Ow

We are having a rough week at Casa Plus One.

Part and parcel of having a toddler is having the toddler do things you don't like. My toddler is highly opinionated-- not unusual for a toddler, I know, but she is in the unfortunate position toddlers get into of having more opinions than she has words to express them. This leads to some undesirable behavior. Meltdowns. Getting pushy with other kids when they don't bend to her will.

I know that lots of this is typical toddler behavior, and it's been going on for a while. But she did such a Jekyll to Hyde thing as of Monday morning-- suddenly, it was like usual toddler behavior, squared. Then cubed, and tossed with a healthy dose of restless sleeping and separation anxiety.

The sitter wondered if perhaps her ear infection (finished antibiotics last week) wasn't entirely gone. She's a bossy little thing, but there's a big difference between my willful, sunny toddler and the entity that's taken over her body since Monday. So I made a doc appointment. It's worth a copay to make sure the ear infection is well and truly gone.

It's not her ears, fortunately. I don't want to keep putting her on antibiotics. It's her teeth-- all four of her eyeteeth are coming in at once. Hell, I'd be crabby too! The pediatrican was pretty clear that I should use Tylen0l as needed, even during the daytime.

Teething is barbaric, when you think about it. We just need to get through it. If nothing else, I'm glad to have a reason why my sweet girl is... not so sweet right now.

She'll be back.

Expressing her individuality

I say this without sarcasm: it has to be hard work to be a toddler. Really! You understand a lot but can't use it-- you can't talk about it fully, you can't reach things, you can't get places without help or you can't get there fast enough. Other people run your life, and all you want in the entire world is to run your own life. Right now.

(This sounds a lot like teenagers, doesn't it?)

Elle's in a phase where getting changed/dressed is, apparently, similar to being waterb0arded. Seriously. She loses her mind. I can distract her-- sometimes with a sock, or a toy, or turning on the TV-- but not always; often she's running away or rolling around the bed like she's trying to escape from a vicious torturer, howling all the time.

I have tried giving her the option to pick her clothes out; that really doesn't go anywhere yet. Basically, I have to hold her down to get her clothed or unclothed, and from the sound of it my neighbors are going to be calling the cops on me. Girlfriend has excellent lungs.

***

Her Elm0 love continues to grow. I had a return for Targe.t this weekend-- clothes she received for Christmas that are too big for her, and too warm for her to wear this coming summer when she grows into them. I used part of the credit to get her two Elm0 DVDs, and we watched part of one on Sunday night.

She was transfixed. She danced when he danced, never taking her eyes off the screen. Elm0 is hot stuff, man. HOT STUFF.

Now, whenever we're coming downstairs, she looks at me and says plaintively "Emmo?" Since we usually have about five minutes to spare before we need to leave the house, I usually reply "We can watch Elm0 later, honey," and she's fine. But when she's babbling to herself (as she does all the time), I often hear "Emmo" as part of her talking.

She's all about the Emmo. The rest of Sesame Stre.et is just fine, but not nearly as compelling as anything and everything to do with Emmo.

Fortunately, I don't find him annoying. He's not a character from my childhood-- I'm old school! Mr. Hooper rules!-- but I've always thought he was cute.

There's this female fairy character that I find annoying as heck, though-- they do lots of CGI stuff with her, and she just feels like a purely marketing-driven character. Fortunately, so far Elle has little interest in her. All Emmo, all the time.

Milestones

We've reached another phase where Elle is clearly working on all kinds of developmental milestones. This results in all KINDS of fun behavior, sleeping disturbances, etc. yadda yadda.

At 18 (almost 19) months, she's probably going through the expected "language explosion" (though arguably that happened a couple of months ago). Also, given her late walking, she's just discovered climbing and that is ALL she wants to do. Combine that with what I'm pretty sure are more teeth (canines) wanting to come through, AND the usual toddler mood swings, and you have a baby who will love on you one moment and lose her tiny little mind the next. Very loudly.

She wants to stand on something all the time; she'll stand on a little step stool in front of an ottoman, and play with toys on the ottoman, which is hysterical. She'll stand on her washcloth (!) in the tub. It's all about standing on... anything, apparently. This does not work so well on stuffed animals, but that doesn't seem to deter her.

One thing I've never had to worry about is her being clingy. She's one of the least clingy kids I've met; she's outgoing and social and so interested in everything going on. Sunday at church was actually the first time I couldn't just leave her in the nursery and take off (I don't always leave her there, but it's nice to be able to once in a while). We had a meeting going on that I wanted to attend, but I realized pretty quickly it wouldn't be possible. Every time I left her, after about ten minutes she melted down and one of the teens in the nursery had to come find me. She was fine playing in the nursery (so many toys! so many other kids!) but I had to be there, or it just didn't work. Eventually I gave up on the meeting, hung out with her for a while in the nursery, and headed home to grab some lunch.

(After which I got a three hour nap. I DO NOT GET THREE HOUR NAPS. Ever. You know something's not right when I do! And I had to waste a big chunk of it on her car seat, which is a separate entry entirely.)

In other news, unsurprisingly, she adores her music class. Loves it. She does her own thing most of the time, dancing around, checking out what the other kids are doing. As you'd expect for a toddler her age, she has all the focus of a gnat on speed. I even asked the instructor if it was OK for her to be wandering around so much, and she said it was perfectly normal-- that it was unusual that Elle was the only one doing so in this particular class. Apparently, usually it's most of the kids.

She has a good sense of rhythm already, and is really working on singing along/duplicating what the instructor asks of the kids, rather than just nattering along to her own internal tune. She's brilliant, of course. Brilliant.

And I'm probably projecting, but I swear Elle knows what I mean when I say "We have music tonight!" (or tomorrow, or whatever.) She gets so excited.

Gravy

I am blessed with a good night sleeper (for the most part). Once I put her down, I generally have somewhere between 10 and 12 hours to myself. Of course, most of those hours are when I get MY sleep, and usually at least an hour of that is cleanup from the day/prep for the next day, but I generally have at least a little bit of reliable spare time.

(I know single moms with kids that don't sleep well. HOW DO THEY DO IT?)

On very long days, I confess that I look forward to Elle's bedtime. That's bad, isn't it? To eagerly anticipate seeing her on the monitor, sound asleep, all tousled and rosy so that I can do something meaningful like watch bad TV? Shouldn't I want to spend Every Single Minute with her?

Whoops.

On one of the single mom message boards I read, there's a thread where women are sharing their birth stories. I love this; I'm a total sucker for it, and I love seeing how different everyone's path was. But there have been a few women who've said "Oh, I wouldn't let the baby out of my sight! I wouldn't let them take her to the nursery!" "I wouldn't let them bathe her-- I didn't want to miss her first bath!" etc., variations on that.

I remember being thrilled when they took Elle and bathed her, and having no problem when they had to take her to the nursery for various tests and things. You could look at this a couple of different ways, I guess.

How I look at it is that, regardless of whether I was (or am) with her every single minute of every single day, I have always been and will be her mother, and I love her. Did she take a few of her early steps at her babysitter's? Sure, and I don't mind a bit. I'm just glad she was walking. I know there are parents that don't want caregivers to tell them these things, so that they (the parents) can believe they're witnessing all the "firsts" themselves.

It may be unsentimental, but I'm just thrilled when Elle has a "first." If I'm the second person to see it, so be it-- I could be a stay-at-home mom and STILL be the second (or third or fourth) person to see a "first."

I'm her mother. I will always be her mother. No one else can ever say that. If I didn't watch her first bath, I'm pretty sure it didn't make our bonding more difficult. If I enjoy the time I have to myself after she goes to bed, it doesn't mean I don't love the time I do have with her.

I am her mother, I love her, and all else is gravy, as my grandmother used to say.

Ouch

We had Elle's 18 month checkup recently (I'm still getting over the fact that this little person has been around for a year and a half!). All is well. She's a little late on some of her gross motor development, but given what a late walker she was, the doctor isn't worried.

She had to have a couple of shots at the end, including that DTaP one that always gives her a fever. (Yay Tyl.enol!) I've never been too bothered by Elle's shots before; they are done quickly, and she generally only cries briefly.

This time, she cried a little longer, but the worst part? Her sobbing consisted of "Mama mama mama mama! Mama!" interspersed with the gasping sobs.

It killed me, people. It was awful.

She's fine, of course. She got Tyle.nol before bed that night and slept like a rock, then woke up the next morning happy as can be. All is well.

But the sobbing "Mamas" were the worst. The WORST.

Healthy living

There are many wonderful things about being a parent, but "ability to get to the gym" is not one of them. At least not for a single parent.

I am a short person, and I've never been mistaken for a model. About 11-12 years ago, I lost 30 pounds, and kept it off. While this weight loss never got me to what the charts tell me I should weigh, I was at a place where I was healthy, where clothes fit well, and where I was pretty happy with my body. I'd gain a few pounds here or there, sure, but I was always able to pull it back. I think the most I ever gained was nine pounds, so I never really got out of hand. I was able to do this largely because I worked out. I like food-- I'm never going to be someone who picks at her food, or forgets to eat-- so you have to make up for it with activity.

I didn't gain a ton of weight during my pregnancy-- again, because I exercised. I was going to the gym until a week or two before Elle was born, I think. My workouts changed, sure, but I was still exercising. There were many benefits to the exercising besides the weight control-- I really didn't like the feeling that I had lost control over my body, so working out calmed that anxiety as well.

In the 18 months since Elle joined the world, though, there has been no gym. I dropped my Y membership; didn't make sense financially. I get to yoga once in a blue moon-- I can't afford a sitter every time I want to go to a class, and while there's a weekly lunchtime yoga near my office, I can't get there every week. I am using the exercise bike in my basement when I can, but it's not the same as a good, intense half-hour on the elliptical.

I have gained back 25 pounds. That is completely unacceptable. Also, I can't afford a whole new wardrobe, thanks.

So I'm back on the healthy eating train. Last time I did it through that national chain (named with two words, both of which start with W and the second word is "watchers") and found it pretty straightforward. So I rejoined. "Rejoined," for me, now means I went, "signed up," bought the reference materials I'm going to need, and won't go back. Weekly meetings are nice, but see above re: yoga-- not going to hire a sitter, can't go during work. I also can't afford the weekly fees right now.

This is actually OK for me. When I'm motivated, I'm motivated. Weekly meetings don't do anything to help me in either direction. The weekly weighing in is, actually, helpful, but I'll manage.

I've been on it just over a week now, and so far so good. It's a straightforward plan: eat whole foods, eat lots of fruit and veggies and lean proteins, and make sure you eat enough healthy fats to keep things right. (It's counterintuitive, but if you don't eat any fat at all, it's not good for you AND it slows down your weight loss.) There have been a number of changes since I was on the plan all those years ago, so it's definitely an adjustment. For instance, what do you MEAN I can have all the fruit I want? Do you know how many bananas I can (theoretically) eat in one day?

Really, you can have anything you want; you just have to fit it into your day. Do I want that bag of chips, or can I have a banana AND peanut butter AND some crackers? I'm going to choose volume over specific foods, usually, which is why this works for me. And at least one day I've actually had trouble meeting that minimum food target. Nice problem to have. (I had a few graham crackers and they were heavenly.)

I do have to be careful not to eat Elle's leftovers (a bad habit that was probably responsible for at least a few of the 25 pounds) and it's not like the old days where I could just keep tempting foods out of the house entirely; there's another little person around who likes a graham cracker after dinner once in a while. But again, if I'm motivated, it doesn't seem to be a big issue. And I'm motivated. Elle deserves a mom who feels good about herself and is healthy. I deserve to be healthy and feel good about myself. And I know I can do it-- I did it before.

I'm also applying for additional life insurance (Note: I do have a good amount of life insurance already, through work, but I want a term policy that's independent of my job, and big enough that my total coverage is sufficient to take care of Elle if, God forbid, it's necessary) and it's cheaper the less you weigh.

So happy new year! May it be healthy and happy and wonderful for you and yours. I'm going to go have some popcorn now, because I can.

Toddler Language

Some of Elle's recent words:

Bra
Sure
Shit
Box
Boot

You can probably understand that I'm less than thrilled about "shit," but face it, it's going to happen. I'm just glad it's not the F word.

She has an enormous vocabulary-- whether she understands all the words, I can't entirely say, but she has a LOT of them. Rough estimate she has over 30 that she uses appropriately, and many more that are somewhat random. She also understands most of what I say and will follow directions (when she wants to, anyway) appropriately, even when I'm using pretty complex sentence structure.

Between talking and singing (she sings all the time!), it's pretty noisy around here. It's awesome.