+ Challenging +
So, I've been having some challenges with you lately. It's the first time in a while when I really feel like I'm maybe not as good at this whole Mother Thing as I should be. I suppose that's normal, but still...

You are a handful and then some. When you melt down, you melt DOWN. You're hitting, biting, etc. I know all the sane answers, and a good 75% of the time, I really stick to my parenting philosophies. But sometimes, good God I don't know what to do with you. I get so frustrated because I can't fix whatever the problem is. Then I lose my cool too, and that just makes things worse. Then I catch myself and stop, and probably end up looking downright schizophrenic. *sigh* Mostly, I just don't want to yell, or use physical things to teach you "no." But sometimes nothing else works.

Anyway, we're working on it. I'm trying really hard to hone my patience skills. Incidentally, you haven't peed in the potty since Monday. :( And now you seem genuninely afraid of it. That's fine. You have time for that. I'll keep showing you and when you're ready to try it again, we'll be ready to cheer you on.

+ Give me a "P!" +
"P" is for Potty, that's good enough for me.

Oh, joy of joys. You had a milestone moment yesterday. After a horrid night of sleep, probably involving teething pain, you awakened and we rose for the today with a pitstop to the bathroom. When you saw your little potty, you pointed at it and asked for it. I asked if you needed to use the potty and you very emphatically nodded. I happily took your pants down, took off your diaper and set you down. After a few minutes of butt-shifting and magazine "reading" what did I hear? A tinkle! My eyes opened wide and it stopped briefly. I clapped my hands and said "Yay!" and you resumed tinkling. You filled the little potty about 1/3 full with a hearty morning pee! I was so excited that after a drying-off and new diaper application, we woke daddy up to tell him and ran in to call Grandma and let her know. I am so proud of you!

Last night, you squatted strangely and when I asked if you needed the potty again, you nodded and ran to the bathroom door (a first!). A little time there yielded no results, but we tried anyway.

But this morning... Oh my! You woke up with a completely dry diaper. Again off with the pajamas and diaper, and this time you peed almost immediately! I'm even more proud of you today! I'm going to show you your pretty Jo Jo undies again, the ones that are just waiting for you to get a little better at this potty thing before you can wear them.

Mostly I'm excited because this is almost 100% Ceili-driven. When I took you to school today, I asked your teacher if they've been talking about the potty or about potty training at all, and she said No. That means what little I've said about it and your own fabulous sense of observation has brought you to this point. That's so awesome. I'm still totally not going to push it. I'll just keep giving you the opportunities and talking about it with you. Like Grandma said, even if it's only most mornings, that's fine. Eventually, you'll start to like the feeling of a wet diaper less and less and start wanting to go on the potty more and more.

Such a big girl. *sniff*

+ Too funny +
This is so true:
"At this stage, toddlers can't quite kick balls. They attempt to, but they don't have the coordination to do it and end up sort of walking into the ball."

HAPPY 18TH MONTH BIRTHDAY!

Eighteen months. Sick how fast it flies by.

+ Sleep (or lack thereof) +
Last night pretty much sucked. I tried staying up late to see Paul Hamm win the Olympic Gold for all-around in gymnastics. Failed, and just made myself move tired by even trying. Then you woke up, basically screaming bloody murder at midnight. I ran in and you just clung to me for dear life. I'm guessing you must have had a bad dream or something. Yikes. I brought you to bed with us, and you still clung to me and whimpered for the next three hours. Which meant I didn't get much more sleep. At 3 a.m. I took you back to your bed, and with a little whimper you stayed asleep for the rest of the night/morning. In fact, I had to wake you up at 7:00 a.m. this morning. Even the house alarm going off (thanks, Daddy) didn't wake you up!?! Weird. You fell asleep early last night too, well before 8:30. No idea what's up with you. I took your temperature, and it was 98.4, so that's fine. Nose is runny, which doesn't help, but it's been runny for almost two weeks. Who knows?

All I know is that I'm very, very tired today.

+ It's a sin +
I wish I had the words to explain how much you cracked me up this morning. Your carseat is back in the middle of the back seat, for safety and so I can keep a better eye on you. It had been behind my seat for a few weeks after we needed the other side to move something.

Anyway, just as we left the house this morning, Pet Shop Boys' "It's a Sin" came on the radio and you immediately started to boogie. It started with slapping both hands on your thighs, then kicking your legs to the beat, then clapping. Giggling accompanied it all. I guess you like PSB. Good girl!

+ Pictures! +
Yes, Grandma and I took you to Picture People on Sunday to enter their silly Personality Contest and because we got a free sitting and free 8x10 which I wanted Grandma to have. The photographer made ME get in a picture even. And sure enough, out of like 8 choices, Grandma picked the one with you and me both. Thanks, Grandma. Anyway, they were all so darned cute, I went ahead and got another one too. And there was a really silly one with you holding a flower and a great big tongue-sticking-out laugh. It's SO funny, and Grandma's decided she has to go back and get it. I had a feeling that would happen.

Anyway, the first two are on her 15-18 month album (linked in "Our Family Page" top right). Nice way to round out the album since you'll be 18 months on Thursday. Geez. We'll add the third one as soon as one of us goes back to get it.

+ Scary moments +
I'm probably cursing myself by trying to be a diligent parent. I cut up all of your food into bite-size but non-chokable pieces. I try not to give you things you could even possibly choke on. I do all of these things because of stories like this. So devastating.

Well, imagine my surprise and horror last night as you were eating dinner and my attention was on the TV only to be brought back to you by the slightly-gagged sound of terrified screaming! Yes, you'd gotten some of your chicken and rice stuck in your throat and must have briefly choked. Man, can that mommy guilt get any worse? I wasn't staring at you every second and you went and choked on me! Thankfully, you were absolutely fine, though a little scared. I cleaned you off, removed the offending food and replaced it with different softer options (i.e. very broken up cheese slices), and you were fine a few minutes later. But boy did that suck.

+ Bitterness +
I was feeling quite cranky yesterday, but that's water under the bridge. Instead, I thought I really ought to focus on the many things that have me excited and/or happy lately. Since many of them have to do with you, I thought I should share here!

- We received the One Step Ahead catalog in the mail yesterday and it had the Halloween preview. There's an Elmo costume in there I just can't get out of my head.
- One thing I like about daycare is that I think you are learning words that I later just get to discover randomly that you know. Words like "bubble" heard last night at bathtime and "car" as we loaded up for school this morning.
- The all-too-infrequent monsoon storms still give me a sense that Fall is on the way - which means the Arizona State Fair! I didn't realize that once I had a child of my own, the Fair would suddenly sound exciting again. I think this year we'll take a weekday off and go when it's less crowded with scary nighttime folk.
- I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the Olympics. I'm freakish that way, and have been since I was really little. I'm hoping you like them too, though you're probably still a bit too young. I can't wait to explain what's happening and share the cheers and clapping with you.
- Our church grounds house a cooperative preschool I've been wondering about, but never got around to checking into (beyond making sure they didn't also have daycare, which they don't). But it turns out their preschool starts at 2.5, which age you must be when school starts around early September. Well, guess what?! Your birthday is 2/19, which means on 8/19/05 you will be 2.5 so you can start. It's only half-day, so I'm still making a decision on that, but it's a nice idea.

Anyway, back to the grind. Just wanted to share some of the happy things floating about in my mess of a brain.

+ B - I - N - C - O +
And Binco was his name, oh.

Had a fun weekend, up in the sunny pines of Flagstaff. I wish we'd done a little more, and it maybe wasn't exactly the trip I'd hoped for. But it was nice to get out of the heat, and it was fun to hang out with friends and family. Auntie Chelle was really helpful with you, and you were actually pretty well behaved. We got in a little extra sleep, which is always good.

While you hate to drive (thankfully it's less than a two-hour drive each way), you did much better this time with the help of this CD. Every time a baby or toddler laughed, you flat-out squealed with delight. It was great.

+ Frustrations +
Let me tell you about my day. I'll preface this by saying no, I'm not PMSing and I have no idea why I'm so easy to irritate today. I suppose it started this morning when I got up. As I was rising, you started crying. So Daddy got you while I headed in the bathroom for my shower. I was in there for a few minutes before Daddy popped his head in and told me in a broken, scattered way that there was a "huge poopy blowout" involving Ceili and our bed. He seemed panicked, which means it's now my job! God bless Daddy, but he just can't handle baby poop. Just can't. So, my job.

Sure enough, you were making quite a mess. We'll just leave it at that. I disrobed you in the bathroom and gave you an impromptu bath. Things were very frantic because from the moment I got up, I only had 20 minutes to shower and get out before Daddy had to leave for work (thus leaving you awake, with me). Well, the impromptu bath ate up about 1/2 that time. So, I threw a diaper on you, threw clothes at Daddy to dress you and hopped in the shower.

Thankfully, that was the last blowout. But nothing at all has been easy today. You had a handful of mini-tantrums as I ran around trying to get ready this morning. And since you appear to have had a blowout yesterday at school too (you came home in the backup outfit), I had to rustle up a second rate outfit to leave there in its place and get diapers and lunch and my phone and... The dog wasn't thrilled about going in her box either this morning, so as I teetered on the edge of a meltdown, her pathetic whine-squeal-bark thing just pushed me over. And for reasons known only to the Weather gods, it's horribly humid this morning. By the time I got you in the car, turned the air on, hopped out to move the laundry (read above: laundry blowout, sheets, etc.) and got back in to head off, I was a sweaty ball of swooshy polyester and brushed silk (at least I look sharp today!).

My day was cheered somewhat by the combination of things handed to me when I passed you off to your teacher; a bagful of two "dirty" (probably poopy) outfits, and a huge stack of your artwork. Apparently you have a folder that collects your artwork and nobody told us about it! Some cute pieces in there, though most is admittedly no more than a photocopy of Barney and Baby Bop with three or four lines of green crayon on it. Such my little artiste.

Anyway, I've been on edge today as a result. I'm cheerful and calm, but each time someone annoys me or does something wrong, I'm like a wind up toy. It's not pretty.

Maybe it stems from not getting my teeth fixed properly at the dentist yesterday. I got my permanent crown put in, but my TMJ pain stopped us dead in the tracks of getting a much-needed filling. Alas, such is my life. Hopefully the Vioxx will knock it out as prevention before I try again next Friday.

And maybe I'll suddenly rediscover my own patience. Yeah, right.

+ Bye bye +
I forgot to talk about your cuteness Monday night. Uncle Chris stopped by to pick up a movie, and you seemed quite happy to see him. After a little chit-chat and baby babble, you let him head on his merry way. As he was closing the door behind him, you watched intently. He said, "Bye bye!" and waved at you. What did you do? You said, "BYE!" and waved happily right back at him.

So this is the point at which I should probably comment on my own motherly weirdness. See, I have these issues with mothers who swear their 2-week-olds can say "Daddy." So I tend to go to the other extreme. Have you been saying "Bye" in some form for, like, a year? Yeah, I suppose so. The first time was in the bathtub and it did accompany a wave, but it was more of a mimic sort of talking. I didn't honestly think you knew what you were doing, and I still don't. So while this itself wasn't a milestone, in a way it was. This was the first time that you, very clearly and without any direct prodding, understood to respond to another person in an appropriate physical and verbal way. You were being deliberately social. Incidentally, this was the same night you went on to nod about the apple juice. I just love being able to actually communicate with you.

On an unrelated note, I have finally started tackling my mound of scrapbooking work. Oh, I haven't actually done any scrapbooking, but I have gone through every roll of film -- and trust me, there are a lot of them! I've pulled out everything worthy of scrapping, sorted them into themes and ordered them chronologically. I pulled some stickers, die cuts etc. that correlate to some of the divisions so I can remember to use them. Actually doing the scrapbook pages might be a bit tricky with your certain attempts to "help," so we'll see how long it takes me to do that. I haven't actually done any pages since I was pregnant with you. Thankfully I did those then or I'd be more than 18 months behind!

+ Life with Ceili +
Living with you is so much fun. Have I mentioned that? You are an absolute riot most of the time. Even when you're not I'm thankful to have you. Last night, in fact, when I completely lost my temper, I was still thankful to have my life with you in it. I just would prefer that at that moment you had stopped the endless whining.

Anyway, things are good. You talk more all the time of course. You mimic things and now you're so much more responsive to things. Mostly because you've figured out how to nod. That's one of those things you never think about, but kiddos don't figure out how to nod for quite a while. Shaking their heads no is much easier, but nodding is a skill. Not to mention the fact that unlike head shaking, head nodding seems to need some sort of contextual understanding of what they're doing. You definitely understand that it is appropriate to answer a question with a nod of the head. Hopefully you are understanding that a nod is an answer in the affirmative. Whether you do or not, I'm acting like you do. For instance, last night at dinner you got whiney again, like you needed something. I asked you if you were done, no response. I asked if you wanted more chicken, no response. I asked if you needed more cheese, no response. I asked if you wanted more apple juice and you nodded! I'm 99% sure you understood what that was all about, and I gleefully set off to get you more apple juice. You drank a bit and then wanted down, so it wasn't a slam-dunk. But we repeated it with clothing options at bedtime, and you got the one you nodded in favor of. You like having choices (duh!).

We're also having pretty good luck so far, stemming off tantrums and the like. I make a concerted effort to talk to you carefully and clarify what you want or what has upset you. It doesn't always work, but I'd say it kills 50% of tantrums right off the bat. That's better than nothing! The other 50% of the time I just let you get it out of your system or manage to distract you with something else. Sometimes you're just tired and worn out. I can certainly understand that!

This weekend, you're going up to Grandma and Grandpa's cabin in Flagstaff with us and Uncle CR/Aunt Chelsie for the weekend. I can't wait!