1Y48W: An Over-tired Toddler is Almost as Much Fun as a Punch in the Face (1/24/11 - 1/30/11)

Because our study patients have a full 8 hour day with us and there was no good way to figure out how to get everything done and not have to split the visit between 2 days, I volunteered to work four 10 hour shifts since I have to be with the patients at the very beginning and very end of their study day. I have wanted to work such a schedule for quite a while and my bosses thought it was a great idea so I started this week. I will work 10 hours on Monday through Thursday then get 3 days home with Lily. This will save us a boatload on daycare and give me another full day with my precious little girl. Because Paul and I drive to and from work together, it actually didn’t lengthen my days that much. Paul drops me off at the hospital, takes Lily to daycare on the other side of town, then comes back to the hospital for work. Then after his shift, he picks her up then comes back to the hospital to pick me up. We actually only leave the house 15 minutes earlier than we used to and get home less than an hour later so my day is not 2 hours longer working a 10 hour shift than it is working an 8 hour shift thanks to the Paul Rysso shuttle service. It makes a lot more driving back and forth for him but he says that he doesn’t mind.

Lily’s new favorite toy is the giant diaper box from our visit to Costco on Tuesday. She spent most of Wednesday evening playing in the box with two bottles of my nail polish. I am so glad we’ve bought her hundreds of dollars worth of toys! It was very cute because she kept feeding the nail polish to her toy dog and saying, “medicine, feel better.” The box ended up being her favorite place to play all week long.

My first Friday home with Lily was awesome. We slept in until 8, played together for a while, napped together, then played some more. It was so very nice! My parents came over on Saturday and Sunday to help us with some projects around the house. My dad and Paul worked on a big staining and varnishing project while my mom and I entertained Lily and went through all of her outgrown clothes. We had around 12 garbage bags to sort through. The stuff I wanted to keep was sorted by size, folded, and sealed in Space Bags and my mom took the remainder home to donate to charity. It was nice to walk down memory lane looking at her cute tiny outfits. I can’t believe that my little baby will be 2 years old soon.

This second week of limiting Lily’s naps at daycare was a miserable failure. I even let them increase her one nap to 3-3.5 hours but she was horribly crabby and intolerably whiny this week. She cried at the drop of a hat. Tammy had a tough time keeping her awake and neither of them had a fun week due to Lily’s terrible mood. My new shift has changed her sleep schedule a little but not enough to account for the horror that was her mood this week. Every day on the drive home from work, she fell asleep instantly and slept the entire ride. She cried and whined all evening over absolutely nothing yet we still had trouble putting her to bed because she was so over-tired. All that and she still woke up frequently throughout the night so we decided to ditch the limited naps. I told Tammy to let Lily go back to 2 naps per day but just not to let them exceed 2 hours each or 4 hours total. We all miss our sweet, happy Lily. On a good note, thanks to the free Spanish lessons from watching Dora the Explorer, Lily can now count to 12 in both English and Spanish. She calls all penguins “penguinos” and says “tengo sed” when she is thirsty. And, of course, from her favorite song she says “arriba” for up and “abajo” for down.

Here are some pictures from this week.

My cutie playing in her diaper box:

Where’s Lily?:

There she is:

Silly girl playing in her box:

Lily’s hair is FINALLY long enough for a ponytail! I was so excited:

Doing her “hmmmm” thinking face:

And her newly-developed angry scowl- seen quite frequently this week:

My pony-tailed girl playing with her hair accessories:

Lily playing hide-and-seek amongst the bags of her old clothes:

1Y47W: Photo-less for the First Time (1/17/11 - 1/23/11)

Now that I no longer work at the PFT lab, Paul has taken my Brighton rotation. He is only going out there once a month, though. He worked there on Monday through Wednesday of this week so it was me who got to solo with Lily’s drop-offs and pick-ups while he got to sleep in and had time to run errands after work. Tammy was off on Friday so my dad came and watched Lily. She greatly enjoyed spending the day with her beloved papi. My mom had plans early in the day but came later in the afternoon to spend some time with Lily and we all had dinner together when Paul and I got home from work.

This weekend was super cold so we didn’t venture out of the house much. I am beginning to go a bit stir-crazy being homebound every weekend so I did get out and run some very unexciting but necessary errands on Saturday. That was a miserable experience! It was so cold and windy and as soon as my car was no longer painfully cold, I had arrived at my next location and lost all of the heat as soon as I opened the door to get out.

Lily’s sleep habits at night continue to be horrible and she continues to wake up at 2am and tries to stay awake for hours. We found out last week that she is sleeping excessively at daycare so we made Tammy put a limit on her naps this week. Lily only takes one 2 hour nap for us but at daycare, she has been taking two naps totaling over 4 hours. I know that she gets up later when she is home with us so that makes up for some of the extra sleep she needs at daycare but I think she was getting her days and nights turned around a bit so for this week, we had Tammy limit her to just one nap of 2.5 hours. It worked great on Monday night. She came home a bit sleepy but we were able to keep her up until her bedtime and she actually slept through the night which she has only done a handful of times. I thought that maybe we had finally fixed the problem but she only slept through the night that one time. The rest of the week, she still woke up frequently but at least fell back to sleep fairly quickly. Tammy said she got pretty sleepy a few afternoons at daycare so they had to leap around to keep her awake. She fell asleep twice on the drive home from daycare but only when we were about 5 minutes from our house so she woke back up quickly and in a good mood.

The ‘My Toddler This Week’ email that I got from babycenter.com addressed a fairly new issue in our house- whining.
“When your toddler whines for something, you may feel like caving in just to hush that grating voice. But it's best to hold your ground. If you can show your toddler that whining won't get him anywhere, he's more likely to give it up and try other ways of communicating. Where to start? When you hear your child whining, gently point it out to him and ask him to use his regular voice. Toddlers don't always know what whining is, and they may not be able to hear it in their own voice. “

I definitely am guilty of giving her what she wants to stop the whining as quickly as possible. Until I read the article, I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it. Sometimes she gets such an urgency in her voice when she is freaking out about wanting something like her JUICE CUP that I feel her stress and want it quickly too. I am now trying to stop myself, discourage the whining, and teach her patience.

In my previous post, I talked about Lily’s mispronunciations. In addition to those, there are a few things that she adorably calls by different names. For example, all ducks are called “quack-quacks” and donkeys are called “hee-haws”. At her Pooh table, she has a Pooh chair and an Eeyore chair. She calls them her Pooh chair and her hee-haw chair. No matter what’s in her sippy cup, Lily always calls it a “juice cup”. She also doesn’t quite get who ‘you’ is. When I show her a picture and I say, “That’s you,” then later ask who is in the picture, she says, “You”. She frequently likes to stand on furniture and leap off it at you declaring happily, “I catch you!” Many times she comes up to me, arms stretched up, saying, “I pick you up.” She doesn’t really appreciate my hilarious answer of, “Okay, but good luck!”

For the first time in 99 weeks, I went 7 days without taking a single picture of Lily! I can’t believe it. Even when things are uneventful, I tend to take 30-100 pictures per week. Crazy! All I have is that one video I posted. Sorry!

Lily’s Mispronunciations- So Much Better than the Real Thing (1/19/11)

Today while in the tub, Lily was looking through her Rainbow Fish bath book and was excitedly talking about the “shishies” (fishies), “sheshells” (seashells), and “applepus” (octopus). I could barely contain my laughter at her charming mispronunciations and it got me to thinking about the other things that she says adorably wrong. For example:

squash-squash = washcloth
gwaybit = blanket
Wiwy = Lily
bana = banana
stwaberryerry = strawberry
amals = animals
catsis = carrots
pap-pap = backpack
Bob-bob Squaybee = Spongebob Squarepants
Dora Splora = Dora the Explorer
goo-goo-gone = Senor Toucan
Sooey-sooey = UmiZoomi
Yo Yo Yo = Yo Gabba Gabba
fwy-fwy = butterfly
chalky milk = chocolate milk
sco-sco = telescope

Is it wrong that I am going to be sad when she starts saying them correctly?

Springy Carpet? (1/18/11)

In this video you can see Lily using our living room floor like it’s a trampoline, dancing, and generally being her usual zany self.

1Y46W: A Broken Burger and a Torn Knee (1/10/11 - 1/16/11)

On Monday, I had a return visit with my orthopedic surgeon to discuss my MRI results. As he suspected, I have torn cartilage in my knee. I have a tear at the root of the posterior horn of the medial meniscus and a likely tear in the anterior horn of the lateral meniscus. I have both a ganglion cyst and a Baker cyst in the knee joint which he said are commonly formed when the knee is inflamed as a way to protect itself. The good news is that the pain has been a lot better lately and that combined with the fact that my knee is not locking means that I do not need surgery to fix the problem. He gave me a number of exercises to try to strengthen my quad muscles and stabilize my knee as I told him that I really don’t have time for physical therapy right now having just started a new job. I am glad that we have finally found the source of my pain and am even happier that the pain is finally starting to go away. What concerned me quite a bit, though, was that the MRI found that I have lost about 50% of the cartilage in both the lateral and medial tibiofemoral compartments of my knee due to arthritis. My ACL is degenerated as well. I reminded him that I am 34, not 84, and am therefore concerned about the degree of arthritis found on my MRI. He said that I should follow up with my PCP about that and possibly get some blood testing done since I have a family history of both rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. On Tuesday, Lily brought me her burger because the bun fell off. She said, “Burger broke, mama fix.” It was very cute and she was most grateful when I put it back together for her. Sometimes it’s good to be a hero!

I am getting more adapted to my new job. I love the independence and trust that I am given. I also love that I get to set my own start time so if I get to work 5 minutes behind one day, it’s no big deal because there is no such thing as being late. Now Paul and I are working the same hours which means that we get home a lot sooner. I am enjoying having more time after work to hang out with Lily and get things done around the house. We had our first study patient this week which confirmed our speculation that the study is huge and is going to be a lot of work but it is very interesting. I had training on Thursday and Friday so I did not work in the PFT lab on Friday. Actually, it was decided by my bosses that because the study is so huge, it needs my full-time support so from next week on, I will be a full-time research assistant. That scares me a bit to no longer have my foot in the door at the PFT lab as it’s the only real job I’ve ever known, but I am glad that they find me valuable enough in my new position to already want to expand my involvement.

We had another uneventful weekend hanging around the house with Lily being her usual goofball self. Her personality never ceases to completely crack me up. Here are some pictures from this week.

After Christmas, Lily had way too many toys in the living room (where we keep the ones she plays with the most) and I felt like I was living in a daycare. To help corral the toys, I bought a new organizer which we put together on Monday. Lily started tearing apart the Styrofoam packaging and declaring that it was snow. Since the house was already a mess, we let her have her fun:

Mischievous smile:

Lily 'helped' by crawling around in the organizer while Paul put it together:

Then she found it great fun to climb in the bins for each shelf:

Watching TV inside a bin:

My silly girl played a game on Sunday where she put 2 binkies in her mouth then leaped in the air and slammed down on her butt, popping the binkies across the room. She found it great fun and apparently her diaper is a good shock absorber because it didn't seem to hurt at all. Here she is stuffing the binkies in:

And leaping in the air:

The football game in the background was no match for the entertainment factor of leaping Lily:

Such a goofball:

Lilia Habla Espanol (1/6/11)

Lily loves to sing this song from Dora the Explorer but as soon as I got the camera rolling, she started playing shy so I had to prompt her. Then she started whispering so you can't hear much but you get the idea. The song goes, "Arriba up, abajo down, abre open, cierra closed, I speak Spanish and English too, I like them both, how about you?" Dora has been great for providing Lily with free Spanish lessons.

1Y45W: New Year, New Job (1/3/11 - 1/9/11)

This week was very busy and overwhelming as I began my new position in COPD Clinical Research. We are trying to get our research study up and running quickly so there is a lot to do and a lot to learn. I spent most of my evenings trying to memorize the study protocol and manual of procedures which consisted of 100s of pages of vital information. I really like the study coordinator, Laurie, whom I am working under and already feel like a vital and appreciated member of the team as all of my PFT background knowledge and experience is very important to the study. Monday through Thursday flew by and I was back in the PFT lab on Friday. I was run ragged that day as apparently they wanted to get a weeks’ worth of work out of me in one day. I was exhausted by the weekend so we spent it very relaxed and low-key.

The ‘My Toddler This Week’ email that I got from babycenter.com was very relevant to Lily’s current behavior and development.
“New this month- Issuing orders:
Now that your toddler can communicate using both words and gestures, you can expect him to become quite bossy. Mostly he's experimenting with how his ability to communicate affects the people around him. For instance, he might yell "Stop!" when you start singing his favorite song. It's not that he really wants you to stop singing. He's more interested in seeing how you respond to his order. If he demands "Help me!" when he's playing with a toy, you're witnessing a huge developmental leap. Rather than throwing a toy he can't operate, he can now ask you to help him figure it out. "Look!" is another frequent command. Usually this request signifies a need for your approval. He may want you to compliment one of his scribbles, block towers, or simply acknowledge that he put on his socks. Praising his specific achievements will give him the confidence to keep trying new things on his own.
What you can do:
Use your toddler's bossy behavior as a springboard to teaching "please" and "thank-you." For example, when he says "Help," teach him to say "Help, please!" You can also use his demands to get a conversation going. When he says "Stop," ask him to explain why he wants you to stop doing whatever you're doing. Although your toddler probably doesn't have the vocabulary to give you a real explanation, you may be surprised at how well he expresses himself.”

Lily is definitely into ordering us around. She likes to command us to lie down on the living room floor then hands us a pillow and a blanket and tells us, “Close your eyes!” If only I could make her take a nap on command! It’s cute so we usually play along but once she did it to both of us and we both actually fell asleep and woke up to her jumping on the couch. That was a bit scary! When she does demand something, we try to remind her of the manners she started using so sweetly on her own back in October. Lily does ask for help now which is a huge step. She doesn’t get nearly as frustrated but instead tends to know her limits and asks for help if something is out of her reach or too heavy to lift. Thanks to learning Spanish from watching Dora the Explorer, she usually says “ayudame” instead of “help me”. Adorable!

As stated above, I was quite busy every evening learning about my new job so I didn't take many pictures.

Here is Lily using a paper towel tube as a telescope to look at her toys on Sunday:

And to watch Dora: