The first few months of two saw more runny noses, fevers, and coughs, but we’re making it through. This little toddler loves life, even if she does want to throw 25 tantrums a day.
At the beginning of January, we said goodbye to her daycare she was only at for three months, as she ended up getting a spot in Olivia’s school in the toddler classroom.
No more driving to two different places in the morning. Emelia, luckily, adjusted quickly to her new digs, probably because it was already a familiar place we’d drop off Olivia in the morning.
Still, it was hard leaving her main teacher.
Stats
Clothing size: 2T, beginning size 6 shoes
Height and Weight: 2 feet 11.5 inches tall and 27 lbs
Teeth: One more 2-year molar needs to come in, but she’s popping her third.
Eating
She’s still going strong on nursing, but waking at night to nurse sucks. It’s not every night, but I’m hoping to start weaning off the evening nursing session where she’s with me in the glider in the dark before bed. It’s not as hard as it was with Olivia because if I can be honest, girlfriend isn’t that fun to nurse at night. She flails. She screeches randomly. She tries to fall out of my lap. She probably falls asleep nursing before bed 1 in every 60 times.
Plus she’s been doing this thing now where she loves to shove her hands up under my bewbs as far up there as she can get and OMG IT’S SO FUCKING ANNOYING. But. There’s still COVID and winter sickness, so happily I continue nursing.
Because we now bring a cold lunch some days to daycare, Emelia has a hard time with the lunch and snack prep the night before. I thought it would be a good idea to let the girls make their lunches together, but when we would get done, Emelia would throw a tantrum because she wanted to eat it right away instead of putting her lunch bag in the fridge for the next morning.
She loves her snacks, especially fruit and carbs. So much so that her OT brought us a red/green flip card to put on our cupboard so she can visually see it’s not snack time. She doesn’t like no for an answer, and it does seem to help some when we can point to it and say, “Oh, I’m sorry you want a snack, but it’s not time yet.”
We made pesto pasta one night and she scarfed it. She occasionally eats deli meat which is nice because we can’t bring peanut butter to school so there aren’t a lot of options for a kid that doesn’t like deli meat. Even tacos she really doesn’t care about, save for the cheese and sour cream and occasionally the shell. Apparently, at her old daycare, she’d eat all her tacos, but here, nothing.
She usually eats breakfast well and loves cereal in milk. And then she just seems to eat a lot of fruit and cheese the rest of the day.
Actually, her OT told us we may want to refrain from cheering and praising when she does eat something outside of that for dinner since it adds extra pressure and may actually be hindering her. It’s been tough doing that because she’s so particular so when she does eat something you want to clap and give her a standing ovation.
But she does great now drinking from an open cup and using her spoon to eat her cereal.
Sleep
Sleep has been a hit or a miss lately. The few times Chris tried to take her instead of me nursing her didn’t go very well. Luckily, for the most part, she nurses and goes back to sleep fairly quickly. But she’ll have a few weeks of sleeping through the night and then for a few weeks she’ll wake up around 3 am.
I think we’re dealing with night terrors though. There were a few nights lately where she’ll wake either around 9:30 pm or between 12 and 1:00 am crying loudly and she’s not consolable. Initially, we thought she saw the kitchen light on and thought it was time to wake up. I mean, there was one time we stood there at a loss as she growled and screamed and cried and crawled around the kitchen floor until she calmed and we could hold her again. It was awful and we took it as a tantrum.
But then one night, it was about 9:30 and we were downstairs watching TV. I decided to go up to her since I wasn’t sure if she had pooped or not because she was standing up in her crib. When I went in she seemed really confused and I thought she wanted to nurse in my bed. Then she cried harder and pointed in the opposite direction down the hall so I thought she wanted to nurse out in the living room, but she didn’t want that either.
I finally sat in the rocker in her room as she crawled away from me crying and went into the corner. Chris came in and we just sat there helplessly until it occurred to me that she was so unlike herself that this could be a night terror. I googled it while Chris tried to console her from the corner. And then she just snapped out of it and went right to me to nurse in my lap before falling asleep on me. And then went to bed just fine.
It’s only been three times, so who knows if there will be more, but at least now I think we got it figured out.
Diapering/Potty
In January, she peed on her potty one evening a little, though I think it was a complete fluke because she hasn’t done it again. And her first day or two of daycare at the new school, she went there (again, probably a fluke, but still). So we haven’t really pushed anything. She’s still pretty little and my plan is to start officially sometime this summer.
We did buy a potty, one that doubles as a stool so at least we get some use out of it for now. But otherwise, she’s not telling us when she’s wet, though she loves talking about poop. In which we have to remind her, “No you didn’t poop, you tooted,” to which she shrieks in laughter and screeches, “Toot! I toot!”
Health
We had an awesome bout of pink eye around here at the beginning of January. Emelia got it first on Christmas Day after having cold symptoms. Then Olivia and I got it at about the same time (I was dealing with some wicked illness that affected my breathing, blood pressure, and oxygen level and because of my downed immune system, I had raging pink eye in BOTH eyes.) and then Emelia got it back again. I had three pieces of paper on the kitchen table that basically lived there for 6 weeks while I marked off everyone’s 4-6-times-a-day eyedrop regimen.
Then there was that one time where she was racing around with a little chair and I was doing the dishes and heard this big crash, followed by crying. I can’t be sure what happened, but Emelia was at the bottom of our stairs in the foyer with the chair. The first thought is she fell down the stairs, but she wasn’t crying hard enough for that. I don’t know if she literally took a flying leap off the stairs or if she tried to bring it down a few stairs and then fell. Either way, I’m glad that toddlers can bounce.
Language
Emelia is still working hard at occupational therapy. She started in January and works with an OT through the school district every week who comes to our house. Technically, she’s being followed by a speech therapist and teacher as well, but her OT is working on speech as well as other activities of daily life.
She’s been talking more and more (especially since starting OT). Toby, a name she would never attempt to say, now is known unfortunately as Titty. She can say Gigi and Pop with relish (the nicknames for her grandparents), and can say Titi for her one auntie. She calls Olivia Sissy, which comes out really similar to Gigi. She won’t really say her own name at all. Sometimes I can get her to attempt to say it, but it comes out nothing like Emelia.
She also can’t say her Ns at all. So nurse is “Urse!” and instead of saying No, she always just says, “Uh uh”. We’re working on getting her to practice saying words with N.
She’s starting to say more two-word sentences such as:
- “Bye Daddy!”
- “Where Daddy?”
- “Mah feet!”
- “Da doo!” (Thank you)
- “Help me!”
- “Help please!”
- “More peas!” (More please)
- “All done!”
- “Top it!” (Stop it)
She’s been saying a few three-word sentences like “Mo milk peas!” and “Where dada go?” And one time she asked me, “Where mah daddy go?” (She’s all about her daddy right now if you couldn’t tell.)
And she loves to sing along to the ABCs, Baby Shark, and Wheels on the Bus.
Milestones
I think Emelia is left-handed. I know those things don’t really stick quite yet, but she very much favors her left hand when she holds a pencil, throws a ball, or eats. In fact, she has an impressive arm on her and loves throwing balls. She also can stack her blocks, help wash and dry her hands, and walk up and down the stairs, though a lot of times I see her sliding on her butt.
She can take her shoes off (stacking them neatly in the closet), unzip her jacket almost all the way (it gets stuck at the bottom sometimes), and put her hat on. (Thank you, Montessori learning.) She can run, jump, and loves spinning in circles.
She does struggle with getting her shoes on, as reported by her teacher. I honestly can’t remember when Olivia accomplished that, or maybe I’m used to my preemie baby being behind in certain things, but I was surprised they cared so much. Though I guess with trying to get 14 pairs of toddler shoes on to go to the gym, they want to make it as efficient as possible. So it’s something we’re working on and I just bought a pair of size 6 shoes to see if it helps, though she’s not technically needing to move up.
Favorites
- Toys: Her babies, anything of Olivia’s, Olivia’s toys with small pieces, blocks, kinetic sand, and balls
- Books: Pop-it books, Lulu and the Witch Baby
- TV shows/Movies: Doc McStuffins, Encanto, and Frozen
- Activities: Running around, playing with Olivia, dancing, reading, nursing, playing in forts, going to the library
Little sister
Emelia adores her big sister. She thinks everything Olivia does is amazing, fascinating, and hilarious.
Actually, there was this stage where Olivia was really into helping get Emelia ready for bed, and since Emelia was more than happy to let her, I stepped back and let Olivia do her thing. I supervised Olivia changing her diaper, but she got Emelia dressed in her pjs, helped her brush her teeth, and read books to her.
It’s so sweet watching them get along. Emelia is still struggling with communicating, but I think as that improves, they will really take off.
