Category: monthly meredith

Last weekend Meredith turned two. She is adorable, cuddly, kissable, sweet, exhausting, needy, fussy, exasperating, and perfect.

Things she loves:

>Trying on shoes and walking in mine. Going through all her clothes and carrying them around.

>Playing on her dirt table and collecting rocks.

>Books! Her favorites right now are: Easter Surprise, Nursery Rhymes, Good Morning Good Night, Dr. Moggle’s Alphabet Challenge, and family photo books.

>The Lego table at daycare, riding toys, trucks

>Going on the “mermaid express” (when we bounce her up and down pretending she’s on a train) and we know she wants to play when she says, “all aboo! [all aboard] Choo choo.”

>The dogs, and it’s adorable to hear her call them by name – Ah-dee for Eddie and Kee-o for Cleo.

>Oh, and being naked. Takes her clothes off constantly.

>Browsing the pictures on my phone, playing Peekaboo barn & fridge (her favorite apps)

>Fruit snacks (her special treat from daddy)

>Stroller rides and walks

Also:

>She gets super attached to random objects and always wants to take a new item to daycare with her. Examples: her jacket (holds it like a blanket, don’t even try to make her wear it), pajamas, towel, stuffed animal, washcloth, baby doll, toy truck, brush, Q-tips, books, toothbrush, an outdoor thermometer shaped like a fish

>She’s still a mama’s girl but is getting more and more attached to daddy.

>New words every day, but my favorites are how she started calling me mommy instead of mama, the way she says “towel” (sounds like “dow” and is very pronounced), and I love you.

>For awhile she did this thing where she would smush her face into ours and it was the best.

>Let’s be real though. Lately she has also been needier than ever and refuses to lie down to go to sleep. We have a loose routine but aren’t very good at keeping it (something about being exhausted in the evenings) and we’ve been resorting to driving her to sleep each night. Everything is a phase, right?

>Only has a couple more teeth to go!

>Still nursing. Like, wants to nurse all evening long but then refuses it before bedtime because she knows it will make her sleepy. Sigh.

>Asks about her grandparents all the time. Had the best relationship with her Gigi (great-grandmother) who just passed away a day before her birthday. I know she’s young but I hope that maybe, just maybe, she’ll remember her.

Oh, 18 months. Full-blown toddlerhood. You are killing me. Sometimes with cuteness, but also with stress.

Let’s just get the bad stuff out of the way. All of a sudden we have extended tantrums. I’m talking nonstop screaming from the time she gets home – won’t play, throws food in our faces, screams in the car, screams in the bath, violently throwing her body around – until the time she goes to sleep.

I know that this is normal and will pass, but it doesn’t make it any less stressful. I think the most frustrating part is that she is perfectly good and happy in the morning and all day at daycare, and on weekends too. So it’s not that anything is wrong, or hurting, and it’s nothing we can “fix.”

My best guess as to the reason is that the transition between being so busy and stimulated at daycare to calmness and resting at home is difficult when she is also at a point in her life when she is developing so much. Right now how we’re dealing with it, other than whining on Twitter, is to start out by giving her 100% of our attention (this usually helps somewhat, until it doesn’t) and beyond that just keep her from hurting herself and put her to bed early.

Okay, so some nights are terrible. But the rest of the time she is pretty much a total gem. She’s learning to speak right now and isn’t that great at it yet – everything sounds the same to me – except I can understand bye-bye, what’s this, hi, no, yeah, uh-oh, mama, dada, baby, yay. She has a lisp.

She understands most of what we say and can follow directions. For example, she feeds the dogs if we give her their bowls to set out (but then she wants to play with their food). She helps me with the laundry. She’ll go get something I ask for.

She can point to her belly button, nose, mouth, eyes, head, and toes.

She is very into dancing. Her signature move is to bounce and twirl her arms like the “traveling” sign in basketball. She doesn’t even need music, but if she hears some it’s like a reflex. Girlfriend can’t help herself.

She weighs 25 pounds, 14 ounces and is 32.75 inches tall (around 75th percentile for both). She wears 24-month or 2T clothes and size 4.5 shoes.

She has five teeth and is working on two upper molars.

We are growing her hair out and it’s in a middle stage. It is thick and top-heavy and kind of crazy. She still won’t keep any bows or clips in. She gets the best bedhead ever.

She puts our phones to her ear and starts to babble. She’ll do the same thing with anything that looks like a phone.

She has a doll and knows how to give it a bottle.

She’s a busy little bee. Her favorite game is to take things out and put things in – it doesn’t really matter what the thing is (blocks, hair bows, purse contents, etc). Even better if she gets to hand them to someone and take them back. She is starting to copy our actions. The other day I was blowing my nose and she pulled off the tiniest corner of tissue, held it to her nose, and blew.

She has finally gotten interested in books and her favorite is a board book of nursery rhymes. She says bye bye whenever she closes one.

Jasper is her favorite stuffed animal, a jaguar that David got her on a random shopping trip. She laughs when we ask where he is and then she will go find him. She frequently asks for him and carries him around.

Some of her favorite foods are eggs, yogurt dippers, and bananas. She’s not into vegetables and loves anything sweet – oy. She still nurses in the morning and falls asleep nursing almost every night. She is not the slightest bit interested in weaning. When she had roseola for a week over the holidays she nursed a lot more and my milk supply adjusted within a couple of days which I think is so cool.

She likes giving fish kisses and is more affectionate than ever. She wants to be held a lot. Her spontaneous hugs melt me.

So, 18 months. Sometimes I want to put her up for adoption, but it’s not all bad. In fact, it’s still pretty great. :)

 

I am just loving the beginning of toddlerhood. Of course there is the random screaming in public places and the tantrums when she doesn’t get her way, but much more of it is adorable actions and silliness and fascinating new developments all the time.

This is what I want to remember about Meredith at 15 months old:

>She weighs 24 1/2 pounds (75th percentile) and is 30.25 inches long (50th percentile). Basically she is still a little chub.

>She is obsessed with her belly button. She pulls up her shirt constantly to point it out, and if you ask her where it is she will show you. She also knows where to find other people’s belly buttons.

>How she likes to hold our hands to walk, but only for a little bit. She wanders, but always makes sure we’re close by.

>The way she tips her head back over and over for us to tickle her neck when she’s feeling silly.

>Her “words” are: baby, no, mama, dada, hold it, & what’s this (the last two might be a stretch). She understands so much more, though.

>She’s full time in the toddler room at daycare now, and is completely off bottles. I quit pumping at work a few weeks ago, so during the day she just has water and regular milk. We’re still going strong nursing at home, though.

>The way she loves to feed us her food, especially out of her own mouth.

>One of the best things ever is that she totally dances. At first it was just to music every once in awhile but now all you need to do is ask her to dance and she starts bouncing, shaking her little booty, and waving her hands in the air.

http://youtu.be/DAv058NAjQo

>She knows how to take a disposable diaper off, so if we’re ever using those (like we did on vacation) we have to put pants on her right away.

>How she still loves playing peekaboo or “where’s Meredith” and thinks we can’t see her if she just covers one eye. She’s an expert climber and faller, and constantly has some sort of bump, bruise, or scratch on her. Other favorite things are her little car, riding in the shopping cart, and turning pages of books.

>The way she prefers to eat a banana like an adult and not cut up.

>That when she wants to nurse she gets very serious looking and fake coughs over and over. And grabs at my shirt.

>Seeing her “kiss” the dogs by delicately touching them with her forehead, and the happiness I feel when she “kisses” me and David too.

>How she reaches for me now, and when she’s not feeling well all she wants is for me to carry her. We are starting to see more and more how she recognizes us and mommy and daddy, and it’s the best feeling in the world.

In reality, as much as I try to describe her at this age there are no words or even pictures to capture her soft squishy body, her delicious smell, how it feels to see her smile and hear her laugh, what it’s like to watch her discover or learn something for the first time, and her abundance of life. I wish I could bottle it up and save it forever.

I thought I was done with the monthly updates! I’m certainly done with the monthly photoshoots; those things were getting stressful. Meredith isn’t developing as fast physically anymore, but everything else is changing so rapidly that I can hardly keep up. I think she learned at least three new skills over the weekend alone. So here’s the highlights of what’s up with her now.

Not only is she walking, but she practically runs. And most of the time it’s with her hands straight up in the air like a victory V. Perhaps she was inspired by the Olympic gymnasts.

She can finally stack the blocks on her own instead of just throwing them. Of course her favorite thing is still to knock them over, but I have seen her get up to four high. (Proud mom here, clearly.) She also initiates peekaboo now which is pretty much the cutest thing.

One thing she loves to do is hand people things. She’s a great little helper with the laundry, especially with her diapers. She hands me each piece out of the dryer one by one while I fold and stuff. (This is also a fantastic quality because if she gets ahold of something she shouldn’t have, most of the time I can just hold out my hand for it and she’s happy to hand it over.)

She can clap now! And say “uh oh”! And she’s laughing waaaay more than she used to, especially if you act like you’re chasing her.

The best thing, though, is that she gives kisses. Slimy, wet, open-mouthed, beautiful kisses.

She also doesn’t nap on the weekends. And the other day she took her diaper off and ate her own poop, so I guess nobody’s perfect. :)

She:

>Still only has one tooth, on the bottom left, and thankfully the sleeping has gone back to normal for now.

>For awhile when she was actively teething she whined a lot and it sounded like a howl – aaaeeeeee, aaaoooooo.

>Got her hair cut, as previously documented.

>Points like crazy. It’s the first thing she does when she wakes up, and it’s her primary way of communicating. To her it means everything – Look at that! I want that! Hi! I like you! I’m awake! I’m here! I know how to do this, so I’m just going to do it!

>Has fallen off the bed a couple more times. And she’s fine. Not that I wasn’t upset when it happened, because I WAS. But babies are resilient, man.

>Is throwing mini tantrums now when she’s tired or doesn’t get what she wants. She cries and has started banging her head on the floor, which obviously only makes matters worse. Do not like this.

>Pulls hair and grabs faces. Ouch.

>Gravitates toward other little kids when they’re around, even though she doesn’t exactly play with them. Still, it’s super cute how she wants to be around her cousins.

>Sort of dances to music sometimes! It’s more like bouncing but I love it all the same.

>Plays more games with us now, like chase – she laughs and crawls really fast when we go after her – and boo – she pushes my face away and I whip it back to her quickly and say boo – she smiles every time.

>Has more sounds now, most notably “mamamama” which I’m hoping will turn meaningfully into “mama” soon. :)

I:

>Recently read the book Bringing Up Bebé out of interest, and although I don’t agree with everything in it I did learn a lot about myself as a parent and will probably pick up more parenting books in the future.

>Am proud to have survived the past month, which has been one of the most stressful in recent memory.

>Have returned to the land of the living again with cable and Internet back in our house.

>Really enjoyed planning Meredith’s first birthday party and am so happy it all went well. Can’t wait to share more about it.

>Have been in somewhat of a creative slump due to lack of time.

>Did a lot of research on kids’ toys when I was looking for gift ideas for Meredith, and it made me excited to watch her develop and be able to play with them.

>Spent an evening watching old videos of M. as a baby, and although I really miss that stage, I wouldn’t put her back there. I love her personality and the interaction we can have now, and I know it will only get better. She’ll be walking any day, and I’m ready to embrace toddlerhood. :)

For reference:

No months
One month
Two months
Three months
Four months
Five months
Six months
Seven months
Eight months
Nine months
Ten months
Eleven months