Soccer Dad: 25 months

October 6, 2008

25 months

This morning at 1:15 AM she turned 109 weeks old.

One of the things that has changed about her, is that she now has a nice percentage of her teeth. Her "toothless wonder" days are over. And that gets me thinking about the transition we are about to experience. When she stops being a baby, and starts being a little girl. I already started discussing the issue at Baltimore Sun's Parenting blog. At the time I listed 5 criteria for marking the change between baby and little girl.

1) The most obvious, I suppose, is toilet training. I don't think she's that far from that. She is very good about letting us know when she's 'gusting, ' and I suspect that she may even know when she has to go.
2) She talks very well. But when will she reach the stage that a conversation consists of more than a single exchange?

3) When the majority of her sentences no longer start with 'I want...'

4) When she goes a whole day without crying.

5) When she starts walking with a more even gait and not looking like she's bouncing with every step.

Here are a few more:
6) When she walks up and down stairs instead of sliding down and climbing up.
7) When we can trust her to sleep in a bed.
8) When she starts dressing herself.

It's not that she doesn't do this things at all yet, but they're not her regular way of operating. But when the babyness is gone, I'm going to miss it.

One sound that we've been hearing more frequently around the house has been the scraping of chairs against the kitchen floor as she navigates the kitchen for snacks. It's tough to get her to sit and eat her regular meals. But she loves certain snacks. Cookies for sure. Lollypops. Applesauce too. (However it has to be in the little plastic cups, I can't serve it to her in a bowl from a large jar.)

I first noticed it a few weeks ago when we returned from my parents house with a supply of chocolate Rice Krispie squares. When she was supposed to be getting ready for bed, I saw a chair in the kitchen by the counter where there was the open bag of Rice Krispie Squares. When I found her, there was one in her mouth.

I'd previously written my thoughts on the "terrible twos."

Tonight I saw some behavior that leads me to refine my thoughts a bit. She seems to believe that if she expresses something properly or does something on her own it's the same as having been given permission.

Before dinner, she went downstairs, got into a food cabinet and got herself a multigrain bar, proudly she showed us "cookie" holding it out, with the expectation that we'd unwrap it for her and she'd eat it. She was none too pleased when I attempted to take it away from her. I won the struggle, but she was undaunted. She went downstairs and got herself another one, but this time held it close to her chest. I had to fight to get that one away from her too.

She also didn't listen and went out the screen door when one of her siblings left it open. When we went to get her she insisted that she wanted to be outside and we insisted that she come in. Since we're bigger we carried her in and made her sit in the corner. She was furious with us, so she went to her older sister for comfort. How dare we limit her!

So the question is now that she is asserting her independence more, how do we set limits?

At the end of the day when I come home she is so happy to see me and runs to me, asking me to pick her up. In fact she likes me to pick her up a lot. (Funny but the two children immediately older than her used to love to ride on my shoulders at this age, but she would rather be held in my arms.)

Maybe during the day, my wife will remind me of a few things, so I reserve the right to add more later.

UPDATE: How could I forget? Food!

Her favorite foods are ketchup and yogurt. Though not necessarily together. Whenever we give her ketchup - like for french fries, she'll eat the ketchup plain. Oh, and because they're long and thin, she calls green beans "ri-ries" (french fries.) So we'll keep the charade going as long as it means that she'll eat vegetables.

She loves cake and cookies. One morning about two weeks ago, I was trying to get out of the house. She hadn't eaten much breakfast but kept asking me for cake. I kept breaking off pieces of chocolate cake when she'd finish the previous one. I felt like Bill Cosby, giving my baby chocolate cake for breakfast.

She is generally very affectionate. When I come home at night and will run to me (or slide down the stairs) to greet me. And at bed time she is usually absolutely adorable. She might lie down and say "Goo nite nite" and hold her arm out for a hug. Or she'll stand and give us hugs.