State of the Daisy, Part I: almost 21 months
It's been a long time since I've written one of these but I don't want to let myself neglect them too much; I know I'll regret it one day and treasure what I did write. So, my usual disclaimer: this will be long and dull and probably uninteresting to anyone but me.
At almost 21 months (April 20), Daisy is increasingly funny and surprising, with some definite hints of toddler temper and willfulness, too. She talks a lot and with greater complexity, though when you spend every day with her it's easy to take this for granted and not recognize the progress. To try to summarize where she is right now with talking: she forms long sentences and she can almost always explain or tell me what she wants. As an example, she'll say, "Daisy wants to sit in the rocking horse with the cow." So she is really putting together different parts of a sentence well now. I may have reported this already, but she is also able to recite entire nursery rhymes, verbatim or close to it: Humpty Dumpty, Georgy Porgey, etc. She sings now, too, along with her CDs and can sort of carry a tune on some of them.
What's a bit strange to me is that despite having this verbal ability, she still gets frustrated and has mini temper-tantrums. The worst of it is her SCREAM. When she is the slightest bit frustrated, she lets out a terribly loud, skull-crushing scream and if it happens to be in public, I can see the pain on strangers' faces, increasing my own pain and embarrassment. I have tried reprimanding her, but it doesn't seem to do any good. I wonder if I need to be reading up more on disciplinary tactics. With a child this age, I'm not sure how effective that would be-- but it still might be worth trying. As it is, I try to tell her not to scream, calmly but firmly, and explain how painful it is to others' ears.
Again, what's odd is that if I ask her to explain what is wrong, she usually can-- making me wonder why she has to scream in the first place. For example: today she seemed agitated and upset when I tried to put her Playdoh mat (the "Playdoh map," as she calls it) on the table. She kept trying to take it off the table and screaming. I had no idea why, since she loves taking out the "Playdoh map." I asked her to explain why she was upset and then she said, "It's a blanket!" She wanted to take the "map" off the table and wrap it around herself like a blanket. Okay; fine. No problem. I just wish she could have told me that to begin with.
Unsurprisingly, the quick frustration and screaming is worse when she's tired, and I was wondering this morning if that's part of what's happening: that sleep deprivation is piling up and augmenting and making her more irritable. She's been going to bed too late (between 8:30 and 9) and waking up at an ungodly hour--before six, for the last few weeks. We haven't made it to 7 in recent memory. I suspect this is not enough sleep for her, and that she's crankier and quicker to crack as a result.
She doesn't exactly have full-on tantrums yet. The scream, as terrible as it is, ends quickly and I can usually distract her easily and get her on another track. She doesn't fling herself on the floor, kicking and screaming and crying (though I have a fearful sense that this might be the next stage!). So the pain, while intense, is at least short-lived. She is also quite demanding and specific about what she wants, which I fear is the down side of the verbal ability. She wants to dictate to me, not only that I must sing, but that I must sing particular songs; she often tells me exactly what she wants, in no uncertain terms, and then I have to cushion the blow if it can't happen! Luckily, as mentioned above, she is fairly resilient at this age.
She is a picky eater and doesn't seem to like a lot of usually desirable foods, like mashed potatoes. She loves fruit of all kinds and (thank God) broccoli and peas, but few other veggies. She likes meat, which is unfortunate in a way because I'm not such a big fan of preparing it or slicing it up, but she likes it so I'm trying to think of more meat dishes to make. She loves her bath and so that's never a struggle between us, and she has returned to being good about going to bed, with a new little routine we've created: we sing her a favorite song while she lies in her crib, before we turn off the lights and leave. She loves the ritual so much that she sometimes asks to go in the crib and hear the song. If she didn't wake up so early, I'd call her a model sleeper. She's also good in the car, although she can be demanding about which songs we play on the CD player. If it's one she doesn't feel like hearing, she commands, "Press! Press!" until we come to one she likes, and then she comments, "THAT'S a good one." I would say she seems ahead of her years in having very strong aesthetic preferences!
More in volume II of the update.
At almost 21 months (April 20), Daisy is increasingly funny and surprising, with some definite hints of toddler temper and willfulness, too. She talks a lot and with greater complexity, though when you spend every day with her it's easy to take this for granted and not recognize the progress. To try to summarize where she is right now with talking: she forms long sentences and she can almost always explain or tell me what she wants. As an example, she'll say, "Daisy wants to sit in the rocking horse with the cow." So she is really putting together different parts of a sentence well now. I may have reported this already, but she is also able to recite entire nursery rhymes, verbatim or close to it: Humpty Dumpty, Georgy Porgey, etc. She sings now, too, along with her CDs and can sort of carry a tune on some of them.
What's a bit strange to me is that despite having this verbal ability, she still gets frustrated and has mini temper-tantrums. The worst of it is her SCREAM. When she is the slightest bit frustrated, she lets out a terribly loud, skull-crushing scream and if it happens to be in public, I can see the pain on strangers' faces, increasing my own pain and embarrassment. I have tried reprimanding her, but it doesn't seem to do any good. I wonder if I need to be reading up more on disciplinary tactics. With a child this age, I'm not sure how effective that would be-- but it still might be worth trying. As it is, I try to tell her not to scream, calmly but firmly, and explain how painful it is to others' ears.
Again, what's odd is that if I ask her to explain what is wrong, she usually can-- making me wonder why she has to scream in the first place. For example: today she seemed agitated and upset when I tried to put her Playdoh mat (the "Playdoh map," as she calls it) on the table. She kept trying to take it off the table and screaming. I had no idea why, since she loves taking out the "Playdoh map." I asked her to explain why she was upset and then she said, "It's a blanket!" She wanted to take the "map" off the table and wrap it around herself like a blanket. Okay; fine. No problem. I just wish she could have told me that to begin with.
Unsurprisingly, the quick frustration and screaming is worse when she's tired, and I was wondering this morning if that's part of what's happening: that sleep deprivation is piling up and augmenting and making her more irritable. She's been going to bed too late (between 8:30 and 9) and waking up at an ungodly hour--before six, for the last few weeks. We haven't made it to 7 in recent memory. I suspect this is not enough sleep for her, and that she's crankier and quicker to crack as a result.
She doesn't exactly have full-on tantrums yet. The scream, as terrible as it is, ends quickly and I can usually distract her easily and get her on another track. She doesn't fling herself on the floor, kicking and screaming and crying (though I have a fearful sense that this might be the next stage!). So the pain, while intense, is at least short-lived. She is also quite demanding and specific about what she wants, which I fear is the down side of the verbal ability. She wants to dictate to me, not only that I must sing, but that I must sing particular songs; she often tells me exactly what she wants, in no uncertain terms, and then I have to cushion the blow if it can't happen! Luckily, as mentioned above, she is fairly resilient at this age.
She is a picky eater and doesn't seem to like a lot of usually desirable foods, like mashed potatoes. She loves fruit of all kinds and (thank God) broccoli and peas, but few other veggies. She likes meat, which is unfortunate in a way because I'm not such a big fan of preparing it or slicing it up, but she likes it so I'm trying to think of more meat dishes to make. She loves her bath and so that's never a struggle between us, and she has returned to being good about going to bed, with a new little routine we've created: we sing her a favorite song while she lies in her crib, before we turn off the lights and leave. She loves the ritual so much that she sometimes asks to go in the crib and hear the song. If she didn't wake up so early, I'd call her a model sleeper. She's also good in the car, although she can be demanding about which songs we play on the CD player. If it's one she doesn't feel like hearing, she commands, "Press! Press!" until we come to one she likes, and then she comments, "THAT'S a good one." I would say she seems ahead of her years in having very strong aesthetic preferences!
More in volume II of the update.
posted by Sarah Goss at 11:43 AM
1 Comments:
The other night at bedtime I sang one of her favorite French songs (we were still in the rocking chair). I sang 3 verses and then stopped. There was silence for awhile and then Daisy said, "Le plus jeune a". She was prompting me for the 4th verse! M.B.
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