Riley is on the verge of turning 1 1/2 years old. It seems like a lifetime ago when we counted the age by weeks. Now I find myself thinking of her as "almost 2" b/c I go by years. Anyway, we don't have any stats b/c we go to the doctor next week...but I would guess that she's on the shorter side with a big head. She's the shortest in her class but she has outgrown all (ok, most)
Does anyone get tired of hearing (err...reading) me say how much she changes? I pretty much talk about this everyday too...I just cannot get over it. She is talking a lot still. She recently started putting together some two word phrases...only a few though. They consist of "Hi Dazzle" "Bye-Bye Dazzle" "Hi Daddy" and "Bye Daddy". Occasionally we get the "Dropped It", but this is really only clear enough for her daddy to understand it. If I had to guess she has about 30 or so words in her vocabulary...that we can understand. "Dazzle" is still her ultimate favorite word. But she can kind of (and I am totally stretching this) say "posse". Her posse includes a stuffed dog named "Bro", a stuffed bunny named "Bunny", and a baby doll named "Baby". All of whom's names she can say. How did this start you wonder? Read on...
Riley has mastered the adorable yet hard-on-the-hair art of hair twirling. When she is tired or just needs to comfort herself for any reason she reaches up, grabs some hair and twirls. We get some "oh that is so sweet" and other nice things. And it is. Kind of cute. But it also creates these crazy knots in her hair that can only be removed by pulling or cutting the hair out. So her hair has thinned a bit over the last few months. Anyway, at our last check-up the doc suggested we try to give her a "comfort item". A teddy bear of sorts. I mentioned that we had been trying to give her this little blankie with a teddy bear head on it b/c that is what we wanted to be her comfort item (hey, its easy to carry and wash and I was sure we could use the power of suggestion to make her get attached to it). He kindly explained that it was probably great for a 6 month old, but she's a big girl and she needs a real teddy bear...something with some substance. So we started. Riley wasn't really showing any interest in any comfort items. So we started putting a few stuffed animals and blankies in her crib with her and trying our hardest to remember to take them out of the crib too so she could decide on her own what would be her "woobie" (oh yeah, Mr. Mom). We had Bro and Bunny and Baby and a pink blankie and the original teddy bear head blankie and a couple of others. While she liked to play with all of them for a few minutes none seemed to really fill the bill of that "I can't live with out X for more than five minutes" kind of comfort item. She still liked twirling. We were horrible about remembering to take these things out of her crib. After a couple of weeks she found something that seemed like it might be the one...A life-size stuffed dog from her Uncle Bill & Aunt Lesley. Uh no...there is no way I am taking that dog on the airplanes and car trips and trying to fit him in the diaper bag...forget it. So we started trying to take the "posse" out of her crib. Instead of making a connection with any one pal, she has taken to loving them all. Almost equally. So now Riley has a posse. And the funniest part is...she still twirls. We put the posse in her crib at night and she likes to throw them out and say "Uh-oh" and then when she is sleeping I sneak in and put them back in her crib so she has something to do when she wakes up in the morning. It's become our thing. Occasionally, like this morning, I go into get her before she has sent her friends overboard. She is amazed they are back in the crib and she'll point to each one "Bunny", "Bro", "Baby".
Another funny Riley story. She has taken to shaking her head yes. Which I love. I think she knows I love it and sometimes just shakes her head yes to make me happy. She does not say no yet. People tell me this is an inevitable thing that will happen to us. While funny, this story has a tragic start to it. Riley got bit at daycare. On the stomach of all places. When Riley first started daycare they put all these fliers in our cubby. One of them was about how children this age often bite and it can be because of x, y, or z (i.e. no one really knows). They explain how the situation will be handled if a child bites another child. Then they explain how the situation will be handled for the child that is bitten. Hmmm, reading that thing I never thought of Riley as the bitee. So maybe that's the silver lining in this story? Who knows. Anyway, Riley gets bitten and the daycare, in an effort to protect the attacker, makes it sound like its Riley's fault. I could believe this is isolated to this incident and they really believe it was Riley's fault, but I have seen other incident reports so I know they always make it sound like the victim caused the aggression. Anyway, supposedly Riley tried to get in another child's way and so that child bit her. On the stomach. It broke the skin. They called me in the middle of the day. And she is going to survive. They don't tell you which child did it which we are fine with b/c we are realistic and know that some day Riley will probably be on the other end of an incident report and we love to know she is protected from any re-vengeful parent. SO...I say to Riley that night. "Did someone bite you?" She lifts her shirt up to show me the wound and shakes her head yes. Then I say "Did Hailey bite you?" She shakes her head yes. "Did Emma bite you?" She shakes her head yes. "Did Ethan bite you?" She shakes her head yes.
Can you stand one more funny story about the munchkin in our lives? A couple of weeks ago I was doing some situps and push-ups (that is not the funny part). Anyway, Riley will sit on my stomach while I do my sit-ups. Then I'm doing push-ups and she starts pushing on my back like she is my coach. The next thing I know she is down on the ground doing pushups with me. So I quickly ran to get the camera to take a short video (see above). Now, of course, I think "Great, I have a work-out buddy/partner". So a couple of days ago she woke up early and I was working out (this story makes it sound like I work out a lot, huh?). Anyway, Daddy came out and Riley went running to him. I said "Don't you want to do some pushups with me?" She wrapped herself tighter around Chris and put her head on his shoulder as if to say "Don't make me work out Mommy. Please. I am only 1 1/2 years old".
Alright well, this has taken me days to publish...so its time to sign off. Hope this finds you all well and laughing...until the next time.
Alright well, I better sign off for now. I am posting a whole bunch of pictures in Picasa and a video above...so check them out.
http://picasaweb.google.com/pschwalje/AlmostSummer2008
Paula
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