Many of you were concerned for my sanity when you read my
recent morning madness blog (after laughing your heads off at me, of
course). So I wanted to reassure
‘my readers’ that life has become much more manageable and calm these
days. Ivan has started to take a
faster route to work in the mornings, freeing up just enough time to drop baby
off to her dayhome (but I think this mysterious coincidence might have had
something to do with the bad press he got in that blog). Either way – I’m happy! Getting one child ready in the morning
is much easier than two. So Rya
and I now get a few more minutes of beauty sleep and can take our time since I’m
actually able to get myself ready at the same time and head straight to work
instead of the whole pajama mama scene.
The smoother mornings may be one factor – but I think there
are many reasons that I’m finally starting to ‘like’ Mariah again. Last year was a bit rough with her,
since she really took the ‘terrible two’ thing seriously. She used to have at least one tantrum
per day for most of 2013, and seemed very irritable most of the time. I think another factor was that she was
getting her back molars, which took about 6 months to come in, and left her as
a hot cranky mess most of the time.
Consequently, I was a hot cranky mess most of the time too, and Rya and
I used to drive each other crazy.
I feel like we growled and kissed our teeth at each other more than we
actually spoke to each other.
Which brings me to another factor – Mariah has always been pretty
verbally advanced…but even at that rate, her vocabulary as a two year-old was
fairly limited. She spoke in full
sentences, but didn’t always have the exact words to express how she felt or
what she wanted. Ever since she
turned three a couple of months ago, Mariah has really blossomed into the sweet
little girl I’ve always dreamed of.
Don’t get me wrong – she still has her moments, and I’m sure she always
will. But for the most part, she
is pretty happy, calm, and dare I say ‘reasonable’. Whereas she used to tantrum if she wasn’t given arbitrary
objects before, which seemed to be a power struggle…now she only really gets
upset if she feels something isn’t fair.
For example, if I were to break a cookie in half and split it between
Mariah and Kassiah, Mariah would not be happy if she didn’t get the bigger
piece. But even this usually
starts with some whiny complaining before hitting sheer anger, so I have a
chance to de-escalate her. And in
between those times, Mariah usually is usually busy playing pretend by herself
or with her sister, if she’s willing.
Mariah lines chairs up and pretends she’s driving; pats her dolls to
sleep; hides in closets to escape monsters; goes shopping in our pantry; or
bakes cookies in the kitchen set her dad built for her. Mariah is also a focused little artist
who can sit and draw for an hour – taking time to put the right parts on a
face, or drawing 3 circles for a snowman.
One of Mariah’s favourite activities is going to the movies with mom or
dad. Whereas some kids have a real
hard time sitting quietly, Mariah has been going to the theatre since she was
10 months old! She now sits in her
own booster seat and stares intently at the screen the whole time. Last time she whispered ‘someone’s
scared’ pointing to her cabbage patch doll and telling it to take deep breaths
(I guess she must be the child of a therapist). She loves telling people about her movie history – if
anyone says the word ‘frozen’ in any context (like her Oma saying the screen
was frozen on skype…or me asking Ivan to pass the frozen peas). Without a hesitation she exclaims “Hey,
member when me and Tan and daddy and Matthew went to see the movie, Frozen?!?”. Mariah's understanding of her maturity is in very concrete terms. I've commented on her being 'bigger' when she does something by herself like flipping her coat on...so when she asks for something that I say she's too young for (like having a sip of Coke) she says "but I AM bigger!". Before I paint a perfect picture of
Mariah, I should mention that she recently got in trouble at school for saying
a ‘bad word’. Ivan & I spent
the evening accusing each other of 4 letter words she could have overheard from
our mouths. But when her teacher
finally told me Rya had said ‘poopy penis’, I had to choke back a laugh and be
thankful that she used the proper anatomical term (granted with an odd
adjective), since daddy taught her they’re called dickies.
Little Kassiah is finally starting to grow past the baby
stage, into toddlerhood (although I feel like she will always be a baby!). Her current word list is: ‘Kuk’
(stuck), Dada, Mama, “Yaya” (Rya), Hi, Bye, more, this, that, ‘peesh’ (please),
boob, and no. She really loves
music and usually dances and sings around the house with her daddy. Lately I’ve been teaching her the “do,
ray, me’s” and she ends on a cute little “me, me, me, me” vocal lesson. Another grown up thing about our little
baby is that she has the hair of a wild woman. Even after a haircut just two weeks ago, Kassiah’s hair is
so long and thick that she uses both hands to brush it off her chubby face when
she has pulled her pony tail out.
Mariah was never super affectionate (and still barely gives hugs and
kisses), but Kassiah sticks out her lips with a ‘mmmm’ waiting for a kiss when
you request one. And she still
loves to be carried and cuddled as she ‘twerks’ as her Auntie Lisa calls it – doing
her funny little I’m sleepy dance, by sticking her bum in & out. And despite my many planned cut-off
markers, this almost 20 month old is still breastfeeding! I’ve had really mixed emotions on this
topic, which I’ll blog about in more detail sometime. But for now, I’m gonna keep letting her snack for ‘a couple
more months’ and be thankful that she she's too slow to ask for it
in a full sentence!
