Wild and crazy artists

What I've been up to

 http://www.poetsguidetomotherhood.com/2013/05/three-years-seven-months-and-twenty-one.html

What Amelia's been up to

Snapshots of a three-year-old

I just realized we've hardly taken any pictures of Amelia since she turned three! I am going to try to take some today.

We're very busy these days. Also, I have become better at living in the moment. This results in more peace overall but also a dirty house and an un-updated blog. I almost decided to shut this whole blog down, replacing it with a photo website of some kind. There are a few other writing projects I have been trying to focus on, and I felt bad about how little I write here.

But I decided not to. For one thing, as much as I admire people who record a sentence a day or a photo of their child a day,  this is the only place I have consistently recorded Amelia's life. It would be sad to end it.

Plus, in retrospect, I suppose the silence will be telling. There is a book I found in a used bookstore in DC (Amelia in her Ergo carrier) called "The Seven Stages of Motherhood." I like its personal stories and the way it presents motherhood as a knowable path. The chapter on mothering a preschooler (age 3-5) is called "Trying to Do It All."

That sums things up pretty well. Since Amelia started school, I have had more time to fill, and sometimes I try to fill it with EVERYTHING: cleaning, cooking, yoga, writing, shopping, errands. Yet Amelia is only in school a few days a week, and I also started a teaching job. (!) I haven't written about it here, but it started back in the fall. Officially, I am a "Young Writers Outreach Instructor" for Denver's Lighthouse Writers. It's an amazing job--basically I am a visiting writer going into schools to teach craft--and it fell into my lap with absolutely no work on my part (other than the fact that I joined Lighthouse Writers, the best writers' group ever). I took a session teaching 9th and 10th graders for 3 days a week in the fall, and then took another 7-week session of pretty much the same gig. I also taught a 6-week course back in the spring and worked for a week at their Summer Writing Camp. I love being a "writer in the schools"--it has been a dream of mine to teach writing as a visiting writer since I was a high school teacher. I love the job.

At the same time, the job has created some stress. For one thing, the teaching ends midday, around the time the half day program for Amelia's school ends. Amelia's teacher said I could pick her up late, but in the meantime, Amelia began--drumroll--NAPPING AT SCHOOL. So I usually pick her up around 2 or 3, after the kids wake up, have a snack, and go outside to play. It's cute to come pick her up and see "all the friends" in their coats and hats and sunglasses (required) playing. One day they were barking like puppies and I could hear them a block away. Still, it's more school than I had planned for Amelia this year.

Also, teaching always ends up taking time away from writing. During my first fall teaching session, I hardly wrote my own stuff at all. For this second session, I started out with a stricter schedule for myself, and I was doing well with it--for one week. The second week of the session, Amelia got the flu (EVEN THOUGH SHE GOT A FLU SHOT). So I stayed home to be with her. I am very thankful I have the kind of life that allows me to stop everything to be with my baby when she needs me, so this is not meant to be a complaint, but it does seem like every time I get on a roll with writing, something happens--we go on a trip, someone gets sick, etc.

On the other hand, after three years of motherhood, I've learned that "all things pass." So I will get back on the roll again soon. This week, I am just glad for a healthy child. And the fact that I don't have the flu.

Anyway, here are some "snaphots" of our three-year-old. Real snapshots to come later today!

Amelia visits Santa: She was annoyed that she had to wait in line. She was the only kid not dressed up in fancy Christmas clothes. Between kids, the elves furtively shielded Santa while he used hand sanitizer. When it was her turn, Amelia said she was "nervous" and I told her she didn't have to see Santa, but she bolstered her courage, sat in his lap, and asked for a robot. He kept prompting her "what else?," which I thought was unnecessary. Just a robot, Santa!

Amelia and the "scary room:" A couple of weeks ago, I woke up around 11 pm to Amelia calling me into her room. She said "something's scary!" and pointed vaguely to the corner of her room. I held her hand while she fell asleep again, but she woke up 3 more times that night. According to The Happiest Toddler on the Block, a book I cannot recommend enough, it's normal for kids develop fears around this age. Using the ideas in the book, I rallied the next day, and we rearranged Amelia's room. It did sort of look scary in the corner: the combination of the nightlight in the corner plus a bookshelf that has a tree branch on it made strange shadows, plus we had her humidifier over there, emitting a spooky mist. So I moved all that around and put her night light right beside her bed. Also, we gave her a flashlight and made some special spray (water and lavender oil) to spray at scary things. And, we remover her bed rail and told her she could get out of bed and turn on her light if she wanted to see her room.

This marks the major parenting victory of my life so far: all this worked! Amelia loved having her night light closer, being a "big girl" with no bed rail, and getting out of bed to turn on her light. The first night at bedtime, we heard her light turn on and off about 10 times. In the meantime, to tempt her back into her own bed after 4-5 days of sleeping with Mama while being sick, we put Christmas lights up beside her bed. The first night those were up, she played in her bed for over an hour and a half before finally dropping off to sleep.

What else? I can't think of the other stories I wanted to tell, so here are a few fun facts. Amelia can spell her name and I think she can spell "Daddy" (she and Dean play with foam bathtub letters in the bath a lot). She can count up to 30 or so sometimes--I have heard her do it, but other times she refuses or does it wrong as a joke. She knows the sounds for most of the letters (I made up a song with letter sounds one day in desperation, trying to lull her to sleep, and it took). She loves the "Jennifer stories" I tell her sometimes to distract her while brushing her hair or the like--Jennifer is a girl just Amelia's age, again made up by me in desperation one day--I was trying to use Jennifer as an example of something, like a little story with a moral--"Jennifer didn't want her Mama to brush her hair, but her hair got so tangled she had to cut it all off!" But it turns out Amelia LOVES stories where Jennifer is "naughty:" Jennifer squeezes all of toothpaste out of the tube, refuses to share with her baby brother, dumps her food on the floor, much to Amelia's delight. I am not sure what this means, but in any case, Amelia loves stories and songs. She sometimes even makes up her own stories and songs, something I should try harder to get on tape.

I am sure there is a lot I am missing, but that's a peek into life here lately. Check back later for some real "snapshots" of Amelia!

"The baby is a big girl!"

That's what Amelia said the other day, about herself. Very true.

A quick list:

Amelia loves to pretend: to be a baby, a zoo animal, a teacher, a "scanner at the museum" (?), and lots of other people and things.

She is into mixed media collage:

I have picked up a lot of beads lately, and we have been through about 30 tubes of glitter glue. Two words: Dollar Tree (for the record, 10 tubes in a package).

She has been on some hikes:

She asks "why?" about  25 times an hour.

And, although there is more I want to say, she is awake.

Dr. Sanderford

is on call at a toy box near you.

Potty Time

Amelia's morning potty routine has expanded to include lots of friends. For the record, I would say she is definitely fully potty trained and has been for a month or more. She wears diapers at night and that's it (since she is pretty much NOT NAPPING anymore, we don't have to worry about diapers during naptime). She can climb onto and off of the potty herself, using her little stool (heehee, no pun intended). She can pull her pants up and down. She is very independent about deciding when to go and hardly ever has an accident. Just like some kids are naturally good sleepers or nappers (NOT MINE), Amelia was just pretty easy to potty train. This may be the last post labeled "potty training!"

Harley, Toddler Style

She is still working on pedaling and steering, but she has the bell figured out.

Tea Party

An actual tea party, not the political one.

In the blue chair is Claire, a baby Amelia rediscovered, named, and carried everywhere (including to the potty) all last week. She is really into her baby dolls right now. She has 6 or 7 that she gathers and feeds and diapers and takes "shopping." And throws elaborate tea parties for.

 The busy hostess

 Making sure the babies are sitting up. If they fall she gets mad and yells "NOOO!"

Aftermath. It was a pretty wild bunch.

401

This is my 401st post on QuestionAir. What better way to celebrate than with an old-fashioned Random Update?

The sweet

Amelia is a sweetheart. She loves to sing. She has been watching short nursery rhyme videos on the ipad (look for "Mother Goose Club" or "Snap Smart Kids" on YouTube) while I clean up in the mornings, and it is one of her favorite things to do. She has not liked TV much in the past so it is a relief to have found something that will entertain her for 10 or 15 minutes.

She will sing along to the videos and sing them by herself while she is playing, but she also likes to makes up her own nonsense words to the tune of the rhymes. She makes herself (and me and Dean) laugh and laugh doing this. I will try to post a video soon.

In other playtime news, she very much likes her baby dolls. She will rock them, sing to them, feed them, and also make them whine and then try to figure out what's wrong with them. I wonder where she got that from? It actually brings us around to

The not-so-sweet

We have had our fair share of whining and bratty two-year-old behavior these days. The worst is mysterious whining early in the morning. Amelia will go from happy and sunny to a big toddler mess in a fraction of the second. I can usually discern reasons for the bad moments--teething or hunger or tiredness, for example. I feel like I have been blaming the whining on Amelia's two-year molars for about two years, but THEY ARE STILL NOT IN. She is sometimes overtired because she is not napping--more on that below. But sometimes the behavior just feels like plain old bad behavior.

For example, Amelia likes to climb into her car seat by herself. She usually does it reasonably quickly. "Reasonably quickly" in Amelia-time means much longer than in regular time, but I can deal. However, yesterday she wouldn't climb in and wouldn't climb in, and I was standing in the snow (!) waiting, so finally I said, "Amelia, please climb in your carseat or I am going to put you in it."

"I wanna do it by myself," she said.

"Okay," I said. "Then do it, please."

And she VERY, VERY slowly moved about one inch toward the seat. She stopped to look at me with wide and what can only be described as testing eyes. She wanted to see how much I was going to put up with or how slow she could go.

So I picked her up and put her in. This did not go very well. Have you ever tried to put unwilling two-year-old in a carseat? I felt terrible forcing her in it, but it felt like one of those parent moments when you have to follow through or things will get much worse. She cried about wanting to do it by herself. I said I understood and that next time she got in, she would have another chance to try again to climb in by herself right when Mama asked her to. We held hands and I talked about feelings. (Mama feels frustrated when Amelia doesn't do what Mama asks her to; Amelia feels angry that she did not get into her seat by herself.) She calmed down. The next time we had to get in the car, I reminded her she had one chance to get in quickly, and she did it.

So that problem is now solved forever, right?

The other thing we are working on is saying please and thank you. Amelia absolutely refuses to say thank you to anyone when we are out, like if the librarian gives her a special stamp. I know she feels shy so I don't push that much for now, but at home she sometimes sounds like a tiny dictator. "Mama, get me that juice." "Daddy, I want that toy." So last week, I wrote "PLEASE" and "THANK YOU" on some leftover Valentine hearts. Amelia decorated them with stickers and we taped them up all over the house. It reminds me and Dean to model please and thank you in our requests to Amelia and to each other, and to repeat Amelia's requests in a polite way before we fulfill them. I have been trying to avoid turning asking her say please for things into a power struggle, mainly by getting really excited when she does say it, especially on her own. I just try to remember that like everything else, teaching manners is a process.


Speaking of sleep

Naps are rare. It seems like Amelia tends to nap on Wednesdays, for some reason. Usually she just plays in her bed for an hour or so, sometimes happily, sometimes suddenly yelling "Mama, come here!" in the middle of her playtime. If she does fall asleep, she will sleep for about two hours. She continues to sleep very well at night, and I continue to be extremely thankful for that fact. When she doesn't nap, we put her to bed early. Last night she was in bed at 6:45. She talked and sang to herself for awhile and then fell asleep by 7:15, and slept till 6:25 this morning.

Teeth

Dear two-year-molars, you are terrible things. Please grow more quickly.

Mama's life

Since not being accepted to DU, I have been a little overwhelmed at how quickly all of the other things I wanted to do, writing-wise, have started to happen. I signed up for a poetry workshop, and that is going very well. I took a book review class and contacted an editor about writing my first review. I was contacted, out of the blue, about teaching a youth poetry class for an 8-week session. And, through a friend, I applied and was accepted to write at Examiner.com. I am now the "Denver Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner." You can read my first article here.

Several people have asked my if I will apply to DU again next year. I will not. I did my best on the application, and I am fairly if not totally certain that the reason I was not accepted is that my writing was simply not a good fit for the program. If you're not particularly into contemporary poetry, this might not make much sense, but the short explanation is that DU and the journal it produces, the Denver Quarterly, is known for experimental writing. I am not an experimental writer. (I could get into how all writing is experimental, but as far as the label "experimental" goes, it doesn't apply to me.) There are other programs I am confident I could get into, thank you very much, but they are in places very far from Denver, so for now I am going to keep working and writing on my own and look for other ways to create the writing life I would like to have, with the added bonus that I can do it at my own pace.

Some things I am thankful for
Spring weather, which has returned today after yesterday's snow. My wonderful husband, who returned from a long trip last week. The tiny plants that are starting to grow, a sign of the summer to come. The odd moments I have to write. My wonderful child. I realized the other day I will be truly and deeply sad when I don't have a toddler anymore. Amelia will be exactly two and half tomorrow.

Mail Call

18 inches of snow

can be fun to play in!

What We're Up To

All I can seem to compose for this blog lately is a collection of random moments, and this post will be no different. In no particular order, here's what's going on with us these days.

I finished my application for the PhD program and it is sent away. I am glad to be done with it, hoping very much to get in, but once I actually finished and submitted the application I became much less anxious about the outcome. I feel like I did my best with the time that I had and the rest is simply out of my power. I have enough self-confidence (Meg called it "maturity" and I appreciate that) to assume that if I don't get it, it's simply because my writing isn't a good fit for the program and that's that. At the same time I have fallen pretty deeply in love with the idea of going back to school so I know I will be disappointed if I don't get in. My backup plans for the rest of my life are fairly nebulous at this point. I would like to try becoming more involved with the Denver writing community and freelance writing. We shall see.

The not knowing is making January feel even more stagnant than it always does. We had a couple of nice days and they were wonderful. One of my friends said she felt like she was in love and I thought that was perfect. But then yesterday it snowed again. It was pretty falling but then I realized Suki was out in it. Long story short, she found somewhere to hide and spent her first night out of the house, ever. Dean found her on our kitchen windowsill this morning and we were very happy she came back.

Amelia continues to not nap. She loves her bed and the new train set she got for Christmas. She takes her trains in a basket to her bed and plays for her whole naptime. I leave her in there about and hour and a half and she is happy the whole time. It is not nearly as relaxing for me--knowing exactly how long of a break I have plus feeling like I have to keep ear out for her makes her "naptime" much less of a break. But there is not much I can do about it. If it were warmer I would like it much better because we could spend the whole afternoon at the park. As it goes now there is only so much time one mother can play the same game with a train set in one day, and I have reached that limit by noon.

The game is that she likes to pile up Matchbox cars on the train track bridge and then have me "chug" the trains up the hill to the pileup. Then I have to say, "Danger! Danger! There are cars on the track! Who is going to help move them?" And Amelia looks smug until she decides to move the cars. The the trains chug down the hill and we do it "Again, again." (If you are a certain grandmother, you will recognize this game as one you created--we can't wait till you are here to play it!)

Another game she likes, and this one I can blame on Dean, is to have some of her animals get her ice cream. They ask her what kind she likes and how many scoops, then they trot off to get it and she pretends to eat it. I think she would do this for HOURS if she had a willing audience. She likes to make up words for ice cream flavors. She also likes for the store to run out of a flavor and for the animals to act really surprised and tell her, "They're all out! Shoot!"

Amelia says "got-for" for forgot. "We got-for my coat!"

What else? I am trying to think of baby development things I need to record for posterity. on the toddler behavior front, we have had our share of run-ins with the terrible twos. Tantrums, whining and extreme bossiness are the main challenges. These are better or worse depending on the day or time of day. Two helpful books are The Happiest Toddler on the Block and Love and Logic for Early Years. The whole thing is so exhausting I can't even write about it. Another time. We visited a preschool for next year and I loved it. It is "yoga based" and the teachers were very kind and warm and the school is in an old house that feels, as you would expect, extremely homey. Amelia's night sleep is still excellent. When she doesn't nap she is a giant mess by late afternoon so her bedtime is close to 7. Her eating is still pretty good. She went thought an obsession with orange juice but the she got a stomach virus during which I could only convince her that she really couldn't have a snack by saying that her doctor said too much eating would hurt her tummy. Then it occurred to me I could say that about the juice. It has worked to break the habit. It's not that I am against orange juice but it was starting to feel like she drank so much she was not eating any real food.

In short, all is well. We are looking forward to spring.

Stories and Songs

Amelia was painting and suddenly began to tell me the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I grabbed the camera and tried to record it, but of course as soon as I started recording she changed the story a bit. Still, what I captured is pretty entertaining.

Some Pictures

Amelia's new bed!



Her duvet cover has little vegetables on it, and she got this stuffed broccoli pillow toy to match.



The Artist



The artist made a mess. (We made our own clay from flour and salt. We may never do it again.)



The artist, who did not nap AGAIN today, is very tired.

Seven Shorts

What I've Been Doing

Studying for the GRE--because I have decided to apply to the University of Denver's PhD in Creative Writing for the fall. !!! After looking into part-time teaching for this year, I decided again to stay with Amelia full time, but by next fall, I think both of us will be ready for a change of pace. My hope is that, if I do get into the program (which in several ways is a bit of a long shot), it will be a win-win situation. If you are admitted to the program, you automatically get a Teaching Assistantship. In my dream world, the TA-ship would pay for Amelia to go to preschool part time, and I would be able to arrange her school schedule with mine, and we would both live happily ever after, still spending a lot of time with each other but both venturing out on new scholastic adventures. We shall see. Anyway, I decided earlier in the fall to apply and see what happened, and then I found out I needed to retake the general GREs, since my scores were too old, AND take the Literature Subject Test. Studying ensured. The lit test was yesterday; I am very, VERY glad it's over. Go ahead, ask me what the Pardoner's Tale is about. Ask me to name Milton's major works. Ask me what an alexandrine is. I can answer. Now that the test is over, I need to write my application statement of purpose. The application is due January 1. Cross your fingers!

The Potty Train

This is what Amelia calls potty training. She is in the process. She had been wearing no diaper (and no underwear either, just pants, to avoid constant transitions between diapers and underwear) when we were hanging around the house for several weeks, and she had been doing really well with letting us know when she needs to go, so I decided to take the plunge and give real potty training a shot. Amelia had her first major outing without diapers last Sunday. Well, the first non-accidental one--I took her to the dinosaur bones museum a few weeks ago without a diaper, and luckily caught it before any mess was made. Most of the diaperless outings have gone well. There was one peeing incident at the playground, and she has had 2 or 3 accidents here at the house in the last few days, but overall it's going pretty smoothly. I got this little travel potty, which so far I have only used as a seat on large toilets when we are away from the house, but it looks good for emergencies. I am excited about the thought of Amelia being potty trained, but the stage we are in right now is still a lot of work (dropping everything to run to the potty; sitting there a LONG time; trying to teach Amelia it is not necessary to put half a roll of toilet paper in the toilet just for fun; distinguishing the art of hand-washing from the art of playtime in the sink; etc). But Amelia was definitely showing signs of readiness, so here we are. Again, we shall see.

Mangoroo

Amelia's word for flamingo.

Exchange

Daddy: What is Amelia eating?

Amelia: Strawberries!

Daddy: Where are those strawberries from?

Amelia: From Momma!

Daddy: Where did Momma get them?

Amelia: From a box with a rubber band on it!

Daddy: (laughing) And where did the box come from?

Amelia: From the fridge!

Daddy: (laughing)

Amelia: And from the car, and the grocery store!

Sleepy Bear

Amelia, for the record, has been sleeping GREAT at night since we weaned. There have been maybe 2 or 3 nights she has woken up from what we guess are bad dreams, and one night she was up with a bad cough. Other than that, EXCELLENT SLEEP. Hallelujiah. Naps are still variable, but seem to be shortening. Today, only an hour. Yikes. She has been going down for naps at 1:30 for a month or two. She dislikes the idea of a nap very much (she goes down, but with a fight--the opposite of bedtime, which is now quite peaceful) but I feel like she still needs them; she is definitely yawning and grumpy by naptime. Still, I am not sure how much longer we have with them. Oh, and also for the record, Amelia was sleeping from 8pm-7 am. Then the time changed (I am pretty sure only people without young children like "falling back") and she has been waking up earlier, but still till 6:30 or 6:45. It's so humane! I am deeply grateful to finally be the parent of a "good sleeper." I feel like my time has come.

Amelia's Favorite Games

Amelia is getting very good at entertaining herself. She likes to push her grocery cart around; sing Happy Birthday to You while you hold a plastic cupcake, and then give you an imaginary "special bag" (a favor bag with "ittle fogs in it"); look at books by herself in our gray chair; read books with me and Dean ("Again! Again!"), play with her farm set while sitting on the heating vent; and generally boss around her dolls and animals, including having them kick or hit each other and then gravely admonishing the misbehaving animal and getting the abused animal a toy. She also likes to put her animals to sleep and wake them up. It is really neat to see her imagination develop. Lots of fun.

Twinkle, Twinkle





Amelia was a star for Halloween. Udi made her costume, which got many, many compliments, because it very was adorable. Halloween was great. Although this was, tehnically, Amelia's third Halloween, it felt like her first. She understood the basics of dressing up and trick or treating, and when the time came, she LOVED it. We trick-or-treated for about an hour, just around our block and a street or two over, and Amelia was giggling with delight almost the whole time, clutching her treats (even after the pumpkin got very heavy). After the first couple of houses we tried didn't answer their doors (despite having porch lights on) and we told her they weren't ready, she would pause in front of each and ask us "Is this house ready?" Dean and I took turns accompanying her to ring doorbells and saying trick-or-treat. I had a lot of fun too. I grew up in a place where trick or treating involved driving for miles between houses, so it was really fun to be in a neighborhood, my neighborhood. And it was a really nice night, warm, with a crescent moon in the sky. It made me deeply, deeply glad we had Amelia to go trick-or-treating with. So much fun!

Friendship: A Story in Pictures

What We've Been Up To

So I can't post every day. It was a fun experiment, but I really don't have something interesting to say every single day. I have enjoyed posting more often, though, and I will try to keep it up.

In the meantime, Amelia and I have been having a lot of summer fun.



We have a membership at the Denver Botanic Gardens and go there at least once a week. They have a wonderful children's garden with paths to follow, plants at kid-level, and garden-related toys to play with.



They also have a stream for kids to play in. So much fun! The gardens are only about 10 minutes from our house so this is a fun place to cool off on hot afternoons.



Here's Amelia at home later with her two Popsicles.

We've also been going to Book Babies downtown at Denver's Central Library. This is a different library than we went to for Book Babies last summer.



The library is at the edge of downtown, within walking distance, or we can take a bus (or drive, but it can be hard to park). We've been going early to hang out outside at the Denver Art Museum, which is across the street from the library.
A couple of weeks ago Amelia discovered this piece of art.



After a closer look she kept saying something, which I finally discerned to be "blocks in it!"



Dice. Part of the art, I figured (very thought-provoking).



Amelia added to the piece by dropping this strawberry into the water. She was pretty upset about it till I fished it out and we threw it away.

Last Friday, we went back and the dice were gone! But Amelia found a flower



which she gave to the man.



And today at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, she met a pirate.



As you can see, we've been pretty busy, but having lots of fun.

19 Facts for 19 Months

1. 19 months has been a lot of fun! I somehow never imagined Amelia being older than 18 months. 18 months was a big milestone in my mind, a sort of "I've made it this far so I think I'm gonna make it!" I remember holding 3- or 4-month old Baby A, enviously staring at parents with 18-month-olds. So when Amelia turned 19 months old, it was kind of a shock: it keeps going after this? Maybe because I truly had no expectations, I have been pleasantly surprised.

Part of that is because 2. Amelia is talking more and more. With talking comes communicating, so it's easier to figure out what she wants and doesn't want. Also, it's hilarious. She repeats tons of what we say, including, this morning, "suck it." In context, it was fine--she found one of those mesh baby teether things and I was telling her what to do with it: "You suck it." She spent the next hour saying, "Suck it! Suck it!" Then she stopped. I am hoping she has forgotten it.

3. Other, less disturbing things she says:
"Momma Epyoo" (Momma help you.) She says this when she wants me to help her.
"Naken" (Naked). She loves to be naked. She needs Momma Epyoo to undress, though.
"Peekaboo!" It's adorable. She actually memorized a little peekaboo book, Peek-a-who, from the library. She has also done a few short sentences: "Momma comin'?" "Daddy doin'?" She makes it clear to us that we drop our "g's."

4. Amelia loves her extended family, and talks about them all the time. If we talk about what we are doing, she lists all of her family members and we have to say what they are all doing at that moment.

5. Amelia loves to sing. We also have to include all family members' names in one of her favorites songs, Raffi's Willougby Wallaby Woo. Other favorites songs include Raffi's song about going to the zoo, the ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Old MacDonald.

6. We really are weaned. It really is done. Overall, it has been easier than I thought. Amelia asks for "mik" fewer times each day, and yesterday she seemed to do it almost as a joke. She drinks a lot more other liquids, which makes sense. She likes juice of all kinds, regular milk, and "chocate mik" (which is really chocolate soymilk, mostly for the sake of variety).


7. Amelia still snuggles! She likes to hug, to sit in my lap, or to play a games where she pushes me over and falls on me. And the last couple of naps, she has let me rock her to sleep! This is a huge improvement over crying for 10 minutes each and every naptime. I do think sometimes kids just have to cry themselves to sleep--or Amelia does anyway--but I just cannot take it at naptime.


8. These days Amelia is napping around 12-2, give or take 15-20 minutes on either side. It's predictable, for now, which probably adds to my general enjoyment of the days.

9. And we have a pretty set little routine, something I also enjoy. Amelia wakes up between 5 and 6 (sometimes before 5, yikes, but less and less). She likes to play upstairs for a while, then come down and have something to eat and drink. If it's cool and the heat is on, she likes to sit on the big heating vent in our living room and eat her snack. There are fairly large holes in the vent. Sometimes, from the kitchen, I can hear her muttering "too big, too big" or calling "Uh oh!" I have removed a wide variety of items from the vent, but luckily there is a flat place under the vent to catch anything that happens to fall. This is not the best toddler habit but I have decided that for now it is not a battle I want to fight. And it buys me time to clean up the kitchen.

After Dean leaves for work, Amelia and I play downstairs for awhile and read some books. Then we go upstairs and I take a shower while she plays in the bathroom. I take some toys in there to entertain her or she looks at the toiletries in the various baskets I have. (All babyproofed.) This week, she discovered a drawer that contained tampons and has been having a great time dissecting them. Again: it buys some time.

Then we get dressed, a long process, since sometime in the morning Amelia usually become naken. I try to brush her teeth, and once we are ready, we leave the house. On Mondays we go to the grocery store, and other days we go to the Children's Museum or some other fun place, or run other errands, or if it's nice, go to the park. I try to have her home by 11, and we have lunch. Then she messes around till noon while I half play with her, half straighten up. We read some more books, then nap.

After her nap she likes to play with animals in her crib for awhile, and then we usually try to get out of the house again. Amelia is much more grouchy about being in her car seat in the afternoons, so I don't like to go anywhere too far. My favorite thing is to just spend the afternoon in the park, but we haven't been able to do that much lately. Apparently of the 65 non-sunny days a year Denver supposedly has, 31 are in May. So afternoons this week have been challenging.

Anyway, Dean gets home around 5:15, and we all play/work in the yard, or I go to yoga (!; see below). Amelia tends to be hungry for dinner early, between 4:45 and 5:30. We feed her, then she plays till bathtime and goes to bed between 7 and 7:30.

The days are mostly very good.

10. One of my Mother's Day presents was an unlimited summer yoga pass. I picked it out myself. It lasts through July and I have been going to yoga as much as I can. I go in the evenings to a 6-7:15 class. It gives Dean and Amelia time to play and do the bath-bed routine. We have found that when I am in the house, she is much fussier about having me be right with her. If I go to "cass," she might be a little upset when I leave but quickly gets over it and everyone has a pleasant evening, especially Momma. I love going to yoga. May has been a bit more sporadic than I planned, but I have made it to at least 2 classes a week. I am hoping to go more even more often in June.

11. Teething: Amelia is getting her canine teeth. This has truly seemed to last forever, and they seem to bother her a lot more than most of her other teeth. She has drooled, run a low fever, and gnawed on her fingers a lot over the past two months at least. It has gotten so that when she gets too fussy, I just get out the Orajel. I will be glad when the teeth are finally in.

12. In other toddler behavior news, I should touch on eating and sleeping if only for the record. Amelia's eating remains very toddler-esque: she will eat like a horse for a few days, making her mother very happy, and then seem to eat almost nothing for a day or two or more. Highlights of the eating times have been berries of all types, a return to chickpeas, and tiny broccoli florets--raw. Discovering that she liked broccoli was an accident. I gave her a crown of broccoli to hold in the grocery store and she started chewing on it. She is definitely a grazer. Her favorite snacks are salty, crunchy ones like pretzels, crackers and Veggie Straws.

13. My most hated baby-related chore--and I have thought this through--is changing crib sheets. It's terrible! The sheets are super tight and they get caught up in the bumper pad and it takes forever and I think I pull a muscle every time I do it, which is often because Amelia spends so much time lolling in the sand in the park.

14. We are not exactly potty training, but we now own 2 training potties, one that sits on the floor and one that sits on the big potty. Amelia likes to take apart or fill with toys the one on the floor but other than that has no interest in using them. But since she is naken so much she is becoming more aware of when she needs to use the bathroom. She says "pee-pee" for both pee and poop, then proceeds to go on the floor. It seems to upset her so I try to be very upbeat and encouraging about it:


Me: Pee on the floor! That's great! Let's get a towel!
Amelia: (standing naked in a pool pf pee, looking upset) Momma epyoo! Towel!

15. Our garden is planted and growing. I owe you an entire garden-related post, but we (and by we I mean Dean) have planted tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, blueberries, asparagus, peas, radishes, and flowers, and squash and beans will be planted soon. Our fingers are crossed.


16. I love my Denver friends. The playgroup has really gelled, and I spend a lot of time with my neighbor and her daughter. It makes living here so much easier.

17. I still clean too much. I am trying to cut back, I swear.


18. How many ambulance rides have you taken in your life? Because Amelia has now had two. Last week, she fell out of her wagon and hit her head. She cried inconsolably for over 10 minutes, then got sleepy, so Dean called 911. Luckily, by the time the paramedics got here, she was much better. They took her to the ER just in case. The doctors all thought she was fine but watched her for 2 hours (in hospital time, if was just over 3). We were super relieved. It was terrifying while it lasted--one of those times that reveals to you the fact that your child is your entire world--but I think it says something that I just thought of it here at the end of the post. Um, welcome to parenthood? Just as I felt when she got through the appendix episode, I am deeply thankful that she is all right, still her sunny, funny, lovely self. I would think that Amelia could be finished with ambulance rides now, though. Seriously.


19. This is my 350th post. I am glad blogging is still part of my life. I had a community of blog "friends" long before I had very many real mom friends. I love the blogs I read (and I should say I stole this idea of a listed post from Liz's birthday post on BC), and I love writing posts too. This is the only baby journal I keep, and it is so nice to share Amelia with so many others.

Since Amelia is shocking the nation by sleeping past 5 am, here are some pictures and a quick update.



This is her adorable strawberry/watermelon dress (I say watermelon; everyone else seems to think it's a strawberry). She loves breakfast and is learning to eat with a fork and spoon. Sometimes she delicately puts the fork or spoon near her eye and says, as a joke, "Eye?" Then I say "Not your eye, your mouth!" and she grins and puts the utinsel in her mouth. It is scary game for mommy, who does not want her child to blind herself, so I am hoping she gets tired of it soon.

Speaking of saying things, Amelia is talking more and more. Too many new words to remember or list, but she repeats so many things now! Here are a few:

Both
Silly
Suki (no more Gee; we are sad)
Back! (As in, when Suki tries to slip out of the door to the yard, "Suki, back!")
Work ("Daddy work")
Silly

And she likes to play repetition games with words. If I say "You're silly!" She says, "Momma?" and I have to say "Momma's silly!" Then, "Daddy?" and I say "Daddy's silly! Then Suki, Nanny, Poppa, Guru, Ew, Heather, Micah...



Playing in the tub



I couldn't resist this...



or this.