the times, they are a-changin

Can you believe my sweet Petunia is 18 months old already?? There is no trace of a baby to be found...she is ALL toddler now, and reminds me more and more of a little kid each day. She cracks me up with her funny gestures and movements (like randomly stopping whatever she's doing to go into a headstand), and drives me crazy with her total defiance of whatever rules I'm trying to enforce. (Like running and jumping on the couch. I tell her to stop and sit and she just looks at me, and then takes off running and jumping again. We have a lot of work to do in this department...) 18 months seems to be a very big transition age, with all the joy and frustration that comes with change. Here's what we're working on right now.

Potty training
I know she's too young to embark on full-fledged potty training, but I figured it couldn't hurt to start working on the basics. Earlier this spring I taught her words for all of the, ahem, potty activities and she quickly caught on. She now is happy to announce to the entire world when she's ready to have a bowel movement, so I bought several little pink pottys to keep on each floor of the house. When she makes her grand declaration I instruct her to go poo poo on the potty, and she toddles over to her little throne and settles in with some good reading. I don't actually take the diaper off; I just want her to get in the habit of going over to the potty when she's ready to deliver the goods. We've had a decent amount of success in this endeavor, and today I noticed while I was in the shower that she took herself over to her potty and had a seat. Sure enough, when I got out of the shower, a foul stench greeted me and I realized she had done what she needed to do.

But of course, we've had our fair share of 'learning experiences' along the way. The other night while she was taking a bath she stood up and announced 'poo poo.' Evening is not her usual pooping time, so I wasn't sure if she really meant it, but figured I'd humor her. I took her out of the tub and plopped her on the big toilet just to see what would happen. Nothing. So I put her back in the tub, and the entire sequence repeated itself. "Poo poo." On the potty. Nothing. I finally decided she was just  having fun with the word and we proceeded with the bath as usual. I got her out and toweled her off and asked her to pick out some PJ's, and the next thing I know I look over and she's crapping on the carpet. Guess it was not a false alarm after all. We called in daddy to assist in the cleanup of 'code brown' while I finished getting her dressed.

Lesson learned: shit happens.


Language
Her verbal communication and comprehension is really taking off now. She still understands more than she can speak, but it's nice to be able to talk to her and know she absolutely 'gets' it. We flip through her picture/words book and I can ask her to find the iguana/bread/blue jeans/blueberries etc. and she can point to the correct item. Animals are her favorite....she loves to point to the right animal, and then make its corresponding sound. She can identify all the parts of her body (although still having a hard time with 'elbow'), and now she's starting to point out and say the parts on all her stuffed animals. This impressed me, that she could make the connection between human ears and floppy dog ears or pointy cat ears...even though they don't look the same, they are still ears. She is also a big fan of waving and saying 'bye bye' and 'hi' to every single person/dog/inanimate object we come across...so cute.

With the advanced comprehension comes frustration when she wants something and can't correctly convey what she wants. There's quite a bit of screeching and repeating (with increasing decibels and urgency) when she wants something and I have no idea what it is. I'm pretty fluent in her baby babble and can sometimes decipher what she's trying to say, but when I can't, look out. Hysterics will follow. Same thing when she wants something and I know perfectly well what it is (makeup/tv/my phone) but I'm not giving in. The frustration is apt to boil over into a hit or bite. Apparently I am the only one she does this too; she hasn't attempted this behavior with Nana or her daddy. Lucky me.

Eating
We're in the midst of some pretty big food transitions right now....saying bye bye to formula in favor of milk alternatives, and adios to the bottles in favor of sippy cups. I fully acknowledge that we are quite a bit late in the game to start this process...most babies make the switch right at 12 months. But with her solid food refusal last spring and the weight loss, the bottles and formula were the only thing standing between us and complete starvation. So I kept her on the formula and bottles, desperate to keep her from losing weight. She's been doing much better with solid foods since we started Reglan in June, so I decided it was safe to start the process now. I started by mixing pediasure or almond milk or soymilk with her formula in her bottles. She was drinking it just fine, so we slowly worked our way down to plain old soymilk. No problem. She had been drinking juice out of her sippy cup just fine for months, so after the soymilk transition seemed settled, I joyfully packed up all the bottles and nipples and bottle brushes and bottle sterilizer and bottle drying rack. HURRAY!! No more bottle washing and all the hassle that goes with it! For 18 months we had been hand washing and sterilizing and drying bottles every.single.day. So I was delighted to pack those suckers away. But Petunia was not at all in favor of this transition...even though she drinks juice just fine from sippy cups, she does NOT like drinking milk from sippy cups. After 2 days of her barely drinking any milk and me freaking out about dehydration, I ran to Target and bought pretty much every single sippy cup they had, desperate to find a style that she would drink milk from. I've had some success with one soft-spouted style that I jammed an ice pick in to make the holes bigger. We're also working on using utensils and plates and bowls. She's pretty good at getting the spoon/fork with food into her mouth, but not so good at actually getting the food onto the utensil. It's a joint effort.

seriously...every single cup Target carried...and she'll
only drink milk out of one of them

Independence
She is definitely flexing her independent muscles quite a bit now. She does not want to be held or carried; she wants to walk by her big-girl-self. She does not want to sit in the shopping cart buggy, hence I either have to strap her in with the germ-filled buggy cart straps (oh the horror) or let her sit in the large open basket area. Which quickly becomes a game of her standing up and attempting to lean over and grab something and topple out, and me attempting to bribe her into staying seated. (Playing with my purse and keys is always a sure bet.) She is curious and fearless, totally delighted to take off running away from me in pursuit of whatever has caught her attention. In the right setting this is a blessing- she will happily keep herself engaged in playing and exploring. In the wrong setting this is exhausting. Which is why I'm most excited about the next big transition, which is....


Me going back to work
After the perfect job opportunity fell into my lap recently I decided I could not pass it up and have decided to return to work part-time! Which means Petunia will be getting an even bigger opportunity to increase her independence skills! I will be working Tues/Wed/Thurs, so she will go to 'school' from 8:30-5:30 on T/Th, and she'll stay home with a sitter on Wednesday. I have loved loved loved being home with her for the past 18 months, but she's getting to a point where she will definitely benefit from being around different people and different settings. And I will benefit from getting to use my degree and my license and my brain again! As much as I loved being home with her, there was always a corner of my soul that missed the projects, the professional colleagues, the satisfaction of working on a job well done. I never had any type of plan about when/where I would return to work, so when a friend approached me asking if I would consider working for her firm even just part-time, my ears perked up. She and I have been in discussion all summer working out the details to suit both their needs and mine, and we've reached a great arrangement. So starting in September, Petunia will be meeting new friends and new teachers, and I'll be meeting new bosses and coworkers and colleagues. Exciting!!

And last but not least...a little lagniappe. Photos from a recent trip to the children's Nature Discovery Center. The perfect place to introduce my Petunia to the wonders of nature that inspire me in my profession on a daily basis.