Posts made in February, 2010

Ms. Independent

Posted by Michelle on Feb 25, 2010 in Observations, Parenting | 0 comments

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.”

Puddles, puddles EVERYWHERE!!!

Posted by Michelle on Feb 23, 2010 in Home Matters, Life, Parenting | 0 comments

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 Plate

Posted by Michelle on Feb 22, 2010 in food, health, Parenting | 0 comments

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!