boundaries

aislinn is a handful. saturday morning autumn was feeling a little under the weather, so she was lying on the couch sipping a glass of water. aislinn toddled over to the coffee table, picked up the glass of water, and poured it right on autumn's lap. autumn burst into tears and aislinn thought it was hilarious.

who is this child?

she WILL NOT leave the dog dishes alone. over and over and OVER i have to get onto her. erin suggested that i just let her eat the dog food, that she wouldn't like it and then she'd leave it alone, but that hasn't worked. she just squats there by the bowls, picks up a piece of dog food, dips it into the water, and feeds it to the dog. or herself.

on saturday, after the water incident, she had her first "time out." i realize that she's too young to understand time out, but i feel like i have to do something. i put her in the corner and stood there for a minute or so. she was utterly unaffected. she thought it was funny. she's not old enough to understand consequences yet, but i guess i have to start somewhere.

a few minutes later found her sitting on the couch hitting her baby doll and saying, "no, no!" i don't understand this at all. she's started hitting to get your attention and we've been swift to discourage this behavior. so i don't know if she was telling her baby doll, "no," or whether she was saying "no" to herself as she hit the doll. either way it was disturbing to me.

then a few minutes later i walked past the "time out"spot and there was her baby doll. i wanted to cry, but why?

we're not a yelling household, and we don't swat. the most i've ever done is slap her hand when she's done something dangerous. so seeing her engage in this sort of role play with her baby doll upset me. i feel like i'm firm with her, jake doesn't think i'm firm enough. i think he overestimates her capacity to understand cause and effect; i think he underestimates it. i think she's just exploring her boundaries and not intentionally being "bad;" he thinks she's acting out and needs to be disciplined.

it's a hard age. her vocabulary is expansive and her curiosity is incessant. she's not afraid of anything. she's the polar opposite of her sister, who embraces rules and feels comforted by boundaries.

she's putting together little two- and three-word sentences. she doesn't want to be rocked before bed anymore. she puts her shoes on by herself. i tried to get her to nap with me on sunday and she wouldn't have it - all she wanted to do was talk about the dog. what happened to my cuddly baby? it's such a big world and she's so eager to be out in it. STOP! DANGER! PELIGROSO, MY DARLING!

18 month check-up

kitten had her 18-month check-up today. her percentiles are as follows:

head: 46cm (50%)

height: 31 7/8" (50%)

weight: 21.5lbs (15%)

so clearly she's still a skinny minnie, which isn't too surprising since most of her food ends up on the floor. she's developing some picky eating habits, much to my chagrin. i thought i'd just expose her to a wide variety of foods from an early age and problem solved! yeah not so much. but she's following right along the growth curve, and her percentiles are still about the same as when she was born, so no worries.

in the waiting room

we had shots today. she was MAD, but settled down almost as soon as i picked her up and wiped away her tears of indignation. i set her on my lap to redress her, and she carefully patted the band-aids on her thighs through her pants and muttered, "uh-oh. uh-oh." which put a lump in my throat. i wanted to take her home and snuggle her for the rest of the day, but by the time we reached the parking lot she had forgotten all about it, distracted by her strawberry shortcake sticker.

have i ever mentioned that she is the absolute love of my life?

17 months old

skillz

kitten having an after-school snack with aunt erin, yesterday:

sometimes i wish i were gay

does that sound weird? i guess so.

but seriously, it would be so nice to spend all of my time with someone who actually shared most - or even some - of my interests. instead of jake who hates my short haircut even though i love it, and never notices what color my nails are painted, and likes to window shop at best buy, and watches Tim & Eric's Awesome Show and owns rifles.

several years back i mused to my very good (and gay) friend jeremy, wow, it must be convenient to be gay.

i mean, think about it:

honey, this evening, let's go get pedicures. and then let's stop by Sephora because i want to get a new scrubbing face wash. and then we can go see a chick flick and pour reese's pieces into our popcorn and drown it in extra butter because i have pms and i know you understand my need for extra butter. and tomorrow i'm going to go get a haircut and go even shorter this time because i know you won't judge me for cutting off my very long, very high maintenance, very hot and itchy long locks that i had when we met that were perpetually up in chopsticks because i couldn't stand it.

but i guess that's what friends are for, right?

i need more girl time.

the creative process

devious

i'm really anxious to get kitten out of her crib and into her toddler bed--mostly because i'm tired of having both a crib and toddler bed in her room. i'm ready to re-dec-or-ate. especially since i never really decorated in the first place. i just moved in after saying, "if you ever decide again that we need to buy a bigger house when i am 8 months pregnant you will not survive it."

the toddler bed works perfectly about 50% of the time; the other 50% of the time it's a horrible screaming failure.

yesterday afternoon she took her nap in her toddler bed and it was no problemo. the key is for me to sit in the rocking chair in her room and read my book until she falls asleep. as long as i do that, she doesn't move a muscle. but if i leave while she's still awake, then 20 minutes later she comes wandering into the kitchen with a handful of tiny plastic swallowable contraband collected from princess's room and a mile-wide grin on her face.

after yesterday's nap went so well, i put her down in the toddler bed again last night. i had to get up twice (about par for the course). i was alerted to the sound of her fussing over the baby monitor. when she didn't settle herself, i got up and went upstairs to check on her, and both times - i can't quite figure this out - she was halfway out of the bed with her hands on the floor. the first time i picked her up and laid her back down and she immediately fell asleep. the second time, as i opened the door, she said, loudly in the darkness, "uh-oh." i had to stifle a laugh.

well tonight, i say to myself, "it's time for the toddler bed. no more crib." i'm mentally redecorating, picking out the new paint color. bath, lotion, pajamas, brush teeth, story, rocking chair, and down in the bed. i settled in the chair with my book. she lays still for a while, then starts playing with her pacifier. then rolls over and starts playing with her sock monkey. starts kicking her legs in the air. babbling. bad news.

i picked her up, settled her back down and turned out the reading lamp. she thought i was gone. she laid there for a while, then sat up and threw her pacifier onto the floor. "uh-oh," she chirped. she's so cunning: as if to say to the darkness, "well look at that! my pacifier is on the floor. now i must arise from my cozy bed to retrieve it, which is surely a burden."

so i said from my dark corner, "nite nite! lay down!" she scrambled back to her blanket lightening-quick, the oh crap! look on her face practically visible in the darkness. a few minutes later found her turned around at the foot of her bed with the bedroom door pried open, peering down the stairs.

now it's an hour and a half later and after much to-do she's sleeping soundly in her crib. so much for the twin-size quilt bedding sitting perpetually in my shopping cart on potterybarnkids.com.