Right after my last post about her sleep troubles, Q and I adopted a different tactic to keep Zoe in bed. Although the “silent-return-to-sleep” approach worked for awhile, Zoe started getting frustrated over being repeatedly put back in bed. (I think it was because she thought she was going to miss out on something now that we were awake.) It was Q’s idea, then, to “play possum” (and NOT get up to return her to bed) when she came to us in the middle of the night. The first few times we tried this she would come in our room, stand by our bed, and whimper or cry – and I found it extremely difficult to not respond. (I don’t think there’s anything more torturous than having to ignore your child’s cries, even if it’s for their own good.) Eventually, though, it sunk in that we were sleeping and that she should be, too; now, if she comes in at all, she’ll stand by our bed for a minute or two, listen to our “snores” and then turn around and head back to bed. (At 5 AM yesterday, for example, she came in and looked around for a minute or two – then went back to her room and slept until 7. And last night, she didn’t get out of bed at all.) We might still be losing a few minutes of sleep here and there, but I’ll take that small interruption over long middle-of-the-night battles any day!

-M

So I got a new phone today and I was checking out the 3.2 megapixel camera on it. Turns out it can take some pretty good pictures. This one has to be my new favorite.

Jon Q

Zoe’s friend Nicolas recently turned 2, and she celebrated with him yesterday morning at a nearby playground. The weather was gorgeous (high 60s and sunny), and Zoe had a lot of fun running around, eating cake and snuggling up to her dad and the Birthday Boy. Here she is…

-M

This blog’s faithful readers know that Q and I have spent a lot of time thinking and talking about platelets over the years – and now that I’m pregnant, the platelet watch is on again. (Visit here for background on why.) We’re always hoping for a nice, high count (anything above 50K, really), so you can imagine how happy we were to hear that my platelets were up to 92K as of yesterday. I’ve got a long way to go until the appearance of Poppy, I know, but my count keeps rising – and that’s certainly cause for excitement. Here’s hoping the counts continue moving in the right direction!

-M

For the past several weeks, Zoe has been resistant to leave Elena’s in the afternoons. Though she’s initially excited to see me (“Mommy!” she’ll yell when I walk through the door), she then typically runs in the opposite direction and squirms/wiggles away from me when I try to walk her out. Though I try not take this personally (I’m happy, after all, that she feels so at home with Elena and has so much fun with her friends there), I occasionally pine for the days in which I could just scoop up a smiling baby in my arms and walk out with her. And sometimes I wish she’d be as excited to see me as I am to see her.

But then the other afternoon, as we were heading home, I heard a small voice from the backseat say, “Mommy, I missed you today.” “You missed me?” I said, practically gulping back the tears. “Yes,” was her response. “I love you, Mommy.” And suddenly, the earlier squirming and struggling felt like no big deal…

-M

This is the age, I’m learning, where little kids really love to play pretend and use their imagination. As mentioned before, Zoe is often pretending to feed her animal friends – and some of her favorite things to serve are pizza and ice-cream. The first thing she wanted to do after getting home last night was make Play-Doh ice-cream, and she wasted no time preparing cones for herself and Panda. (As you’ll see from a previous post, she tends to serve up chocolate – which we long ago established was Panda’s favorite flavor.) Here are a few pics.

-M

Q often comments that he thinks Zoe is a bit of a tomboy- but I’m not so sure. After all, she does her fair share of girlie things – like this morning, when she watched me get ready and took a keen interest in my every move. “Eyes?” she asked as I removed the eyeshadow brush from my make-up bag. “Brush?” she asked as I put blush on my cheeks. “Mouth?” she asked as I began applying lip gloss. After I confirmed that I was, indeed, putting lip gloss on my mouth, she tilted her head and said, “Zoe have some?” “Oh, Zoe – this is just for Mommy,” I told her. “You’re too young for make-up.” The moment the words came out of my mouth, I couldn’t help but shake my head and smile. Just think how many times I’m going to have to say that over the next 10-12 years!!

-M

Time for another update – since we’ve seen even more changes since my last one in Jan.

Zoe continues to talk – a lot – and she’s getting easier to understand. She uses new words, including new Spanish ones, on a weekly basis, and she recently started using different verb tenses (e.g. “I running” and “You found it”). She likes to repeat things that we say, like “OMG,” which I occasionally say when I’m excited about something, and “good job,” which she says to us when she thinks we deserve praise. As mentioned before, she’ll occasionally blurt out things we’ve been saying to her for months – like the other day, when she looked up at me and said, “I Baby Boopersteins.” (This is a silly little nickname I have for her, and she looked so triumphant when she identified herself in that way.)

Zoe has never used a lot of “baby talk,” but she does have a handful of baby-words that make me smile. As example: a spoon is a “poon,” a sandwich is a “pamwich,” and excuse me comes out as “coo me.” Q thinks we should encourage her to use the correct words – he’s right, I suppose, but I just love hearing her pronounce them in this (adorable) way!

In terms of favorite activities, Zoe likes to read, color, paint, play with Play-Doh and stickers, eat (and feed others) make-believe food, and play “tent” (i.e. get under the covers in our bed) with her dad. She still loves palling around with her posse of stuffed animals: Big Dog and Panda are her most faithful companions, and she is often hugging, feeding or changing them – or putting them to sleep. (“Shhh,” she’ll say to us. “Big Doggie is sleeping.”) I also often catch Zoe cradling them with an “I love you” or “I miss you.” And she likes to get the ice-pack for Big Dog when he has bumped his head or has a “boo-boo” on his leg.

She still loves singing; for a long time a typical Zoe-concert would include (in this order) the ABC Song; Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star; and Happy Birthday. Recently though, she’s become fond of Bingo (which we often change to Mango, in honor of one of her friend’s little dogs) – and she often wanders through the house singing the “N-G-O” part. Another favorite song is Old McDonald Had a Farm, which she calls “Uncle Donald.”

As for big developments, there have been two recent ones. First, we moved her out of her crib in mid-Feb., and she slept in her “big girl” bed for the first time in mid-March. Perhaps not coincidentally, she started having some sleep issues (not wanting to go to bed at her normal bedtime, getting out of bed in the middle of the night), which we recently discussed here – and which we hope are on their way to being resolved! Another nighttime change: for the past few weeks, she has lost her interest in 99 Bottles of Beer, the bedtime song I’ve sang to her for months and months. These days the pre-bed must-have is a “Princess and Panda” story from her dad.

The other big development involves potty-training, which we’ve slowly started to do since the last update. Though still in diapers, she has graduated to pull-ups, and she seems to enjoy using the “big girl” toilet. (“I going!” she’ll say to us in excitement.) In the past week or so, she’s gotten good at telling us when she needs to go, versus us reminding her about going, so we might not be far away from a diaper-free household! (Well, at least until June.)

We’ve talked about it before, but Zoe’s “terrible twos” have been in full-swing lately. Though she is perfectly fine some (most, really) days, she’ll be completely grumpy, sassy and uncooperative on others. Lucky for us, Zoe usually knows when she’s misbehaving and, after a quick talk, will deliver a “sorry, Mommy/Daddy” and a hug. And it’s hard to stay angry when she wraps her little arms around you!

-M

After a week-plus of Zoe’s sleep issues (first discussed here), Q and I decided to nip the problem in the bud. Adopting the “silent-return-to-sleep” approach advocated in one of our sleep books, we stopped trying to cuddle, rock or sing Zoe back to sleep when she got up in the middle of night. (This is what we did when she was little, but the approach no longer seemed effective.) Instead, when she entered our room, we simply scooped her up and returned her to her bed without a word. And we did this until she stayed in bed – no matter how many times it took. (“If you are not silent and you discuss getting out of bed with it is occurring, your social behavior reinfoces getting out of the bed,” the book advised.)

Zoe wasn’t initially fond of our new approach, of course, and the first night we tried it, she got out of her bed – and shed a fair amount of tears – a whopping 90 times before finally staying put. (Poor Q! He was the one escorting her back to bed each time.) This number got smaller and smaller as the week progressed, until finally she just slept through the night. (She hasn’t gotten up before 6 AM for the past three.) I’m not sure if this is the end of our sleep problems, but it’s a good feeling to have found something that works – at least for now.

-M

Today was snake day at Little Learners at the zoo and Zoe had a lot of fun. As soon as we got back she had to call Uncle Dan to tell him all about it. This is how it went:

“I pet a snake”

“I saw the peacock feathers”

“I went on a horsie ride”

“I saw Mommy and Daddy giraffe”

All in all a pretty nice little morning.

Jon Q

I’ve mentioned it before, but Zoe is a big fan of the laundry – and of, more specifically, our laundry basket. I asked her to help sort clothes and throw whites into the basket this morning; instead she grabbed Big Dog and climbed right inside. I, of course, had to snap a pic or two.

-M

A good friend of mine, Zander’s mom, just had a baby and called yesterday to give me the good news. (It’s a boy.) We’ve been almost exactly three months apart in our pregnancies, and the appearance of her little one makes my pregnancy feel that much more real… (Suddenly, three month seems like a very short period of time!) I also can’t help but feel excited about Poppy, like Zoe, having a little boy friend to grow up with!

-M

When summarizing life with Zoe on this blog, I’ve often reported that “this is such a fun age” or this particular phase is “the best one yet.” Sadly, I can’t say those things about the two-year-(almost)-four-month phase. Though we still have our bright moments, life with Zoe has been a bit less rosy these past few weeks: my once almost-always-happy child is sometimes sassy, tempermental and irrational. Things that once posed no problems for us (getting dressed in the morning, going to bed at night, for example) are sometimes now major productions – with Zoe often wiggling around, running away, crying, yelling “no,” refusing to cooperate. I’ve read enough books and talked to enough parents to know that this is all “normal” (they don’t call them the “terrible twos” for nothing, right??), but I still find Zoe’s behavior somewhat challenging. And what’s expecially frustrating is that the things that used to work to calm her down or get her to cooperate don’t always do the trick now. In a way, I feel like I have to learn how to parent all over again.

After a long night (with Q out of town and Zoe not wanting to stay in her bed again), I was feeling somewhat down about things yesterday morning. Then, as we drove to Elena’s, Zoe asked for a song, and the two of us wound up singing a lovely duet of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” As I listened to her raspy little voice mimic mine and caught a glimpse of her little face in the rear-view mirror, it suddenly occured to me that moments like this are what I should be focusing on. Zoe might be going through a challenging phase, but it’s those little, sweet moments that (excuse the cliche) make it all worth it. (Now I just have to keep this in mind the next time Zoe says, “no, Mommy!” ten times in a row!)

-M

Zoe had another “Little Learners” class at the zoo over the weekend, and the theme was the meerkat. Q reports that Zoe was a big fan of the petite African animals, which live in underground tunnels – and she even got to pretend she was one herself. Here she is in her little burrow.

-M

… and it involves sleeping. (This time, though, it’s a good thing!) Last night, Zoe slept in a real bed for the first time. (She moved out of her crib about a month ago, but she’s been sleeping on a twin mattress on the floor.) We picked up the frame yesterday afternoon, and she was excited about it from the get-go – running and jumping around as it was assembled. (Thanks for the help, Dan and Jenny!) Q was there with the camera to capture her (and her friends’) first moments in the new bed.

-M