Jammie J's Quest

Dear William,

On October 8, 2013, you turned 22 months old.

STATS/TEETH:
I’ve noticed that you’re slimming down this month, your diapers have been fitting you differently. The scale and ruler are true to my observations — you weigh 32 pounds 10 ounces. You are 37 inches tall. You wear size 3T in most everything, except footed jammies — in those you wear size 4T or 5T, depending on the brand.

On 9/28, your two year molars started claiming the landscape of your gums, starting with your lower left side (one point has come through), and your upper left side is a bump on the horizon. They must be a doozy, because you are not normally one who drools, but I’ve noticed you drooling a few times… and your cheeks turn bright red and you get a rash on your bottom.

NURSING/FOOD:
You love to nurse and I love to nurse you. You are a very well-mannered nursling, so we’ll continue our special relationship for as long as you need. This month, you have started to request “switch sides!” You’re so sweet about it, and always request it with a smile. You love all your nursing toys that I keep downstairs in the pocket of the nursing pillow and, while nursing, you fling your hand back to request each one until they’re all out, either in your hand, on the armrest above your head, or sitting on your cheek while you nurse. It’s quite a show! You hum to me while we nurse and we’re working with glisses and holding notes, and humming duets… my heart melts every time we do that. When I nurse you to sleep at night, you request Froggy and when I finally latch you and hand you Froggy, your eyes immediately start to close. Despite what you eat or don’t eat, since you’ll always nurse, I feel reassured that you’re at least getting the nutrients you need, custom tailored to your needs.

You continue to do well with table food… some days are hit and miss, though, and you display a definite preference via specific requests for the things you want to eat. For example, this past weekend, we went to Target which is in the same shopping center as Chick-Fil-A. You recognized this (you recognize where we’re at much of the time), “I want chicken nuggets, please!” and I promised them to you, only to realize as we drove over there that it was Sunday and Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sundays. You in tears and me in desperation, we went to McDonald’s for a lame substitute… you only ate one of their chicken nuggets. Clearly McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets are inferior compared to Chick-Fil-A’s.

It is with some chagrin that I share when we were in Hawaii, we were driving to Haleakala and you started saying, “I want pancakes! Pancakes!” I realized we had driven past a Jack In The box, you father didn’t even know it was there. It was notable because YOU recognized the Jack in the Box sign and correlated that with your pancakes. Since we were all hungry, it made sense to turn around and get breakfast there and pancakes for you.

THINGS YOU SAY:

Speech development is such a funny thing to watch develop.   The other thing I’ve noticed is you will sometimes speak your own language when you’re being silly, usually it’s if you’re playing with other kids… like on the airplane when we returned from Hawaii, you were turned around “talking” to them and just saying nonsense stuff.  Yet, you’ll turn and look at me or your father and speak English clear as day to us, and then go back to your “Williamism” language, and laugh hysterically at yourself.  You do it to your friend/neighbor, Josh, too.  He says, “What?” over and over again, and the more he does that, the more you laugh about it.

Words you used to say perfectly or will say perfectly if specifically requested, you now have developed a “Williamism” version of it.  I want to write them here, because I know as you get older and grow out of them, I’ll miss them.  “Wi-are” is water.  “Balicious” is delicious. “Watermeldon” is watermelon.  “Dingbell” is doorbell.  “Kank-you” is thank you.

SLEEP:
Since I’ve night weaned myself from nursing you, you’ve had some really good, long, uninterrupted nights of sleep. I, however, no longer sleep through the night. I still wake up and go in your room and check the temperature, adjust the windows and drapes and sit for a moment and listen to you breathe. Although, now that your two year molars are moving in, we’ve returned to nursing in the middle of the night, at your request, though. And while I’m tired, because it’s harder for me to be awakened in the middle of my sleep cycle, I recognize that this is but a short time in your life. I want you to know I will always be there for you — now, while you’re a child, and in the future, when you’re an adult — no matter what the clock reads or what anyone says.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:
09/14/2013 – Legoland. You recognized where we were the second we pulled into the parking lot. You really love LegoLand!
09/15/2013 – Church with your daddy. You held your Grandma H.’s hand when leaving and when she knelt to talk to you, you knelt down too.
Wednesdays are Library storytime… a different, bigger library. One that I’ve been informed by you has a “castle!”
09/21/2013 – Disneyland. You saw Mickey Mouse, Goofy, a firetruck, rode the monorail, Pirates of the Carribean, and the train.
09/28/2013 – we went to the mountain cabin for the weekend
10/05/2013 – visited Fire Station #19 Open House
10/05/2013 – we had a mom/son date at Yogurtland and then visited the newly opened PetCo

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
09/22/2013 – we hung out with your cousins for Huck’s birthday
10/06/2013 – Saw your cousins at their house — you were amazed at their “LegoLand” (they have lots of Legos)
Library Story Time — Monday mornings and Wednesday mornings with Grandma D., park time afterwards.
Gymnastics and Music Class — we’ve discontinued those for the time being due to budgetary limitations.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

How sweet you are when you don’t want us to leave the room, you cry out, “Be right back!” One evening, I needed to go upstairs, so I asked you if you wanted to stay downstairs and play with your toys or come upstairs while I changed. You replied, “Stay downstairs, please.” And you did and continued to peacefully play with your toys. How I’ve started doing the countdown to something, like putting your toys away… you didn’t get the connection the first time I did it, “One, two…” You interrupted me with a happy, “THREE!!” and then realized that it was a trick. I felt kind of bad. How whenever you walk backwards, you say, “Beep Beep Beep Beep” because that’s what big vehicles do when they’re backing up. How whenever I pick a booger out of your nose, you say, “That’s a booger… don’t eat it!” Same thing for flowers, you say, “That’s a flower…. don’t eat it!” How you still love sniffing lotions and candles, and you accompany that with, *Sniff* “Mmmm, smell good.” Also, if I turn a fan on and you feel the breeze, you said, “That feels good!”

This past month you’ve started going up and down a stair or two without needing to hold on to anything. When facing a flight of stairs, however, you still reach for my hand or a rail.

How after we finish nursing in the morning, you tell me you wanna “Go see Daddy!” “Go see Mickey Mouse!” and then when I stand up, you tell me, “Put Froggy to bed… mommy carry me.” Then you tuck your head under my chin and we go find either Daddy or Mickey Mouse, sometimes they’re one and the same.

How obsessed you are with your Hot Wheels and you keep them all in a plastic basket. We limit you to only taking 2 when we go somewhere, otherwise you grab as many as you can fit in your hands and then you leave a sad trail of Hot Wheels that you can’t carry. This past Saturday we were headed out to Fire Station #19, and I requested that you pick a toy and let’s get going… and I walked out to the garage. You followed after a moment, and when I turned to look at you, you had a huge grin on your face and were carrying “one toy” “Got my basket?”… yep, you had the basket full of Hot Wheels. Now you haul your “basket” with you whenever we go somewhere.

How you love to hold your Hot Wheels out to your side and shake them around and then tell me that “They’re dancing!”

How you love saying “thank you” to people. You practice your gratefulness every chance you get. You love saying “thank you for… ” and you look around and take inventory of everything in your immediate vicinity.  You will tell yourself thank you, if I ask you do something, when you’ve done it you say, “Thank you!” to yourself.

Your relationship with Tuggy, our cat, is progressing nicely. You have a tendency to pat a little hard sometimes, but you love him… and you TELL him, “Love you, Tuggy!” Especially after we got back from the mountains. You also have a tendency to try and use him as a pillow, so there  you are, lying on the floor with your head resting on him.  You really miss your cats when you’re away from them. You really love all cats… we went to the pet store, and you were just beside yourself with joy at all the cats they had there.  You looked inside each cage and said, “HI CAT!”   You also love dogs. And turtles. And birds.  I’m just astounded at your gentleness with other creatures, it’s amazing!

How you adore babies. There’s a new baby in the neighborhood, Abigail is her name. You walked up to her and took her tiny little hand in your toddler hand and just looked at her. Her mom was ready to arrange a marriage right then and there.

How you love to laugh, and love to make us laugh.  You have this BIG FAKE laugh that you do, and it cracks everyone up.  One morning you were playing with a Thomas Kinkade nightlight.  You were pushing on the picture part of it, and it fell out of the frame.  Half joking, I asked in a fake-horrified voice, “Did you just break that?”  You looked at me, looked back at it and replied, “Froggy broke it!”  Skeptically, I responded, “Froggy broke it?”  You replied, “Noooo-hooo-hooooo!  MUWAHAHAAA!”

In our office/guest room where Grandma D. has her computer set up. She covers it with a yellow-checkered cloth when it’s off.  You were in there playing and picked up that cloth, then looked down at it and in astonishment said, “That’s not Froggy!”  You put it back on her computer and ran into your bedroom to get Froggy and said, “This is Froggy!”

How your Grandma D. took you on a walk one day and showed you a traffic light.  Ever since then, when we’re driving along, if we come to a stop  you say, “Red light” and then when we go again, you’ll say, “Green light…  now we can go! Go Go Go!!!”

How the night of your 22 month birthday, you were playing with your “piano” that your godmother gave you. You pressed the demo key and then danced to whatever song is playing. Your father and I were being silly and we started dancing around the kitchen with each other. After watching us dance together and laughing happily at seeing us do so, you came up to me and asked me to dance. My world stood still … a sweeter moment I’ve never had, but to be asked to dance by my son. And so we danced, a rousing bouncing, twisting, silly dance full of giggles and laughter.

And how you were distracted with your DJ duties, and you would run over to check the music because you didn’t want it to end, and then come running back to me and ask me to dance again. Your bedtime loomed nearer and nearer, and I shrugged to myself, sometimes making memories is more important than bedtime.

Love forever,

Momma

Dear William,

On 09/08/2013, you turned 21 months old.

STATS/TEETH:
You are weighing in at 33 pounds 4 ounces. You are 36 inches tall and are comfortably wearing size 3T in clothes. You are wearing toddler size 8.5 EW in shoes. No new teeth have shown up this month, and I’m grateful for the respite.

We bought you a froggy potty chair this month and the first night I opened it up, I told you what it was and took it up to the bathtub bathroom. After your bath that night you asked, “Sit on froggy potty, please?” As you were sitting there, with your bath towel wrapped around you because, “don’t want to get cold!” I asked what you were doing. You replied, “I go potty on froggy potty.” And… well… you DID go potty. And so every night after your bath, our routine now is we wait for you to go potty on the froggy potty, because that’s what you want to do.

NEW WORDS:
The other day we were at Chick-Fil-A, and you were running around in there, chattering non-stop as you normally do. There was another mom in the playground area with her son who was the same age as you, and she was so impressed at your speech and how well you talk. She kept saying, “Oh, wow!” That’s pretty much what most people say when they spend any amount of time with you. Your linguistic skills are very impressive for your age. Scarily so.

People tell you the wrong name for things thinking you can’t say it. For example, we bought you an ukelele in Hawaii as a souvenir. You’ve been told it’s a guitar and I’m coming along behind trying to correctly teach you that it’s an ukelele… and you say the word just fine. Truth be told, I would rather you know the correct name for things, even if it’s harder to pronounce and challenge you to say it, rather than you be told incorrect information! After all, we (your family) are not the only people in the world with whom you’ll be communicating, and not everyone will know what “pet” names you’ve been told things are called.

When I yawn, you tell me, “Mommy tired!” When you managed to reach into the plastic container which held grapes, you informed me, “It’s kinda sharp.” You are very good at opening closed boxes of food that are left within your reach, by the way. I watched you open a box of ice cream cones the other day in 20 seconds flat — I was impressed. You love to tell me about the “container” that you managed to grasp, there’s no secrets, even when you do something you shouldn’t. You love to turn the water on in your bath tub. You also love to turn it off. And then you tell me, “I turned water on!” The reason for that is that you love to “wash bath cars” and stick them up the water spout. You tell me “car parked. It’s home.” Indeed. I guess, with a little imagination, the water spout does look kind of like a garage. I was reading a book the other day, and you walked up and bent it back, looked at it and said, “No pictures.” I replied, “Correct. It’s a word book only.” You said, “Word book, no pictures.” That’s right. Some would tell you those kinds of books are boring, but that’s not me. I say, “Some books have only words, and in those books you make pictures with your imagination.”

NURSING/FOOD:
You love to nurse and one of my favorite things to hear from you is, “Wanna nurse? Please?” Or at night or naptime when the thrill of nursing overcomes you, your whole body goes crazy with glee and you say, “NAH NAHS!” I learned this month while we on vacation, and I nursed you to sleep with no white noise machine, that you do still make noises, and moan and groan while you nurse, it’s just much softer than what you used to do in the first 13 months of your life. I was glad to make that discovery.

A week ago, I made the determination that I needed to end our middle of the night nursing sessions. It appears that your sleep pattern has changed this past month to be more like an adult’s, and that what was intended to be a “dreamfeed” was actually serving to wake you up for the day. It happened twice and so now I leave it up to you. It will take about 3 weeks for my supply to adjust, and until then I’m waking several times in the wee hours of the morning, uncomfortable due to engorgement. This decision makes me sad, as that session was, hands-down, my favorite nursing session of all of them. But you are growing up and the timing feels right.

You do well with table food and enjoy a lot of variety. You will try most anything, and walk up to us and say, “Wanna bite, please?” You also desperately love to eat out at restaurants and one night this week we ordered our food to go, and when you figured out we were leaving, you got very upset that we were not eating there!  You’ve also fooled many waitresses when they come to take drink orders.  Your father always says, “Iced tea.”  I always say, “Iced tea.”  And then the waitress looks at you and you respond, “Iced tea!”  The waitress this weekend paused, looked at you and said, “Seriously??”  You grinned back at her, she wasn’t sure what to make of you.  ha

I’m trying to be conscious of my word choices when talking to you about food. So I’m cognizant of using the word “enjoy” instead of the word “like” … sometimes we enjoy our food, and other times we don’t, but we still need to eat. I also am uber-aware of simply telling you what the food is and not adding any qualifying statement. For example, “This is turkey.” and then DON’T say, “You really liked/enjoyed/didn’t like/didn’t enjoy/should taste this, etc.” Whatever you choose to do with it is your business.  If you’re hungry, I expect you to eat, if you’re not, then don’t. Also, if you’re done eating, I don’t negotiate with you. I simply confirm, “You’re all done?” “All done,” you’ll respond. I say, “OK. We’re still eating. I’ll clean up your plate in a moment. Please wait. Here’s a car to play with.” And that’s that. Sometimes you’ll eat some more, other times you’re not happy with sitting there, but I firmly believe that good table manners are an important part of life. Given all the food issues I’ve had in my life, I want to give you the opportunity to do better.

SLEEP:
When we traveled this month your sleep was simply awful. You were overstimulated by all the things we were doing and seeing, and woke multiple times a night with nightmares. There were a couple nights when I brought you into the big bed with me and we snuggled/slept in the wee hours of the morning.  I’m not big on co-sleeping, as I don’t rest well, but turns out those moments are some of my fondest vacation memories.  The first morning we were on vacation, you woke at 3:45am and was so surprised there was no sunshine. You looked out our lanai windows and said, “I see lights.” You were looking across the way at the security lights on buildings. I told you that’s what happens when you wake in the middle of the night, you see lights. The second morning you woke at 4:15am and without missing a beat, you said, “I go see lights?”

You napped well, better than I expected, while we traveled. Even on the airplane, as we flew, you took solid 2 hour naps in my arms. Once we got back home, it took a few days for you to adjust to being back home, but then (now that I don’t dreamfeed you) you’ve started sleeping solid 10 hour stretches. You wake ravenous in the morning and drink all the milk I’ve been storing away, and would like to go back to sleep in my arms, and do on the weekends, but during the week I don’t let you because I want to keep you on a somewhat decent schedule.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:
08/17 – we went to LegoLand and its waterpark.
08/23 – we flew to Maui (Hawaii) for 6 days/5 nights… it was a 5 hour flight each way.
09/05 – First Emergency Response Vehicles event at Chick-Fil-A – got to sit in a police car and ambulance; that same night you went into the playtubes all by yourself.
09/07 – breakfast with your godparents at Bruxie’s, and saw your cousins
You had gym class and music class, as well this month.

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
You frequently request to see your “Cousins! Huck and Milo… friends” and your “Grandma and Grandpa H.”

On Labor Day, our neighborhood had a block party which we stopped by for a few minutes. You were playing with a ball. Another boy, a 4 year old, decided he wanted the ball and so he grabbed it out of your hands. Then, for good measure, he then turned back around and shoved you and knocked you straight on your butt. I ran across to you, as it looked like the kid was getting ready to kick you … and yelled, “Hey! No pushing!” I was behind you, and moved another kid out of the way to get to you. I could hear you saying something, over and over again, but couldn’t make out what it was. I finally got to you and picked you up, only to hear you saying repeatedly, “Oh goodness! Oh goodness! Oh goodness!” in the saddest little voice.  Your sweet spirit always touches me when I least expect it.

You are definitely in the little boy phase of being obsessed with cars, trains and airplanes. Your father pulled out his remote control car after you spent the evening previous chasing the neighbor’s. When your father finally let you “get it”, you were in awe of it and inspected every minute detail of it, telling us that, “It’s a car! It has wheels! They turn! It has lights! It goes fast!

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:
~How you love to stand at my nightstand and push the buttons on my clock/radio/CD player. When you finally get the right button and the radio turns on, you turn around and look at me and exclaim in a wondrous voice, “It’s music! It’s music!”
~You love to get into my bottles of lotion and walk around sniffing them, saying, “Mmmmm. Smells so good!” And then you found the vanilla scented one and told me, “It’s green!” And then, “It’s yogurt! Yummy, yummy, yummy!” Because the bottle is indeed green and it does smell remarkably like vanilla yogurt.

~The way you take roll call of those around you, constantly, “Grandma D.? Mommy? Daddy?” And wait for us to respond to you so you know we’re there.

~How you recount sitting in a police car and ambulance to me every time it enters your mind.

~How when people come over you love to show them all your special toys. I remember doing that as a child… it’s adorable.
~How, last Saturday, we had breakfast with your godparents. You were so excited about it that every time we left the house that day, you asked, “Go see Grace?” Funny thing, we went to Costco later that day and you asked, “Go see Grace?” I told you that we were going to Costco… and wouldn’t you know? Grace was there! ha
~How you love stampers and getting your hand stamped, this started because of gymnastics class, so I stamped your hand with a pumpkin stamper one day and you spent the entire day, even after it had mostly washed off, walking around showing people your pumpkin. You also really enjoy stickers and so we stuck a bunch of stickers on a piece of paper, and you happily show everyone your masterpiece, and constantly asked to “see it!”
~How you are obsessed with getting out into the cat run so you can pet your cats. This is not a particularly endearing thing, by the way.

~The way you love to love on Tuggy and lean way over him and rest your head on him, gentle as can be. He tolerates you well, and this relationship you have with him might even turn into a true pet type relationship as you get older.
~How when we were driving home from Costco, we heard you saying in the backseat, “I see sunset! I see sunset!”

Sure enough, you were seeing the sunset and sharing your world with us. We probably wouldn’t have seen this amazing sunset without you alerting us to it. Which makes me wonder how much more beauty I would have missed if you weren’t here?

Love, Momma

Dear William,

On August 8, 2013, you turned 20 months old.

STATS/TEETH:
You are weighing in at 32 pounds 6 ounces, and measuring 36″ tall.

No new teeth this month, just your canine teeth continuing to grow in.  I’m suspicious your two year molars are intermittently starting to move, because there have been a couple days when you’ve had your hand shoved WAY back in your mouth pressing on your gums.

NEW WORDS:
It’s impossible to keep track of your new words.  You’re currently working on your pronunciation and sentence structures…  it is so cool to finally know what is going on in your brain.  When you have trouble falling asleep, I now know why — you’re reliving your day, from stories at the library to seeing the new baby in the neighborhood.

NURSING/FOOD:
Nursing continues to be a source of comfort to you, it’s also a time for me to connect with you.   Sometimes we play and laugh, other times we just close our eyes and enjoy the focus time.
Food, you are doing well this month.  You have an adventurous spirit and are willing to try anything we put on your plate. Sometimes you make a face, but you eat it anyways.  Other times you gobble it up and ask for “more, more!”

SLEEP:

You continue to be a consistently deep sleeper at night.  Sometimes, though rare, you do awaken but usually only one time and nursing puts you right back to sleep.  Your day time sleep is not consistent, though, and it’s a bit maddening for me.  One day you’ll take a 2 hour nap, the next day you’ll wake after 45 minutes or an hour.  Then there’s the (very) rare day that you aren’t able to settle down for any nap at all, and so we end up skipping it altogether.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:

July 13th, we went to Legoland and spent most of our time there at their waterpark
July 14th, you went down a slide at the playground all by yourself for the first time, and then got off and ran around to the start again… saying “Fun!” the whole time
July  20th and 21st, we went to our mountain cabin.  We had a really nice time, but you didn’t sleep very well. Neither did I for that matter. There was a huge thunderstorm Saturday night that kept me awake.  I think you had trouble sleeping because you’re too long for the Pack-N-Play and are unable to stretch out.
July 27th we had breakfast with your Godparents and they gifted you with a bunch of rubber snakes and frogs and geckos.  You LOVE them.
August 3, we had breakfast at Ruby’s in Tustin (after family portraits were taken) and they have trains there.  It was so much fun!

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:

You are enrolled in Music Together classes every week and you really love attending them.  You are doing better about staying with me and not roaming the class.  If you do need to roam, I instruct you to “stay in the group” and if you roam outside of it, I pull you back in.

Gymnastics classes are either on Thursdays or Saturdays.  If on Thursdays, your Grandma D. takes you, if on Saturdays, your father and I take you.  You are doing better every week… you look forward to them and say, “Monkey Class” (the mascot is a monkey) the entire drive there and as you walk up to the door, yet when class starts (up until the most recent class) you would cry through the first 5 minutes of it.  Not sure why… the only thing I can say is if we do something like this again, I think either your father or I will be sure to take you to your first couple of classes until you’re more comfortable and settled in.

Your Grandma D. is really good about taking you to the local park and letting you play with all the kids and equipment there.  She has also taken you to a few “trial” gymnastics classes out in another city, which we think has helped you settle into your Monkey Class.

You have really come to love books, even more than in months past.  You would happily sit on someone’s lap and look at books for hours.  I’m hoping that this love of yours continues.

THINGS i WANT TO REMEMBER:

How, one morning after your wake up nursing session, instead of saying “Go see Daddy!”  You said, “Go see MIckey Mouse!”  I was so startled, but you did indeed want to go see the stuffed Mickey Mouse that we take your monthly pictures with… and every morning since then, you want to “Go see Mickey Mouse!”  You like to sit up next to him and check his diaper for poopy.  One morning you claimed, “Uh oh.  Poopy!”  “Go change Mickey Mouse diaper!”  So off we went and changed his diaper.  How your  Godmother gave you a whole bunch of toys that her daughter used to love, including some rubber snakes and geckos and frogs.  I put them out in your water table and I knew the second you found them, “Oh Gosh!  Oh my Gosh!” was your reaction.  They have now taken over our backyard, they swing with the princess, they sit on the chairs, they hang out in the doorways, they “walk around.”  I love how imaginative you are!  How sweet you are when you ask, “Water on, please?” in the bathtub because you want to “Wash car!”  “Wash truck!”  The way you melt your head into my shoulder when I ask you to give me a hug… your hugs are the best thing in the world.  How even when you’re super tired, and this.close to a meltdown, you’re still the sweetest boy in the whole world.

One day this past week I had a dentist appointment.  The office is near our home and I intentionally scheduled it so it would be finished just near your naptime.  I hurried home, I couldn’t wait to see you.  You knew exactly what I was there for, to nurse you for your nap.  All the way up the stairs, your pleas of “nah nahs!” echoed.  And I put you in your bed while I got situated and you said, “Night night, Grandma. Sweet dreams.”  And my heart melted, even though Grandma was downstairs and couldn’t hear you, I shared with her later and tears came to her eyes.

You are pure sweetness.  Sweet William.

Love,

Momma