Good Girl

Quick post-
A while ago I posted about putting Liliana in "time out". That was probably 6 months ago or so. I then read that it isn't effective until age of 2. So I gave up on the time out for awhile and all has actually been pretty great. Well now we are teetering on the edge of "2" and Signorina Sassy Pants is in full swing. We have had a couple attempts at time out on the naughty step to no avail. She just leaves the step and goes in the living room to play or one time Chris opened the front door to bring her outside to play with the neighbor girls.
Fast forward to this evening. We were all three playing on the living room floor and Liliana threw a wooden spoon and a bucket at Chris. I looked her in the eye and told her not to throw stuff at daddy. As usual, she looked me in the eye and laughed. I became very serious and told her the next time she threw something at someone she was going to have to sit on the naughty step. Chris and I resume conversation and about 60 seconds later, Liliana exclaims "bye, the step". She then walks over to the first step and proceeds to put herself in a time out. She just squatted her cute, tiny tush right down on that step. It was so sweet. We had to explain through giggles she wasn't in a time out right now. So, not sure she considers it a negative consequence at all. Man this kid is so much fun!

If things turned out differently

Strange to think that I would be home with a newborn right now if I hadn't had my first miscarriage in November. I was due 7/15. It is also strange to think that I most likely wouldn't have my job with HON if I hadn't lost the baby. And if they were so gracious to hire a 5 months along pregnant woman, it would be very strange to be leaving a new job after 4 months for maternity leave. I guess what I am saying, is that looking at the positive side of things, I am very content with where my life is right now and it feels right where I am sitting at the moment. I am not sad to be realizing I have passed my due date. I am excited about my future with this job and pregnancy at the very beginning probably just wouldn't have fit. I hate the saying "everything happens for a reason" as much as you probably do but I think it fits here.

Sometimes I even question if we want a second baby. I feel so fulfilled with Liliana that when I think about a baby it kind of freaks me out! But then I think about a family of four and it makes me giddy with excitement. One day at a time.

What are words for?

And here they come...words! A couple new words every day! Nose, lollipop, towel, mama's keys, both, block party, shoes, stairs...I am so relieved but knew it would happen. That is all I have for right now.

Feline dreams

I had a dream last night that I was pregnant and ready to give birth. I was all alone on an examining table with my OB Dr Roth. She cut me open and told me since we had done this before, it would be easy. Since she had installed a 2 way zipper on my uterus she just unzipped vertically then horizontally. Then out jumped a tom cat. A full grown, kind of straggly, tabby. I tried to grab him so I could nurse him but he got away and ran down the hall. I was so concerned b/c he needed to be nursed but Dr Roth insisted it was common for them to need to explore and he would be back in a few days. I was horribly disappointed. The disappointment didn't stem so much from the fact that I gave birth to a full grown cat and not a human, but that he was so plain and feral. I was thinking that this was the last chance I had to have a baby and he didn't even possess an interesting fur pattern or a cute, round face. He eventually came back and I tried to nurse him. Needless to say, he wanted nothing to do with that. I woke up very relieved that I had not birthed and nursed a feline.

Social Moron

I think for the first time in almost 2 years I am starting to have a real urge for adult only time. I can't believe it actually took this long. Maybe it is the holiday weekend, or maybe it is that Liliana is at the age where I can't leave her sleeping in a car carrier or wear her while at a party and I also can't leave her to play on her own or run around solo because she is too young to fully understand the safe dos and don'ts. We had so many fun plans on the books for this weekend and nothing has quite turned out as planned. A city visit to Tammy and Andrew's had to be chucked due to sickness and a BBQ next door was cut very short to put Liliana to bed. Even while I was physically present I was only about 10% there mentally. This leads me to another side effect of parenting that I thought would have gotten better by now. I have no attention span. I can sit having a conversation with someone and my mind wanders. I honestly have no idea what the person I was just speaking with has said. I consciously make an effort to pay attention but then my thoughts go to the issue of my attention span and from there it branches off into several directions. I am not sure if this is a common ailment of parents with toddlers or if there is something wrong with me. I fear people think I am a social moron.
It makes me not want to go out anymore. I am much happier at home reading a book or watching a movie. I want to be more outgoing as a family and expose Liliana to fun stuff but it needs to be totally kid focused. I can't try and be the parent who goes to an adult function with my kid and try and have a good time- even if she is welcome and invited I have decided it is just not worth it. It is not enjoyable for me. I know people would suggest a date night or adult only night for Chris and I to get out but quite honestly we can't afford that right now. It is expensive even to go out and get a drink because a babysitter is required. So I will just suck it up for now and accept that my brain is mush and I am boring. At least Liliana finds me entertaining so that keeps me going.

Like Father Like Daughter: a poop story

Some stories from your childhood are repeated in family and party circles over and over. My mom likes to tell how she found me chewing on a razor blade when I was about 2 or 3. My brother Garry drank turpentine on my Aunt and Uncle's wedding day. My oldest brother Doug would only eat mayonnaise sandwiches. Then there is the colorful story about Chris and his twin Tia and the nap time poo fight that resulted in creative poo art on the walls, crib and, of course, each other. That story comes up often. It is ingrained in the memory of my father in law for all time I imagine. Over 40 years later and he can still smell and visualize the famous poo fight. Thankfully Liliana would never do anything like that. She is too sweet and concerned about her cleanliness to ever play in her own poo- or so I thought until last night.

Lately her diaper pail has been smelling pretty bad even after cleaning so I began moving it out of her room at night. I felt bad that she has to sleep in the subtle smell of poo all night long. Last night I creaked open her door to do my routine admiration, covering up and gently kissing good night when I noticed it still smelled like poo in her room. I assumed she may have pooed her diaper because she has been sick lately with diarrhea and is going a lot. As I moved closer to the crib I saw her bare bottom glowing in the moonlight. Awww, cute she took her diaper off again. Something she has been doing off and on for the last few weeks. Then, not so cute I saw the pile of poo behind her that she had contorted her body to be away from before she fell asleep. Baby doll's leg was in the poo so I gently removed her and washed off her plastic parts. I decided this was a job too big for me to handle alone and calmly went downstairs to inform Chris of the situation. We tip toed back up the stairs, not sure why we were afraid to wake her when clearly this was going to have to happen soon. As I guided Chris to the mess, I noticed it was a much greater problem. There were other spots of poo surrounding her. Wally had poo on him too. We finally woke her and as she sat up in a pie eyed gaze it became clear that she had enjoyed a solo poo fest. It was in her hair, on her face and completely covering her hands. I had already started running the bath and picked her up but held her at a distance the same way I would before plunking a skunk sprayed cat into a tub. I expected the same result too but she was remarkably calm and still half asleep. I struggled to pull her shirt over her head and after I freed her I scrubbed her entire body for almost 15 minutes to get the dried poo off. Chris in the meantime was a star getting everything in the wash and cleaning the mattress. 1 hour later we were ready to get our squeaky clean babe back into bed where she fell asleep promptly but not before expanding her vocabulary by 1 word: poo-poo.