Nothing like a little love to make you feel better

I am working from home today recovering from a 24 hour bug that laid me low all day yesterday. This is the first time I've been sick since Cameron has become so aware and so verbal. I will detail a two of our exchanges below.

Me: Mommy's not feeling good so why don't we watch some TV? (Desperately keeping her occupied while DH took an evening work call.)
Cameron: Your tummy hurts?
Me: Yes, my tummy hurts.
Cameron: I give you hug!
She proceeds to give me a big hug and put her hand on my forehead to check and see if I have a fever (DH had done the same thing earlier).

This morning I had enough energy to drive her to school. As we were getting in the car:
Cameron: Your tummy hurts?
Me: Mommy is feeling much better and I will be going into work tomorrow.
Cameron: You wear make up and go to work?
Me: Yes, I will weak make up and go to work.
I just about lost it. Apparently sick, plain faced Mommy offends her aesthetic senses.

Cute things Cameron has said lately

There has been a definite language explosion for Cameron over the past few weeks. She is basically speaking in complete sentences and can comprehend almost anything we say (I think). This has the added benefit of cutting down on the temper tantrums. However, Cameron has continued to pick up some not so great habits from daycare. We have managed to mostly wean her off of "Ye-ah" although for some reason she's transferred that Southern accent to the word "there." Another habit? Adding "ie" to the end of words which confuses us. Cameron has this habit of repeating what she says until we say it back to her. This is good because it gives us a chance to correct her pronunciation but bad because if we can't say it back to her because we don't understand her then Cameron gets mad. She was saying "dolly" this morning and I couldn't tell if she meant doggie, Charlie or daddy. I had to run through that entire list before I figured it out. In addition to dolly she is also saying birdie and doggie and a host of other words.

Here are a few cute things Cameron has said over the past week.

• "School! Almost there! I love school!" (as we pull into the parking lot of the daycare)



• "I love you, Charlie!" (an unprompted declaration of love)



• "We go to McDonald's and I get french fries!" (a special treat with DH out of town. Cameron basically just eats the fries.)



• "Bedtime soon." (we "prepare" Cameron for bedtime by counting down from 5 minutes. It has worked well and reduced temper tantrums. Plus she is definitely at the 7:30 bedtime now. I miss that 1/2 hour!)



• "I watch Oso!" (Cameron's new favorite show is Special Agent Oso)



• "Not hot now." (Sometimes her dinner is a little too hot so Cameron will blow on it and keep touching it until it is the right temperature for consumption.)



• "No, other baby" (Cameron has 2 real baby dolls and named them baby and other baby. We've tried to name them with real names but I suck at being inventive and never remember what we settled on. So baby and new baby they will continue to be.)



• "Do it again!" (A favorite refrain)



• "Yes, not ye-ah" (Cameron tells this to Jeremy when he accidentally said it. So funny!"



• "I baby." (when asked if she was a big girl or baby. Looks like we can't leverage the whole "a big girl does XYZ")



• "Off mommy's plate."

The last bullet point refers to an attempt (an inconsistent one) for family dinners. I cooked up some pasta and sauce for us last night and we sat at the kitchen table. I have learned that Cameron must have her plate look exactly like mine in order to eat her food. Otherwise she just wants mine. So I made sure that our plates looked the same and even cut up my pasta so I could cut hers (Giada would be appalled). She did pretty good for a while eating off her own plate but then it started. Cameron wanted to eat off of my plate. She still likes for us to feed her occasionally although she has mastered the eating with utensils (kind of).

We've limited "family" dinners to stuff I know she will eat. Anything pasta related, basically. I know I need to expand her palate but she is so damn picky! And she gets that from me. I'm better now (mostly) but I'm a big texture eater and I think that's what is holding Cameron back.

On a some what related note, we purchased a new booster seat. Our existing one was a travel one and folded up but accumulated crumbs like crazy. I love the one we picked up at Buy Buy Baby. There aren't straps but she is old enough now that we don't need them. It is a very simple design and can be easily cleaned. I highly recommend it and you can find it here.

I love the fact that I can interact with Cameron on a much higher level. We talk about our days (me asking her questions, her answering sometimes accurately, sometimes not) and she can clearly articulate what she wants. We are making a point of explaining things to her and validating her feelings which is what is ultimately driving this good behavior period. I'm sure it won't last long!

Toddler development and ongoing challenges

I know I’ve been bad at blogging lately filling the void with a lot of picture posts and not much content. But now that I’m back on my feet post-strep throat fiasco I thought it was time for a sharing of our current Cameron challenges. At 20 months old we are still struggling with hitting and biting. She is very good about not hitting and biting other kids. Mommy? Not so much. If DH or I deny her anything it’s a wide open mouth going for the chomp on an arm or a leg. Heck, sometimes even a boob! We’ve tried 1-2-3 with timeouts, yelling, ignoring, you name it, we’ve tried it. Except hitting or biting back of course. I’m just going to keep hoping this is a phase. It is a phase right? Just a long one?

Cameron and we are still addicted to the pacifier and I have no plans to remove it anytime soon. DH and I were both finger suckers. And I find that when Cameron doesn’t have her pacifier she sticks her hands in her mouth. We are trying to limit pacifier time to right before bed and only in the car and in the crib. Unfortunately that fell completely by the wayside during Thanksgiving (4 days of whining was enough to give plenty of lollypops and pacifiers) and my illness/DH’s travel. I feel some guilt for still having the reliance on the pacifier but I figure how many college students bring a pacifier with them to campus? Right? The problem is that Cameron now says “paci” and asks for it constantly. She’ll usually put a “please” after it which totally melts my heart. DH and I are trying to stand firm on limiting the paci time so please send us good thoughts.

Cameron still sleeps great for the most part. Usually she only cries when she has had a nightmare or is sick. Our biggest challenge in the sleep area has been keeping her warm enough. We bought a big fleece blanket to put in her crib and have done away with the sleep sacks. Cameron isn’t a big climber (watch me jinx us) so I’m not too worried about her climbing out of her crib. We have her in fleece footsie PJs and she won’t keep the blanket over her. Her feet are a little cold in the morning so perhaps I need to bite the bullet and order new fleece sleep sacks? Would it be a safety issue to use our little space heater?

Our biggest challenge by far has been eating. Cameron will usually eat whatever daycare serves but with us? No way, no how. We seriously serve the same meal every night for her. Fish sticks or chicken nuggets, some kind of potato (usually tots), green beans (occasionally carrots) and fruit. Sometimes she is gracious and will eat Annie O’s but only the plain O’s, nothing else. I think part of the problem is that she eats before us. But I don’t see that changing any time soon as she goes to bed by 7 PM. When I was sick I gave her pasta and had some with her but she wanted nothing to do with it. Should I just go ahead and serve her something and attempt to not worry when she eats nothing? Will she wake up hungry in the middle of the night? Or start waking up at 5:30 AM instead of 6:30? What is a parent to do??? Yes, I have food issues so nothing stresses me out more than not having Cameron eat.

DH and I guesstimate that Cameron knows as many as 100 words. It’s a very rough guesstimate. She says words back to us very clearly and now says Mommy and Daddy instead of Mama and Dada. Our problem is when Cameron initiates a conversation with us. 75% of the time we have no idea what she is saying. At this age they just don’t enunciate very clearly so most of the words sound the same. I’ve been trying the old, “Show me what you want” trick but Cameron usually just looks at me like I’m an idiot and just repeats herself. We’ll get there, I know, and when we do I’ll be lamenting the fact that I ever complained about not understanding her.

Finally TV watching and toilet training are non-existent at this point. What I wouldn’t give for Cameron to be interested in some TV for even five minutes at a time!! She has zero interest in it which makes it hard to get her dinner ready or small chores completed. Every time I try to duck into the kitchen there she is tugging on my pant leg whining, “Up, up”. Sometimes Mommy needs 5 minutes of alone time! That used to be bathroom time but we are attempted to indoctrinate Cameron into the wonders of toilets so she visits the bathroom with me. Not that it’s resulted in success. This weekend she said, “diaper” and DH checked it but it was fine. Two minutes later she said “diaper” again and there was poop! We were all excited at this signal and started running her to the potty whenever she said diaper. Biggest waste of time ever. If there was even one pee success I’d keep going but the taking off the diaper, trying to get her to sit still and then getting her dressed again is taking too much time and effort. So potty training won’t really get started until well after she turns two.

Parent’s of other toddlers, what else are you struggling with at this age?

Is this her veterinarian stage?

Cameron's language development is phenomenal. I can't count the number of words she knows (granted, only DH and I recognize a lot of them) but she is picking up one or two a day. Just today she learned the word "match" when I put her hair in a ponytail like mine. She also wanted to match me by wearing her sweatshirt and sneakers. Too cute!

A few pictures from warmer days in October. Here Cameron feeds carrots to the goats.

As you can see, she loved it. She fed both goats and then moved on to the rabbits. I am pretty sure we weren't supposed to be feeding the animals but at least it was just carrots.

Cameron has also been obsessed with wagons lately. I'm on the fence about getting one because I just don't think we'd use it that much. She pulled her pumpkin a good 100 feet before I took back over.

Cameron loves animals. No fear, regardless of whether it has feathers, fur or scales. We have been reinforcing that love with an increase in her vocabulary. When we were in Hilton Head, I picked up a box of picture cards. I took this video of DH "quizzing" Cameron on the cards. It is in two parts because like most kids, as soon as I said something and she realized we were filming her she decided not to do it any more. Cameron either knows the correct word, sound or gesture associated with the 16 animals in the deck. Check out her hand gestures for the word crab. Adorable!

I don't want to brag but I'm pretty impressed with Cameron's language development. Now on to sentences! When can I expect that to start?