Wow. I feel like things have been going a mile-a-minute lately. Here are some ramblings to catch you up (and so I can at least sort of remember what life was like with a 2 year-old Sadie.
Verbal, verbal, verbal. That’s definitely where most of Sadie’s development has been lately. We’ve gone from simple two-word phrases to full-blown sentences and conversations we can actually follow. There are, of course, still many conversations that leave us scratching our heads. We talk A LOT about what is and is not Sadie’s. She really seems to like knowing what she can claim as her own and what is Mama’s or Daddy’s. I’m trying to work in the categories “Sadie’s to share” and “everybody’s.” Her manners are so cute and funny. She says “sorry” a lot, apologizing to us, to her toys, to herself. The other day she started saying, “Yes, Mama.” and “Yes, Daddy.” And, the very best of all, she’s starting to spontaneously say “I love you.” She’ll even say “I love her,” when talking about her toys, puzzle pieces (?) and BFF Margie.
Sadie continues to be very nurturing with her baby dolls and other toys. Thankfully, she’s getting a little better about petting the cats gently. Though, she’s becoming more and more interested in trying to carry the cats around. For their sake, I hope Sadie doesn’t decide the cats need diaper changes like all of her other toys. Here’s a good example of just how far this goes: Last Saturday, I decided we should make some graham crackers. I mixed up the dough and put Sadie in her Learning Tower so she could help roll out the dough and use her little cookie cutters. We did lots of stars, hearts and clovers. Then she found a tiny teddy bear cutter. I helped her cut one out, and she immediately cuddled it to her chest, saying “Awww, sweety bear.” Then the head fell off. We did this a few times, and then she moved on to just cuddling the cookie cutter. Later, I found her in her room asking the little bear if it needed a diaper change. And this morning she was cuddling a fridge magnet letter I. Of course, when she sets off into a bit of a tantrum, it’s not unusual for her to throw any and all toys on the ground with pretty serious force.
Bedtime and sleeping in general continue to be a struggle. She’d gone so long without fighting bedtime, it’s been hard getting back into the swing of helping her get to sleep. She’s still waking up one to three times a night, which is exhausting.
Yes, she is still nursing. I go back and forth on how I feel about this one. Some days, it’s no big deal. Other days, I wish I could just talk her out of it. She has, at least, become much better about handling boundaries I set about when, where, and for how long she can nurse. Nursing a toddler is nothing if not interesting, I can tell you that much. Tonight, when she was nursing before bed, she said, “I nursing. This my nuhnuh?”
Sadie’s been making friends with the kids in the neighborhood, which has been a lot of fun. They come over to play in our yard and on our porch, and Sadie generally enjoys it. Sharing toys on her turf is, expectedly, difficult. But she’ll get there.
Much to my chagrin, she’s watching more “TV” than I thought she would be at this age. Our TV is still in the closet, so she’s actually watching stuff on the little DVD player for the car and on the laptop. You do the best you can, I guess. Most of our book reading these days happens during meals, for some reason. She’s been on quite the streak with the Lorax lately. Sometimes it’s a great way to get her to focus on breakfast. Take a bite, and I’ll read the next page.
She’s got an interesting mix of bravery and fear, which I assume is pretty typical. She’ll put herself into many precarious physical situations without a second thought (using her little rocking chair to reach things that are up high). But then she goes on and on about the turkey she saw three weeks ago and how it scared her. We do our best to take these in stride.
Her much-loved teacher took a new job a couple of weeks ago, and this has been very hard for Sadie. She talks about her just about every day. Drop-off at daycare has become tearful again, which is so very sad for me.
Okay, enough about Sadie! What about the rest of us?
Trevor is doing well. His grandfather passed recently, and Trevor flew to be with his family in Maryland for the funeral services. His grandfather was a dear man who had lived a full life. I am glad to have known him even a little and that he had the chance to meet Sadie this past Christmas. It’s mountain bike race season again, so I’m hoping we can do a little camping with Sadie for a race or two.
I am Busy at work. Busy. And at home, too. I’ve been doing a lot of kitchen “projects,” trying out new recipes in the hopes of eliminating more and more processed foods from our regular diets. Kale chips were a total bust, but I’m going to try these cinnamon-honey roasted chickpeas a second time and see if I can get them a little crunchier. Tonight it’s frozen yogurt! I’ve got the seed planted in my head to do a Parenting from Scratch e-book, if I could ever get myself to set aside time to think/work on it. I’ve recently discovered Glee on Netflix. I know, right? Whatever. What I desperately want is a family vacation. But it doesn’t look like that’s in the cards for us this summer. Ugh. I am scheduled to finally (!) have my wisdom teeth removed in two weeks. Good riddance, I say.
The animals are mostly good. We lost a chicken a few weeks ago. As in, she literally vanished. I had a horrible nightmare about her last night. SCARY CHICKEN.
I took Sadie to Riverfest this weekend, which was a good mix of fun and crazy. Sadie really liked the drums. And I got to introduce her to my formerly annual favorite, Filipino barbeque shish-ka-bobs. Sadie also had a blast watching the various performances, especially the gymnastics. I’d have taken photos of that, but I was so busy trying to keep her off the stage.
At about 6:00 Thursday morning, I nursed my first babydoll. I’d been wondering when it was going to happen, and figured it was bound to at some point, with Sadie still nursing and with her growing attachment to her babydoll.
Sadie got her first babydoll for Christmas last year from her Mimi and Papa. She instantly loved it, and we were surprised by her enthusiasm at such a young age. She’s definitely had spans of time where her interest isn’t quite so intense, but for the most part, Sadie is a babydoll kind of girl. (I, on the other hand, was not. Sure, I had a few Cabbage Patch dolls, but I was SO much more interested in Barbie. I didn’t want to change diapers; I wanted to go out on dates.)
As Sadie has grown and learned and observed more and more, her relationship with Baby (as she calls her) has matured. Sadie now frequently insists that we swaddle (SWA!) Baby. She loves to rock her, to pat her, and to shush her. She requests “Rock-a-Bye Baby” be sung while she rocks Baby multiple times a day. It’s really been a joy to see Sadie love her Baby so much, because I feel like it’s a genuine reflection for the love we’ve been pouring into her for the past 19+ months.
Thursday morning, though, a change took place. Of clothes, that is. On Monday, I’d picked up some dresses and outfits from Sadie’s Mimi for Sadie to wear this winter and next spring. These are mostly handmade clothes that have been worn by girls in our family for many years. Well, there was one that didn’t have a hanger, and somehow it ended up in Sadie’s hands. She brought it, and Baby, to me and indicated that she wanted Baby to wear it. The end-of-the-day report from Aunt Gwen (who Sadie still calls “Girl”–too cute!) was that Baby was an integral part of Wednesday. They had done everything together.
Ever since I read this hilarious essay, Nursing Johnny Depp, I wondered if my time would come to nurse something other than Sadie. I mean, with an old enough nursling, surely it happens at some point. So it wasn’t ALL that surprising when, early Thursday morning, Saide said “nuh nuh, Baby” and put Baby to my breast so Baby could nurse, too.
I wonder if this will become a trend. And I wonder who or what else I’ll be asked to nurse.
At the very least, I guess I can take it as a slightly hopeful sign that Sadie would, if the time came, be willing to share the Nuh Nuhs with a REAL baby.
In other Nuh Nuh news, Saide is also beginning to generalize my breasts with other breasts. It first started by her pointing at one of my bridal portraits. Specifically, my boobs. “Nuh Nuh!” she said. Yes, those are Nuh Nuhs. (This is the ONE body part I am temporarily using a made-up word for. It started out as a verb; now it is both verb and noun.) But there have been other times recently she has pointed to a photograph of another woman and said, “Nuh Nuh!” Yes, those are also Nuh Nuhs. Let’s just hope this one doesn’t come back to embarrass me.
She’s also got an incredible memory for the Nuh Nuhs. While at the Memphis Zoo a few weeks ago, a mama giraffe was nursing her baby. I couldn’t resist, so I held Sadie up and said, “Look, Sadie, the baby giraffe is having Nuh Nuhs!” Now, every time she sees an image of a giraffe, she says, “Nuh Nuh.” Oops.
For the most part, the fact that I never get around to posting hasn’t meant too much. In other words, although Sadie is cutely chugging along through toddlerhood, most of the things in our lives are pretty much the same.
Well, there are actually a couple of things that I’ve wanted to write about, but haven’t gotten around to doing it, so now you can have them at once, because they’re kind of related.
First! Trevor’s lovely sister, Gwen, has recently moved to Little Rock. As in, she arrived Wednesday night and is going to be living in our garage apartment! This is awesome on many levels. One, Trevor will finally have an immediate family member within hollerin distance. His family is pretty tight-knit, so it’s been a big deal for him to be so far away (Have I mentioned that I hijacked him to begin with?) Two, Gwen and I really get along well. We’re actually closer in age than Trevor and I are. So it’s like having a fun friend living in the back yard. And three, we are going to be taking Sadie out of daycare, and Gwen will be keeping Sadie at home four days a week. Needless to say, we are all very excited. Of course, you’d never know it in person, because I think Trevor and I might be the least outwardly excitable people alive.
Gwen and the Sadiebug.
P.S. Gwen comes as a package deal with her dog, Omie, who looks like Nari’s cousin and will be a great addition to the pack once she calms down a little about the cats (Sadie suddenly decided that the cats are now “Cats!” and not “Kitties!” the other day.)
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Second! Tomorrow, I am leaving for a very exciting, pretty selfish vacation to Orlando. My college roommate and I are celebrating her graduation from pharmacy school (amazing) by going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (and also the rest of Universal Islands of Adventure and one of the Disney parks). OMFG, I am so excited about this. We made these plans when Universal first announced they were going to open the WWHP… back before Sadie was even a sparkle in my eye (gag).
Leah and me in our glory days of youth.
So… Sadie is staying home. The plans were back and forth for a while about whether or not she’d come with us, and it ended up working out logistically best for her to stay home with Trevor. This will be made possible, too, by Gwen’s presence. I am all kinds of mixed up about this emotionally. She’s too young to understand that “I’ll be back in a few days” doesn’t mean “I’m never coming back.” She’s not weaned in the slightest. I recognize that this might be a total disaster for everyone involved who isn’t going to Orlando… and I’m really nervous about it. This is probably the least Attachment Parenting thing I’ll have ever done. But. I’m going. It’s happening. Everyone will survive. Just some of us will have more fun than others (and this is usually not me, so that’s probably why I’m having such a hard time wrapping my head around it). I’m ridiculously grateful to Trevor and Gwen. And to Leah.
I learned two valuable lessons from Sadie Diane tonight.
First. Never put an enraged toddler to the breast. She will bite. You will bleed.
Second. Don’t confuse informed force with providing options. It may lead to rage.
To explain the second lesson (I assume the first is pretty self-explanatory), allow me to tell you the story. See, for months now, bedtime at chez Edwards has been a pretty easygoing, nonviolent affair. We’re pacifists, after all. Enter the toy cell phone. (Sadie has very few noisy toys, but she’s been increasingly desperate to play with our phones. She’s not the most careful with things, so I thought the time had come to go ahead and get her a little flip phone, and I did just yesterday. To say that she loves it would be an understatement.) Now, normally I’ve got a keen eye for ridding her room pre-bedtime of any toys that might cause her trouble winding down. Guess I missed one.
Oftentimes, like when she’s playing in the driver’s seat, but it’s time for her to get in her car seat, I’ll give her two options. She can climb into her car seat on her own, or I can help her into it. Much of the time, she chooses to do things herself. And she seldom makes a big deal if I “help” her.
As it turned out, this little tidbit of parenting wisdom does not apply when trying to get Sadie to hand over a still-new, awesome, noisy toy at bedtime. Not surprisingly, she elected not to give up the phone. So, I took it. By brute force. Because I’m the mama. Because I could.
Screams, tears, fit of rage.
Enter: Trevor. Unable to calm her down.
Exit: Trevor.
Enter failed attempt at breastfeeding as a calming technique, only to result in a bleeding boob: Here.
Enter swearwords yelled at top of lungs: Here.
Re-enter: Trevor, armed with his own phone. Rejected. Sent back for play phone.
Now, you might be thinking, Oh, jeez, you caved in, and her tantruming won. Not so, I believe.
While all of this was going down, my mind was racing through what had happened and what my remaining options were. What I realized was, I hadn’t genuinely presented Sadie with a choice to make. That tool (trick?) only works if she’s actually open to one of the choices.
So we started over. I pulled Sadie into my lap and let her play with the phone until she’d calmed down. Then, I told her it was time to put the phone nite-nite, and that she could not nurse until she had put it away. For the next 10 minutes or so, we went back and forth about the phone. Sadie would take it to her table, but kept coming back with it. We told the phone goodnight; we gave it goodnight kisses. I started working on getting Sadie interested in one of her baby dolls. I patted it’s back; I sushed it. Finally, Sadie had set the phone on the table, and I saw my opening. I made a crying sound and told Sadie that her baby was ready to sleep. She came right over, without the phone. She nursed, I put her to sleep, and I haven’t heard a peep from her since (knock on wood).
I think the important thing is this: I knew Sadie wasn’t taking that phone to bed. I had two options–I could either continue on with the “I’m the boss” tactic, and she could worn both of us out in the tantrum. Or, I could put a little of the power back in Sadie’s hands. She left the phone behind, but she did it on her terms.
I think we both won, and I feel a touch wiser from the experience. Of course, you can bet your sweet ass I’ll make sure that phone is way out of sight before tomorrow night. And every other.
Wowza. I’m glad it’s Friday. This has definitely been one of those weeks where, if it’s not one thing, it’s something else. I don’t like being a Master Complainer, but I need to get this off my chest.
This week we’ve:
BUT! We’ve had some good, too:
Oh, how I hope this Friday and weekend go better than the rest of this week.
So we went to the farmers market the other Saturday. And I bought some blueberries. Lots of them. I intend to make more jam, but we also like just munching them.
Sadie, apparently is a blueberry fiend. She ate at LEAST half a pint in one go. It was all I could just to get them inside. Oh, and when I dared to put them in the fridge! She started bouncing up and down, whimpering for more.
So, yeah, we’ve been eating a lot of blueberries.
In fact! I invented a recipe this morning, and if I ever perfect it, I’ll be sure to share it. Oatmeal blueberry pancakes. Pretty tasty!
In a moment of spontaneity, we decided to take Sadie on her first camping trip this past Saturday. Trevor had a bike race on the Womble Trail, just outside Mt. Ida, Sunday morning. Trevor’s first race season, I went with him a handful of times, and we would camp out Saturday nights and hang out at the race Sunday all day. I had a baby shower to go to Sunday afternoon, so we had planned that Trevor would go up by himself Saturday night. But once Friday came, I was itching to do some fresh-air sleeping!
I had this grand plan that I would get Sadie ready for bed before putting her in the car–nighttime diaper, pjs, lovey. It would be perfect…she’s fall asleep in the car on the way, we’d get the tent set up, and lie her slumbering body in the tent, where she would sleep blissfully all night.
Don't let her smile fool you. Although she LOVES camping, Willow does not do well in the car. At one point we moved her to the front seat, and she still managed to throw up. Twice.
But, of course, we live in reality. A place where the summer sun doesn’t set before 8:30 and where car windows don’t have blinds or blackout curtains. Sadie cried the WHOLE WAY. Except for when I nursed her–oh, yes, I nursed Sadie while she was strapped in her car seat and while I was in my seatbelt. Or when I gave her my phone to play with. And even then, none of those “fixes” lasted all that long. But, we made it. Trevor pitched the tent, the dogs ran like maniacs, and we were all asleep by around 10:00.
Sadie actually did pretty well sleeping in the tent. I made a pallet for her next to me, and she mostly slept there. She woke up and wanted to nurse a few times, and she was kind of jazzed about waking up with the dogs sleeping around her (dou! wofwof!).
It had been a long time since I’d been camping last. We went twice while I was pregnant with Sadie, but that was long enough ago for me to forget, apparently, some key camping tidbits.
Like, frost. When it’s 89F when you’re packing up the car, it’s easy to forget that it just might be chilly and dewy when you wake up in the morning. At least, it was for me. Which would explain why I forgot to pack anything remotely warm for Sadie or myself. Sadie didn’t seem to mind, but it was kind of a bummer when she dumped the dogs’ water bowl on the leg of her pajama pants (her warmest article). It’s a good thing I don’t mind Sadie getting dirty, either, because the wet, freshly cut grass was sticking to her everywhere–not to mention her food. She loved it, though. At least I think she did.
We only hung around for about an hour and a half or so, because we had to shuttle Trevor and his teammate to the start of the race, and I needed to get on back to town for the baby shower.
Come. On. Nari.
Well, if you can't beat em, join em. Watching for Dad/The Boy to return.
Breakfast a la camp.
So remember when I was all, I’m grossed out at the thought of Sadie drinking cow’s milk? Right. Well, now I sure wish she would. I had my last pumping session last Friday. I had been considering it, and after 15 minutes of pumping, I had only a measly two ounces to show for it (yes, I do recognize that for some women, two ounces would be fantastic, but for me it was not). I used to feel really productive–in the most literal sense ever–in the Mother’s Room. So now Sadie only gets breastmilk straight from the source. That’s totally fine with me, as long as she’s still getting enough of what she needs, which I really don’t know how to tell. Her solids diet is pretty balanced, I believe. And she nurses twice in the morning, sometimes when I pick her up from daycare, and always at bedtime. In fact, she can now verbally request to nurse (“nuh nuh?”), and I almost always am able to nurse her within moments of her request (not, you know, in the checkout line, but once we get to the car or something). She likes drinking water, so I don’t think she’s at risk of becoming dehydrated.
I will not drink it from a cup. I will not drink it with my sup.
But every time Sadie takes a sip from her sippy cup and it has milk in it, she pretty much just dribbles it out of her mouth. We’re on probably our third half-gallon of whole milk (I’ve tried both organic from the grocery store and locally-sourced milk). She’s not a fan at all of soy milk, either. I know there are other nut/grain milk options, but they just don’t have enough calcium or protein by comparison. And something tells me she’d reject those anyway. Homegirl accepts no substitutes, apparently.
So what’s a mom to do? Do I have to go back to pumping? Is it alright if she just has water all day at daycare? Should I just try cow’s milk every couple of weeks, once a month, once a year, to see if she’s changed her mind?
Sadie and I went to her 1-year check-up at her pediatrician’s yesterday morning. It was pretty uneventful, but a few things worth mentioning:
*Oh, and in case you haven’t heard yet, SADIE SLEPT SEVEN HOURS STRAIGHT last night! We’re hoping this wasn’t a fluke. Please, don’t let it be a fluke…
The trouble is, we’re not even winning this half. For those of you who are not parents, let me go on the record saying that making decisions that affect your child can be really, really tough. Sometimes you think you’ve made up your mind only to find that you’re not as resolved as you thought. Yes, I am STILL hung up on Sadie’s sleep.
Monday night was awesome. If your name was Brooke or you had fur. For Sadie and Trevor, it meant waking up about every hour. After I got so mad at Trevor for interrupting what I had (at the last minute) decided was THE PLAN for teaching Sadie to fall asleep on her own, he turned around and gave me my first full night’s sleep in over a year. Not too shabby. Now, before you go all Poor Trevor on me, he reported that several of the times Sadie woke up, he was able to get her back to sleep before she even stood up in the crib (which makes me think she wasn’t fully awake to begin with, but who knows).
If you haven’t picked up on this yet, I am a serious research junkie. And this has created some problems as a new parent. One minute I’m all, let’s do this sleep coaching method. Then I’m saying, maybe crying isn’t the worst thing ever. Then I get a full night’s rest and go back to my trusty Dr. Sears and think maybe Trevor’s right… maybe if he just works with her on getting through the night without nursing, her stretches of sleep will get longer. Because what if I’ve been focusing on the wrong thing altogether? What if, because of my increasingly desperate sleep deprivation, I’m stressing about getting Sadie to fall asleep on her own, when maybe she’s just not ready for it. What if what actually needs to change is how frequently she’s waking up in the first place.
Here’s the good news: even with the not-so-awesome nights, Sadie is still thriving. She is happy, she is fun, she is growing and doing all sorts of cool things. So my major stress is not that Sadie’s not getting what she needs. My major stress is that I am not, and that I’m starting to burn out. There, I said it.
I can haz crunchee granola barz?
In reading and in talking to other moms, I suspect a major cause of Sadie’s night waking is the habit of waking up and nursing all the time. I absolutely wouldn’t undo all of the night nursing she and I did, but I do believe, at her age, it’s a habit and not a need. She eats plenty of solid food during the day, she still nurses on demand when we’re together, and she still gets pumped breastmilk in a cup. I’ve been halfway night weaning Sadie for about a week now, and it’s pretty much happened without effort. For several nights I limited her nursing to before 11:00pm and after 6:00am. Monday night she didn’t nurse after her 7:00 bedtime session. Yes, she has definitely continued to wake up A TON those nights, but she’s not demanding to be fed by any means. She has been settled back to sleep relatively easily.
So here’s where we are now: I do Sadie’s post-dinner getting ready for bed routine. Trevor does bedtime story and puts her to sleep. Trevor sleeps in her room with her and gets up to settle her back to sleep throughout the night. Brooke sleeps soundly in her bed, catching up on a year’s missed sleep (if only that were actually possible). The hope is this: as Sadie realizes that nursing isn’t part of the nighttime equation, she will gradually begin to wake up less frequently, allowing Trevor to move back into our bed.
Honestly, I can’t believe he’s signed up for this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s AWESOME. Let’s just hope it lasts and that it works.
Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions? Success or horror stories? Am I the only mom to flip-flop on decisions like this on a daily (or hourly) basis? Parents of fariy-tale babies who have always slept perfectly need not apply .
