caramama Updates

It has occurred to me that I write about a lot of different things, especially issues we are having, and then I never write any updates or resolutions. So today, I'm going to give some updates.

Let's see...

Weaning the Pumpkin
Although I didn't feel ready to wean the Pumpkin, it actually went surprisingly smoothly. I think this was for two main reasons: the timing and her already taking bottles during the day. Although she really enjoyed nursing, she seemed to be in a stage where she didn't HAVE to have it. She was already taking bottles for her nap and once a week for bedtime (Londo was putting her to bed one night a week to give me a break). So we just switched her morning nursing and the rest of the betimes to bottle. She hasn't really seemed to miss it at all. I have, but she seems to have moved on. And we still get the close, snuggle time when I give her bottles and rock her to sleep.

Big Girl Bed
It's been almost two weeks since we moved the Pumpkin to the twin bed in her room. This has also gone surprisingly smooth. That's not to say that it was some perfect fix for her inability to consistently sleep through the night or her need for us to rock her to sleep. Not at all. But she is sleeping (or not) just as well in the twin bed as she was in her crib. The one thing that is WAY better is that putting her down is so much easier. She used to sometimes wake up when I leaned over to put her down in the crib. Now, it's much smoother of a transition.

When she wakes up in the nights or in the mornings, instead of standing in her crib crying, she now gets out of bed and stands at the door, jiggling the handle, crying/calling, "Mommy, open door! Daddy, open door!" When one of us goes and opens the door, she runs into her room straight for the rocking chair, saying, "Rocking chair!" Then, we rock her back to sleep and slip into bed with her. If we wake up during the night or in the morning and she is fast asleep, we slip out of bed and back into our own bed. I'm much happier with this set up, and I think she is too.

Climbing vs. Childproofing
When I wrote about what a monkey my little girl is, sheSaid said, "I had been wanting to ask you how you balance satisfying her climbing need and childproofing. We don't seem to have enough he can actually climb safely (he's still short so he can only reach certain things)."

The short answer is, I don't know that we do. Balance is such hard work. Also, our girl is very tall on top of able to climb, so she can (and does) get into EVERYTHING! We quickly realized that we had to put locks on all the doors in the kitchen. We are not a family that can get away with not locking them. All of them. In addition, we had to take just about everything off of shelves that were below the counter height. In the last month, I actually had to move everything that was on the counter by the kitchen table and chair to ON TOP OF THE FRIDGE! I'm not kidding. Our bread box and napkins are now up there, which I can barely reach (I'm only 5'2").

She tries to climb on tables now, too. We just keep telling her no, to sit down in the chair or not get on the coffee table. We let her climb in any chair she wants and the couch, but she's not supposed to stand in them. Ha! There's pretty much no stopping her and she isn't good at listening to "No." With her, it's all about putting things up even higher, distracting her, and deciding what to just let go because it's not that big a deal if she plays with it.

We did get one of those toddler cube/slide things for the backyard (yeah for freecycle!) and the babysitter takes her to a playground pretty much every day. But she still tries to climb everything, including us.

Baths
Baths have gotten better mostly since I was losing it. I did a lot of what you all suggested in a throw-everything-including-the-kitchen-sink-at-the-problem-and-hope-something-sticks method. The things I think that have helped the most are getting a bunch of new toys, her being older and therefore better about holding her head back so I can pour water without getting it in her eyes, being sure to take turns with Londo so I don't get overwhelmed, and letting a lot of it go. Hearing that many people just let them drink the bath water helped. I don't really want to offer her a sippy cup or other water, because we try to limit water after dinner. She gets a big bottle before bed, and her diapers are always very full. After a few leaks, we instituted the no water after dinner. But if she drinks some bath water, it won't kill her.

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I'm sure there is a ton more I can update, but those are the big things that come to mind now. Am I missing anything that anyone has been wondering about? (Besides the TTC stuff. I'm not ready to talk more about that yet.)