Let’s see. Is there anything Little Bug has NOT done this month?

This has been an interesting month!

It began with her having an intense interest about the potty. She even pooped on the potty once, but that was about it. I probably could have potty-trained her this month, but we had so much going on (and, with the month I’ve had with her, I am glad potty-training wasn’t added to that list!). I said I would start once we got back from Texas. We’ve been back for over a week now and it is the last thing on my mind right now.

Yes, I am procrastinating. One day, soon, we will start.

Maybe.

This was the month of climbing for Little Bug: She climbed on top of her changing table, over gates and out of her crib at Grandma’s house. She will climb anything really. Last time we were at the zoo she was playing on this jungle gym equipment on the zoo playground. She looked up at me and said, “Climbing!!” with such excitement! I said, “Yes, Little Bug! THIS is something you CAN climb!”

She fell in love with high heels. These are the high heels she constantly wore at Mimi’s house in Texas! She can’t find many of these in Mama’s closet because I don’t wear high heels. I am a flip flop kind of girl. I have two pairs of high heels in my closet: one was the pair I wore on my wedding day (which, really, aren’t “high heels”) and the other pair is the pair I wore in my best friend’s wedding, which I haven’t worn since. Oh wait. Yes I have. I wore them to my cousin’s wedding in September and took them off immediately after the ceremony and haven’t put them on since.

Little Bug learned to take her diaper off and even had some fun with Poop Art one time. She now goes to bed at night with zipper pjs and zipper pjs only. When she learns to unzip the zipper, I will safety pin the zipper in a way that it cannot be unzipped. I learned this fabulous trick from the adorable twin girls I used to nanny!

To add to all the fun of being 22 months old, Little Bug decided this month that Independent Play is for the birds. She was happily playing 45-60 minutes everyday in her room up until a few weeks ago when she decided it would be fun to stand at the gate and cry instead. This is when she got the bright idea to climb over the gate.

The first time she did it, I walked her back to her room and told her it was playtime and she needed to play with her toys and (like I’ve been doing for almost a YEAR now) I would come back when the timer went off. She climbed out again (of course). So, I put her back in her bedroom and told her if she didn’t stay in her room I would have to close the door because climbing the gate was dangerous!

Do you think she stayed in her room? Of course not.

So I locked the door and closed it (she doesn’t know how to do locks…yet). She did NOT like that AT ALL. (I knew she wouldn’t.)

When the timer went off, I went back as usual, we cleaned up the room and that was the end of IP for that day.

This is how IP went for two days, but on the third day, she had made the connection that if she climbs the gate, the door closes. Actually, she made this connection right away, but because she has stubborn tendencies, she chose to continue to climb the gate anyway.

But on the third day at IP time she told me, “Little Bug climb gate, Mommy kose (close) door. Little Bug crying.” So I told her, “Yes, if you choose to climb the gate Mommy will have to close the door to keep you safe so you cannot climb the gate. Do you want to have the door open?” She said, “Yes!”. I said, “Well then, stay in your room and play with your toys!”

That day there was no climbing and there were tears off and on but she did go somewhat back to playing with her toys. And she hasn’t climbed the gate since then.

As I say in every update about Little Bug… she is VERY social. And I know this IP boycott is just because she would rather be with me. I also know though that IP time is important developmentally for her and it also gives me an hour or so of uninterrupted time in the morning to get something done around the house.

With our busy schedule lately, I haven’t been very consistent with IP time. My plan is to be very consistent with it (meaning, do it daily) and decrease the time for now and slowly work back up to 50-60 minutes.

Today, we had a very successful IP time! No tears AT ALL from Little Bug.

Eating and sleep have stayed the same this month. Sixteen ounces of whole milk per day, three square meals, with maybe one snack a day (I do not allow Little Bug to snack all day long so that she will be hungry enough to eat her meals at mealtimes!). Eleven hours of sleep at night, with a two hour nap.

I thought by the time Little Bug turned two she would be eating a little neater…

I don’t guess that is going to happen, but I guess, there is still a month before she turns 2!

Still size 4 diapers, although once we are finished with this box, we are moving to size 5! She has been leaking some from the size 4s so I figure a move up will solve that problem.

Size 2T clothes, although she does still wear some 18 months.

Little Bug’s vocabulary has exploded! When we got back from Texas, after being gone for just 6 days, her Daddy was amazed at her vocabulary when we returned. Little Bug can basically communicate just about anything she wants using words now. She says the simple words, such as baby, all the way to complex multiple syllable words such as hippopotamus. And she can repeat just about anything she hears!

Little Bug started singing along with the songs we’ve been singing to her! One day she busted out with Amazing Grace! I had no idea she could even sing the words yet because I had just started singing this to her before bedtime and naptime. But she sung, “Amazing Grace, how sweet sound, saved a wretch like me!”

She also started singing her ABC’s! She starts at Q for some reason though! She sings, “Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z! Know ABCs!”

One day she was reading books in the play pen in our bedroom while I was getting us ready to leave the house. I heard her singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”!

Singing songs has become part of our naptime/bedtime routine. We go into her room and I sing the “boys girls song” (Jesus Loves the Little Children) and then “Amazing Grace” and then the “boys girls song, one more time”. She is still while I sing, laying her head on my shoulder. Precious moments. One day last week, while singing before bedtime, I told myself, “Remember this. Before you know it, she isn’t going to be this little girl that fits perfectly in my arms like this with her little head rested on my shoulder.”

She’s been counting to ten for a while now and now we are making our way to 20! She doesn’t have it completely down yet. She can say most of the numbers  but she says them out of order for the most part.

This has been an interesting month with her for sure.

She has been a lot of hard work this month BUT I wouldn’t have it any other way. It is my greatest privilege that God has entrusted me with this child to nurture and bring up to love Him. When I am disciplining her for the same offense for the tenth time in the same day, I just have to remember why.

And she does already have such a sweet, tender heart. After a recent time out, after the timer went off and I said, “Walk to Mommy.” she walked right over and immediately looked me in the eyes and said, “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

God has entrusted me to mold her little heart and NOW is the time and I am going to put my EVERYTHING into it because I am thankful for this privilege and I love my girl.

Don’t they say that by the age of three, children are molded and set into who they are going to be?

That can be kinda scary to think about.

I’ve got one more year.

Sure, there will be much more teaching and disciplining to do with her beyond the age of three, but these first three years are the formative, foundational years …

and I certainly have my work cut out for me!

Happy 23 Months, Little Bug!

(Only one more Pooh picture to come! I have teased Dave saying that now we are going to do yearly Pooh pictures until she is 18! Don’t worry. I am not. At least I don’t think I will. )

- Elaine