Lydia’s Three Month Update

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Tuesday was Lydia’s three month birthday.  Happy birthday, Darling Girl!

This past month will go down in history as the month that Lydia woke up, because not only is she physically awake more than 4 hours a day, she is also so much more alert and interested in what is going on around her.  She loves to watch the world passing by, whatever that happens to be.  Don’t you dare put her looking over your shoulder to face the back of the chair or a wall unless you want her to tell you with a squawk that the view isn’t suiting her.  But put her in your lap or her bouncy seat and she’ll sit content to watch the whirlwind that is her sister tearing by at periodic intervals.

Speaking of her sister, Lydia thinks Alethea is the best.  Whenever Alethea stops by to talk to Lydia or show her a toy, Alethea is sure to receive many large smiles for her efforts.  Lydia also loves Daddy and is in general pleased with anyone who takes the time to talk to her.  However, her favorite person in the world is Mommy.  When Lydia is in a truly bad mood (which, granted, doesn’t happen all that often) she just wants her Mama.  She doesn’t want Daddy, or a nuk, or a bottle, or to go to bed or to look at toys, she wants Mom and she wants her now.  I find this both flattering and frustrating.  So nice to be needed, but I am worried this will lead to separation anxiety later on.

Lydia’s accomplishments this month include cooing at Mom and Dad (she seems to really think she’s having a conversation, so cute!), laughing when tickled, admiring herself in the mirror and holding her head up fairly well when on her stomach.  Oh, and I forgot, she apparently also learned to read…

There aren’t many things she dislikes, but saline drops in her nose, not being able to see what’s going on and “tummy time” are all sure ways to make her fuss.  Also giving her a nuk when she wants to nurse isn’t a good plan.  She’ll give you a look so indignant you’ll be positive it couldn’t be coming from a 3 month old, then she’ll spit the nuk out and holler at you.

Things she likes include eating, people smiling and talking to her, the globe mobile over her crib, sucking on her fist, and mirrors.  She also continues to enjoy sleeping and generally does a 5 to 6 hour stretch without eating during the night and takes two long naps during the day.

It’s hard to believe Lydia is already a quarter of a year old, but we are so enjoying watching her personality emerge and are looking forward to her next quarter year which we plan to spend playing in the yard and exploring the great outdoors.

Alethea Funnies

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Sorry for the long break with no posts on BobbleHeadBaby.com.  Peter was gone on a work trip from Tuesday to Friday last week and Lydia suddenly decided to forgo all daytime naps on Monday and Tuesday (not sure what was bugging her), so between being a single parent for most of last week and not having any time to myself during the day this week, I’ve been a little, well… busy.

I did intend to do a post about what I learned during my ‘just me and my girls’ week, but single parenting didn’t leave much time or energy for blogging.  Maybe now that Peter is back (and Lydia has hopefully returned to her normal nap schedule) I’ll get around to it, but other posts seem more worthy of my time at the moment, so on to the subject of the day: Alethea.

She has been doing and saying so many cute things lately that I just had to write them down, otherwise I know I’ll forget them.  Here’s a few that made me laugh…

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Conversation between me and Alethea the other day:

Me: I smell something funny.

A: No

Me: Yeah, I do smell something, it smells like a poopy diaper.

A: (Thinks for a minute, then…) Ee-ya poopy diaper!

Me: So Lydia is the one with the poopy diaper, huh?

A: Okay!

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On Sunday when I got Alethea out of bed I told her we needed to get ready for church.  She was exceptionally cooperative as I got her dressed and served her breakfast.  Then I went to feed Lydia.  Alethea didn’t think that was so great.  She pulled on the handle of the door to the garage and said, “Church!”

I patiently explained that Lydia got to have a turn getting dressed and having breakfast too.  Alethea accepted this rather reluctantly and as soon as Lydia had finished eating, she again said, “Church!”

“You are ready and now Lydia is ready, but Mommy has to get ready too,” I told her. “Why don’t you come upstairs with me and help me get ready?”

As we walked into my bedroom Alethea exclaimed, “Quick, quick!”

I brushed my teeth.  Alethea came in to check on me and then left again.  I put on make-up.  Another check from Alethea.  Then I went into my closet and started changing.  Alethea came in and said, “Church!”

I said, “I’m getting ready.  See, I have my pants on!”

Alethea started digging frantically in a pile of laundry on the floor and said, “Shirt! Shirt!”

We made it to church 15 minutes early.  It just might be a record for me.

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This last one isn’t exactly funny, but it really touched me, so I’ll share anyway.  The other night Alethea was upset at having to go to bed, so I asked her if she wanted me to sing her a song.  She said, “Yeah.”  Then I asked her which song she wanted me to sing, expecting her to say The ABC song or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  Instead her reply was, “Amazing Grace.”

I was surprised because although I do sing it to her, I didn’t realize she knew the name, or that she even really liked it that well.  After fighting so many bedtime battles lately, it was a heartwarming to hear my child ask for a hymn as her bedtime song.  Yeah, it made me cry…

Maybe we’ll survive the terrible twos after all.

Light and Shadow

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I love taking pictures.  Sometimes I see things and think, “That would make a really great photo!”  The only problem is, I have a really hard time capturing the feeling of the 3D scene with a 2D image.  Still, it’s fun to try to be artistic.  Here’s a couple of my recent “inspired” moments:

I thought the shadow cast by our oak tree was a really neat graphic image.  Yeah, this picture could have been better if I’d taken the time to go outside instead of shooting it through the kitchen window, but when you have two small children, sometimes you take what you can get.

Here’s a different moment:

The bright sunlight glinting off of my ceramic bird in the dining room made me smile.  It seemed so cheerful.  Also, because of the height of the window, you couldn’t tell that there was a foot of snow on the ground outside, which made it even better, because then I could imagine that just beyond the window there was green grass growing and flowers starting to peek out of the ground.  Ahhhhh….

Twenty-Three Month Update

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Today is Alethea’s twenty-three month birthday.  Happy birthday, Sweet Girl!

Thus begins our last month before Alethea turns two and while a part of me feels like she’s still a baby, it is becoming more clear every day that we have a two year old in the house, at least in attitude, if not yet in age.  Power struggles and melt-downs are par for the course around here lately.  It was so bad this week that I took her to the doctor to see if she had an ear infection.  Our pediatrician checked her ears and pronounced them ‘perfect’ and told me that her official diagnosis was that Alethea had a little cold and a “case of The Twos.”  Wonderful.

While this month has been by no means free of conflict between Alethea and her parents, our girls continue to get along beautifully.  Alethea likes showing Lydia toys and giving her hugs and kisses.  She ‘helps’ with diaper changes, baths and putting Lydia down for naps.  She does however draw the line at being in pictures with her sister (after all, everyone has their limits).

Alethea and Lydia were playing together sweetly right up until I pulled out the camera... then Alethea bailed

Alethea and Lydia were playing together sweetly... right up until I pulled out the camera.

In addition to interacting more with Lydia, Alethea has also increased her ability to communicate with the adults in her life.  She hasn’t quite made it to using complete sentences on a regular basis, but she does generally use two or three word phrases when talking to others.  Some things she says frequently include ‘rock chair’, ‘sing song’, ‘breakfast time’ and ‘shoes on’.

Of course, she also says and does things that are amusing, like sometimes when she screams I’ll say, “Alethea, why are you screaming?”  She’ll hold up her puppy and pass the buck, “Dee, screaming!”  Then I tell her, “Could you please ask Dee to use words if he is frustrated?”  Then she’ll look Dee right in the eye and say, “Use words!”

Another funny moment: Alethea tried to put on Baby Doll's jammies

Another funny moment: Alethea tried to put on Baby Doll's jammies!

Alethea’s current dislikes are: being told what to do, chunks of anything in her food (i.e. tomatoes in her pasta sauce, strawberry bits in her yogurt), coming in from playing outside, coming upstairs from playing downstairs, faces with eyes closed (she thinks you are sad if you close your eyes), as well as anything she deems dirty, messy or icky.

Her favorite things haven’t changed a whole lot, but a few new loves include: Peter Rabbit (both the book and her stuffed animal), bananas, headbands, raspberry yogurt (because it doesn’t have chunks), polka-dots, her sunglasses and PB&J sandwiches.  The later two working in tandem with spectacular results:

All the cool kids eat PB&J

Another admittedly odd new favorite this month is baby wipes.  She pretty much has to have a baby wipe with her at all times.  It started when she had a cold and I gave her a wipe to clean her nose.  She’s over the cold now, but she still has to have a wipe before and after naps/bed and whenever she has her diaper changed.  And don’t try to give her one you gave her earlier, she wants it to be fresh from the package.  I’m indulging her at the moment, but hoping she’ll give up the habit soon, since I’m getting tired of finding wet wipes crammed into random corners all over my house.

So while Peter and I begin to explore the world of toddler discipline, we are also taking time to enjoy Alethea’s increased ability to communicate, her developing sense of humor and the fact that she is so readily embracing her roll as big sister.  We are also looking forward to celebrating Alethea’s second birthday next month!  Stay tuned for pictures as I pull together her “polka-dot cupcake” themed party.

Whose Chair is it Anyway?

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In the corner of our living room sits ‘The Chair’, a simulated leather rocking chair/recliner. As it happens, both Peter and Alethea have a morning routine that involves The Chair.

Every morning Peter sits in The Chair, drinks his coffee and uses his laptop to check e-mail and read the news.

Every morning Alethea brings Little Baby Doll and Dee downstairs and rocks with them in The Chair until I have her breakfast ready.

Normally, this works fine because Peter starts his morning around 5:30am while Alethea sleeps in until between 8 and 9 o’clock.

On the weekends though, things get a little more dicey.  Like today, when they both got up at 8:15.

Peter had to make his coffee, so Alethea got to The Chair first.

“Hey, what’s this?” Peter asked her once he had his laptop and coffee in hand.

“My chair!” Alethea answered.

“No, Daddy’s chair,” said Peter, but he was gracious enough to let her rock in it until her breakfast was served.

So Alethea was happy.  She certainly won the battle.

The real question though, who is going to win the war?

A Safety Warning

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No, this post isn’t about the recent recommendation that children remain in rear-facing car seats until they are two years old.  Don’t get me started on that…

This is about a recent experience I had that I need to share with everyone, because honestly, it really scared me.

A couple weeks ago Alethea received some Mylar balloons.  She enjoyed playing with them in her bedroom.  Then she kind of forgot about them, and there they floated, up on her ceiling for several days.

Then one night last week when Peter was watching the girls, he was putting Lydia down for a nap, when suddenly he heard Alethea yelling in her room.  He went in to find that she had climbed up on her toy storage cubes and flipped on the switch for the ceiling fan.  The fan had gotten up to speed and then sucked in the balloon bouquet.  Alethea was distraught, but Peter managed to untangle everything and both the balloons and the fan were fine.

Now you’d think that after Peter related the incident to me one of us would have said, “Hey, don’t you think we should take the balloons out of her room?” but we didn’t.  I guess I just figured Alethea was upset enough about it that she wouldn’t turn the fan on again.

Well, I was wrong.  On Monday morning I was changing Lydia’s diaper and I thought Alethea was reading books in her room.  Suddenly, Alethea came charging through the doorway shouting, “Fan! On! Fan! On!”

I knew in that instant that I only had seconds to act before the balloons were once again hopelessly tangled in the fan.  I ran to the doorway of Alethea’s room, but just as I hit the switch, I watched helplessly as two balloons were sucked into the fan and went around and around and around.

And then it happened, just as I thought the crisis was almost at an end, the heavy glass globe in the center of the fan came loose and fell to the floor with a huge THUD.

Now, I don’t know exactly how the balloons spinning around tangled in the fan blades managed to unscrew the globe so quickly.  Maybe it had already been loosened by their previous encounter, who can say, but I do know that if Alethea had been underneath that fan instead of safe by my side watching from the doorway, at best she would be in the hospital right now.  And I can’t even bring myself to type the worst.

I’ve learned my lesson.  Balloons that enter our house will no longer be allowed in any room that has a ceiling fan.

And just because I know not everyone will have time to read this rather long post, I’ve created a handy graphic to summarize:

A Sneak Peek

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I know it’s been a long time since I updated you all on the status of Alethea’s big girl room and there is a good reason for that; it’s simply because I haven’t made much progress on the home decor front lately.  See, I don’t want to put up pictures of the room right now because it just doesn’t look right with a light oak crib standing where the espresso colored twin size bed should be.  Plus Alethea is getting her quilt for her birthday, so that’s not in the room yet either and the quilt is what will tie all of the colors together.

Thus, no complete room pictures will be coming your way today, but I did manage to finally go through my photographs and pick out one to put in the frame I bought months ago at Target.  It looks so cute standing on the bookcase next to Alethea’s fancy jewel lamp that I just had to take a picture of it:

So that’s your taste for today of Alethea’s big girl room.  I promise I won’t forget to put up more pictures once the room is finished!

Party in da’ Crib

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As I’ve mentioned before, every night Alethea goes to bed with a large contingent of friends accompanying her.  She just loves being in her crib with her ‘guys’.

This morning I started thinking that I’d better document these moments while I can, because a ‘big girl bed’ is just around the corner for Alethea.  So without further ado, I give you, Alethea’s Party Crowd…

First off there are the puppies who hang out at the bar:

From left to right we have: Dee, Puppy, Woof and Amin.  (And lest we offend anyone, I just want to clarify that Alethea named them all herself, and where she came up with the name of a Ugandan dictator, we don’t know.)

I’ve seen them all lined up before, but I didn’t realize until today that they have a specific order they stand in.  I should probably have guessed as much, but when Alethea went to put them up for the picture, she was quite deliberate about sliding them around to put them as you see them.

Besides the puppies, Alethea’s other party guests include Baby Doll…

And Little Baby Doll…

who are apparently nudists, because no matter how many times I put their clothes on, they always seem to end up in the buff by the time morning comes.

As you can see, it’s quite a wild crowd that Alethea hangs with at bedtime.  Maybe they’re the reason that we hear her happily talking away for hours after we turn out the lights.

Just think what will happen once she’s in a real bed and can invite Giant Pink Bunny to the party too… yikes!  She’ll be up all night long!

I guess it’s just something to look forward to in the days ahead.

Getting Dressed

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This morning I opened Alethea’s closet and asked her what she wanted to wear.  She said, “Poky-Dots!”  After examining her wardrobe we come up with a handful of polka dot options and she selected the green long-sleeved tee shirt (she must be looking forward to St. Patty’s Day).

Then we went to pick out something for Lydia to wear.  Right at the top of her drawer was a blue and brown polka dot sleeper.  I asked Alethea if Lydia should wear polka dots too.  She replied, “Poky-dots. Both. Match!”

I was fairly impressed by this since the concept of matching isn’t really something we’ve worked on with Alethea.

But maybe I should dress them alike more often because for one thing they looked really cute together…

And for another, I’m sure they will all too quickly reach the point where it’s not cool to be wearing matching outfits.  So sad…