Artists in Residance

Libby draws people now:

all over on every piece of paper she can find. big blob. two arms. two eyes. varrying numbers of legs. So close, yet so far.

Rilla took up taping "decorations" around the house, colored and cut out pieces of paper in random places. Steve gave her a notebook and told her it was her "art book." Rilla has now taken up collage art and my walls are safe. She likes to tape in found objects, aka candy wrappers and stray pieces of paper. It still surprises me to think of Rilla as inheriting my crafty/creative side. I don't know why. I just didn't think of her as the one who would. I'm changing my perceptions though so as not to add to her therapy fodder further.

Reaping the Rewards of Neglectful Motherhood

Matt came up to me as I was having my midmorning break at the computer.

"Libby is cleaning up her marker mess."

Major alarm bells began ringing. "what marker mess?"

"the one she made." Three alarm situation here.

Last night I labeled a Christmas box with a red marker before I took it down to the basement. (Ok, so Steve took that one, but I took some of the others.) Aparently, I neglected to put the marker away.

In five minutes my lovely two year old had managed to decorate her own face and hands, a major portion of the dining table, both media cabinets, a laundry basket, and the TV. Luckily it was a dry erase so the TV is safe. We're not talking about the table. Good thing I like red.

Teddy Libby

Libby has a strange mind. Lately she has decided she needs to sleep with the stuffed animals at night. Now, I'm not talking about a teddy bear or a baby doll in her bed with her. No, I'm saying she wants to sleep with all of them . . . in their bed.

The stuffed animals at our house sleep in a baby cradle my father made. Since we no longer have babies to put in it, we have set it up for the girls to put their stuffed toys in. Libby thinks this makes a comfortable bed.

I just got tired of fighting her on it. She would throw big toddler sized fits over being refused this wonderful experience, so I let her do it. Every night. Yes, I'm a bad mom. We put her to bed in the cradle, carefully cuddled and supported by twenty stuffed toys and the odd plastic doll. Then after putting her back there fifty times, she eventually falls asleep and we transfer her back to her own bed.

The teddy bears seem to be rubbing off on her though. About three or four times a week, she wakes up at 3 in the morning and comes and finds me. She climbs up in bed with me and cuddles close. She used to wiggle and squirm, keeping me awake, so I would have to take her back to bed. Now she lies still, curled up next to me sleeping, the perfect teddy. I love laying there next to her, smelling her sweet, baby scent, just enjoying my last toddler in a quiet moment.

So if putting her to bed with the teddies means she'll stay my teddy just a bit longer, I'm going to keep doing it. I wanted my oldest to rush through growing, to get to the next stage. I cheered her on. My youngest I want to hold back. Don't rush headlong through life. Toddle. Nice and slow. Stay little. Stay sweet. Stay. Just stay.

Two

Libby turned two recently. I love two year olds. I know, that makes me somewhat strange, but that's only a small part of my strangeness, so I'll keep it. She is growing so fast and changing so quickly, I don't want to even blink.

She says thank you when you give her something. "tant to," quickly spitting it out as she runs off to play. She also says "k," as in "'ilk? . . . . kay? kay?" I agree and she says "kay! kay!" and jumps up and down without leaving the floor the way toddlers do, her legs bending and springing up to her tip toes and back down again, never with enough height to overcome gravity. Kay means yes. She would ask me something and I would say "ok," so now that's what she says when she wants me to say yes.

See? two is perfect.

Talking to Herself

Libby plays with dolls now. Ok, she played with them before, but not like she does now. She prefers little dolls. Ones that fit in her hand and she can manipulate easily. She takes them to the step between the kitchen and addition (really bad remodel here that we did not do. bad explains the step.) anyway, she takes those dolls and faces them toward each other and they visit. They visit in the cutest little baby talk. We can't understand a word they are saying but those dolls understand each other and that's all that matters.

Lasts and Firsts

Steve found a a cute toddler bed at a yard sale this weekend. Since the crib was worn out, we decided to make the switch right away. When the bed got brought into the house, we introduced Libby to it. She sat on it and thought it was the best thing ever.

So I took Rilla and Josh to their ball games and came home to the crib in the trash and the new bed in place. She had napped in her crib but Daddy had neglected to take a picture of her last time sleeping in a crib. He doesn't think like a scrapbooker. Her first night in the bed was hard. She didn't go to sleep until eleven and then was up twice in the night. Sunday she just didn't nap and then at bedtime fell asleep on the floor. I woke up this morning to this:

on the floor again with an empty bed. She refused to sleep in it. At least she didn't wake me up to tell me about it. LOL!

the transition has been harder for Libby than it has for any of the other kids. This is the youngest we've ever made the switch and it shows. She just wasn't quite ready for the bed. I konw she'll love it in a week when she's used to a bed she can get into and out of by herself, but right now, it's not what she's used to so she's resisting.

Part of me wishes we could go back to the crib. I wasn't ready for her to make this switch either. As long as she was in a crib, she was still a baby. She's in a toddler bed. She's a little girl. It's weird to think that I will never have need for a crib again. Right now, Libby is napping in her little bed, too tired to resist the bed anymore. Laying peacefully on her pillow and catching up on all the sleep she shorted herself over the last few days. I think she's starting to transition. It's a bittersweet moment.

Permissive

Just a layout I did this afternoon.


journaling reads: Maybe it's because we've learned to pick our battles. Maybe it's because she doesn't exactly ask. Maybe it's because we don't want to trigger a meltdown. Maybe it's that 7:30 am isn't the best time for mommy. Maybe she's just too cute to say no to. Whatever the reason, my 20 month old has taken to eating her breakfast (of dry cereal) on the floor in front of the television. It's highly apparent that we have become . . . permissive in our old age.

ETA: yes, I noticed the spelling error. It's all fixed now, thanks to UnDo. Please imagine a cute polka dot r between the e and the m. Thank you.