Molly, Fort, Owie, Bite, Baba, Naughty, Gentle

Peanut is trying to tell us a story. It’s the first time she’s strung together words that convey multiple thoughts which are all related. It’s kind of fun to listen to her work on these skills. Here’s the story she’s trying to tell us:

Molly and Fort got into a fight. Fort got lots of owies because Molly bit him, so they’re staying at grandpa’s house until this weekend because Fort needs lots of attention. Biting is naughty. Puppies should be gentle to each other.

I can't believe how much fun children this age are.

Mama Back

The peanut learned something new this week. One word can have more than one meaning.

She's been saying the word back for a while. She'll point to her back, and say it. She'll climb up on the ottoman, say back, and point to it when she wants a back rub. When she thinks she's had a long enough back rub, she'll even reciprocate by asking us to sit on the ottoman while she rubs our back.

I was surprised the other day when she used the work back in a different way. I got up from the kitchen table to grab a soda out of our mini refrigerator in the laundry room when peanut started yelling, "mama back". "Mama, BACK". I stood in the doorway, and asked if she wanted me to come back to the table. Sure enough, that's what she was trying to say.

Not too shabby for 20 months old.

Daycare Report Card

I picked Peanut up from daycare the other day, and they had placed a report card in her cubby. It has a list of 41 skills that she's supposed to master. At first, I freaked out becuase I thought that she was supposed to master all of these skills by two, but it turns out that they use the same report card sheet all the way until she's through the pre-school program.

Anyhow, she's doing pretty well. She has mastered 27 of the items on the list. In the Gross Motor Development category she has only one skill left to master, walking backwards upon command. She does this for me at home, so I know she'll figure it out soon at daycare too. In the fine motor development category she has two items left to master, cutting with scissors and unwrapping items. I think those will take a while to accomplish. I'm not okay with my 20 month old using scissors, so that's a parenting issue not a development issue. The language development section is one she's working on right now. She needs to start using words to express her needs at school. She's just starting to do this at home, so it should come quickly. Right now, her favorite is "Eat". She even worries about the dogs eating. She's supposed to have 10 - 15 nouns & verbs. She's getting close to that at home. As far as I can tell, she has about 50 words so far. She's just not using them at school, and she needs to start putting words together into simple sentences. There again, she's starting to do this at home, but it's still very infrequent. She also needs to learn her colors and numbers. We're working on it at home, but she doesn't have them yet. She also needs to learn to go to the bathroom by herself, but she's not even two yet. I think it's okay to just be interested in the process, but not yet doing it herself.

Uh-oh

I was getting Peanut ready for daycare yesterday when she started pointing at me, and saying, "Uh-oh." I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Nothing had fallen on the floor. There were no stains or strings or anything else on my shirt. I told her, "nothing's wrong"; however, she kept repeating, "Uh-oh". I finally realized that my hair had shifted while I was looking down, so the part wasn't straight. I fixed it, and asked her, "did I fix it?". She smiled, and said, "Yep".

Who knew that your part had to be kept perfectly straight, or it's an Uh-oh?

My little copy cat

My daughter is such a hoot lately. She's totally into copying everything we do. She feels the need to supervise me when I'm using the toilet, and she pretends to wipe her butt when I do. She's also trying to copy the way we talk / interact with the dogs. She did a semi-squat, and patted her knees trying to get the dog to come to her the other day. If we use a hand signal, she'll mimic that as well. She's also practicing repeating the words we use. Thank God, I used shoot the other day when the car seat buckle was stuck the other day in the cold.

I never realized how fun a toddler can be. I thought my friends were crazy when they talked about staying home, and laughing at their kids. I totally get it now. I was the one missing out, not them.

A Frustrating Start to the New Year

Well, 2009 has arrived, and with it came a lot of frustration.

We had Christmas with my family. My sister was her typical, crabby, impossible to satisfy self. It's hard to deal with her when she's squealing at my mom for mashing the potatoes, (I guess we're all supposed to know that beef burgundy is served on boiled potatoes, right?) berating her daughter at the dinner table for not eating the right foods, yelling at my mom for repeating her husband's question to their daughter, freaking out because their daughter gets chocolate on her hands. She managed to buy Peanut the wrong sized shirt. It's not a big deal, I'll save it until next winter, but she's arguing with me about Peanut growing enough to wear it this spring. It's not going to happen. Peanut's in the 5th percentile for her age. She's just starting to move into her 18 month clothes at 20 months. She's not going to be able to wear a size 24 month shirt until sometime in the fall at the earliest. Oh well, it's not worth it to get worked up. She's just a pain in the butt. Other than that, we had a good time. My parents and aunt and uncle were very generous.

We went to the in-laws for the weekend. For the most part it was a good time, but I had problems with trying to work from their home. I thought I had everything ready to go, but I missed a few things. It's painful trying to work over the VPN with changes to the database. In addition, it took 2 days for them to get the new entertainment system hooked up. I was starting to go a little stir crazy from the silence. I really like to have the TV playing in the background. However, Peanut did say I love you for the first time, and she's starting to put together two to three word sentences. She's at such a fun age.

This morning was one of those days where you wish you could go back to bed and start all over. I ran out to start the car, and it was covered in ice. Neither windshield scraper was working, so I asked my husband to help. He started hauling buckets of water outside, dumped them on the windows, and scraping the remaining ice off. I tried to take over for him since he was in his PJ's but it was a two person job. By the time we were done, we were both soaked. I ran upstairs, changed clothes, grabbed Peanut, and headed into work. The roads were icy, so traffic was slow. I had to call my boss to let him know I'd be a few minutes late. I dropped Peanut off, and headed into work. Halfway there, my husband called to ask me where I was. I was baffled by the question since he knew I was going to work when he told me that I'd forgotten the laptop in my rush to get out of the house. AAARGH!!! Thankfully, he brought it to me, but it wasn't the way I planned to start the new year. This was all followed by one of my coworkers expanding his monthly report to 90 pages with 20 hours notice. I'm scrambling to get it all compiled and organized. Hopefully things will get a little less frustrating soon.