First let me say this is not the most cheery post. I hate to complain, but this has consumed our lives for the last month, causing quite a bit of stress. I want to write it down both to just get it out and to hopefully later see how much things have improved! So I can't believe how things can change in a month. I think when I gave a little update last month the only frustrating thing was that she was being a picky eater. . oh if I had known! This has been one of the most trying times we've had. For at least 3 weeks she would cry anywhere from 1-3+ hours at bedtime [with us going in periodically to lay her back down and tell her we love her], usually then waking in the wee hours of the morning to sleep in our bed. The last week has been better, and last night she only whimpered "mommy sleep mommy sleep" for a minute or two, and then was out until 7:15! YAY, praise GOD! [also in the midst of writing this, I THINK SHE IS NAPPING! I'm probably wrong, but just maybe...]
It's been so stressful and heartbreaking and helpless feeling as we just didn't know what to do. If we let her fall asleep once in our arms or bed, it made the next night that much worse, and though we want to make things easy for her, the last thing I want to do at TWO years old is start a new habit of needing to sleep with us! Naptimes have been nonexistent - at least in a bed. She'll usually take a nap in the car or stroller.. though it's double-frustrating on the days we miss the sleepy window of opportunity and go for a long ride and walk and are still left with a sleepless, hyper-cranky toddler [a few times I've been caught having walked a mile away from home with a screaming/writhing child, not fun]. Because probably tied into all this lack of sleep is this surgence of craaazy tantrums. Seriously, I thought we had her little fits under control, but these are a whole new animal. I don't quite know what to do because no amount of discipline or time-outs works. They come out of nowhere it seems and I have to just try as best I can to keep patient and calm, waiting it out. We miss our old happy go-lucky fun little girl! There are definitely long stretches in the day where she's happy and fun, but man these fits are wearing us all down. I do wonder if it's all because of the crazy sleep thing or is this our intro to the inafmous twos? I just wish someone could tell us the answer.
Other random thoughts on this 23 month old:
She's constantly comparing any and everything to baby/mommy/daddy. Coins, trees, plants, rocks, animals, you name it [this one isn't new, I just keep forgetting to remember it]. She also loves to talk about small, bigger and BIGGEST!
If you ask her what we did this morning [any morning], she'll say "BIG ANIMALS!" remembering our trip to the zoo a couple weeks ago. If you ask what she did with Daddy yesterday she'll tell you "Doggies!" [that they hiked through the dog park, which they usually didn't] or that they had "soup" which they might or might not have. She's really having a word-combining, phrase-making explosion lately and it's really fun :)
She just recently started saying "Bunny" instead of "Ubba ubba" - makes me kind of sad. Also today she's saying "Nana" instead of her funny bladdledaddle sound for banana ... we don't like to hear that one go either :(
Here's our fun little girl in-between melt-downs. She thought it was a big amazing feat to climb up and over this chair, and then Bunny tried too. I had put on her little bikini bottoms sans diaper, which I though was pretty stinkin' cute:
1 comment:
Almost 2. I can hear her saying it again.
About the 2s: I can't remember, but does your garage have an eave that you can hang a simple swing from? If you do have one, it would be nice and cool. And she could swing Bunny and Monkey. Also, we had a sandbox that the kids LOVED!!
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