Jillian turned 21 months old today. While this might not be quite as exciting for her as another 21st birthday might be in the future, it is pretty amazing to me. In just three months she will be two, which seems impossibly old to me.
This past month she has become increasingly independent. No! (said with arms folded) is definitely one of her favorite words, although she'll still sprinkle in some "yeahs" along with plenty of hugs and kisses. In the past few days, she has also started saying "memememememe!" when wanting something for herself. She understands when I ask her to identify body parts, she knows the difference between her, mommy, daddy and baby. She will often mix up the terms "mommy" and "daddy" and Jeramy is a bit concerned with the frequency with which he is called "mommy". I'm sure that will likely reverse when I go back to work in a couple weeks. She is my little social butterfly who loves to greet everybody she meets "hi" and "bye". Going "bye bye" is still one of her favorite activities along with going outside or " 'side" as Jillian refers to it. She gets quite excited when we tell her to go get her shoes. Both my girls garner us a lot of attention when we are out, which I don't mind. People tell us that we are very lucky, and they are absolutely correct.
Night terrors continue to be a problem for Jillian. If we dare to stay out past the hour of 9pm as we did for the 4th of July, we most certainly pay the price with a screaming, thrashing toddler about an hour after she goes to bed. It is harder on us than her as she doesn't remember anything since she was sleeping. It kills us though since there is absolutely nothing that can be done to help her. I could just as well leave her in bed, but since we end up awake regardless it feels better to hold and rock her through it. They can last for up to 30 minutes. I really, really hope she out grows this soon, because it is absolutely heartbreaking.
This month will bring on new challenges as we are going out of town over night on two different weekends for weddings. I'm not sure how this will go given Jillian's sleeping issues and the 2 month old, so I limited each trip to just one night even though people wanted us to go for longer. Jillian has not slept anywhere overnight except for her crib since October, so I'm of course concerned. She does not sleep well in bed with us. Since she isn't used to it, she usually she just plays or rolls off the bed in her sleep. I'm going into both trips with exceedingly low expectations for the amount of sleep our family will get and exceedingly high expectations for the amount of caffeine that I will be consuming.
There are certainly times where I'm exhausted and at my wits end between temper tantrums and a house that seems to go from clean to disaster in about 60 seconds. But really, I wouldn't change a single thing about either of these two girls.
4 comments:
Isn't this just an awesome age?
On the sleeping away from home thing... you might end up being surprised. We went away in August and LL was a total mess -- he hated the pack'n'play, wouldn't sleep, but would not sleep in bed with us (same as Jillian -- lots of climbing all over us for fun, very little sleep). But then we tried again in March, and he was a completely different kid. Fell asleep easily in the pack'n'play. He did wake up in the middle of the night each night, but when we brought him into bed, he immediately cuddled up and went back to sleep. Now that Jillian's a bit older, maybe she'll do better sleeping in new places?
I can't believe she's almost 2!! How can that be? She's adorable. I'm so glad things are going so well for you with the 2 girls. If you could send some of your girl power this way, I'd like another girl too;) (in the next month or 2!)
Look at how sweet your daughters are! I can just imagine how much fun they are having together. You're going back to work? We're trying to figure out how to make everything work out...my mom is too old to watch two all day. and daycare/nanny is just WAY too expensive for four days a week for two. Sigh...what to do, what to do :)
First of all.. LOVE the Carhartt (as someone who does some rough and tumble work that benefits from the brand. :) She is adorable.
Secondly, I had night terrors too, and if it helps you, I DID know in some abstract way that Mommy was helping me when she did. I can remember them from when I was about 3.. a few specific instances. As I got older and could communicate more through them, sometimes Mom could get me to tell her what I was seeing. Then if she played along with it she could ease it. For example, the one I remember most vividly is one time when red glowing lizards were swarming my room trying to bite me (I was afraid of lizards.. I guess the dinosaur thing isn't so far fetched for me). Anyway, I would point them out adn she would pretend to throw them out the window, but she would actually have to hit the spot where I was "seeing" them. Hope that helps some.
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