Ok, well this blog kind of fell by the way side for the 2 year old year. Sometimes I would think about posting, but then there would just be too much to cover!
The last time I posted here, I was stressing about the transition of Cordelia starting school and also having to be baby sat by Emily that week. Well, after our mutual first day of the school year, I realized that night that I had lice. My head had been getting increasingly itchy and finally at like 11 pm I found a nit in my hair. So I had to take off the 2nd day of the school year-- not the best time for the teacher to be out, especially when you have a new child starting in your class. Not being a lice expert, I took Cordelia to Love Bugs to have a professional go through our hair much fast and thoroughly than I ever could. Their logo is ladybugs, so Cordelia was not very upset about having bugs in her hair. We just said we had to get all the buggy-bugs out. I didn't even have the heart to tell her we were killing the bugs, just taking them out, to vaguely maybe be released outside?? ha ha, I just don't want to teach her to kill living things. Anyway, it was hell and I am traumatized for life and occasionally still have itchy head flashbacks.
Cordelia made it through the many changes and settled into school. She likes her teachers Kristina and Dominique so much. She enjoys playing and being around other peers but doesn't engage in sustained play with them for very long. There is one girl that she has a bit of a bond with, but overall doesn't have a strong friendship yet. She can sometimes be in a bit of her own world. But eventually she has learned to sit for Circle Time and mostly join the group for snack time. She even takes naps there, except for rare occasions. At first she didn't but then we started packing her blankie and it put her right to sleep. Her teachers dubbed it "The Magic Blankie", a name that has stuck on ever since. It is working well with her going MWF, with T Th at Meme's house. It gives her a bit of a break because school days are quite long.
The other thing about school is that it has given Cordelia plenty of exposure to germs. Late fall and winter were one sickness after another. Cordelia's snotty nose seemed never ending. In October, she got some sort of tummy bug and threw up several times, which was also a bit traumatic. Because she was unwell, she started waking up in the night and being hysterical about being stuck in her crib.
You would think this would pass once she was well, but it did not. Cordelia has woken up multiple times in the night ever since then. How I took the days of her sleeping well for granted! I have analyzed it a thousand ways, whether it was from being sick or just the new schedules or what, but now when she wakes up in the night, she becomes alert and then wants help going back to sleep. Or for one of us to stay in her room with her. She won't go down for bedtime by herself either. Some nights she was staying up until after 10 or 10:30, either just playing or talking to herself or battling with us. This has made us plenty tired and Jason and I have argued quite a bit about how to handle her sleep, and it is terribly hard for us to agree on any sort of method to consistently follow because nothing really works.
In November we did get her the cat and dog Ikea toddler bed. It took some time to get her used to the bed. Jason and I argued about going back and forth between the crib and the bed as an option, but then it would just become a game for her to ask to go to the other bed. Fortunately, we are well past that and the trick is to get her to stay in her bed. At first she would get out of bed and just knock on the door. "Mama/Dada come in!" Even after she learned how to open the door, she would still knock and call for us. Slightly cute, even though not ideal, right? Most recently though she has been coming into our room and trying to get into bed with me. If the sun is coming up, I do let her stay with me. I say we can have "morning snuggles". And sometimes she will go to sleep for a bit more time. I don't completely enjoy it because she takes over my whole spot in the bed and I am a very sensitive sleeper. If she comes to sleep there in the night, I won't get a decent amount of sleep the rest of the time. So I try to make her go back to her bed. I have spent a long time working on us staying for a little bit and then going out to do something, reminding her that I will be right back to check on her in a number of minutes. It sometimes sort of helps. When she wakes up at night, she is supposed to turn on her glowing star turtle lamp and go back to sleep. There was one week recently where she slept through the night every night and by god thought maybe we had turned a corner. But no. We took a trip and then C got sick with a fever that last 5 days, and now she is back to her wakings. I try and remind myself that these are all just stages and eventually it will end, but it is still very hard.
Maybe if she slept better, she would be less cranky and contrary. Or maybe that's just because she is two. Maybe she would sleep all night if she dropped taking naps, but usually she is too tired for me to consider giving up naps yet. Sometimes lately I have been thinking about her glorious toddler years and her almost non stop happiness.
to be continued…. (started in May, finished in August)
Anyway, the exciting part of the year was that I became pregnant with our second baby. We found out in November, after I started to feel a bit nauseous several times in one week (around when we were buying the Ikea bed!). At first I was worried it was a stomach bug from school, but then by Monday took a test and got a positive result. It was the same as with Cordelia-- I put the test down, assuming it was negative, but then looked again and another line had shown up!!
Anyway, I had terrible morning sickness and felt awful during the first trimester. Also, starting on January 1st, I got a horrible respiratory infection and coughed for over a month. I had to do antibiotics and get a steroid inhaler. I was convinced that those, the tylenol and some cough meds I took would not be great for my baby, who, later that month we found out was another girl! Finally, I recovered and soon after that it started to be obvious I was pregnant! It was such a relief, as people were constantly asking me through hthe sickness, What are you taking for it? and for a long time, the answer was nothing!!
We told Cordelia around 15 weeks. After having known a young child who knew about a mother's early miscarriage, I was a little paranoid about her going through the confusion of something like that. But fortunately, we were fine, meds and all. I pointed out to Cordelia that my tummy was getting bigger and she immediately made the connection, after having been around some pregnant mommies at school. She put her hands on my tummy and asked "Is it a baby?" She was very sweet and would whisper in a quiet gentle voice to the baby.
Overall, she wasn't too interested/excited about the baby though. She would give it brief moments of affection and was never negative about it, but she has just never been super into babies. She would put her hand on my big tummy, but only for a second or two, to say hello. She rarely stuck around to try and feel kicks or to talk to the baby beyond, "Hello, baby. I am your big sister!" She is much more into her animals and her creative play.
Cordelia became very focused on taking on roles of different characters she loves and insisting that we also adopt roles. For weeks, she would only call Jason Anna, while she pretended to be Elsa from Frozen. It was almost concerning, she would wake up in the night and ask for Anna! She was into it non stop. Then eventually I became an Anna option too, or other characters that she loved. Since then, she branched out, adding Mickey and Minnie, Doc McStuffins characters, Princess Sophia, Cinderella, Daniel Tiger characters etc. The most recent obsession is the Octonauts show. She is the polar bear Captain Barnacle.
She has also gotten into Horses, thanks to our friends who own horses. She has had 2 pony ride lessons on Trigger, but she loves Alyssa's horse Dante most of all. She asked for a horse themed birthday party! She was sick right around her party again and we had to do some rescheduling, but it still managed to be fun. Meme and Papa gave her the most incredible toy horses as her present!
I can't believe my baby is 3!!
Shortly before her birthday, Cordelia became potty trained. I started the first week of April, my spring break, by giving her diaper free time. She was very ready and picked it up quickly. I kept her in diapers for school and Meme's until I was confident in her ability to not have accidents and in May we switched to underwear with very few accidents. The only issue can be she will hold her pee for hours. Usually she will go at least 3-5 times a day, but will wait for 4-5 hours without going. As a pregnant mom, that's how often it felt like I would go in an hour sometimes lol. Also, we have not transitioned out of potty chairs. In some ways it 's good to have them nearby, all over the house, but it would also be nice, now that she can hold it so well, to just go in the potty and not have to worry about clean up. Oh well, lesson learned for Phoebe, eh? She is still in diapers/pull ups for sleep because she definitely goes a lot in her sleep still.
At school, Cordelia enjoys the environment and the presence of other children socially, but she is still very much in her own little world. And she is very happy there in her imaginative play, but hasn't formed any deep connections of friendship. There is one girl that she likes a lot, but I think part of their relationship takes place in her mind as well, as they don't actually interact too much. In some ways it is nice. Some of the girls in her class are already starting to have threenager social drama, and Cordelia is oblivious to it all. Her teachers said, "She doesn't have time for that!!"
I can't believe she is moving into the Big Room next week!!
Cordelia has been adjusting to Phoebe being born pretty well. She is even more affectionate to the baby now that she is here and not just in my tummy. But she has moments of jealousy, asking us to "Put Phoebe Down!" and hold her instead. She has expressed a lot of interest in revisiting a lot of her baby things, like the bassinet or the high chair, to feel secure. She also demands "Play with me!!" all the time, which can be tough because we don't always have the time. But we are giving her lots of love and patience and she is doing really well. We are watching a bit more tv and playing more iPad games than I would like, but, well, it's an adjustment. I was worried about what it would be like when Jason went back to work, but honestly, in some ways it is easier (at least with Phoebe still being so easy going for now) because she isn't splitting her attention between me and Jason. She just hangs out with me and rarely gets to frustrated or upset. We will see how the new school schedule goes next week!
I think we are abandoning nap time. It is too hard for one of us to be there to help her with her sleep and when she does fall asleep, she is staying up until 10 pm again. This weekend, we started having quiet time, where she has to stay in her dim room and read to herself. She actually likes it a lot. I want to move her bedtime up to adjust to it, but it is still hard to get everything done before the regular time. And she is still coming into our room at night! Hopefully she will start sleeping more solidly soon. It's not a big interruption, just hoping she will figure things out.
Ok, I better post this before it gets any later!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment