Wasn’t sure I’d do one of these again, but it is a milestone in my mind!
Health: Nervously waiting to see how she fares when she goes to school next month. Moving from exposure to 3 kids to exposure to more than a dozen is definitely going to bring on more colds and not so fun stuff. She’s been on daily Miralax for a couple months now, I don’t want to back down yet because she still has a tendency to hold her poop (seriously, she can wait 2 days while on the stuff, then have a giant diaper!) and her new school pushes for early potty training. That plus constipation could equal disaster.
Growth/Feeding: This kid can EAT, but her growth has definitely slowed down as expected in the second year of life. She’s about 21.5 lbs and 31″ tall, a bit below average for our ethnic background. Her feet finally seemed to grow in the last few months, so there were a couple pairs of shoes she never even wore, since she had such a delayed start to walking. She’s only gained 2 teeth in the last 8 months so a grand total of 10. The bottom molars have looked swollen for 5 months but they still haven’t broken through yet.
She still nurses in the morning and right before bed. I am definitely ready to stop the morning feed, but any attempts I’ve made recently are met with screaming and non-stop tantrums. She is just not ready. I honestly think the only way we’d be able to stop those is for me to not be home when she wakes up, and that just won’t happen anytime soon. She is thankfully not terribly picky, though certainly has a preference for pasta, bread, and fruit, like many toddlers. I don’t stress about the almost non-existent dinners these days since she often eats double helpings at Mrs. K’s. We’ll see how she likes the lunches at her new school. Getting her to drink water is still an insane struggle. She gets 12 oz of cow’s milk a day, only because she sees the other kids drinking it at daycare, and it’s the only surefire way of getting Miralax into her.
Sleep: Bedtime is still pretty consistent, from 7:30pm-6:30am, though she usually rolls around in her crib for a half hour before she falls asleep. We’ve been dealing with more night terrors in the last couple months, thanks to sickness and fighting naps, so I sucked up the cost and bought a Lully Sleep Guardian 2, which has worked beautifully, and takes the guesswork out of scheduled awakenings, without risking her not going back to sleep. Naps are usually 12-2pm, occasionally until 3pm if we are really lucky.
Development: I’d say she has maybe 30 words or phrases, I don’t keep track that well. We have to be really careful around her now, because she does pick up and understand so much more. She sings along to her favorite songs (in tune!), loves to dance and play on our piano, and is super affectionate, very generous with hugs and blowing kisses. She can feed herself decently with a spoon, but still likes us to feed her or uses her hands for speed, ha! She’s getting more confident with walking in the last couple weeks, but still likes to drop to her knees, and is hesitant to stoop and recover. Physical therapy has been really helpful, even after just 4 weekly sessions. We have 2 more left this year, and sadly we learned her therapist is leaving at the end of the year. Unfortunately they do not know if they will be able to find another therapist who can take her, so I’m debating how much to push them, since the visits are covered by our insurance through April. Our local My Gym recently reopened, and she loves going there Saturday mornings. It is helpful, but certainly not the individualized attention she gets from PT.
Daycare: C has 2 more weeks at Mrs. K’s, though with Mrs. K’s appointments for her knee prior to her surgery, C will end up attending only 8 out of the remaining 10 days. She’ll start at the new Montessori in January, along with her 2 best girl buddies from Mrs. K’s! Not too surprising, since no other facilities had openings available. That should hopefully ease the transition for all of them. I’ll be taking her for a quick meet-and-greet with her teacher in a couple weeks before the winter break, when I drop off all her forms and pay for lunches. Food isn’t included in the tuition cost, but thankfully there’s an option to order lunch, which I will gladly try for now! We just have to provide one class snack every month too. I’m most nervous about the requirement to only send training pants, and no diapers. I bought a pack, but haven’t tried putting them on her yet. Guess we’ll try the last week of the year, and hopefully they’ll fit OK.
Parenthood: I’ve finally ventured back into aerial. It’s wonderful to be back, and my body remembers so much more than I thought it would. I have more strength left than I thought I would, being gone a year from any physical activity, but my endurance and tolerance for pain definitely need to build up. Hoping I can go twice a week sometimes on my reduced work schedule. I’ve only managed to make it back once a week because it falls on a Sunday at nap time.
I am officially cutting back to 8/10 starting next Monday. It doesn’t mean much this month, since I’m working a full extra Saturday in a couple weeks, am on vacation the 3rd week, then will be working overtime (12/10!) the 4th week while the other half of my colleagues takes their holiday break. Thus is health care. Is it any surprise I would discourage C from going into this field?? Rewarding, yes. Exhausting, unfortunately. Worth it… if you can find the right balance. And that’s what I’m hoping will happen, but of course guess who was asked to work 2 more weekend shifts in January. Seriously. I’m so f’ing over it!! If I could convince hubby to move somewhere cheaper where I could work half-time, that would be lovely. But then he’d be up a creek trying to find a job he loved as much as his current one. So here we remain. Maybe his company will continue to do so well, that he’ll get a massive raise and I could cut back to 6/10? Ah, to dream…
My group held a really good seminar on preventing physician burnout recently – one of the most helpful and practical I’ve attended. Implementing some of the techniques has helped with my happiness at work, though honestly it could just be that we’ve hit an odd lull around Thanksgiving. I actually left work today with all my charts completed! Anyways, the lecturer urged all of us to schedule 2 date nights a month. I can’t even remember when we had our last date night. September I think, for hubby’s birthday. I did buy tickets for the Total Package Tour, but that’s not until June. When I looked at my schedule this month, I’m either working every Saturday, or we have other obligations. So we’re going to take advantage of free babysitting while visiting my parents for the holidays – I bought tickets for a fancy dine-in movie theater to watch Rogue One. Then maybe we can convince C’s godparents to watch her once a month next year. That would be lovely.
the hopeful worrywart 