It’s Been A While!

Wow, it has been forever since I’ve written. The older/busier Livia gets, the less time I have to write :). I was writing a  weekly parenting column for the Northern Virginia Daily for a while, but I haven’t had much time to dedicate to that, either. The thing I love most about writing is that it’s always there. No matter how crazy life gets, no matter how many weeks I neglect my blog, it’s there when I have time. Since my last post, here is what life is like now (in a nutshell).

-Livia is finally DONE with ciuccio ! (Her pacifier). We went cold turkey. She lost her pacifier, and we decided not to buy any more. It was tough at first- there was a lot of screaming and wailing, but after 2 days, she stopped asking for it! Hallelujah.

-I have learned a ton about ”natural hair care”. It took me a long time to finally find a ”regimen” for Livia’s beautiful thick curls. After lots ofGoogling and Pinterest-ing, (and LOTS of trial and ERROR), I feel like I am getting pretty good at doing her hair! 🙂

-Livia is such a 2 year old now. I am really enjoying all of the funny quirks that come along with this age. She is so particular about the funniest things- she HAS to listen to ”Rockabye baby” on repeat before bedtime, she LOVES tutus (and wears them with just about anything).

-Livia has a wide range of interests. She LOVES birthdays. Every day, she finds some way to make me a ”cake”, whether it’s using blocks, play dough…pretty much anything she can find, she will turn into a cake.  She has recently started to ask “What’s that?” about everything. Her curiosity really excites me because I know that she is REALLY taking in everything. She LOVES superheroes, especially Iron Man. He is her favorite. She loves the ”How Do Dinosaurs” books and asks me to name every single dinosaur. She has recently discovered audiobooks. I have the Audible app, and since $14 a month is a bit pricey for ONE audio book a month, for now I’m take the cheap route and listening to the samples of each book! :-p The samples are all a good 3-5 minutes, so she gets to enjoy most of the book.  When the sample is done, I just take over reading. Ha!

– In some ways, she is like a little mini version of me. She enjoys Starbucks dates, having her nails painted and giving me makeovers (aka smearing lipstick all over my face). At the same time, she is very different from me. For one, she is very assertive. She does not let anything get past her! 🙂 She also LOVES cooking. This girl can break eggs correctly, without any help. She made muffins BY HERSELF today. All I did was measure out the ingredients. She literally did everything else herself!

-Livia is VERY sassy, which I love, but I’m teaching her about boundairies- what is OK and not OK to say. (ex. if I ask her to clean up and she says ”YOU clean up!”).  Honestly, she doesn’t always take me as seriously as I’d like her to. I know it’s my fault, I’m pretty much like a kid myself in many ways, and I am sometimes a bit TOO lenient. I’m working on it.  She has yet to be sassy with Lamar!!

Anywho, that’s all I feel like writing tonight. I’ll write a more ‘focused’ post sometime this week, and I’ll include some pictures!  Now that I’ve broken back into writing…I should probably write another article for my weekly parenting column (that I haven’t written for in weeks :-/) .

Until next time!

-Laura

Parenting Victory!

Parenting victory! Livia finally fell asleep at nap time WITHOUT the carrier- for the first time!! She hasn’t used it at night in forever, but it’s dark at night and she’ll have taken a warm bath, so it’s easier for her to calm down.

During the day she literally doesn’t know how to calm down, and I didn’t know how to soothe her!  She would WANT to fall asleep in bed, but after 30 min of ridiculousness, I would give up and put her on my back. On my back, she couldn’t run around or climb out, so she would fall asleep by default. Once she was asleep, I’d put her on the bed, and she would sleep for 2-3 hours (usually 3).

Today, I don’t know what hit me, but I was determined to get her to sleep without the carrier. I just REALLY wanted her to understand what being TIRED feels like during the day, and I wanted her to understand that being tired means taking a nap. Also…yesterday I realized that she is only 17 inches shorter than I am (she’s in the 90th percentile for height…I was never even on the charts because I’m so short). So it won’t be long before her feet are touching the ground.

She literally fights sleep like nothing I’ve ever seen. In my days as a preschool teacher, I’ve had some sleep-fighters…and she is in the top 5 of most challenging kids I’ve ever tried to get to sleep!

For an hour, she tried to keep herself awake by clapping, singing, yelling, counting, etc.  I was also trying different ways to soothe her- patting her back, rubbing her face, rubbing her belly, etc. She would close her eyes and wake herself up. She would try to climb out of the bed, and I would pick her up and lay her down.  The last two times she woke up, she started crying a little. I finally said ”It’s Okay, your body is telling you to sleep”.  I think she kind of understood, and she finally fell asleep while I rubbed her chest and her face. YES!!!!!!!!!

Changing and Rearranging!

When I was still teaching, we changed the classroom layout and materials as the children grew. Our environment evolved with the children’s needs and interests. I’ve realized that the time has come for me to do the same thing at home. (And with Livia’s 2nd birthday right around the corner, it’s the perfect time to buy […]

I. Hate.Cooking. RANT!!!

Cooking. I hate, hate, hate it. It requires all of the things I’m terrible at: mainly planning and being organized. And I feel very insecure about it. It just isn’t fun for me at all!  I remember when I discovered “make ahead freezer meals” that I could cook in the crock pot. I made 10 […]

My Favorite Things About This Age (21 mos)

-Her attention span is getting longer! She will sit through 3-5 books in a row! She is also starting to enjoy longer books like “Ten Apples Up on Top”! (She loves the part with the “angry bear” !) -I can talk her through things. Before we go to a store, I say “we are going […]

Mom-To-Mom Sale!

There’s a huge consignment sale that happens twice a year in my hometown. (It’s so big that it takes place at the sportsplex (where Lamar works!) and occupies an indoor soccer field and a few indoor basketball courts)! Before we moved back here, I didn’t really get to take advantage of it. I missed it […]

6 Fun Things We Did Today!

* We went to Story Time! It was a birthday themed Story time, so we all wore party hats and read “Birthday Bugs”! Livia loved the balloons! *We went to the “big park”. Livia ran to the big kids’ park and climbed some steep monkey bars that led to a slide. She climbed so fast-before […]

A wonderful day!

Before I talk about how great today has been, I’ll admit that today started off very Monday-y. I woke up exactly an hour before we had to be at swim lessons. Our swim bag wasn’t packed. Livia was still asleep at 8:15 (leaving me 30 minutes to have her fed and ready for class). I […]

Clean Eating

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to write out a daily and weekly schedule for myself. I thought that SEEING what I had to do would help me accomplish more throughout the week. It did. I was waking up around 5:30 and going to the gym. Other mornings, I woke up early and did […]

Discovery museum fun!

The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play….but we did not stay inside on this cold, cold, wet day! We joined the local Discovery Museum!  It’s $150 per year, which includes admission for anyone in your household (even a babysitter/nanny, if you have one). Without membership, admission is $8 per person (if […]