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While I’ve alluded to the fact that The Little Empress is turning out to be slow to speak, I have been a bit hesitant to talk about it openly. The reasons for this are varied but a lot of it comes down to guilt and feeling like I have somehow failed her as a mother. But I realize that hiding and avoiding a situation only tends to aggravate worry than alleviate it. Rather than worry in private, I figure that it is time to start talking about it and document what steps we will be taking to help TLE overcome it.
The Little Empress had begun to babble pretty early on in infancy and I was always sure that her first word was just around the corner. By 12 months she still had not uttered her first word but I was not worried — surely it was coming soon. But when her 18 month birthday slipped by without “Mama” or “Dada”, I began to get concerned. At her well child check at 18 months, our family doctor wasn’t particularly worried as TLE was obviously alert, curious and capable of understanding what was going on around her.
By about 22 months old, TLE’s had developed a small vocabulary, main filled with simple, two syllable words and a few garbled phrases. Though I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t gauge TLE’s development by comparing her to other children her age, I double checked her development against widely accepted milestones for her age. By my unprofessional estimates, her vocabulary was behind though her comprehension was about where it should be. I asked around online, seeking advice from other Moms. Several Moms advised me to look into early intervention programs through the county. After doing some research online, I found the early intervention specialists in our area.
Continue reading Better late than never
Warning: You’re about to read a rant.
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As I mention in my obligatory About Me page, Mommy Misadventures is just one of my many online incarnations. I began blogging way back when in 1999 when Pitas — an online diary service — became popular in the various anime fandom circles that I was a part of at the time. The idea behind the service was to keep an online diary to write about whatever caught your fancy and allow folks online to read your thoughts.
Over the years, my various blog incarnations have captured my life as I knew it. I have written about my last years in college, forever memorializing a horrible commute, lack of money for coffee and worries about how to get a job in the Silicon Valley just as the dot bomb was claiming casualties over the Valley. Once I graduated and began (officially) living with the man who would become The Hubs, I moved onto the chronicles of a young professional, eking out a meager living, still complaining about my horrible commute and bemoaning the fact that I still couldn’t afford Starbucks. My blog followed has me not only from various services and domains but also to and from various jobs and homes and stages in my life, going from fully public to fully private and everywhere in between.
Arguably, my blog could be more correctly categorized as a journal because I have recorded actual happenings in my life for the world to see but not necessarily for my audience. For years, I wrote in my blog for one person and one person only: me. And for years, I was happy to blog. From 1999 to 2008, I could say that I recorded an entry for nearly every week of my life, if not every day for some days. Sometimes, I’d even have multiple entries a day.
That all changed in 2008 when I took the plunge to become a stay at home mom and embark on a new career as a freelance writer. At the time, it seemed like just about everyone and their grandmother (almost literally!) was keeping a Mommy blog. The media was all over the power of the so-called “Mom Blogger” and how Moms were changing the face of the Internet, one post at a time. As a longtime blogger, familiar with the ins and outs of Wordpress, self-hosting and all that other rigmarole, I figured that Mom blogging would be a natural evolution and extension of what I had already been doing.
And in a way, it was. Choosing my domain, setting up my Wordpress install, joining a few groups and letting folks know where my blog was… that was all easy-peasy. Been there, done that — it was nothing new, so I thought. About the newest thing I did was sign up for the BlogHer ad network. Ad revenue would be nice, I thought to myself, but if I didn’t get much in the way of it, oh well.
As I continued to blog, I began visiting other Mommy blogs in an effort to get to know my “neighbors” online and noticed that their sites were all festooned with things I hadn’t bothered with before — giveaways, affiliates, sponsors. I found myself having a bit of, well, Mommy blog envy. Look at these nicely designed sites! Look at these nicely designed buttons! Look at how easy they make it to add their RSS feed!
By comparison, my site looked… amateur. Really amateur. I didn’t have a nicely designed button or layout. Heck, I was using whatever old layout looked good to me at the time. Was that so wrong?
These Mommy blog sites, they had so much to read. It seemed that the majority of popular blogs that I came across had valuable tips and tricks, articles on things like homemaking, homeschooling, frugal living, all those sorts of things. And I couldn’t ignore the fact that these blogs had huge numbers of followers. On a good day, I would get happy over a comment or two on my blog. These blogs, they’d have one or two pages of comments per post. Crazy!
As I was starting to learn more about professional blogging as part of my freelance writing, I began to realize that more and more mom blogs were following the basic tenets of pro blogging: define your niche, craft valuable content, create connections with other bloggers and networks, etc. These blogs were pretty most likely because they had spent money on a professional layout, read up on and employed SEO techniques, had a Twitter and Facebook page which they used to promote themselves and their product.
I knew then what I needed to do to make Mommy Misadventures a “successful” Mommy blog.
Except… I just couldn’t do it. All that marketing, worrying about how to increase my readership and keep my readership, having to promote myself via Twitter and Facebook… it made my head hurt. I started blogging way back when for myself, primarily to have something of myself to look back upon. If others found it interesting, great. If not, it was no big deal. Similarly, I signed up for Facebook and Twitter when the services became available to interface with other people that I knew or would like to get to know. (Yeah, signing up for Facebook and Twitter as a communication tool rather than simply a marketing tool? Who woulda thunk it?!)
Simply put, I didn’t want to think of myself and my writing about my life as a product.
I discovered that blogging in this capacity,worrying about whether or not my content would attract visitors, just was not fun for me. I wanted to talk about my attempts at crafting, photography, homemaking and my work at home business but was unwilling to make any of those the Mommy Misadventures niche. Dejected from my failure as a Mommy Blogger and disillusioned by the larger world of Mommy blogs, I stopped blogging.
But I never stopped reading blogs. And while my Google Reader was filled various Mommy blogs, I found that while I subscribed to their RSS feeds, I generally never read their articles unless the particular subject really caught my fancy. And I deliberately use the word “article” here because, by and large, that’s what so many Mommy blogs published. They were articles on their niche subject, chockablock full of information but largely impersonal.
As I read, I realized that the Mommy blogs that I preferred to follow and read regularly were not the niche, article driven blogs. The Mommy blogs that I truly enjoyed were by folks who were unafraid to share their life — the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly — with their reader. These Mommy blogs gave a more real glimpse into Mommy hood, sharing snippets of their lives as mothers without having to tie in with a particular theme. These Mommy blogs were authored by real Moms, Moms who I could relate with, Moms who I honestly wished I could be friends with.
In short, the blogs I enjoyed reader were more in line with what I had hoped for on my own blog.
By the time I came to this epiphany — yeah, I’m slow — I had not blogged for several months. And you know what? I was miserable. I am a writer. I can’t not write. It is how I express myself, bad grammar, gratuitous usage of commas, semicolons and run on sentences inclusive. (Just in case you were wondering if I’ve ever noticed I use way more commas and em dashes than should be legal. Yes, I know. I can’t seem to stop, either.)
And for better or worse, writing online is my medium of choice. For me, it isn’t so much that I know I have an audience but rather the fact that I may possibly have an audience. If folks enjoy what I write, cool. If not, well, at least I haven’t left any question to how I feel on any given subject.
So as the days go by, you may see more entries on this blog. They may be about parenting. They may be links. They may be deeply thought provoking, bitingly sarcastic or profoundly stupid. They may be about whatever popped into my head that I just felt I needed to share and was too long for Twitter. But rest assured, there will be more to share. Will the content be valuable? I don’t know; you’ll have to decide for yourself if stories of chasing after my toddler yelling, “OMG, get that diaper off of your head!” is valuable to your life. It may be. It may not be. All I know is that I’m done trying to satisfy a niche. I never fit into them before and I certainly won’t try to squeeze into them now.
This is me and this is my blog. Hello. 
 Bring it. The Little Empress is cheeky. And by cheeky, I mean bold and sassy rather than having an abundance of cheek to pinch. (Sadly, having an abundance of cheek to pinch has never been one of TLE’s claims to fame. Being at the bottom of the growth curve has its disadvantages.)
What amazes me is how absolutely sassy this not-quite 2 year old tot can be without having much of a vocabulary. While TLE talks a lot, she has yet to speak a language that anyone else in this household understands. It is clear that she understands us; we can give her fairly complicated directions which she will follow but only if she feels like it.
(Honestly, I blame her father for her attitude because it is clear that she gets her stubborn streak from him. The Hubs, of course, blames me. Of course, when two bullheaded people get together and have a child, what could we possibly have expected?)
When she doesn’t feel like doing something, my god, she is not afraid to let you know. And I’m not talking about the usual toddler tantruming, either. Oh no. Not TLE. She flounces, she huffs, she puffs and she will straight out give you The Little Empress Glare which is the look that I swear to god, only needs to be accompanied by the head/shoulder move for the full “Oh HELL naw” effect. She has also been known to give us sideways glares when she thinks we’re not looking.
When told not to do something (usually climbing over gates and/or playing with breakable things, etc.), she may listen. Hell, she may even smile and stop what she is doing. But she simply waits until we are satisfied that we have bent her to our parental will, only to lay in wait until our attention is elsewhere to engage in said forbidden act.
What attitude!! All without words, yet! She’s two going on 16 years old these days. And all this without talking. I shudder to think what her ‘tude will be like once she learns how to speak her mind!
Home Births Rise, Mostly By Choice – Shots – Health News Blog : NPR.
Children were born at home for thousands of years before modern obstetrics so a return to this makes sense to me. While I personally would not consider homebirth for myself — I labored for 24+ hours at home, without pain relief and by the time I got to the hospital, I was literally crying for some relief at 5cm. I <3′ed my epidural, yes I did. — I would gladly defend any other woman’s right to do so.
As part of our nighttime routine, The Little Empress usually enjoys a half-hour or so of playtime in her bedroom before getting ready for bed. It is a great way to help her wind down and allows us to do the essentials such as pick out her pajamas, etc. She’s been playing pretend a lot more frequently now and one night last week, I asked her to “pretend to go night-night.”
To my surprise, TLE happily climbed up into her toddler bed, tucked herself in and made a dramatic show of closing her eyes.
“Are you sleeping?” I asked. TLE’s eyes remained shut. “Okay, Mommy will leave you now,” I said. “Good night.” TLE didn’t make a move. I turned off her light and walked out of the room, closing the door behind me. Not a peep.
I was amazed. Until very, very recently, leaving a room that TLE was in meant that TLE would run behind me, usually wailing. But I did not hear a cry nor even a stir. For a few moments, I was somewhat conflicted — should I let her sleep, for the first time, alone in her room? She seemed ready. After thinking it over and noting that she still needed her evening diaper change, I opened the door and turned on the lights.
TLE seemed mostly okay with her pretend sleep being disturbed but when I told her that we were going to go night-night in our big bed, she protested. She had a taste of independence and it seemed that she wanted more.
I brought up TLE’s “pretend night-night” with The Hubs ™ and we discussed the possibility of moving TLE to her own room. I was surprised at how sad I was at the idea of TLE sleeping away from us. While I know it will happen eventually, I figured that we were still years from that day. Now it seems that the day we no longer share a bed with TLE will come sooner rather than later.
Like our decision to always have a stay at home parent, the decision to cosleep was made long before we ever got pregnant. Both of us came from cosleeping families; it seemed to us that the most natural place for a small child to sleep would be with their parents. Practically speaking, cosleeping was a lifesaver for us. As a newborn, TLE refused to sleep in her Arm’s Reach co-sleeper, only wanting to sleep in the bed beside me. Cosleeping made breastfeeding at night blissfully easy. While I was working, cosleeping allowed TLE to reverse cycle, allowing her to continue to nurse and allowing me to keep the milk flowing.
As she got older, cosleeping has gotten more difficult. As she’s gotten bigger, she takes up more room. (I never knew that a 22lb toddler could take up so much room on a Cal King bed!!) She is a mobile sleeper, thrashing about and kicking off covers. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve woken up with a toddler foot (or butt!!) in my face. And when she’s awake, she’s awake and makes for a very loud, screeching alarm clock.
Even so, the idea of not sleeping with her makes me sad. Cosleeping has meant some lost sleep here and there but it also means that I’ve gotten to wake up to the sweetest babbling in the morning. Ever wake up to baby babble or toddler cuddles? They’re the best.
For what it is worth, TLE hasn’t balked at cosleeping since then. I may try to introduce the concept of sleeping in her toddler bed for her naps before transitioning to fulltime sleeping in her own bed. I know that eventually, she will demand her own bed and when that time comes, she will get it. Until then, I can only hope that I can continue to enjoy our family bed for just a little while longer.
As The Little Empress’ 2nd birthday draws ever closer, it seems that she is growing exponentially more independent by the day. She started walking and standing around her first birthday. Around this time, she also began to refuse to be spoon fed. Rather than fight about every meal, I would simply cut her food into manageable pieces and put them on her tray for her to feed herself.
A few months after that, as she became steadier on her feet, she began to balk at being worn despite having been worn nearly every day of her life prior to that. She was insistent on being allowed to walk and explore for herself. As she gained more mobility, she began to balk at being put in her high chair. We ended up selling off her high chair, allowing her to sit in a booster seat. The booster seat didn’t last long as she realized that the adults in the house didn’t use boosters. For at least the past few months, she has been sitting at a regular chair, just like the adults. (Unfortunately, she also insists on sitting in regular chairs at most restaurants which, as you can probably imagine, is troublesome.)
These days, she’s asserting her continued growing independence by successfully thwarting baby gates and insisting on going down steps on her own. She’s been climbing up the steps for quite awhile but climbing down them, and throwing herself onto the floor if we try to carry her, is a new thing. She now insists on being allowed to walk and explore when we go shopping rather than be content to sit in the shopping cart.
The change in her in just a year has been incredible. She’s gone from an almost excessively clingy baby who screamed incessantly when approached by strangers to this insatiably curious, gregarious and social toddler. She still has her shy moments but for the most part, she’s happy and well adjusted.
The Hubs remarked recently, “With all this breastfeeding and co-sleeping and such, she may be independent but hopefully, she’ll always know that she can come back to us.” And that’s when I remembered that this is why we’ve chosen to parent the way we have. Our goal has always been to meet her physical and emotional needs, no matter what they are. We have always sought to nurture her self-esteem, to let her know that she’s always loved, cared for and adored. The idea is that if she knows that she will always be unconditionally loved and cared for, she will have the self-esteem to explore and learn about her world without worry, knowing that we’ll always support her and that we are always here for her when she wants to check in.
And when The Little Empress begins to negotiate the stairs, she peers to the side and smiles as if to say, “Hey Mommy, look at me! I’m doing it all by myself!” before returning to the task at hand. She is not afraid. She has confidence in herself and knows that I am there to cheer her on.
I smile back and think to myself, “Huh, I guess this whole attachment parenting thing is working out after all.”
When we introduced her to drinking from a cup, we must have gone through all sorts of sippies, including the no-spill ones. While she seemed to like to teethe on the spouts, she never actually liked to drink from them.
But when we introduced her to drinking from a straw, she took to it immediately. The problem was that I found a lot of the “no spill” straw cups tended to gunk up and were very hard to clean. Even when cleaning them immediately and scrubbing them using a Q-tip didn’t get them clean enough for me to trust. Finally, I decided to use a combination of disposable straws with reusable straws (specifically these Take and Toss cups from The First Years) which has worked out well for us except for one tiny thing… they’re not spill proof.
The non-spill proof thing hasn’t been a problem until recently. The past few weeks have been pretty rainy here in the Bay Area but honestly, the puddles outside have nothing on the puddles that The Little Empress likes to create inside. I tend to give her a 2 to 3 oz of milk at a time — such a tiny amount compared to what other kids her age tend to drink! I’d happily give her more milk to drink if she’d take it but she simply won’t. She takes a few sips and as soon as she’s no longer thirsty, she’ll turn the cup upside down and begin to sprinkle it on the floor!!
At first, she only did this every now and then but lately it has been a huge problem. It seems every time we give her something to drink, most of it finds its way to the floor. What is in the cup seems to make little difference; she’ll do this with milk, juice, water. On a few particularly gross incidents, I have caught her dumping the liquid onto our hardwood floors and then attempting to lap it up like a dog! (EUW!!!)
I’m really at a loss for how to stop this. I’ve given her time outs, taken the cup away, etc. Nothing seems to work and she does need to drink. All I can do these days is to keep a stash of paper towels or cloth towels handy to mop up the mess and then take out the Swiffer to try to get rid of the stickiness. *sigh* I am just hoping that this is a phase she’ll hurry up and grow out of. (At this point, I am just so happy we picked out hard surface floors for our house for this very reason! I can only hope the hardwood can survive TLE’s onslaught of abuse!)
 Toddler Sampler Platter At nearly two years old, I’m rather lucky that The Little Empress isn’t actually picky about what she eats. She loves all types of fruits, veggies, cheese and the like. She’s never met a noodle she didn’t like. Like her Daddy, she loves pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) so much that she’ll happily slurp the last of his noodles from his bowl, no matter how red with Sriracha it is. Honestly, she has a better palate than some adults I know!
Despite her adventurous palate, she’s not much of an eater. On good days, we can encourage her to eat more than a few bites of her meal before she’s off to explore again. On bad days, I swear she survives off of nursing and air. I know, I know — toddlers don’t require nearly as many calories as adults but she’s such a delicate little thing that I can’t help but worry that she’s getting enough food. At her last well child check, she tipped the scales (fully clothed) at just under 22lbs which was at the tail end of growth curve. The doctor wasn’t really worried since she hadn’t actually slipped down where she normally is on the curve but still encouraged us to let her eat as much as she wants. He even gave us the green light to let her have things like milkshakes and hamburgers which could help her gain some much needed weight.
For better or worse, TLE isn’t overly interested in fast food or other “calorie dense” foods though she does like things like milkshakes and soda. Instead of encouraging her to prefer foods she shouldn’t like, we’ve opted to just allow her to graze throughout the day on healthier options. I try to set out a sampler plate full of fun foods that I know she likes, with a few healthier “calorie dense” options.
On the plate above, I’ve got two cut up strawberries, half a clementine, a stick of cheese and whole grain mini-sandwiches filled with Nutella. I refill the plate as needed, letting her pick and choose what she’ll eat for any given amount of time. This system seems to work out well for us. She loves having a choice for finger foods and it helps give me peace of mind that she’s eating a (fairly) balanced diet.
What tricks do you use to get your picky little one to eat? Tell me in the comments!
Regarding the upcoming release of Final Fantasy XIV…
The Hubs: Yeah, supposedly it’s designed to attract WoW gamers, so it’s a lot more casual and solo friendly, but we’ll see.
The Hubs: The Japanese definition of casual is….
The Hubs: questionable.
g33kmom: I was going to say non-existent
Well, I’m on Nanowrimo Day #2 and already I have hit a road block. Out of a goal of 1,700 words to write today, I am sitting at a miserable 305. While I am eager to write, I am somewhat lost on where to go. Yikes. I hope to make it through this block tomorrow.
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