Frustration, but a good day

Amelia's feet are again between sizes - no longer a 7, not quite an 8. So most of her current shoes are too small, and all of the shoes waiting for her are too big. I even bought a pair of 7.5 shoes - only to discover that they may as well be size 7. I had the same problem when she was between size 6 and 7, but I don't remember having this problem prior to that.

Other than having issues coordinating Amelia's outfits with shoes, the day was pretty great. The neighbor and I took her to a couple of yard sales where we scored two bath toys for 5 cents each. They're the seal and fish kind where you wind 'em up and let them go. The fish wags his little tail and the seals arms go 'round and 'round. I especially like them because they remind me of a seal I bought my sister for her 4th birthday. I remember carefully wrapping it with my mother and then being so pleased that my sister liked it as much as I thought she would. Amelia has enjoyed playing with those two toys all day long - and she hasn't even had a bath yet. They spent the ride home in the backseat being introduced to one another by Amelia. "Hello, red fish. How are you blue seal?"

Amelia has discovered how fun it is to pick the fuzzy dandelions and blow them into the wind. She's been doing that at every opportunity the last few days, including earlier today. She is so cute when she does it.

You might notice the drool on her shirt. Her 2-year molars are coming in and it's been a little rough for her the last couple of days. Her mouth is like an open faucet with all the drool, which has traditionally been her reaction to teething. I've even considered getting out one of her bibs, which were ever-present on her when she first started getting teeth.

After supper we decided to go visit Nana. Prior to departing, Amelia fed Romeow, picked a leaf off the tree, and then happily ran down the sidewalk and the driveway, which is a pretty steep hill. She wanted to go into the backyard, but we told her we were heading out, so she turned right, and on a flat surface nose dived into the pavement. It looked pretty bad for a few minutes, but I got her into the house and wiped her down with soap and water. Her right knee was pretty scraped up so we put ointment on it and a "big Diego band-aid!" (Good thing I just stocked up today at Dollar General for $2 ... it was bargain day for us here.) Her face did fine, just a little pink irritation in two small spots on the chin. So after cleaning up we went to Nana's and she had a ball playing and running and riding her Thomas train. Our brother-in-law stopped by with Liza and Amelia was "being shy", as usual with him. It was pretty cute, especially with her saying she was "being shy". What an actress.

[picture dated 4/26/08]

Paradox

As usual, I grew tired of Amelia's winter wardrobe. Now that it appears warmer weather may be here to stay, I look at her clothes in the dresser each morning a little wistfully. I know that soon she won't be wearing any of them as the cool mornings and evenings will also ebb as we pass into late spring and early summer.

So now those winter clothes represent memories of a little girl who, at 2 and 2-1/2, was such a bubble of energy, who went from just learning to talk to making full sentences, who finally had just enough hair to occasionally wear pigtails, a true toddler who bounced when she ran. Sure, she is pretty much that same person right now, but summer will pass in a blur (of cute sundresses that I cannot wait to put on her!) and next winter will come and Amelia will be so much bigger and independent and *sniff* grown up.

Sure, it's kind of silly to be so sentimental, but I think the paradox makes sense. When I mentioned it to Hubby last night he said it sounded crazy.

Romeow

Amelia loves feeding our stray cat, Romeow. I'll tell her it's time to feed him and she runs to the container of food, scoops out a portion and is ready to head out the door. Down the two steps we go, and she rarely spills any of it. Then she says, several times, "He's waiting. Put food in black dish." But she just stands there, repeating this while Romeow rubs against her legs. She maintains her balance during her little mantra, which she picked up from us as we tried to encourage her to feed him rather than standing there holding a container of food above a cat's head. She then bends down just a little and pours the food into the black dish (thank you Lean Cuisine). Most of it makes it into the dish unless he has made it back around her legs and knocks her hand. If he causes her to spill any, she tries to pick it up and put it in his dish and I try to discourage her from doing that. While the spilled food will attract ants, I don't want him to bite her for getting too close while he's eating.

It's really neat to see how much she enjoys feeding him and how patient he is with her.

[Photo dated 4/17/08]

2 Years, 7 Months

Amelia is 2 years and 7 months old today. Wow!

She is so much fun, has so much energy and is just amazing. I am worn out but happy.

This past weekend we took her to the beach for the first time and it was so much fun for all of us. She adored the sand, the water, the waves, and we adored watching her run in and out of the water, laughing and chanting, "Ocean! Ocean! Ocean!". Then she'd say, "Ocean is a river." We tried to explain that it wasn't, but she wasn't buying it. And we have no idea where she got this idea from, either. A few times the intersection of water going back out and water coming in would cause her to lose her balance and she'd get a little more wet than she intended and also get salt water splashed in her face. She'd look a little surprised for a moment, shake it off and keep going.

Her vocabulary and interaction continue to grow and develop. It's fun to hear her say a phrase that either she's heard from us or somewhere else. One of our favorites (that she got from Nana) is "What are you fussing about?"

(And I am so grateful that my computer is back up and running - it crashed Sunday night after we got home.)

[picture dated 4/18/08; video dated 4/19/08]

Four's enough

Like anything unpleasant (hairwashing anyone?), if you make a game of it, the toddler will usually go for it. For us, saline has been a success. Whenever Amelia has a stuffy nose I tell her we are going to put in some nose medicine and she gets excited.

Knowing that this was something most kids would hate, I was pretty pre-emptive about it. Ever since she was itty bitty, I've let her hold the cap and then after putting the saline in her nose, I've screwed the bottle onto the cap as she continued to hold it. She thought that was lots of fun, and worth the unpleasantness of a little water in her nose.

A few months ago when she had her first sniffly nose of the season, she wasn't too thrilled at the Return of the Saline up her nose. Since she loves counting, I thought that might help - and it did. So we do "1, 2, 3, 4", with 1 and 2 being the initial shots of saline to each nostril, and 3 and 4 giving me either a second go-round if I didn't think the first was really a decent shot, or just for show if I didn't need them.

When we first started this routine she thought it was so great she wanted 5 and 6. So I started telling her, "No, four's enough." After all, it's good to teach limits. So now every time we use the saline she ends with "Four's enough," and gives me this stern teacher-like expression with a slight nod. It's pretty funny - especially when she talks about it out of context.

Knowing she can handle the language that describes the concept of limitations, I have applied it elsewhere and she has picked it up. She knows that while something is enough for now, there will be another time.

Now if hair washing was as easy ...

Remembering Papa

Yesterday I took Amelia to Pizza Hut for lunch. It was my day off and we had been out during the morning, and I thought a mommy/daughter pizza lunch would be nice. We were sitting there munching on pizza, pears and peaches - how about all the "P" words?

As we read one of her books, we digressed a bit, as usual, on some random subject. This time it was different words that start with a certain letter. As usual our repertoire started with "D" which is for Daddy and Dodah and dangerous, which is one of her favorite words. It's something we tell her as we attempt to reason with a 2-1/2 year old, as in "Sit down in your chair. Amelia, please don't stand, it's dangerous." We moved onto "G" is for Grandma and "N" is for Nana. Then we got to "P" and I told her it was for pear, since she was eating one at the time. That didn't seem to resonate with her, so I said, "And P is for Papa."

Now, I haven't talked much about Papa since he died. Part of it is grief - it really bothers me that she will not ever see him again except in pictures, not make any more memories, not know his voice. And part of it is not wanting to give her artificial memories by talking about him. I've hoped that she might hear someone coughing and say something about Papa, but she hasn't. She has pointed him out in pictures at our house and at Nana's, so I know she does remember who he is.

So when I said, "P is for Papa," she said, "Papa. Grandma and Papa." And I said, "Yes, Grandma and Papa," and was pleased she remembered those two went together. (Unfortunately Nana's counterpart, Grandfather, died before Amelia was even conceived.) Then she said, "Have fun with Papa at hompsital." !!! It's been six months since we were there with him! I asked her what kind of fun she had with him at the hospital, wondering if she would remember playing with the balloon she had brought him, or laughing at his toes, but she instead moved onto other things. And that's okay.

Beautiful Dreamer

On Amelia's kitty keyboard, which she received for Christmas from us, there is a button she can hit that will play different songs. Some have words, some are just instrumental. Some are catchy, some not as much. There's a version of B-I-N-G-O and one about a dog named Applebee among others. Amelia repeatedly hits the button until "Beautiful Dreamer" comes on. She has done this for months and I believe it must be her favorite. It's written by Stephen Foster - the same man who wrote "My Old Kentucky Home". She has some musical taste I would say. (Although it's not shared by me, I think her Grandma will be impressed.)

Meanwhile Daddy's been trying to teach her how to play "My Old Kentucky Home" on the keyboard and she remembers the first few notes without any help. The lyrics start out "When the sun shines bright ..." and it would be nice if it would shine bright considering snow is forecast for tonight and we've already seen some flurries. Grrrr and Brrrr.

Body Parts, the specifics

Amelia likes to observe that Daddy has a mustache, and Mommy has no mustache and Amelia has no mustache. Sometimes she does this little routine around others, too. The other night she was tired and said, "Daddy has a musmash." Very cute indeed.

Lately she is really into distinguishing left from right. Left foot, right foot. Left knee, right knee. And so on. And for body parts that don't have a partner? That's okay. Amelia has a left neck and a right neck. Or so she thinks.

Cowses

We live in a rural area and Amelia gets to see lots of different animals on a daily basis. On the way to the park we see horses - and there are even a couple in a field right next to the park. On the way to church we pass goats and a llama in addition to other horses. If we turn right when leaving church, we pass cowses. Yep, apparently Amelia figures if the plural of horse is horses, then more than one cow must be cowses.

My Little Bargain Hunter

When we were looking for Amelia's Easter dress we went to the local children's consignment store, chock full of toys and baby gear in addition to used clothes. I have found many great puzzles and other things there, so I let Amelia play in the toy corner while I browsed dresses. Finding nothing appropriate (I was really hoping for something with a hat), I gave the toys and puzzles a once-over to make sure there wasn't something that Amelia needed. I didn't see anything special and was ready to leave so I turned to Amelia and told her to put the toys she was playing with away. She took her Tigger and Pooh to the counter as if she were going to buy them, which was cute, but not what I intended. I took the Tigger back (since he was the first to go up on the counter) and realized it was the Bouncing Tigger AND that it had the red dot for 50% off of a ridiculously low markdown. Tigger cost only $2.50. Who could pass that up? Go Amelia!

Not only does she like Tigger in general, but this version retails for about $25 - I had seen it about 18 months ago and considered it for her but decided that was too much to spend on something she may only play with for a few minutes. At $2.50 there was no way I was passing it up.

He had no batteries and she was still thrilled with him all the way home, riding right in her car seat and being talked to, etc. We pulled into the garage and when I opened Amelia's car door she said, "Take Tigger wif us!" When we got upstairs I put batteries in him and she discovered how he bounces. She was so delighted - and almost a month later he's still a favorite toy and has made several trips out of the house, which is not something that usually happens with her as far as her other toys are concerned. And she often will (still) tell anyone who listens, "Mommy put new batteries in and Tigger goes bounce, bounce, bounce!" Sometimes she will even continue and say, "Good Mommy!"

Of course, she is starting to think that everything is supposed to sing or dance. The other day she picked up a small stuffed lion Daddy gave her for her 2nd birthday and was pressing its various appendages before offering it to me and saying, "Lion needs a new battery. Mommy fix it!" I tried explaining to her that he doesn't sing, he's just a stuffed animal. So she looks at him and quietly says, "Just a stuffed animal."

[pictures dated 3/29/08]

Hair washing

Does anyone have any tips on washing a toddler's hair? Amelia HATES it. She stands up in the tub and pleads, "Get out get out get out get out" and my heart breaks that I can't respond since she's all wet and sudsy. Last night she tried to climb out during the hairwashing fiasco and fell, which only made it worse. I hurried to rinse her hair and got her out and we continued with our routine of rocking and then yogurt, bedtime story and bed.

Then this morning - she woke up with a really ugly bruise on her chin. it's about the size of my entire fingertip and maroon with a purple edge. It wasn't there last night before she went to bed, and she was up for at least 45 minutes after her bath. I figured that since it took all night for it to appear it might help to put some ice on it so I gave her the Tigger gel pack she likes so much. Five minutes later I realize there's orange gel everywhere. It had a split seam, probably from the time a couple of weeks ago it fell off the freezer drawer. So that just added to the great hair washing fiasco.

I only wash her hair about once a week because she hates it so much. I usually try to just use a wet washcloth but of course some water always trickles to the front of her face. Does anyone have any suggestions for washing a toddler's hair without inducing terror? If you have trouble leaving a comment, please email me at mommy_of_amelia at yahoo.com. Thanks.

I want to know

... who taught her this?!

And she, who does not do anything on command, was more than happy to repeat the gesture for the camera. More than once. She said, "Look at these teeth!" Never mind that you can't see any when she does this. She looks downright toothless!

She has a new Dora book about going to the dentist. Perhaps her Friday afternoon sitter (Summer) did this with her? Inquiring minds wants to know.

That is, after we stop laughing our butts off. This was FUNNY!

[pictures dated 4/6/08]

April Fool's

On March 31st Amelia had some wardrobe issue late in the day and I put on a short-sleeved shirt and a skirt on her as my own little rebellion against the heretofore crappy weather. I know, how infantile. But really, it was ANOTHER cold, miserable, wet, overcast, damp, yucky day. And more in the forecast for DAYS.

April 1st, a Tuesday. It's my day off and we left the house mid-morning and it was beautiful. Met a friend for lunch at a pizza place (one of Amelia's favorite foods, as well as one of mine). Ran a few errands and stopped at a park we don't go to very often since we were done with errands. One of her little friends was there - a little 3 year-old boy named Caden who I think Amelia already has a small crush on based on the way she says his name. He ran over and said, "Hi Amelia!" And they were off. And it was HOT! Amelia had a long sleeved dress and tights on - which helped her slide down the hot-from-the-sun slides. We came home and, thanks to a juice box that was emptied, but not all in her mouth, she needed a wardrobe change and the outfit I had put on her the night before in frustration was totally weather appropriate.

April Fool's on the mommy, huh?