I haven’t done a full post about Talisa for quite awhile, so I thought I’d update a bit on some things I want to remember about these fleeting toddler times! For the record, she is 23 months old. Can’t believe she’ll be 2 in less than a month!! Haven’t even started planning her birthday yet, it’ll probably be very low key.
Talisa LOOOVES to color. Markers are her favorite, but as you can imagine she’s not so good about putting caps back on, and over a period of about 3 months all of our markers have slowly been thrown away. The marker drawer is now empty. oops! I used coloring time to try to teach her some manners (she’s pretty good at manners in general considering her age!). Like most little ones, she likes to grab what she wants, when she wants it. So if I was using a marker she wanted (which was every time of course) I asked her to say “Can I have that please?” and I’d either say sure and give it to her, or ask her to let me finish and then I’d give it to her. She did pretty well, though often she’d grab the marker and quickly say “Can I have that please? Sure! Thanks!” while pulling it out of my hand. What do I say to that?? haha
The crocodile tears have started as well! Of course she often really truly cries, but sometimes she cries just to try to get her way and she has this habit of covering her eyes with her hands. I try not to laugh, really I do.
It’s my little kitchen de-organizer! Her most favorite thing to do in the kitchen is beg me to carry her while I am cooking. But if I can distract her from that, she’ll go to the cupboard! Sometimes she takes things out and piles them on a table, other time she takes a few things out to play cooking. Other times she completely empties the tupperware shelf!
I think she has some sort of innate sense of organization (I must take advantage of that!!). When she takes containers out of the cupboard she takes off the tops and puts each top underneath its corresponding container. nicely done!
Talisa has her share of falls like any toddler, but in this photo she is doing one of her favorite games – falling on purpose! She falls down and then Svara has to rush up to her saying “oh no! oh no!” Talisa thinks it’s hilarious. Of course.
This is the last photo I have of Talisa in her high chair. She hasn’t sat in it for oh, 3-4 months I think. In fact we don’t even have it anymore, we lent it to a friend who has 2 little ones who both like to sit in high chairs but they only had one chair. Now Talisa sits at the table like a big person. Except she’s not a big person which means she’s either too low in the chair or she has to kneel. But to her that’s better than a high chair! I thought about getting a booster seat, but I don’t know if she would refuse to sit in it because it’s not the same as our chairs, in which case it’d be a waste of money…
Oh, these stairs. Talisa goes up and down these stairs too many times a day to count. seriously. For many months my heart jumped every single time she’d go up or down and I’d run to make sure she’d be okay. Now I’m pretty confident and she’s super confident, so I don’t have a mini panic attack 50 times a day anymore – whew!
Sunglasses. too cute! Oh, and she puts them on by herself of course.
Time to (un)help with the chores! The best time for Talisa to sweep is AFTER I have finished sweeping. But she prefers to sweep while I sweep, which means thrashing her broom in the dirt pile.
Teaching a toddler their colors can be quite frustrating. Talisa picked up on color names quickly, but matching them to the right color is a whole other ballgame. I remember the same thing with Svara – wondering if perhaps they can’t see the colors the same as us or what. So I put it to the test! I found these foam “popsicle sticks” at the store and snatched them up. I gave them to Talisa along with containers of similar colors. And she matched them! All by herself! I was so proud – and happy to know that she CAN see her colors. Naming them? Now that’ll take awhile. But she’s very interested. She points to things and says some random color, I tell her the color, she repeats it, over and over. Fun times.
Talisa can definitely be a little goofball. She makes faces, does funny walks, silly stances, anything to get a giggle out of us. And if we do laugh? She’ll do it over and over for our everlasting entertainment.
So let’s see, what else….
Talisa talks up a storm and speaks in full sentences. Yesterday we were outside and it was time to go in to get ready for bed. I told her and she walked away saying “NO, I play outside.” Okay, then! (sorry kiddo, you can talk, but I can still carry you!) One of the things she says funny is “NO WITE!” (for no way). She can count to about 18, but she skips the number 5 every single time, and I think she skips a couple of the teens as well.
Books, books, book! This girl still thankfully loves her books. Pretty much the only times during the day that I can count on having some peace while she’s awake is when she gets caught up in her books (she sits and reads by herself for 5 to even 30 minutes at a time) or when she’s watching home videos of herself on the iPad (desperate times call for desperate measures, meals HAVE to be cooked!). Often in the morning she wakes up, nurses, and slides off the bed to toddle off to her book pile. She reads her books by herself while we catch a few extra minutes of Zzzzzzzs. Until I get hit on the head with a book of course.
Eating – some days Talisa has a good appetite, others she doesn’t. She’s still keen on frozen blueberries and would eat them for every meal of every day if we had enough and if I let her. Oh, she’s not allergic to chocolate anymore, YAY! She used to get hives from chocolate, but over the past month I’ve tested it a few times and no reaction, so now she gets to have some chocolate when we do (I make a lot of healthy treats that include some cocoa powder). She’s not so keen on veggies, but we keep trying and there are some she’ll eat (she likes raw tomatoes!). She likes carrots and will eat leafy greens if they are chopped small and in soup. She and Svara often share a small pot of miso noodle soup for lunch (healthy noodles, organic silken tofu, and either grated carrots or chopped leafy greens in a miso broth). Easy to make and they both gobble it up – win win!
Talisa has become quite possessive of me where Svara is concerned. If Talisa is not in the best mood and she sees me hugging Svara, all hell breaks loose. She screams, pushes Svara (but she DOES say excuse me hehe) and asks to nurse. I try to keep most of my cuddles for Svara when Talisa isn’t looking for the time being.
SLEEP – if you have read previous updates about Talisa, sleep has ALWAYS been an issue for one reason or another. It wasn’t getting any better after 18 months and I was at my wits end and couldn’t even think straight due to sleep exhaustion. My mom sent me a baby sleeping book for my birthday, so I had a read through it. I never was one for crying out. I did sleep training with Svara at various times with various success, but I was glad to have never had to do that with Talisa. BUT sleep was getting worse and the book made some good points – she wasn’t getting good sleep either, and she wasn’t crying in distress. and she certainly didn’t physically NEED to nurse 5-10 times a night. Yeah. So with everything I read, I decided it was time to cut her off nursing at night. So I thought maybe I’d be kind and just hold her but not let her nurse. That didn’t work since I had to sit there and hold her for 2 hours a time waiting for her to fall asleep enough for me to put her in her crib. Not cool. I had other things to do at night – like work and SLEEP. So…. one night when Naren and Svara were at a function I let her cry. I checked on her every 10-15 minutes to let her know I was around and to make sure she had her pacifier and security cloth (her fasa and toony). It took 45 minutes for her to fall asleep. Things got a LOT better after that. For about 3 months it was lovely and I could hardly believe it. I did end up nursing her early in the mornings (5 or 6) as she’d then fall back asleep. If I didn’ tnurse her at that time she’d be up for the day. Not fun. Then she got sick, and we were all sick. And that dragged on for a month and a half and things were BAD again. I can’t deny a snotty coughy baby who wants to nurse in the middle of the night. So we were back to little sleep. A few weeks ago she was finally totally over her cold so I had to go back and do the whole letting her cry again. Took 40 minutes that time and it’s been better since. she still wakes up and I actually bring her into our bed when she gets up sometime around 5 (sometimes a little earlier) because it’s just easier that way. But if she wakes up earlier I just lay her down, tell her goodnight, and she goes back to sleep. So glad to get a bit of sleep back again!
Nursing – still going strong! When Talisa was a baby she nursed when she was hungry and that was about it. After about 15 montsh or so she started becoming more emotionally attached to nursing, wanting to nurse when she was sad, mad, etc. She still does that. I am currently trying to defer that when possible, trying to divert her attention elsewhere, give her cuddles but not nursing, etc. But sometimes she’s just in hysterics and it’s the only thing that’ll calm her down. Other than those times she nurses in the morning, before and after nap, and at bedtime (and then once around 5am or so). At some point in the next 2-3 months I’ll probably start phasing out the after nap nursing and go slowly from there. I like still knowing she’s getting the extra complete nutrients from breastfeeding, and if it helps her sleep I’m all for it!
I think that’s enough for one post, I’ve got some other things to do online before I myself get to bed. I should be back soon with a post all about…. homeschooling!
Zerbert 