So, the kids these days ... they are a handful. In a (mostly) good way. Let's start with the little lady, shall we?
Amalia is now 28 months (nearly 2.5 years) old and is embracing it whole-heartedly. By and large we escaped Baylor's twos without much terrible, but Mollie is making sure we get the full parenting experience and has shown us what two can really mean. It's like living with a little bipolar person (though not nearly as severe or serious; I do not mean to make light of that condition); one minute she's happy-go-lucky, bouncing off the walls, and generally having the time of her life, and the next minute she's in full-on meltdown mode. It can be quite draining, but most of the time she's wonderful, a little girl full of silliness and laughter.
It is getting much easier to understand her these days. She still has a few word hangups, for example "stick" comes out "dick", "water" is still "ya-ya", "sometimes" is "dumb-dimes", "pillow" is "pee-yoh" (like she speaks Spanish or something), "clock" is "cock", and "girl" sounds like a load of marbles in her mouth. But by and large she's coming along nicely in the language department ... too well, sometimes. Mollie will repeat just about anything she hears. I believe the other night at dinner she said "hell" after hearing it from her grandpa, but luckily she smiled sneakily and whispered it so really only I heard it. And hopefully she'll forget it just as quickly as she learned it.
Pink is, hands down, her favorite color, much to my chagrin, and she applies it to everything. For a while she said her doll had a "pink mommy/mama"; when pressed as to who this person was, she replied, "Aunt (Chris)tine". She has an imaginary pink house that she claims is at "Rivertown". When pretending to drive in a car with Baylor, hers is ALWAYS pink. And, if given the choice, I believe she would wear pink head to toe every single day and generally look like a Peep. I'm not a huge fan of pink and how companies seem to lure girls and their parents into buying this or that simply because it's pink, but she genuinely loves the color so I'm trying to just let it go.
Every night before bed, Mollie likes to put her doll, Sally, down to sleep. She'll lay out the sleeping bag Oma made for Sally, put down her pillow, snug Sally's toy mouse in, and then slip Sally in, pushing the covers down to keep her warm. Then my favorite part happens; she'll give Sally her goodnight kisses, once on the forehead where Sally somehow got a boo-boo (something blue made a mark there and I can't, for the life of me, get it to come off), and once on each eyebrow. She loves her Sally so much and tries to take such good care of her. I say "tries" because lately she's been piling all of her sleep-time pals, including Sally, into my lap and then sitting on them.
Someone must have told Mollie that a woman has a right to change her mind because the little lady does it on a daily basis in some of the most infuriating ways. I'll ask her what she wants for lunch, she'll tell me, I'll check and double-check that that's what she wants, then I'll put it down in front of her and she'll whine and say she wanted something else. Ways like that. Unfortunately for her, no one told her that I'm not going to encourage flip-flopping around here and she's stuck with what she asked for in the first place.
As I mentioned in a previous post, watching Monsters Inc. traumatized Mollie and took away my superstar sleeper. (Seriously, she used to ASK to go down for a nap ... it was AWESOME!) Now before bed every night and nap every day, she tells me that she isn't tired and needs her back rubbed. Part of this is likely a new habit, but I don't want to make sleep time a bad experience for her so I'm indulging it a little at this point, though I flat-out refuse to rub her back 'til she goes asleep. It isn't good for either one of us.
Mollie is a doting younger sister to Baylor; she adores him and all he does, and it makes my heart happy to see how well they get along. (Most of the time anyway ... no one is perfect, you know!) When she gets up before he does, she'll come in with me to get him, crawl onto his bed, get right up next to him with a hug, and say, "Hey, buddy!" or "Good morning, Bayor!" Bless his heart, this is usually met with a chuckle and an appropriate response. He really does a great job of dealing with the adoration and aping she is into right now; it can't be easy living with your fan club, after all.
Speaking of Baylor ...
He is a wonderful little boy, warm and loving just like I'd hoped he'd be. He's quick with an "I love you" to those he's closest with, and he still likes to snuggle ... something I hope he never loses.
Have I mentioned, though, that he is a talker? Like an all-day, non-stop, run-on sentence, holy moly talker? From weaving new stories to telling old ones, from planning out the day to re-imagining it, from questioning each and every person he meets on how to get to and from their house to telling everyone he meets how to get here or there, he's a chatterbox. I love hearing him talk and marveling at all the amazing things he comes up with, though sometimes it does get to be a little much; the quiet of nap time and bed time is much revered by me.
Not only does he tell stories and ask millions of questions a day, but he has a few sayings and exclamations that make me grin. One of his favorites is to smile and say, "Ow, ow, baby! Ow, ow!" when he's excited about something. He also often says he hasn't been somewhere or done something "in a while", sometimes when he's never been there or done that. Earlier this week he said to me, "Mom, I have something to tell you when you get in the car. You'll like it ... eventually. I promise." I see so much of what I say coming out in him, which is a constant reminder to watch what I say and how I say it.
One of Baylor's favorite moments of the day comes right after he wakes up. He still has to wear an overnight diaper because he drinks most of his liquids at dinner and right before bed giving him no chance to get through the night dry, so right after he wakes up I take his diaper off, put his sleep shorts back on, and let him go commando for the morning. He LOVES it; it puts such an amazing smile on his face, and sometimes it's the first time of the day I can get him to focus on something. (He's not a morning eater and would probably forgo any food until lunch time if I let him. I have no idea how this is all going to work come fall, by the way, when he starts up preschool. *sigh*)
My little man loves Legos. It's amazing really ... he can be in the worst, most obstinate mood, but if you ask him if he'd like to do some Legos he perks right up, becomes more agreeable, and relaxes a bit. Often I have to offer out Legos just to get him to the bar to eat breakfast or lunch, as he's a fan of neither. On top of him just plain loving them, he's getting really good at coming up with his own creations.
Which is why it was so incredibly difficult for me to take them away this week. Not everything is perfect with Baylor, as so it goes with every child. Lately he's been having some potty regression troubles, not noticing when he has to go potty or peeing wherever is most convenient/most attention-getting (the kitchen floor, on his bed). After a particularly awful incident involving poo (as most particularly awful potty incidences do), I had to take away his Legos. I didn't take them away because it is his most favorite toy and would instantly ... finally get his attention. (Though they are and it did.) I took them away because they were his reward for using the potty in the first place. That afternoon was hell on so many levels, and I'm just hoping we're working back toward better potty behavior.
Part of the awful incident occurred, I suppose, from the fact that Baylor is done with naps. He still needs an afternoon resting time, an hour or two where he is alone and will just read to himself, otherwise he's a basket case by dinner. But increasingly he's become more defiant and mischievous during "resting time", grabbing his monitor and screaming/talking into it until I come up, standing up on his bed to turn on his light, playing with his table lamp or pushing it off the nightstand. But the awful incident took the cake; it was defiant in a way I'd never experienced with him, and it broke my heart. (Clearly I wasn't done talking about the awful incident ...)
I digress.
He doesn't nap much, if at all, anymore. I usually let him rest during the entirety of Mollie's nap, unless things get too rowdy up there. Occasionally he falls asleep during that time, which sets us up for a whole other problem. Baylor, much like his dad, is awful to wake up. He's cranky, whiny, and will do whatever he can to go back to sleep. I've actually woken him up, scooped him out of bed, laid him on the couch, and had him sleep for another full hour after that. (Does wonders for dinner time, let me tell ya.) And then, if he does sleep, bed time is painful. He's not tired. He doesn't want to sleep. And he WILL let you know about it. If you can get him down, then you get the joy of hearing him talk to himself for upwards of two hours. So napping's not really an option anymore if we can avoid it. *sigh* I don't know what the next step is, but we'll figure it out, as we always do.
I know I haven't written much about it on here, but Baylor has been going through some play therapy (for Asperger's) since late March and it seems to be working. He now plays with toy figures (Mollie's dollhouse people, stuffed animals, etc.) and gives them voices of their own. He will do the hokey pokey with me. He is more flexible within play. And, just generally, he seems more comfortable with kids his own age. Hopefully the improvements will keep coming.
With both kids, there are the usual ups and downs ebbing and flowing throughout our days, but overall I really have no reason to complain; I have the two best children this mother could ask for. We have so much fun together so much of the time, something I have to try better to remind myself of when the tough moments arise. The kids and I dance together in the morning, Baylor often leading the group with his snazzy moves (look out ladies!) and Mollie happily joining in with her dear brother. We snuggle, we read, we laugh as much as we can. The days of this time of life are long, some so long you'd swear you'd lived two days in just twenty-four hours, but these years are short and I'm trying to embrace this time of life and enjoy my kids ... just as they are now.
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