOY!
For those of you out there who don't want to hear about nursing and pumping - the next paragraph is entirely on that topic so you can skip down if desired...Now she does ask to nurse about 3 times a day and I always say no unless it's at the time when I want to, which I've been consistent with no matter what time we are nursing. Saying no, at first, was accompanied with protests and crying but now sometimes she even laughs when I say no. At first it was after work (but that got in the way of her eating a good dinner), then it was at bedtime (got in the way of her sleeping because she would say to me "nurse" and then say "other side" and then when done with both she would keep trying to get me to do the "other side" over and over nonstop - suffice it to say, that wasn't working) and now I'm hoping that with the morning routine sometimes having to be real quick that we'll just forget or forego the nursing one of these days. I'm not sure what my body will do but that's a whole other story...I don't want to get engorged again like we did at 1 year with the sudden need to stop nursing - OUCH! Slow weaning is the (best, most pain-free) way to go all you mamas out there. And I don't know if anybody's with me, but I hate the pump. It's got it's purpose but I don't want to break it out again - had enough of that thing and haven't had to use it since she transitioned to soy milk during the day at 1 year - good riddance! Pump breaks I think are hard for most people to fit in, but at my job I found that I really couldn't count on a certain time of day consistently when I had a lot of client meetings or a lot of deadlines which was the case many days. Memories return of pumping in the hospital bathroom where we conducted our meetings - let me just say you worry about not only the way it sounds to people nearby but the sanitary conditions of the act! I am always so glad when designing a building, they integrate lactation rooms into their program and have had the honor of designing a few of them. In one case I was asked to design my dream lactation room, so I put in a counter with built-in sink, undercounter refrigerator, a flat-screen TV, phone, art over the counter, lamp, dimmable lights and internet connections. As to be expected, it was value-engineered (costs were cute). Glad that era for me is over and done with. Not looking forward to doing it again, but I will do it for another entire year or more (if cross your fingers, I conceive again) if I have to in order to have the nursing relationship - I think it really was great for both of us!
Now onto the next battle du jour. Kaylee has been having lots of tantrums in the evening. As you all have followed she has been having terrible twos very early, but this is on a whole new level! So, we are on a path of ignoring all tantruming during the evening. We think that Kaylee thinks that the way to get her Mom to do things is to cry and if she doesn't get what she wants, she will keep up until she reaches a full-fledged tantrum (kicking and screaming on the floor). Eric says that when I'm not there she doesn't do it. It is very difficult for me to not respond when she cries, but like I said this has gotten out of control and very unpleasant for all of us. She also has a lot of stamina and will go on and on, doesn't make you want to be around her after work which is a first time ever! So, I have started totally ignoring it. The best method is to do chores while she's doing it. She feels a little less slighted because it's slightly a distraction from what she's doing and my blood pressure doesn't rise quite as much as just sitting there watching her do it. I'm not sure if her daycare pickup routine change has anything to do with it or not.... I think she is upset with me and wants more attention from me, but approaches getting the attention in a way that we just can't handle, continue responding to. ....last night I did the ignoring and she tantrumed the whole time I did dishes and prepared dinner (about 1/2 hour) and then when dinner happened there was no crying at all. The whole rest of the evening we played very closely together and had a a great time. She and I practiced putting barrettes in her hair, doing "mommy turn" and then "my turn," then sang songs, played blocks and had a bathtime with lots of laughter and smiles. I put her down easily and went to bed very happy. So, if that's the way it's going to be - have tantrum,/burn off steam/think to herself "hey guess it's not working"/move onto something different -- that would be lovely!
As you all know, I no longer post Kaylee's new words because there are too many to count and now she's stringing them together. One of the things that is Eric's pride and joy that I'm not sure if I mentioned here (she's done this for a couple months) - he taught her how to watch a football game together. When she sees there's a football game on, she runs into the room saying "Football!" and then raises her arms in the air and says, "Touchdown!" As you can imagine, Eric beams from ear to ear when this happens. I am not a football fan but that sort of bond/cuteness may just convince me to become a fan.
Kaylee is starting to know some shapes - she knows circle and triangle and sometimes she knows a heart. We stand together at our little Christmas tree and talk about the ornaments. She loves her special school bus ornament we got her. Eric didn't know that I'd been going over them all with her, and was surprised when he was looking at it with her, that she pointed out an ornament that was a figure with "coach" across it's belly. She called it, "Coach." Eric thought for a split second - "What? ...Dude! Can she read?" and then realized she had them memorized. Speaking of memorization, she still has some sequencing memorized - it's pretty amazing - she'll just start singing "A B C D ....trail off....Q R S T......trail off....W X Y Z" Also she can sequence some numbers "1 2 3 4....trail off... 6 7 8 9 10" Eric and I were talking in the car together the other day and mentioned "5" in our conversation and from the backseat we hear a little voice add, "6, 7, 8, 9, 10!" It's amazing! She will have an orange cup and a green cup. Raise up the orange cup and say "green cup" very proudly, when I correct her "orange cup" she looks unphased and smiles like of course and says "yep, orange cup!" Very very cute.
Kaylee has been putting giant snarls in her hair from hair twirling lately. So we've started sometimes putting her hair in a ponytail in a baby hair band. It's adorable. She looks so beautiful and grown up. Now that ponytail may make it two minutes or two hours there's no telling. She still will not wear barrettes, they won't stay in her fine hair, but loves to try them on.
We took Kaylee to one of the holiday parties a partner at our firm puts on each year. She was soooooo cute playing with a little 2 1/2 year old of my co-workers. They were dancing, jumping (Kaylee with still only one foot off the groud) and also laying on the floor kicking their feet and spinning around (weird, but actually cute too). I hadn't ever seen her do so much it appears she's capable of more than parallel play for sure. She thought the girl's name was Kayla (because all the best friends are Kayla - aren't they?) and called her that. I told her no, the girl was Sammy and she kept saying Sammy this and Sammy that all through the next morning.
I dressed Kaylee up really cute for the holiday party and then -opps- forgot to take a photo. So I hope to take one this weekend in it so I can post it. It is very hard getting anything done for the holidays - like gift-buying (still haven't started) with the deadline at work and the busyness at home when I am at home- not sure what I'm going to do I am so behind. Maybe I'll make some headway this weekend? Hope ya'll are doing better at getting to your holiday preparations!
1 comment:
Always awesome to hear! I can't believe she can sequence letters and numbers! Yeah for you guys doing an awesome job with her!
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