20 months old
Tue 01 Jan 2008
You know your toddler has entered the ‘terrible twos’ when:
- your toddler wants to decide what to wear (I don’t want to wear the red jacket, I want to wear the pink one! I don’t want to wear those beautiful new shoes that match my outfit for the wedding, I want to wear my nikes!)
- your toddler wants to decide where to go (I don’t want to go into that shop in Pike Place market, I want to go up those stairs!)
- your toddler wants to decide what to eat (I don’t want to eat carrots, I want blueberries!)
So yes Lucy has entered this new phase! It happened overnight as one day she was the happy-go-lucky, do anything, eat anything, sleep anywhere baby and the next day she was an independent person. And it happened the week before we went to Seattle! Lucy gets to make some small decisions throughout the day but mum decides clothes, menu and itinerary. This new phase means that simple tasks are taking a lot longer than usual. Funnily enough part of this independent phase includes nudism so getting dressed in the mornings is a struggle.
[Side note: Another strange thing is that Lucy is scared of the printer. When it starts making printing noises she throws herself flat to the floor and buries her face in the carpet until I tell her it is ok and she then toddles over to collect the printing for me. Strange!]
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Thankfully sleeping has not been effected. And the good news is that when we got back from Seattle Lucy maintained the 3 hours time difference. So for 11 magical days Lucy slept from 7pm – 9am. We certainly enjoyed these sleep-ins especially as one of them was on Christmas Day! She is back to normal now with her usual waking time of 7:30am. Lucy loves her toddler bed and we have no trouble with her getting in and staying in.
Lucy has started talking a lot more. Whilst there is still a lot of jibberish she says on average 5 new words a day. She is excellent at repeating what we tell her; “Lucy get the purple penguin†Lucy says ‘purple purple’, “Lucy say please†Lucy says ‘please please’. Whilst this is fun at home, it is not so fun at church “Lucy please be quiet as we are reading the bible†Lucy shouts at full volume ‘bible bible bible’. She has finally started putting two words together verbally (although she could sign 2 or 3 words together a long time ago). Her favourite combination at the moment is ‘one more’.
Lucy has learnt her colours. In the bath she has 6 penguins with coloured bands on their top hats and she can match these colours with the respective floaties accurately. She knows some shapes and she knows the number ‘one’. We have started reading ‘The Wizard of Oz’ for bathtime.
Christmas was great fun with Lucy. She had her advent calendar to open every day in December and she loved opening the little doors, unwrapping the tissue paper and then placing the object on the nativity scene. On Christmas Eve we attended a carols (by candlelight) service at church with Lucy the only rowdy child shouting ‘star, star’, ‘amen, amen’, ‘bible, bible’. On Christmas day she had the trifecta of ripping open wrapping paper, pancakes for breakfast and cake for dinner. She got a few presents including lots of books, a kiddies laptop, a trolley, clothes and a kitchen. We tried to get things simple and not go over the top.
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Seattle was not as fun. Apart from the long flights, the cold weather and this new independence, Lucy had a double ear infection and was on antibiotics. We did get to see a few things (and attend Kirk & Bethany’s wedding) but it was definitely hard going this time. I was kind of hoping that the old wives tale that traveling between 6-18 months was the hardest time was true as we are now out of that phase. Sadly like many old wives tales it is not true. I think a better reflection is on life stage and the hardest times for us to travel were at ‘learning to walk’ 14 months for Lucy and ‘I’m my own person’ 19 months for Lucy. I am imagining that ‘potty training’ could also be difficult and we are able to enter that phase soon. Lucy is showing signs of being ready (she’s more ready than me) and that will be our first project for next year.
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Here are two movies for the month:
Happy New Year to everyone!
