Meet Me at My Crib

We've had a challenging week around these parts. It seems that with a 2-year-old, we have good weeks and bad. There are weeks that she is an easy-going, fun-loving, delightful little girl. And then there are weeks when she is a meltdown-having, screaming, uncooperative banshee.

This week, we had the latter. Nearly everything was a battle.

Nora really seemed to be trying to assert her independence this week. She started fighting us on things that are completely routine. Getting in her chair to eat. Washing her hands. Leaving the house. Taking a bath. But the one that was consistently a problem--EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.--was getting her out of bed in the morning.

Yeah. I didn't think we'd be dealing with this until she is in middle school.

But it wasn't that Nora still wanted to sleep. She was awake, and was given the usual amount of time to "wind up" to getting out of her crib to start the day. She just literally did not want to get OUT.

Every morning, we've tried handfuls of different tactics. Distraction. Incentives. Praise. Reverse psychology. Force. None of them were particularly successful. On the days that we removed her from her crib without her consent (so, every morning...after other tricks didn't work), we were faced with a tantrum-throwing mess. One (two?) of the mornings, she stood outside the crib and screamed for 15 minutes.

After another "episode" this morning, I started to really try to think this through. What's her problem all of a sudden? I started thinking about how we managed to solve many of the other freakouts this week. And it was by putting some control in her hands. Or, at least letting her THINK she had some control in her hands.

Fighting us to go into her seat to eat? OK then. We didn't force it. We put her food on the table, and simply said, "OK, Nora. It's OK if you're not hungry. But here's your food on the table. You let us know if you want to get up in your chair and eat it." Sure enough, within two minutes, she would "ask" (nonverbally) to get into her chair. She ate breakfast/dinner without incident. She just needed to feel like it was on her terms.

Thankfully, we had Nora's 2-year pediatrician appointment last week (she weighs 26 lbs. now, by the way!) and our doctor spent the majority of the appointment talking to us about behavior and how best to handle the typical toddler challenges. The way we've been handling our problems this week have been right in line with her advice, and hey... it's worked.

EXCEPT FOR GETTING OUT OF THE CRIB IN THE MORNING. Ugh.

What makes this different? And then something struck me. Maybe she's freaking out because she literally cannot do it herself. Nora cannot get out of bed without us. It sounds kind of ridiculous--and maybe it is, I could be off-base here--but I started to wonder if maybe this is a sign of readiness to make the transition to a toddler bed.

*cue music of DOOM*

I don't know; this is not something I've been in a hurry to do. We don't have another baby on the way, so we don't need the crib. She's not climbing out like a monkey, putting herself in danger. And really, those are the only two reasons I've ever heard someone give for moving their kid to a toddler and/or big kid bed.

Michael and I have talked about it. I've asked some mom friends for opinions. And I don't know... we're tempted to give it a try. I figure it can either go really well, or it can go very badly. And there's only one way to find out. We have a convertible crib, so it seems like the transition would be as easy as it CAN be... it's the same bed, but with a different front on it. Worst case scenario, she FREAKS THE HECK OUT and we can just convert it back to a crib.

But man, I'm scared. Right now, she's contained. When we put her in there, she can't get out. There are no bedtime or naptime battles. When we're being a little lazy on the weekends, she hangs out happily in her crib while we doze a few extra minutes. And in the meantime, we know exactly where she is.

Do we really want to uncage the beast??

The more I think about it, though, the more I see the pros and cons. Nora's just two. She hasn't fully grasped the art of being a complete pain in the ass. :) In other words, she doesn't "stall" bedtime. She's unlikely to get out of bed a million times just because she can (knock on wood). She can't use stalling tactics like asking for a drink of water, saying she wants one more kiss, or one more story. In some ways, it seems like it just *might* be easier to make this transition with a 2-year-old instead of a 2.5- or almost-3-year-old.

Still, I worry about messing with a good thing. But then again, she can't stay in a crib until she's 5. At some point, we have to rip off this band-aid.

Moms, what do you think? How old were your kids when you made this transition? How did you know it was time, or why did you do it? How did it go? Any tips or tricks before we give this a whirl?

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Toddler Curls

After I posted our family photos the other day, I got an e-mail from a woman named Jamie (Hi Jamie!) asking me how we care for Nora's curls. I thought it was a good question, because well, I still wonder on almost a daily basis whether I am actually doing it right.

I never really expected Nora to have curly hair. Remember when it looked like this?

{Baby-pattern baldness, 4.5 months old}

Poor kid. But once it started growing back in and evening out, things were looking better. And during Nora's first summer--especially on the humid days--we started noticing a single curl that would form on one side of her head.

{You can sort of see it here, on the left (her right) side}

But even last December, things had only progressed to here:

{This is when I joked that she had Beiber hair}

It was mostly straight, with just a few soft curls on some of the ends.

My mom has naturally curly hair (VERY curly), so maybe I should've seen it coming. But somehow, this year, as it grew and grew... we ended up here:

{An Instagram pic from earlier this summer}

{Family pics from a few weeks ago}

It doesn't always look that nice, of course.

When she goes to bed every night, it looks like this:

And then EVERY.SINGLE.MORNING when she wakes up, it looks like this:

Bedhead is a powerful thing.

Anyway, so here's what I actually do. We shampoo every night (with Burt's Bee's Baby Bee Shampoo). After bath, I towel dry her hair. I use the Target hair detangler spray (found in the baby aisle), spray it over her still wet/damp hair, and then I comb it out.

Now, all of you curly-headed people out there are probably ready to pounce on me about combing it, right? I've heard that you are NEVER really supposed to COMB curly hair. But I'll tell you what: Nora gets some nasty knots in her hair. If I didn't comb it, and simply used a pick, I'm convinced she would end up with a rat's nest. Or dreads.

Once it's combed, I usually "scrunch" it with my hands quickly, and off to her room she goes for the rest of her bedtime routine.

In the mornings, I don't fully brush or comb it again unless I'm putting it in a ponytail or full pigtails. Otherwise, I just gather some hair at the top of her head and will sometimes comb that piece out if I need to smooth it out, then put a ponytail holder in it. I've mostly been using these miniature no-slip rubberbands (but the ones I buy are by Scunci), but now that she has more hair and doesn't need as much "grip," I've been experimenting with others, since the Scunci ones almost always rip out some of her hair when we remove them at night. Her hair is still ALWAYS in her face if we leave it down, so I put it up every day. I just don't know what else to do with it right now.

So, what do you say, fellow moms of curly-haired kids? Or those who have curly hair themselves? Is there something I could/should be doing differently?

It'll be interesting to see what happens to her curls as she grows. Her hair tends to be sort of straight/wavy at the beginning of the day, but gets curlier as the day goes on. I don't know if the curly hair is here to stay, or if it's just for her childhood. If they're temporary, I will sure miss them when they go. :(

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Nora is 2

It was a good day. We celebrated Nora's second birthday.

Up until yesterday, we weren't sure what our plans were for today. Last year, Nora's birthday was on a Sunday, so there wasn't any question that we'd be with her, but with it being a Tuesday this year, we didn't know exactly what to do. Send her to daycare as usual and go to work? Take the day off to spend with her? Half and half?

Ultimately, we made the decision to stay home with her and I am SO GLAD we did. Once we got her out of bed this morning, I knew in my heart that if I had to drop her off at daycare today, I would've felt terrible about it. In retrospect, I don't know why I even considered going to work!

So we made the day special.

We started by going out to breakfast together, and ordered Nora her own gigantic pancake. We brought a couple of candles with us.

Although Nora can be a champion eater--especially when it comes to yummy things like pancakes!--she only ate about 1/3 of this thing. :) The rest came home with us for leftovers... she can eat it for two more breakfasts!

Nora has learned to blow on food to cool it down (or at least attempt to), so she was also a natural at trying to blow out her candles. She doesn't quite have the wind capacity to get the job done, but it's sure cute to watch her try. :)

After breakfast, I marveled at how big she looks in her car seat these days. It just kind of hit me in that moment, like holy crap--she is not a baby anymore.

She has had congestion and a runny nose this week, so here she is holding her tissue. Half the time, when we try to wipe her nose, she says her equivalent of "I do it" and makes us give her the tissue to wipe herself. Craziness.

We bought Nora a playhouse for our backyard back in June--which was our early birthday present to her--but yesterday, we realized that because her party isn't until Saturday, she wouldn't have anything to open on her birthday. To fix that, we made a quick run through the toy aisle at Walmart and got her a couple of little things. Hey, we couldn't resist. :)

So when we got home from breakfast we let her open one of her presents.

Yes, that is Christmas wrapping paper. One of these days, I will remember to keep birthday paper on hand.

She actually did a really great job of ripping it open herself, which made me happy--I can't wait to see her with her gifts at her party!

It's just a little cash register by Little Tykes. She was pleased. :)

We played with it for quite a while today. It's been a really long time since she's had new toys--Christmas, really--so it's fun for all of us!

We moved into her playroom to play and she made a complete mess of it. She pulled all of her books off the shelves, and "read" by herself quietly. I tried to get her to sit with me to read a few books and she FREAKED OUT. Miss Independent strikes again. She just wants to do everything herself.

After a nap, we got her up and ready to make her first-ever trip to the zoo. We figured that since she enjoyed the aquarium in Boston so much, she would likely get a kick out of the animals at the zoo.

We were right. First stop was with the monkeys, and she was LOVING it.

She made a lot of her animal sounds, and as you can see in some of these pics, she even brought along one of her Little People ZooTalker animals with her. In fact, she brought four with her into the car, but we pared it down to one for the actual trip through the zoo so we wouldn't lose anyone. :) Before we left the house, we were talking up our visit to the zoo and she ran to her ZooTalker zoo and started grabbing animals.

In other words, although challenging at times, there are so many reasons why this age is awesome. :)

Here she is, waving at the crocodiles. She kept saying "Hiii!" randomly to all of the animals.

When we first got to the tiger exhibit, this guy was pacing back and forth. It was actually a little disconcerting (but duh, he's behind a fence for a reason). Next thing we know, he goes and climbs into the bath to relax. Ha!

All in all, we were probably only at the zoo for an hour or so, but Nora was eventually DONE. She seemed tired, actually, which wasn't shocking since she didn't nap for as long as she typically does.

On our way home, we stopped into the grocery store for Nora to pick out a special treat for dessert. I am making a cake for her for Saturday, so I didn't make one for today. She picked out a very patriotic cookie. You'll see. :)

Back at the house, Michael played and colored with Nora while I made her birthday dinner--quinoa and cheese!

Excuse the mess of an open closet behind her. We are still working on getting things back in order around here after the floor installation. I still have to give an update on that!

Nora also chowed down on some corn on the cob, and then it was the moment she had been waiting for... cookie time.

How cool is it that she picked (all by herself) a decidedly "God Bless America"-esque cookie for her birthday on 9/11? :)

Nora made a huge mess of herself with that blue frosting, so it was time for a bath. But first we let her open her other gift from us.

Foam bath letters that stick to the side when wet. They were immediately put to good use. Again, she loves them.

At bedtime, we will typically read her a few books with her in our laps, then turn her around to snuggle with us. Tonight, as I read, she suddenly turned around in my lap to snuggle in and rest her head on my shoulder. She was tired; this was her way of telling me to stop reading, she just wanted to go to bed. :) I took that as a sign that she had a good day.

Despite my best efforts to be strong, I got choked up as I put her into her crib. I held her against me and felt the weight and size of her body, remembering how much lighter and smaller it was last year, and imagining how much bigger and heavier it will be a year from now.

It is so bittersweet that they have to grow up.

On another note... I wrote a post last year about what it is like to have a child born on 9/11. I point you back in that direction now, in case you've never read it. It's a post that I'm particularly proud of because it is so important to me.

People want to reflect and be sad and remember those America lost on 9/11/01. I get that, and I know how important that is. The events of that day were undeniably horrible and tragic. I understand that people don't ever want to forget. I don't ever want to forget. But now that I have the perspective that I do, I just try to urge people to remember that there are things on 9/11 that are worth celebrating. The stigma that some attach to the date is unfair.

Since last year, we've had a few experiences during which someone has found out Nora's birth date and made awful comments to us about it. And every time, I just think to myself--that is my daughter's birthday you're talking about. Would you want someone to say something like that to you about your birthday? I wish people would instead think before they speak. Truly, my wish for everyone is to have a reason to celebrate on 9/11. It doesn't make what happened go away--it doesn't make us forget--but to have something positive to focus on is a blessing.

And now I shall digress for another year. :)

Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet girl. I love you more than ever.

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Season Opener

Football. We look forward to it every year... wishing, hoping, knowing that this season, the Buffalo Bills will turn it around.

We got all decked out yesterday, pumped for the first game of the season. We headed over to my sister-in-law's mom's house for a little party, arriving just in time for kickoff.

And then it got ugly. And they lost. Blah.

But hey, we had fun. We had lots of food. It felt like fall. And we took lots of pictures.

Nora ate three deviled eggs all by herself.

Bryce got some snuggling from Grammy and his aunts.

Nora randomly climbed on a scooter and I pushed her around while she balanced on it like she was a skateboarder. Awesome.

Hunter thought that these goggles were on correctly. Bwahahahaha.

Nora somehow knew that this toy screwdriver was to be used on a screw. I have no idea how. She amazes me.

The kids "fixed" the scooter.

Bryce slept most of the time. We oohed and ahhed over his cute little shirt and the adorable football socks. We laughed at his jeans. :)

Nora took a turn with the hat and the goggles. And proceeded to get this tool set added to her birthday list.

Nora had fun playing with her daddy in a broken bounce house.

So hey, it wasn't all for naught.

Nora ended the day playing the drums... surprisingly well. We always had visions of her being a piano player because she was born with such long, dainty fingers, but the girl has some talent on the drums. Hmmm... who knows. :)

Better luck next week, Bills. We're not giving up on you just yet.

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