Tag Archives: toddlers

a day at the (kids') salon

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Catie came home from daycare on Monday talking about how her little friend Kiersten got a haircut – which she pronounced like “ahh-cut,” making Dave & I giggle. She kept saying, “Catie needs a ahh-cut, too!” I was a little thrown off that she wanted a haircut, since normally I trim her bangs myself, and she’s never really been a fan of that. But ok, I guess this is part of her “I a big-girl now!” thing, so that’s fine.

I absolutely love her long hair, so I didn’t want to cut it short, but I have to admit, she was right about needing a haircut. I’ve noticed the tangles when I try to comb her hair out after washing it, so yes, she was definitely due for a trim.

Since she was so excited about the idea, I decided to make a big deal about it and go to the special kids’ hair salon, rather than just trimming it myself at home.

playing at the kids' hair salon

(And seriously, Snip-Its was fantastic. Yes, it’s a little pricey for a kids’ haircut, but the stores are set up really well with toys and cartoons and other distractions, and the people who work there have the patience of Job, I’m not kidding.)

playing at the kids' hair salon

It was all very exciting and fun while we were hanging out in the lobby. But when it was her turn for a haircut, Catie changed her mind. Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

not really enjoying her first salon experience

not really enjoying her first salon experience

Is it horrible that I had a hard time not laughing during all of this? Probably.

As soon as her haircut was over, she was rewarded with her very first-ever lollipop (she chose the butterscotch flavor, which, eww, who likes that kind?), as well as a random prize that they give out to all of their customers. Catie’s prize happened to be a rubber purple dinosaur. They couldn’t have picked out a better prize for my child with her love of all things reptilian.

after the haircut, all is well again

Suddenly, all was well with the world again.

As for the lollipop, I told her to “lick, but don’t bite” it. So she just rubbed it on her tongue.

lollipop time

She did that the entire drive home. And she absolutely loved it.

So, yeah. We survived. And her hair looks pretty darn cute, I must admit.

after the haircut
Although I may trim it myself next time. I’m not sure that I’ll be up for the drama again for quite a while.

I just happy too

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Today I worked out, keeping up with my couch-to-5K thing, and I took Catie with me to the gym. The daycare at the YMCA is pretty cool; Catie goes to the room for the 18 month-olds to 3 year-olds, and they have different activities for the kids every 30 minutes or so. Music time, puzzle time, etc. There’s a half-hour that they’re scheduled to go outside to the playground, but if the weather is bad, they section off half of the gymnasium, get out a bunch of balls and toddler toys, and let the little ones go nuts.

Today the weather wasn’t so bad, but the playground was swarming with bees (WTF? I don’t know why either), so they kept the kids inside to play in the gymnasium. On the second floor, there’s a track that goes around the perimeter of the gymnasium, and there’s also a little alcove where they have treadmills, stationary bikes and elliptical machines. I worked out on the treadmill (nothing against doing laps, but it’s easier to keep track of my time and pace on the treadmill), so I could look down and see part of the gymnasium below.

It was interesting, contrasting how Catie reacted today compared to the same situation a year ago. I worry a lot about Catie’s tendency toward being overly cautious, and the way that she freaks out in crowds or new situations. Last year, when the kids were in the gymnasium, I jogged laps on the track above, and I kept looking down at her and trying to will her with my mind to get up and play with the other kids. She didn’t. She found a place to sit, hunkered down and stared at the floor. I kept getting angrier that none of the daycare teachers came over to check on her, as she was obviously miserable. She finally broke down in tears, and then one of the teachers finally came over and picked her up. It was awful, I kept fighting my instinct to run down the stairs and go scoop her up, thinking that at some point she’d get used to it and start playing with the other kids. She never did. We both hated it. I didn’t go to the gym for about 6 months after that.

Today, when we first got to the gym, Catie started to throw a tantrum, which I misinterpreted as more of her social anxiety flaring up again. My heart sank at the idea of going through that again. Turned out, it was actually because she really needed to use the potty; as soon as I took her to the bathroom and brought her back to the gym, she was like a different kid. She gave me a kiss and said, “Bye, Mommy!” and took off to play.

From my little vantage point on the 2nd-floor treadmill, I could only see part of the gymnasium below. But every now and then, I’d see a blur of blonde hair go running by, jumping on mats, kicking balls, and actually interacting with the other kids. It was awesome.

On our way out of the gym, I asked her if she had fun. She said, “Yeah, Mommy! No screaming, no crying! I just happy!” No lie, y’all, I almost cried happy tears.

Random Sunday bits

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* Diet/exercise update: I’ve been doing pretty well so far. Trying not to eat at night has been about as difficult as I expected, which is to say, VERY. I’m drinking a lot more water, although I’m probably still drinking too much Diet Coke. One step at a time, people. For me, Diet Coke is more addiction than habit, so that one’s a little tougher.

My sister talked me into trying out The Daily Plate to track my calories, and I guess I should’ve expected to be appalled by the amount of junk I was eating, but it still caught me by surprise. The website has its pros & cons: it doesn’t strike me as the most user-friendly, but on the plus side, it does have pretty much every food item imaginable in the database (even menus at chain restaurants). My main gripe with it, or any type of food journal, is that it’s just tedious to keep a log of every single food item you put in your mouth. (Of course, I also see the benefit, that it makes you think twice about it when you know you’re going to have to see the calories on the screen right in your face later.) I’m still debating on whether or not I’ll use it long-term.

I’ve worked out the last three days in a row. On Friday, I did pilates. Saturday, I did the first couch-to-5K workout (which was hard, but I survived), and then today I did the Biggest Loser Weight-Loss Yoga. Tomorrow it’s back to the couch-to-5K, and so on & so forth.

* We went to Target today and it was insane. We shop there all the time, so I didn’t account for the traffic increase on Sunday afternoon. That’s a mistake I won’t be repeating. But listen, I get that it’s August in North Carolina and it’s insanely hot outside, but y’all: wearing a teeny-tiny swimsuit cover-up and a pair of flip-flops (and nothing else) is not appropriate shopping attire. What happens if you have to bend over to pick up that 12-pack of soda? Lord help us all. And I’m not talking about one person, there were many women that I thought, “oh wow, she really should’ve put on a bra before leaving the house.” I saw lots of kids running around the store barefoot too, which, eww. Yuck. Seriously? Really, really not ok. I think we needed the fashion police up at Target today, is what I’m saying.

* Catie continues to be almost 100% successful at peeing in the potty (she had an accident in her Pull-Up at Target today, but it was her first mistake in 5 days, & she was distracted by the toy aisle, so I’m overlooking it). Still no poops in the potty, but I think she’ll get to it soon. I’ve been shaking her Pull-Ups into the potty so she’ll have the visual “this is where it’s supposed to go” clue. And she’s been acting out scenes in which one of her toys poops its diaper and she tells it, “no no, poop goes in da potty!” (my favorite was when Molly, one of her Thomas the Tank Engine trains, pooped her diaper; I can’t even begin to wrap my head around how that’d work).

* Random kid funny: Last night Beaumont climbed across Catie, trying to get within head-scratching distance of me. Somehow part of his giant cat self ended up on Catie’s foot, which made her irate. She screamed at him, “No, Bun-bun! It’s MY foot! It’s Catie’s!” I can’t explain why that made me laugh for the next 10 minutes, but god, it really did.

Potty-Training Status Report

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I’m scared to blog about this since last time was such a disaster, but potty-training is… going much better than I expected.

Excuse me while I pause to look around and make sure no anvils are about to fall out of the sky and land on my head.

Tuesday night, I got the ball rolling by telling Catie that she was going to start using the potty in the morning. She’s a cautious kid, and I thought she might need some warning time to process it and prepare. I think it helped. I also decided to use Pull-Ups this time instead of just going cold turkey to big-girl panties.

Yesterday (day 1) was very hit-or-miss. She had a couple of successful pees in the potty, but she also peed in her Pull-Ups a lot. But I was happy with the progress that she made, since we were basically starting from scratch. Every time she peed on the potty, I cheered and applauded her, and gave her lots of hugs & kisses, and rewarded her with a York peppermint patty (her favorite treat). (And yes, that means that this morning I gave her chocolate before breakfast. I know, I’m the worst mother ever. Whatever, I was proud of her.)

(Also, for the record, the little training potty? Does not work for her. She hates it. Maybe because she remembers the last potty-training attempt. So we have a Dora potty seat and put it on the regular toilet for her to use. She likes it because it’s the same “big potty” that Mommy uses. And I have to say, I much prefer just flushing & not having to clean out the little pot.)

Today has been a lot better. She’s peed in the potty four times already, and has only had one accident. She’s pooped in her Pull-Up a few times – which, ok yes, the idea is to eventually get her to poop on the potty too, but after her 6-day poop strike that happened last time? I’m just happy that she’s still going & not holding it in. Baby steps, right?

Also, I told her that if she can learn how to pee and poop in the potty, and if she can do it every time without accidents by the time we move into the new house, then when we move, I’ll get her a Thomas the Tank Engine table just like the one at the toy store. And we can put it in her new playroom. I think that motivation might help her a lot. (I’ve seen about 25 train tables for sale on craigslist. I was thinking about getting her one after we move anyway, now I just have a way to use it as a bribe.)

So, yeah. I think we’re getting there. I don’t know how long it’ll take to get her 100% potty-trained, but at least she’s making progress and I can safely say that it’s a thousand times better than last time.

Potty-Training 2: Bathroom Boogaloo

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As y’all probably remember, we tried to potty-train Catie back in May. I’d describe that venture as one great big, epic FAIL. She clearly wasn’t ready, and I had no prior potty-training experience so I had no clue how to help her through the transition.

Now, though, it’s three months later. And she seems to be completely potty-trained when she’s at the baby-sitter’s house. Meanwhile, if I ask her to sit on the potty at home, I get a bunch of histrionic wailing and “NO! NO POTTY!!” Hmm.

Clearly, something needs to be done. To be honest, I think I was thoroughly traumatized by that last potty-training attempt, so I just put it out of my head and figured I’d tackle it again… someday. With no concrete idea of when that would be, because I was too freaked out to imagine revisiting that whole debacle.

My sister Tracy and I were chatting online yesterday and she gave me this brilliant idea, and I’ve decided to run with it. Dave and I talk to Catie about the upcoming move a lot, and we’re always trying to reassure her how it’s all going to be great, because we don’t want her to get stressed out about it. So we talk about how it’s a really nice house, and we’ll all be there (Mommy, Daddy, Catie, Beaumont, & Teenie), and Catie’s big-girl bed will be there, and all of her toys, books, and movies will also be there. And oh, the fun we will have in our new house.

BUT (and this is where Tracy’s genius comes in), I told Catie last night, the one thing that our new house doesn’t have? Diapers. There are no diapers in the new house. At the new house, we all use the potty.

Catie is at daycare today, so we’re going to start working on this tomorrow. I think we’ll probably go the Pull-Up route for a day or two before going cold turkey to just big-girl panties, because that was a disaster last time.

Wish me luck. I’m sure I’m going to need it. (Oh, and if you have any potty-training pearls of wisdom, feel free to leave them in the comments for me.)

big girl, big changes

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All of a sudden, Catie seems huge to me. I guess if you see your kid every day, you don’t notice the gradual tiny changes until enough of them accumulate and smack you in the face one day. But it’s like, wait, there is absolutely no baby left there at all. When did that happen?

For one thing, she’s had this massive growth spurt in the past couple of months. This skirt? Used to be past her knees.

happy girl playing

See what I mean? (Actually, you might not be able to tell with the angle of that photo. But trust me, that skirt is now short on her. Like cheerleader-length short.)

I tried to get her to stand against the wall so I could measure her, but it’s difficult to make a 2 year-old stand up straight and still. Still, my estimate is that she’s grown at least an inch. SINCE MAY. She’s also gained four pounds. This kid is massive, I’m telling you.

More than that, though, her verbal development is just exploding all over the place. Some recent developments:
* Her daycare friend Kiersten is about to turn 3, and is having a birthday party. This led to a discussion about ages, so now she walks around saying, “I Catie. I two.”
* She wants to haggle and negotiate everything. If I tell her that no, she can’t bring all of her toys to bed at naptime, she said, “Ah, c’mon, Mom! It’s fun!”
* Last night she was coughing a lot and I wasn’t sure if she was on the verge of an asthma attack or not. I was just starting to think that she might need some albuterol in the nebulizer, when she announced, “Mommy, I need med’cine.” It’s great that she recognizes that the medicine helps her feel better, and that she knows when she needs it, but it also breaks my heart that she needs it at all and has to ask for it.
* Our bedtime routine has become one of constant back-and-forth. She always asks for one more book, and when I tell her no, she asks me to snuggle with her until she falls asleep. I usually say, “Ok, I can only snuggle for a few minutes, because I still need to go clean up.” Last night I was worried about her asthma, so I didn’t lay down any timelines when she asked me to snuggle with her.
After a few minutes, she decided she was done with me, so she gave me a kiss and said, “Ok, Mommy. Bye-bye. You go clean kitchen now.” Um, thanks? Nice to be let off the hook, but I also wondered if she was trying to drop a hint about those dishes in the sink. Like jeez, lady, you gotta do something about this place before we get ants. Nice.

As for potty training, I’ve basically given up on it until after we move, although she seems to be completely potty-trained at daycare. (Thanks, peer pressure, I guess.) Also, at daycare, she’ll generally eat whatever her teacher puts in front of her, and she’ll even feed herself with a spoon. That’s SO not the case at home, but still. It all counts progress toward her being a “big girl,” right?

She still has sleep issues. She’ll go a week or two of sleeping through the night, and then she’ll spend the next two weeks climbing into our bed in the middle of the night. (That’s the phase we’re in right now.) But we’re generally all getting a full night’s sleep, so it’s manageable.

The interesting thing is that with all this development of Catie’s, the idea of having a second baby no longer scares the crap out of me. When we were still in Washington, Dave and I talked about trying for a second baby after we moved to North Carolina (um, a year ago), then we got here and I was like oh no no no, I am sooo not ready for that. We decided, ok, let’s wait a few months, and maybe around Catie’s second birthday, we might think about trying for baby #2. Then that happened and no, still not ready. The idea of being pregnant and dealing with a newborn, plus all of Catie’s neediness seemed impossible, not to mention completely overwhelming.

Now, though, the idea of having a second baby? It seems… do-able. Heck, it even sounds kind of fun. I mean, I know all kids are different, but if we were to end up with another one of these?

my beautiful blue-eyed girl

I think we’d be doing pretty great.

mental photograph

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Yesterday over on Shannon’s blog, I mentioned something in the comments about how I think my blog at this point is mostly a way to chronicle all of the little moments in Catie’s life that I worry I’d otherwise forget. Yesterday was one of those days that I want to make sure I remember.

It started off rough, Catie was in a bad mood during our playdate with the neighbor across the street. Then I realized we were almost out of milk, so I had to go to the store (she drinks a cup of milk before AND after her nap). She cried when I suggested going to the grocery store, so I told her that we’d go to Target (it’s a Super Target, has a grocery store included), and if she was really good, I’d buy her a toy. And you know? It worked. She was an angel through the whole store. No whining, no crying, no “cawwy you!” (she hasn’t figured subject versus object, so she still says “carry you” instead of “carry me”). She walked right next to the cart (no running off), and when she got tired, she asked to ride in it. After I got my necessary groceries, we headed over to the toy section, as I promised. She picked out a mommy and baby giraffe from the realistic-looking animal figures, and I said ok. The deal had been for one toy, but the baby couldn’t leave the store without her mommy, so… ok, I caved. The two animals together were less than $8, so fine. No big deal.

We came home, had lunch, and she went down for a nap. We lay in her big-girl bed together while I read her a few books, and when we were done, she said, “Mommy, snuggle,” and she hugged my head against her chest until she fell asleep. (It took a few tries to extricate myself without waking her up.)

When she got up from her nap, I noticed that the sky outside had suddenly gotten very dark. Friday is trash day, so I suggested that we go get the trash cans inside before it started to rain. I brought the cans in, and we sat in the driveway looking up at the gray sky and talking about the wind for a few minutes. Finally, it started to rain, so we went in.

Then we sat in the doorway, with the front door wide open, and watched the rain pour down. It was one of those really intense summer thunderstorms that I missed so much when I lived in Seattle, and I love to watch them. I didn’t worry about raindrops hitting the hardwood floors, or bugs getting in, or the fact that the door was open while the air-conditioner was running. We just sat there in the doorway, just the two of us, and watched the rain. Every time it thundered, Catie told me that it was a big panda up in the sky saying “BOOM!!” (I’m not sure where she got the thunder = panda thing, I think she misunderstood Dave the first time he said “thunder.” She heard it as “panda,” and we’ve been unable to correct her since then. So in case you didn’t know, thunder is caused by a giant panda up in the clouds. True story. Ask any meteorologist, I’m sure they’ll back up that theory. Or they might look at you like you’re crazy and back slowly away from you. Coin toss, really.)

After it stopped raining, we went outside to jump in puddles and throw leaves around.

looking for that giant panda up in the clouds that made all the thunder

I love how the humidity makes her hair curl

Later that night, when Dave lay in bed with her to help her fall asleep, and she was still holding onto the mommy and baby giraffes, Dave asked her what the giraffe says. (He meant it as a trick question, as I’m pretty sure giraffes don’t say much of anything.) Without missing a beat, Catie responded: “Hi, tree.” Well, yes, I suppose that is what the giraffe would say, if he talked.

It was a very good day. And I want to remember all of this. I want to remember how funny and smart she is (and how she can crack up both Dave and me with a single phrase), how she gave me two big kisses smack on the mouth in the middle of Target for buying her those giraffes, how much I love to snuggle with her as she falls asleep, how her hair feels when she’s sitting in my lap, leaning against me watching thunderstorms. I hope that yesterday is one of those days that I can still remember when I’m old and gray. And maybe by blogging about it, and the fact that I’ll have a written record of it, it will be.