Weaned and so much the toddler

Eleanor weaned herself at about 19.5 months (late Oct/early Nov).  I tried pumping a few times after that point but got about 1/3 of an ounce for a two hour effort my first time, nothing the next time.  So I bagged that.

I was pretty upset when she first weaned, but now it’s just the norm.  I am thoroughly enjoying my cheese and yogurt again, haha!  Man, I missed cheese.  We haven’t tried giving her any dairy straight yet, I’m thinking sometime after her second birthday we will.  No reason to rush it.  I still wish she had continued nursing until she was at least two, but I know she stopped when she was ready.  I didn’t put any pressure on her to quit (at least not consciously – I never did quite enjoy it though, so perhaps that came across to her) and kept trying to get her back on the breast, so I try to focus on that.  Next time around I hope the whole process of breastfeeding will be easier!

Christmas was good: we got her the Melissa and Doug kitchen and she absolutely loves it!  Family supplied her with play food and cookware, though she still needs a few odds and ends.  That was definitely one of our best toy purchases ever.  It wasn’t all that difficult to put together, either.  Just took some time, but we put on a movie and made an afternoon of it.

Some time in January I finally took her in for the MMR vacc.  I had wanted to do the individual shots but they haven’t been available.  So I finally bit the bullet and just got her the normal vacc.  I was worried – three live viruses at once is a lot for a little body to take – but I was starting to get antsy about her not being immunized, too.  Blame the microbiologist in me.  : )  She didn’t react too badly – just a little fussiness for a few days.  She’s been sick since, but we all have so I think that’s just coincidental. She’s actually been less sick than we have so I guess she has a pretty steady immune system in place now.

Nothing else new here, hence the slow posting lately.  Things were so chaotic the first year of her life but this year has been much calmer, largely in a good way.  She’s talking like crazy, even forming several word sentences, is more self-sufficient, and is developing such a personality.  I spend more time talking to her than about her now!  I’ve always loved this age and it’s even more wonderful experiencing it as a parent.  Though she does try our patience at times (sometimes for multiple days in a row, nonstop) overall we’re really enjoying this stage of her development.

It is definitely bittersweet, though: she is not a baby anymore and needs me less and less every day.  I miss my tiny babe, though I pretty clearly remember how hard those days were, too.  I have never wanted to relive a period of my life – I’ve just never enjoyed looking backwards like that, even to days or times that were truly happy.  For the first time ever I find myself wishing I could relive certain periods with her.  I suppose I should just cherish those memories and focus on building new ones every day, right?

I’m here!

I swear I really am around, I just don’t know where my time goes anymore!

Eleanor is growing and growing and growing. She’s getting huge. Even her dinky little feet aren’t so dinky anymore. : ( She’s also learning new words at an amazing rate, and strings two or even three together pretty regularly. Usually it’s just something simple along the lines of “more please” (or “mow pea”). Too cute!

She’s become obsessed with spoons and other kitchen implements, so we’ve decided to get her a play kitchen for Christmas. In the meantime I gave her one of my old pots and a couple wooden spoons to play with, and she has a grand time! She’ll also walk around the house with a “purse” over her arm (really the little box with a handle that came with her sorting blocks), saying bye-bye to you.

It’s not all fun and games though, of course. She’s also becoming more bossy and physical when upset. Out of nowhere she started biting. She doesn’t do it often, but still. We have no idea where she picked it up! None of the other kids she sees on a regular basis has done something like that around her, and she didn’t see it on TV that I know of. It’s odd.

She’s still nursing, but is down to just once a day. I’m really worried she’s going to decide to wean herself before the cold and flu season is over, and that makes me nervous. I had finally wrapped my head around nursing her to 2-2.5 years just a few months ago, only to find out she may not want to nurse that long! It’s such an odd concept that she could so easily negate something that I decided for her benefit. I suppose this is the first in a long line of decisions that will be taken away from me, as she gets older. It’s pretty bittersweet.

Two word sentences!

For the past week Eleanor has been making two word sentences.  At first it seemed like she was just copying what we were saying, so we weren’t sure.  She’s been saying things like “there it is ball”  or “there it is bowl” (there it is comes out as “theh-tis” and we think is one word to her).   But this morning she very clearly asked for “more bread”!  I know girls develop more quickly than boys in the language department, but I didn’t expect two word sentences for quite a while longer.

She was slow to start talking too, so I kind of expected her to end up being more of a physical toddler, but lately she’s really been focusing on language.  She’s been picking up a new word a day it seems.  It’s becoming much easier to figure out what she wants, since at least half the time she can tell you now.

She has also learned what the potty seat is for.  She doesn’t yet get that she shouldn’t go pee in her pants anymore, but she definitely gets that that’s what she’s supposed to do when we set her on the seat.  We haven’t really been pushing it, but maybe in the next month or so I’ll try putting underwear on her.

And, finally, she’s sleeping through the night on a regular basis.  All of a sudden she just started sleeping from ~8pm-6am.  Woo-hoo!

She’s just growing and changing so much right now!  I really love this age, when they start being able to communicate and really interract with their worlds.  So much fun!

Funny note

After writing yesterday that it hadn’t rained here in over 20 days, it’s been raining all day today. Figures!

Doc appt

Eleanor had her 15 month appt on Monday. She now weighs 19lb 13oz and is 30″ tall. So still a skinny-mini! We weren’t able to see her normal doc because of scheduling conflicts, and the doc we were supposed to see was delivering a baby, so we saw a pediatric nurse instead. I actually really liked her! It was a good appt.

Then Eleanor had to get shots. Apparently there’s still a nationwide shortage of HIB, and since she’s already had the first three and is no longer an infant she isn’t high priority for it anymore. So she just got Pc (meningitis). I was hoping that would mean she’d have little if any reaction, but no: she has been one cranky baby the last few days! Ugh. Today she was more her normal self, so hopefully tomorrow she’ll be completely back to normal. Someone had told me before that the reactions get worse with each shot, so I guess I should have expected her fourth Pc shot to be bad. She’s always reacted a bit to that one, though I never knew for sure if it was the Pc or HIB shot. Guess I do now!

Other than that, life’s going well. Enjoying the crazy warm weather here lately. It’s been over 20 days without rain, which in Seattle is unheard of in June. My grass isn’t happy about it, though. Our home improvement project still isn’t done since it seems like something keeps coming up every single weekend. My brother just graduated from high school (woo-hoo!), my SIL/BIL needed help moving, my MIL did something funky to her knee and can’t walk much so we’ve been down at her place helping out a bunch, etc. etc. It’s nice having things to do I suppose, and I like spending time with family, but I’m really hoping we can finish this project soon.

OK, time to watch Burn Notice!

Oh, what an idiot I am

So, we spent the afternoon at the neighbor’s.  Because I freaking locked myself (and Eleanor) out of the house!!!  OMG, I am such an idiot.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I was distracted when I went out the door to go check on our blueberry bushes, and I shut it before unlocking the handle.  Thankfully Eleanor was with me, though I never leave her inside when I go out b/c I’m so paranoid of this very thing happening.  I tried every window and door, nothing was open.  Tried every neighbor I knew – which is five houses – no one was home.  Finally tried a neighbor I had seen but never met before, and she was home!  She’s an older lady, lives alone, was watching the Mariners (who lost spectacularly).  She invited me in and I chilled there until John got home 2.5 hours later.  He has a new office at one of his work locations and his other office phone apparently isn’t forwarding to it like it should yet, so he missed my two calls begging him to come home early.  Grr!

It actually ended up being a pleasant afternoon, though!  The neighbor was really sweet and seemed to get a kick out of Eleanor.  I also got the lowdown on who lives where, and why a certain house has been basically abandoned, so that was interesting.  I’m glad I met her, though I wish it had been under different circumstances…

New breastfeeding blinkie

Finally got around to making a 13 month breastfeeding milestone blinkie.  : )  It’s on the Graphics page.

New toddler blinkie

I made a new blinkie to celebrate Eleanor walking, and put it up on the Graphics page.  It says “My baby is now a toddler” with a pic of Eleanor walking with her push toy.  Too cute!

Day with the family

We went down to see John’s mom today, and John and the other two kids (well, mid-20s adults), scattered Jim’s ashes finally.  The weather hadn’t been cooperating with a boat launch, but today was beautiful and calm.  The scattering went well.  The rest of us watched from the house, with a motley assortment of binoculars.  It was a little surreal for everyone, I think.  An important day, but not as sad as it would have been a month or so ago.  I hope it provided some closure for John’s mom and grandmother, and for the kids as well.   I have a feeling the tougher parts of this year will be the holidays.  Other than the scattering, it felt much like any other family gathering.  It’s odd how quickly life seems to become normal again, even if the normal isn’t what it was.

Eleanor warmed up to everyone right away this time, so her memory of people seems to be improving.  She hadn’t seen most of them in at least a month.  I keep hoping to hear a wedding and/or baby announcement every time I see them all, but I think it’ll be a while.  : )  We might just have to provide a playmate for Eleanor ourselves!

With all the budget cuts lately, my SIL the teacher may be losing her job.  Her husband is completing his master’s in teaching right now and would have gone on to teach next year, but it looks like he’s going to have to sub until the economy – and school budgets – improve.  My friend, also a new teacher, finds out next month if she loses her job.  I know all of these people will be ok financially should they lose their jobs (between subbing and/or their spouse’s jobs), but I worry about the other families who won’t.  This economy is just awful.  I hope it improves soon.  Fortunately it hasn’t hurt us yet, other than John’s work not giving out the usual cost-of-living and merit-based raises this year.  Tough to complain about a lack of a raise when you know people who are being laid off or having their pay cut.

And my last piece of news: Eleanor got her first head wound today.  : (  She fell down while walking toward a table and, you guessed it, bonked her face and gave herself a fat lip.  She even bled a little, though that stopped quickly.  We have her some ibuprofen to try to stem any swelling, and some soy ice cream ostensibly to get something cold on it.  (I tried an ice cube inside a towel, but she wouldn’t hold still for it.)  She loved the ice cream and calmed right down, haha!  I’ve been trying not to start a food as comfort habit, but I think this was a good exception.  She nursed well after that and took her pacifier to go to bed, so it must not be bugging her too much anymore.

We have a walker!

For about a week now, Eleanor’s been walking!  On April 9th she took four steps, though she didn’t realize she had done it.  Every day after that she took a few more, and now she totters everywhere!  It is amazing to both of us how quickly she went from just barely taking steps to out-and-out walking.  She’ll even “run” a bit if she knows she has somewhere safe to land, like the side of the couch.

I started taking her to toddler classes a few weeks ago, at the local Gymboree.  She loves it!  It takes her about 15 minutes each time to warm up, but then she gets into it.  And I love having somewhere to go with other grown people, haha!  I’ve been trying to take her to story time at our library as well, but she suddenly decided that 10:15am (when it’s supposed to start) is her new favorite nap time.  Ah well. Wish they had a later option for this age set.

In other news, we took a little trip to Forks, WA (the home of Twilight) with my folks a couple weeks ago, which was fun.  We drove around the Olympic Peninsula checking out beaches and such, and went on a little hike at Cape Flattery, which is the northernmost tip of WA state.  It was absolutely gorgeous! We lucked out and had sunny weather the whole time.

Now we’re doing some home improvement.  I’ve decided that I’ve had enough of carpet in our main living areas – it’s always disgusted me, but now especially with Eleanor on it all the time – so we’re starting to put hardwood floors in (bamboo).  We’re starting on one of the smaller rooms, since we don’t exactly know what we’re doing yet.  Plus it ain’t cheap!  Hopefully it’ll go well and we can move on to the other rooms.  I also want to put in a second bath tub though, and we need to do some closet work (for which we already have most of the materials), so the rest of the floors might be a while.  It’s nice to finally be doing work on the house again, though!  We took an almost two year hiatus with my pgcy and then Eleanor being born.  We bought this house in ‘05 knowing it needed work, so not doing anything for half the time we’ve been here has been a little aggravating.  It was for a very good cause though.  ; )