I wish I had the ability to mentally post to the blog at times. I forget way too much amusing stuff the kids do, but if I could fire off a post from my head, you, the loyal readers and followers of M. and C.’s growth, would never miss a moment of their lives. Here’s what’s going on.
Bedtime is just loads of fun. C. remains a fussy sleeper. Actually, she sleeps great. It’s the waking up 1-2 times a night, still, that is the problem. We tried the just let her cry thing one night last week. There was caving by the parents after 45 minutes of screaming. She downed her bottle, went right back to sleep, and we decided, “You know, we can handle a 20 minute bottle much easier than an hour of screaming.” She’ll grow out of it. Maybe. M. is now problematic at bedtime, too. For some time she would lay in bed and talk, play with her stuffed animals, etc. until she drifted off. Some nights she would go for an hour or more. A few weeks back, she started climbing out of bed and playing on the floor. We’ll go up, put her back in bed (she usually starts running towards her bed with an evil grin on her face as soon as we open the door) and a few minutes later she’s back out again. Other nights, she plays quietly on the floor and we have no idea she’s out until she wakes up crying a few hours later. Oh, and finally, she’s starting the have the occasional bad dream. One night last week, C. needed three bottles, M. had two bad dreams and was tangled up in her sheets another time. Fun night, that.
I am happy to say, though, that the whining has been greatly curtailed. M. still does it, but it’s much less in frequency than it used to be. She has, however, replaced whining with the endless question game. S. leaves the room for three minutes. “Where’d mommy go?” gets repeated endlessly, even if she can see S. in the next room. She has not, thank goodness, discovered the word Why yet.
M. has become quite the bargainer as well. “Just one cookie!” she’ll say, holding her index finger up in the air. “Just one book!” before naptime. That is pretty funny. It’s the finger that does it.
Speaking of fingers, she loves to tell you that she wants food not on a plate or in a bowl, but on her finger. Since she can’t say her F’s, though, it sounds like this:
“Hey M., do you want peanut butter on toast or a banana?”
“Want peanut butter on M.’s pinger,” again with her index finger in the air. She thinks she’s number one, I guess.
K-I-L-Ls me every time.
C. is now old enough to really be into watching whatever M. is doing. And most of the time, whatever M. is doing cracks C. up. The best moments are when they’re playing on their own, and after a few minutes you hear both of them laughing themselves silly. One day C. was in her Exersaucer and M. was playing with some blocks. I start hearing hysterical laughter and I look up from my book to see C. jumping in her seat, followed by M. jumping next to her on the floor, then both of them laughed like it was the funniest thing ever. That went on for about five minutes. C. also likes to “chase” M.. That involves me holding her and running with her right behind M. all through the house. Again, giggling quickly follows. Good stuff. Makes me wish they could stay this close forever. I’m sure they’ll be beating the crap out of each other before we know it.
Other than the inability to sleep all night, C. is really a good little kid. She’s learning how to play and stays happy when he gums aren’t giving her too much trouble. She has terribly sensitive hands, which I may have mentioned before. A sure way to make her happy is to rub her palms either against my hair, or if I haven’t shaved in a couple days (which is a pretty good bet), against my stubble. She starts squirming and giggling. That can be troublesome when I’m feeding her a bottle at 1:00 AM and she reaches up and rubs my chin by accident. Her eyes shoot open, she spits out her bottle, and starts laughing. Fortunately, she settles quickly and falls back to sleep.
C. is quite the singer, then again most six month olds are. When she’s happy, she’ll lay there and let out happy little squeals. After a mid-night bottle, we just slide her under the mobile, turn it on low, and go back to bed. For 10, 15, 20 minutes we can hear her squealing happily until she falls back to sleep.
M. thinks that all TV revolves around a few things. All her shows: Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse, Dora, Diego, The Wonder Pets (dad’s personal favorite), and The Backyardigans. Rachel Ray. Oprah. And the news. She loves Rachel Ray. She’ll sit with me and watch Rachel’s shows all day if I could tolerate that much. As soon as Rachel leaves the screen, she asks if every other woman is Rachel. Even if she’s tall and blonde, “Rachel Ray?” “Noooo, you know that’s not Rachel Ray.” “Is it Oprah?” Pretty much anything else is “the news?” Maybe she’s going to be a really good cook one day.
M. has learned how to make faces. She has a mock surprise face that is so fake it’s ridiculous. She raises her eyebrows, opens her eyes wide, and pushes her mouth down, like a kid feigning surprise on their birthday. Only she also has to stifle a grin. And she does it randomly, not when we’re surprising her.
She likes us to tell us that things are “much better” anytime we make a change to it. When we sweep the floor, put pepper on our food, or put her toys away. They’re all “much better!”
M. is also addicted to creams. It started when she realized that the diaper rash cream makes her ass feel better when it hurts. So now, anytime any body part is injured…well, here’s a scenario that played out last night. M. was doing her nightly Climb All Over Daddy Immediately After Dinner to Ensure He Gets Indigestion and while climbing up my raised legs, slipped and fell onto her arm. She started crying, held the arm out to me, and said, “Want cream on it!” We’ve been asked to put cream on her forehead when she ran into the door over the weekend, her elbow when she whacked it on C.’s head, her knees when she tripped and fell, and countless other parts. I’ve given up, and keep a tube of lotion close by, so I can pretend to get a little and wipe it on the injured body part. Sometimes it’s easier just to give in.
If you watched her Halloween video, you’ve heard what her voice is like. It’s almost always that high-pitched, playful, joyous sound. She says loads of things that are funny, but that sound is magic. Tonight she was pushing both S. and I beyond our limits, and was on the verge of getting something like a two hour time out. She kept following me around, saying ridiculous stuff despite several warnings to stay away since I was holding C. and trying to get her to go to sleep. Then she said something, I’m not even sure what it was, but that sound and her tone made me burst out laughing. Once she gets out of the terrible twos (Only eight more months!) she’s going to have us wrapped around her fingers again.