D – Page 9 – Jocelyn Rau

December 8, 2011December 8, 2011

Only 2 weeks late {pictures!!}

So here it is, FINALLY. My Thanksgiving recap post. In pictures. Exactly 2 weeks late. Ahem. It was awesome.

tg1 — The table all nicely set and ready for food

We had enough food for a family of 10 and proceeded to eat leftovers until this week. R said we should really have taken some to a shelter, to which I agreed, but unfortunately they have pretty strict rules about donated food and its preparation/handling. So we are still finishing up the pumpkin torte. It was a wonderful day at home, just the 3 of us – our little family. And yes, that is a mini Packers jersey D is wearing. R wouldn’t even let me put a cute little holiday outfit on her. Hmpf.

And since I made you wait so long for some pictures, here are a few bonus shots. Because no day is complete without an abundance of D.

tg11 — D helping Mommy put her ornament on 1st

tg12 — She's now ADDICTED to her chocolate advent calendars

December 6, 2011

Memories Captured

A picture, a word, a memory.

December 1, 2011February 1, 2012

16 month stats

Happy 16 month birthday, Squeaker! And Happy December to the rest of you. December, though? Wow, how did that happen? This whole year up until the fall seemed to go by at just the right pace – neither too fast nor too slow – but these past couple months, man. They’ve FLOWN by. And I still can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that Christmas will be here in just weeks, since this year I’ll be focused more on getting us all packed and ready to fly across a good chunk of the planet before Santa makes his rounds. It feels kind of weird.

But anyway, back to the star of the show, D. Fortunately we haven’t had to go to the doctor since last month’s well-baby visit, so I would estimate her stats as about 33″ tall and weighing between 23-24 lbs. I read back through her 15 months stats, and honestly, not much has changed at all. These are really about the only 2 things different for this month:

She now has 16 teeth. The top left cuspid is in (it was just starting to poke through in last month’s entry), and the top left first molar is now poking through as well. Fortunately the main symptom of teething for these 2 was just a lot of chewing on her fingers. Totally manageable.
The little booty is growing. She now wears size 4 diapers during the days and size 5s overnight. Thank heavens people told me about the 1-size-bigger-at-night trick, for the morning pee lakes in her crib are now much fewer and farther between than they were for awhile there this summer.

It’s so fun watching D grow into this awesome little kid. For there isn’t much baby left to her anymore – she really is a little girl. Aww…

p.s. I ran again last night for the 1st time in a month. OUTSIDE. I decided to break my no-running-outside-unless-it’s-above-50-degrees rule, because I’ve been feeling like my twice weekly early morning workouts just aren’t cutting it. Plus I figured I’d take advantage of what may have been the last “mild” day of the year (it was 42 degrees when i drove home from work). I ran 2.86 miles in 26:45, for a 9:21 pace. Not very fast, but I knew it wouldn’t be after taking such a long break. It felt pretty good though overall – comfortable pace, my abs didn’t feel as jiggly as they usually do when I run, my lungs didn’t burn from the cold too much (although my hands were pretty cold), and I felt like I could’ve even gone further. Let’s not get crazy, though. It was getting darker and colder by the minute, and I much prefer running in the sunlight than in the moonlight.

p.p.s. I’m taking D down to Peoria to visit my dad and his side of the family tomorrow for a long weekend, so I’ll see you in a few days. Have a great weekend!

November 17, 2011February 10, 2012

A mama in the darkness

Tiny hands explore my face as I rock you with your bottle.

The left one grazes my chin and cheek, searching for a strand of hair to twirl. The right one feels my ear and finds my earring. Usually it twists your own hair, but tonight you want mine.

I hope I always remember their touch, their tiny strokes.

Will there be more someday? Right now it is just me and you, and you have all of me.

Your legs dangle off my lap, not kicking about tonight. Calm, ready for bed. You’re getting so big.

Your warm head, fresh from a bath, nestled in the bend of my left elbow. It fits perfectly.

I rock, you drink. It’s early, but you’re tired already and I can tell it’s time.

The snuffles and grunts as you swallow the last milk of the day soon turn into the slow breaths and little snores of your slumber. Sleep comes easily tonight.

I watch you, breathing in every second and trying to etch the memory in my mind for all time.

I smile down at you in the darkness, your eyelids having fluttered shut for the final time for sleep. Tears well up in my eyes, for I know this era is fleeting.

I don’t want it to go.

They say we have to give this up soon, but not tonight. Not now.

You don’t need to be burped anymore, but I put you on my shoulder when the bottle is done anyway. I love when you sleep up there. You fit.

Your little left hand falls to rest on my left shoulder as you turn yourself around, getting comfortable in your dreams. I kiss it, then your cheek as I lay you in your crib. Face down, knees pulled in underneath you, bottom up in the air. Your favorite position.

I love you. Every piece of you. Every fiber of your being and every sparkle of your soul, wherever it may take you. Hopefully not too far away.

I will always love you like this. Forever.

This was originally intended to only be a little ode to D, but it just so happens to fit in with a couple writing prompts. So I’m linking up at both Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop and Heather’s Just Write.

November 3, 2011February 1, 2012

15 month stats

15 months this week (Tuesday, to be exact), wow! D is turning more and more into a little person every day, and that tiny baby who burst into our lives last August is quickly becoming a distant memory. Which kind of makes me sad. I absolutely loved the newborn stage – teeny little girl, depended on me and R for every single thing, could snuggle in and sleep for hours in the crook of your arm. But I have to admit, seeing the person whom D is becoming is amazing. She has the funniest, most incredible spirit, and watching her learn something new every day just fills me with pride. Like hey, we made that little human, and maybe we didn’t so bad after all.

So what’s new in the life of Miss D?

We just had her 15 month checkup yesterday, and she is 32 3/4 inches tall, weighing in at 23 lbs. She loves stepping up onto the regular scale at the doctor’s office all by herself now, too.
*Almost* has a couple words. When asked, “Who says moo?” or “How does the cow go?” she’ll reply “Mmm…” We just need to work on getting those Os tacked on there. And when prompted with, “How does the puppy go?” she’ll say “Woof, woof.” Ok, it sounds more like “fff, fff,” but we totally know what she’s saying. Unfortunately the “thank you”s we heard a few months ago are now nowhere to be found, something we need to work on reviving. Actual words can’t be far off, though, what with the sometimes endless rivers of chatter that flow from those little lips.
LOVES her books. I think now more than ever, actually. I brought an old CD rack down from the attic a few weeks ago and loaded it up with all her books in her bedroom, and she will go in there time after time and empty the entire thing, just sitting there reveling in a pile of books. It is beyond cute to hear her reading them out loud, too, as the “bdyips, bdyips” and “bdyaps, bdyaps” make up countless stories. She does have a couple favorites, which she so hopefully carries out to you so she can climb up into your lap to have read. I love it.
She is great at entertaining herself, which I also love. The other weekend R bought a set of those interlocking foam play mats to cover the floor, since we have no carpet in our house and the floor gets kind of cold (not to mention hard). They’re the alphabet and numbers from 0-9, and I cleared out an entire corner of our living room to lay them. We finally put away her playpen (the jumperoo made its way up to the attic a few months ago) and had enough room to use this new corner play area to hold all of her toys and things in the living room. It’s perfect, and she will sit over there and toodle away quite happily on her own (yes, toodle, i may have just invented that word too). She has a couple Magna Doodles, her little push toy, inflatable beer bottle (wonderful example we’re setting), kickball, corner pillow for lounging, shapes for stacking and putting through the correct holes in their respective boxes, gumball machine toy, whatever random pieces of this and that she collects from around the house, and of course more books.
She will let us know when she’s hungry now by going over to her highchair, grabbing onto the tray, and acting like she’s trying to climb up it. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before she does this when we’re not looking and pulls the whole thing down on top of her. Not looking forward to that one.
Is primarily still a champ sleeper. Her bedtime is usually somewhere between 7-8, and yes, she still takes a bottle of milk at bedtime. It’s not quite as necessary as it has been, because there are nights where she’ll be so tired we can just put her in her crib and she’ll fall right asleep without it. Most nights, however, she’ll start doing her sleepy eye-rubs and maybe get a little whiny, so we’ll give her her bottle, she’ll climb up and lie between R’s legs in a blanket on the couch, and drink her milk until she falls asleep. Or sometimes I’ll rock her in her room with the bottle, just depending on what we’re doing and how tired she is. I know we need to give this last bottle up soon, but she still loves it and I don’t think this nighttime routine is hurting anything. She’s been waking up a couple times in the nights lately, but I think that’s due to growing pains. At least I hope it’s due to growing pains and not a new non-sleep schedule she’s picking up, because that just doesn’t fit into my need-sleep schedule.
Loves participating in all the activities at daycare – finger painting, water color painting on the easel, story time, finger plays, songs, and most especially playing out on the playground. There have been days when her class is outside playing when I arrive to pick her up and she won’t want to go home. Stinker! One day she tried to eat wood chips to avoid coming with me, another day she tried to permanently attach herself to the wooden rocking boat in her empty classroom so I couldn’t carry her out to the car. At least she likes daycare, right?
This girl L-O-V-E-S to be outside. Which is awesome. She adores riding in her little seat on R’s bike, and when he picks her up like that from daycare they’ll often head to a park afterward to play on the playgrounds some more. Unfortunately those days may be over for the season, but they got a ton of them in this summer and fall which was so great. She loves going on walks in the stroller, as usual, but even more so is thrilled by just being turned loose in the yard to run around on her own. She plays in the grass, crunches leaves, picks up rocks, the whole shebang. And if you try to take her inside before she wants to go? Hoo boy, look out! You will instantly have a writhing, crying serpent in your arms. Fun. She’ll also stand guard at the front or back door if one of us has gone outside and dared leave her behind indoors, pining away for her chance to get back out there. Maybe someday we’ll have a bigger yard so she can really run free. Because right now she tends to try to escape down the sidewalk as far as she can get. Which doesn’t bode well for the next few years, seeing as she’s only 15 months old right now and all.
Puppies remain her favorite animal, with I think cows now coming in a close second. Obviously she hasn’t and doesn’t see many cows up close like she does dogs, but the cows mooing in books are some of her favorites.
Bath time is still a blast for her. Again, trying to get her out and dried off becomes a game of skill, wrangling a slippery, squirmy babe.
She gives the best hugs and kisses, and when she snuggles up against my neck as I’m holding her on my shoulder is when I want to freeze time forever.
This girl dances like no other and rocks out constantly. Whether she’s in her highchair, on your lap, standing in the bathroom, or just running around as usual, as soon as she hears music come on she will start bobbing and swaying. In fact, it is mandatory that we turn on the speaker in the kitchen when she’s in her highchair. She makes the rules, remember?
Still doesn’t have a “lovey” or anything else she always sleeps with, but she does love to hug her plush toys tight and then throw them in the air to do somersaults. Funny little girl.
I swear she’s learning how to snap her fingers. She will move her index fingers and thumbs together while she’s dancing, much as you do with your middle fingers and thumbs to actually snap. Hers don’t make noise, obviously, but it’s impressive to see her doing the motions nonetheless.
She’s in size 3 diapers (4s for overnights) right now, but I think will soon be moving up to 4s. Her clothes are pretty much all 18 months minimum. She still wears some 12 month onesies and tops, but the pants are all too short if they’re smaller than 18M now. Guess she’s got my long legs.
Eats all regular food, and has started learning to feed herself with a spoon. I know they work on this a lot at daycare, but when I hand her the spoon at home it gets used more as a prop, with her hands still doing most of the shoveling in of food. And I learned at her parent teacher conference Tuesday afternoon that only at home does she swipe her hands across her tray when she’s done eating to fling all the food that’s left onto the floor; they never see that at daycare. Awesome. Thank you very much, Squeaker.
Has started learning to drink out of cups with no lids. They’re just the little tiny Dixie cups at daycare that they drink water out of throughout the day, but still. That’s a pretty big step. She has liked to drink out of our cups at home for months, but that generally results in one very wet little girl. I may have to get some of the little Dixies for her to use outside of school for practice.
Has 14 teeth, with 1 just about to poke through, if it hasn’t yet already. I haven’t checked since the other night, when it was just barely still hiding under the surface. All the new ones are eye teeth and molars, so I can’t blame the girl for being a little crankier than usual sometimes.

I think that about covers it. A lot of the above is probably a little repetitive from recent months, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch of stuff, but it’s hard to condense everything into a few bullet points when you’re dealing with such a multi-faceted child as D. 😉

November 2, 2011December 19, 2012

Wordless Wednesday

D's new milk vessel - the best 49 cents I ever spent

I’m linking up today over at a different Wordless Wednesday site. Check it out if you’d like to see more…

October 7, 2011February 8, 2012

I’m beginning to feel seriously disliked

By my own 14 month old.

Has anyone else with a toddler experienced this, or am I just lucky to suddenly seemingly be the object of my daughter’s disaffection?

The first signs came weeks ago, when diaper and clothes changes on her changing dresser became all-out battles. As soon as I pick her up to lay her up there she begins writhing and kicking in the air, doing anything she can to avoid landing on her changing mat.

This is so crazy to me, because she used to absolutely love it up there. I mean L-O-V-E it. When she was really little she’d get all excited and wiggle around when placed on it for changes. We called it doing her “mat jigs”. And even up until recently she was perfectly content to look at one of her books or play with a lotion bottle while being changed.

But now it’s like her changing mat is on fire or a bed of nails when we put her on it. It usually takes all my might these days to keep her in place so as not to get poop smeared all over her, me, the wall, and the dresser when it’s dirty diaper time.

And I’m kind of ashamed to admit this, but the other night I even resorted to leaning my full weight onto her to push her down so I could get her diaper changed before putting on her pajamas. I mean come on. A grown adult using full-body strength to flatten down her kicking and flailing toddler all for the sake of 1 f’ng diaper? Seems ridiculous, but that is to what I’ve been reduced.

I’ve also been getting “that look” from her a lot lately. That look where she raises her eyebrows and opens her eyes real big, then kind of crinkles up her upper lip and gives a squeaky grunt like no! I don’t want to do that!

Really? You’re ONE. I don’t remember there being a clause in the rule book of life that says ONE year olds get to call the shots. I’m the mom, just trust me right now.

I know I’ve mentioned this one before, but she already exhibits some terrible 2-ish behavior, too. Like the throw-herself-down-on-the-floor-and-cry when she either doesn’t get something she wants or gets something taken away from her that she’s not supposed to have. Very mature.

And if she’s in her high chair and decides she’s totally over eating or sees something on her tray that displeases her, she smashes all her food then swipes her hands across her tray real fast to fling everything onto the floor. Rude.

And the most recent display in this category is the crying meltdown that ensues when she reaches her arms up to you to be picked up but you’re doing something or your hands are full so you can’t get her THAT VERY SECOND. Awesome. Because we’re so heartless that it takes us longer than 1.5 nanoseconds to pick up our child when she thinks she needs to be held.

But this next one is the real winner.

I swear to you, D would rather camp out at daycare round-the-clock than come home with me in the afternoons now. I’m not gonna lie, either. It kinda breaks my heart a little each time and is what has most made me feel like a mommy unloved.

I’m so used to her plowing over any toy and child in her path to get to my arms when she sees me in the door to her room when I arrive for pick-up, that now when she doesn’t even want me to hold her I can’t help but feel totally rejected.

2 perfect examples…

Monday this week her class was on the playground when I picked her up because the weather has been so gorgeous these past couple days. She and another little girl were being pushed in a double-seater swing by the teacher, and when she saw me she lit up with outstretched arms to come get me. Awesome, that’s what I love.

We went inside so I could sign her out on the attendance sheet, and she made an immediate bee-line for the wooden rocking boat in their room, climbed in, and started rocking like crazy. Oh that’s so cute, I thought. I’ve never seen her play in one of those before. Ok, time to go, so I reached for her to pick her out of the boat and carry her back out the door.

You’d think I was coming at her with a hot poker the way she recoiled and grabbed onto the handles of the boat for dear life, wanting nothing to do with me and the nice home to which I was taking her. Hmm, all right.

I finally was able to pry her out of the boat and set her down on the classroom floor since she was trying to flop away from me. Mistake. For then all she wanted to do was run around and play in her empty classroom. The flopping and squealing immediately resumed when I gathered her up to take her out to the car to head home.

Then Tuesday this week I experienced a similar get-away-from-me-Mom episode, again when I picked her up from daycare.

Their class was out on the playground enjoying more sunshine, and this time D was going down the slide when I arrived. She spotted me mid-slide, and I shit you not, she splayed out on the slide when she got to the bottom like she usually does when I try to pick her up even though I was nowhere near her, then sat up and tried to shove a whole handful of wood chips in her mouth with that defiant look on her face again.

What? Like eating wood chips is going to get you out of coming home with me? Puh-lease.

There was no greeting me with outstretched arms this time. No. The teacher had to carry her squirming body and hand her over the fence to me. At least this time I knew better than to put her down when we went into her room to sign out. I may still be there trying to remove her from the premises if I had.

So what gives? What has happened to cause this fall from grace of mine? I used to be the one she wanted all the time. Now it seems like I’m the last one she wants. I guess I more expected this assertion of independence around oh, say age 15, not 1. Is this normal? Or have I really done something wrong to make my little girl not like her mommy anymore?