The toddler is 23 months and saying her own name

One month, and I am getting my life back. No, joke! We are never going to get our lives back. (Not that we want to...)

I have always held the magical number of two years as a milestone. That is how I remember I felt with the teen when she was two. I felt I got some sense back of me. They are more independent, and you are able to do more of your own stuff again.

The toddler started at long last to say her own name this week! We noticed that we could get her to say all the names of people in her life, except her own name. We were worried for a while. Now when she looks in a mirror, she says “Mieka”! And she exclaims “Mieka” when she sees herself on photos and videos.

Cuteness!

The toddler loves going to the tiny gymnastics, and usually she is a big star. But we noticed that the not crawling had a big impact on her movement on Saturday. They had to crawl up and down and over. Every time she sat on her bum, and did the crab creep (again) when she actually had to crawl or jump over or off! Luckily we have the tiny gymnastics every Saturday to help with it!

The vocabulary is coming along at a great speed. She string together two or three words, and sometimes I hear that she is even getting creative with her use of words. She loves her Goggatjie DVD.  This morning she woke up, and asked for Goggatjie, nothing else. She called me “Mamma-tjie”. The “-tjie” was something she thought of on her own. (We have never used the word “Mammatjie”. )


We had the whole family at our house today, and the toddler had a ball with her grandfather and grandmother, as well as her uncle visiting from London.  She was crying for her grandfather when they had to leave. She is used to seeing him every day at the day care because he drives around the children in the afternoon. She cries when he has to put her down. Only sometimes he can placate her by saying that he needs to go and pick up children...

The toddler did not have her regular nap-time, and she was out at half past six tonight. Her regular nap-time starts at twelve at the day care. She needs that nap, and I have seen that she sometimes take two naps during the day when she is with us. When we bypass the naps she gets very cranky!

Off course we enjoy her even more! She gets cuter and cuter, especially with the use of words.

Where does the cuteness stop? Even while they are toddlers, or after that?
(I can’t remember.) Not that I am not looking forward to the other phases, because I loved all the phases my teen went through as well!

A year ago Thursday Blog Hop #2 – The toddler is 22 months today

Mieka at 22 months

Today, a year ago: The toddler was ten months and I was still raving about bonus days I got for taking the baby to clinic and getting a whole day to do it. She had no hair and a McDonalds play thing on her head.



Mieka at ten months

 I am joining Mommy Only Has Two Hands in her going down memory lane Thursday Blog Hop. Go and check her rules when you want to join in.

Today the toddler is 22 months. I know I say every time she can’t get cuter than his, but she does! We are really enjoying the little person she is becoming.

The vocabulary is coming along very well. I was worried at one stage, but she says a lot more than we are able to understand. She stands in front of us and give us a whole blast of words! We hear babble, but sometimes we catch a recognisable word. The head nods very seriously while she tells her whole “story”! (CUTE!)

Some more 22 month things:

• She loves drawing. She insists that we sit with her and draw with her.
• She has a fascination with “goggas” (insects). She wants to look at them, but not yet touch.
• We get feedback from the school that she hits and bites some of her class mates. I feel terrible about it! We try to talk to her. I do hope that it is a passing phase...
• When I leave her at day care in the mornings, she’s got a new thing. She does not want to kiss me, but immediately turns her head when I put her in the arms of a teacher. Then she looks out of the window until I pass on the outside and she waves to me. She smiles and she waves... That helps me a lot during my working day...

She was sick again from the weekend. Nose and ears and eyes! Nothing new! I had her at the doctor today, and now we are throwing drops in all of the “openings”. Not a favourite thing for the toddler! The doctor says that Johannesburg is the worst place for children with regards the pollution. That’s why we struggle so much with the allergies. The fact that it does not rain, makes it even worse...

What happened with you a year ago?

A year ago Thursday Blog Hop - Why go vertical?

I am taking part in Mommy Only has Two Hands A Year Ago Thursday Blog Hop.
Check out the rules on Mommy Only has Two Hands. The other two hosts are From PDX With Love and Wyatt Family Farm.

Going down memory lane - a year ago today. It is nice to see how far we have come...

I went back to last year's blog post on 7 October 2009. A year ago we were worried about our baby starting to walk while she did not crawl first. She only did the bum-shuffle or the crab creep. She was nearly ten months old. She finally walked at 13 months, skipping the crawl!

Why go vertical when you can go horizontal?

Mieka has not started to crawl yet, and it seems she is not going to. All she wants to do at this stage is walk, with us having to walk with her. She also enjoys the walking ring, but her favourite way of moving around now is walking while being held. Whenever we put her down on her stomach, she freezes in the position, with her arms straight, and complains. She only stops when we pull her up again. How do you get a baby to crawl, when she wants to walk already? I can imagine years of extra maths classes because she has skipped the important crawling phase in her development… Why worry? We will deal with that later! Now we are the enablers in her horizontal quest! I think she is super intelligent, and does not need to go through all the phases.
(Says the proud mom wink-wink)

Overrated, the crawling thing, I say now! We are dealing with the crawling in the little gymnastics. There are better things to worry about...

The toddler saying her own name - not yet

The toddler does not say her own name.  She is 21 months. She says the names of her friends, and of her sister, but not her own name. Mieka is not a difficult name to say.

She copycats us when we tell her to say something.  She does not always get it right but she usually tries. That’s why it is strange that she doesn’t want to say her own name yet... A friend with a boy just three weeks younger than Mieka also says that her boy does not say his own name. He is also more verbal than Mieka.

Mieka is pointing to us and our faces. She says “Mama”, and “Papa”. She point to her own face, and we repeat with “Mieka’s nose, Mieka’s eyes, Mieka’s ears, Mieka’s cheeks” etc. She knows and points correctly. Maybe she still thinks we are extensions of her, and that’s why she does not verbalize her own name. (?) She gets it perfectly right to say “Arnia”, the name of her sister! Arnia is very difficult to say with that “r”!

Waiting for another milestone to cross...

When did your young ones say their own names? Can you even remember? I can’t remember when the teen said her name, 15 years back...

(Photo: Mieka with her sister, Arnia, reading in the background)

The toddler at 19 months

Another month has passed! Another month of toddler cuteness! Oh, we love spending time with her! We sometimes wish we can freeze the moments with her – staying in perpetual toddler-ness...
Some of the things Mieka are doing now:

Singing the first verse of Barney: “I love you” [I luv uh] again and again, especially when she sees her Barney doll or Barney book. The voice is adorable. We encourage her endlessly because it is so precious!

The vocabulary is increasing a bit more. She sometimes copies a word, but do not repeat it again. New words: bye (used in conjunction with tata), bou (build), Mama Kaka (Karen), ouch, woef (dog). I am racking my brains now, but that seems like that for now! She gets by with the finger and pulling us along to where she wants to go or want.

She loves making jokes with us, and laughs her head of when she has an effect. She will repeat a “joke” like frightening us, and we have to be frightened again and again.

The repetitiveness of things is a big thing. Everything gets repeated, and she goes about it in the same excited way as it is being done the first time. Stuff like taking shoes off, and trying to get it on again. When she fails, we have to put the shoes on again. Then all over again; shoes off, shoes on...

Tonight my teen saw a flickering light out of the corner of her eye. She caught the toddler switching the bedside lamp in her room on and off.

It is sometimes a struggle to get her out of repetitive mode. It becomes a problem especially if it involves us having to do something again and again... The whistle tantrum gets used very effectively!

She waves now in the morning when I leave her at day care. She also said “bye” one morning. Most of the times I have to put her in the arms of a teacher when I leave. When I try to put her with the other children who are playing with toys, she arches her back and pulls up her feet. But she is contented when left in somebody’s arms...

The day care stays a big headache, but I know that you get small irritating problems with anybody you leave your child with. They are not you! (Duh!) They haven’t appointed a new teacher, and gave the assistant the job instead. The assistant has been with them for 16 years, but she speaks English (we prefer Afrikaans now), and she does not have a qualification. I have sorted the bottle story with them, and it seems that she is now getting all her bottles. Only five more months, then she moves on to the next section... Is it worth to move her now? (The perpetual worries of a working mother...)

I love the toddler at this age!

Related posts:
Symptoms of toddlerhood: The whistle and not sleeping
The toddler is a year and a half
17 months - toddler update

Cheating the rat race

Going on holiday in the middle of the year feels like cheating! We skipped a week of rushing around, working AND the cold weather. We skipped winter!

I definitely recommend it! From now on it’s going to be on our list of yearly to-dos!

It was very depressing to drive back into the smog and the winter grey after the green and warmth of the coast!

We eventually got Mieka to put her toe in the sand on the last day... BIG milestone for our little girl. Notice that her feet were firmly planted on the sheet of the tent. 7 days. She is a cautious little one! Smile!

Now back to work! I am sitting at my desk again. Thinking of the beach....
Enjoy your Monday, you all!

17 months - toddler update

Drums: Dum-Dum-Dum-Ta-Dum! The toddler is 17 months today!


Quick update: (Why it is SOOOO nice that they actually grow up!)

- The sleeping is going better and better. We have more and more nights where Mieka sleeps until 5/6 in the mornings. (Ta-Dum! Our sleep deprived nights are getting fewer and further in between!)

- She has 12 teeth. We discovered an extra four in her mouth about two weeks back. Big bonus – we did not notice teething-relate niggles! (It was probably those few many nights we did not sleep through... Who knows?)

- The breastfeeding is working well. I am planning to continue until the two year milestone, or until Mieka decides to quit. I read somewhere (on KellyMom?) that when you wait for the toddlers to wean themselves it is usually between 3-4 years of age. (Gulp!) We’ll see! I did not expect it to last as long, but it is one of the most rewarding experiences ever. And the bonus – it is very good for them! (Pat on back! You go, Powerwoman!)

- Mieka got her MMR injection on Wednesday. She was two months overdue. She had a runny nose the whole time. I was also a bit apprehensive because of the link between MMR and autism, and because a lot of babies get sick after the injection. The teen got measles from the injection 15 years back! A doctor convinced me that it is better to get the injection sooner than later... (Thumbs crossed.)

- Mieka “told” me her first story this week. I was breastfeeding her, and she started to poke her eye, and saying something like “seer” (sore). I eventually deduced from that that she got sand in her eyes at day care.

- It is going very well at day care and the new class. She enjoys the activities and singing, and we can see the difference at home. (The “lights” are brighter!) She swings and rolls her arms while “singing”, and loves-loves building puzzles and blocks and sketching.

- She prefers spending time on our hips (big back-breaker at the moment (literally)): She gets us to take her finger, and as soon as she gets us up, she wants to be picked up while she directs us in the direction she wants to go! When she does not want to be put down, she folds in her legs, and no ways is it possible to get her to stand... (This too will pass.)

Oh, we love this little girl! She is a big pleasure in our lives! And she is growing up... Very quickly! (Big smile!)

Our little Princess at 16 months; an update

(The detour at the hospital yesterday, with the abscess, got us a little bit side-tracked.)

What she is doing now at 16 months :

- I am a little bit worried about the language development. A friend said she should be speaking 10 words by now. Let me count: Mamma, Pappa (daddy), tatta, hello, Arnia... She is even calling every other object “pappa” now? And the rest is mermaid-speak. Should I be getting worried?

- The finger still points and she now comes to fetch us to walk with her. Not that it is always clear what she wants. It seems she is happy to go in any direction, as long as we are going with her.

- The new class at day care has definitely “turned on a few more lights”. She seems to be more interested in drawing, building puzzles and reading. It was a good thing to have moved her from the baby class. They also don’t have any problems with her going to sleep on the mat. She spends two hours sleeping in the early afternoon, a bit longer than the rest of her friends. (But she used to sleep twice during the day in the baby section).

- I am still breastfeeding. The two year goal is within reach! I think it is a comfort thing during the night. She loves to sleep while being latched on. I am treasuring these wonderful bonding moments. After I have seen the Avatar movie, I think of breastfeeding in the same context as the species on Pandora who latches on to the Tree and the animals with their “hair”.

- I am struggling to get her 100% healthy. She has missed the MMR vaccine at 15 months. It seems that she has an allergic type of sinus problem. I think milk is number one suspect, but I have looked on the shelves, and don’t think that soya is a good alternative. I feel a bit unsure to cut it from her diet at this stage? (Which a friend suggested.)

- She is sleeping much better. The problem is getting her to fall asleep. I feel that 8-9 is a bit late, but that is usually the time she goes “down”. She wakes up once or twice, and sometimes she goes right through until 6. I hate it every day I have to wake her for day care. Powerwoman is allowed to say it, and to keep on hating it! Not nice to be a working mother when you leave a sleepy baby in somebody else’s arms...

- She loves shoes! She has no problem in the mornings to sit down for us to put on her shoes. And she doesn’t take it off until she goes to bed at night. It was a struggle yesterday to take it off in hospital. She was trying to put it on again the whole time. She is a girl, for sure! (Smile)

16 months and an unexpected day at the hospital

Mieka had an abscess drained today in the hospital. It was a very scary experience!

Our day started as usual, with us trying to get dressed. The teen tried to help me by taking Mieka from me. When she picked her up, Mieka cried out in pain. I immediately knew it was the red bump under her arm which has been growing. It looked like an insect bite, but on Sunday we saw that the bump was redder and more inflamed! I wanted to take her to the doctor on Monday, but we had other errands to run. This morning we had no other option, although I still believed that she only needed a cream, or something...

The doctor immediately said that it was an abscess, and that she had to get a surgeon to look at it. Horrors!! We landed up at the hospital, having to book the toddler in for the day. The surgeon came round during his surgeries, but said that it wasn’t such a big deal. He would drain it, and leave it open for it to keep on draining (no stitches).

It was extremely stressful to walk into the operating theatre dressed in the green clothes, holding her in my arms. She was fighting against the gas mask and crying. The next moment she was sleeping, and I had to leave her. I heard her little wheezy chest when she went under and it made me even more uneasy...

While we were waiting, I shed a few tears, telling Dries they were taking too long. 20 minutes felt like forever!

She was crying when they placed her in my arms, but luckily she went to sleep while we carried her back to her bed. The anaesthetist told us that the abscess was bigger than they had predicted.

I breastfed her when she woozily woke up, and after about 40 minutes she was eating and playing again. Luckily we could go home when they saw that she was fine... (How easy they bounce back! Tonight she was playing and babbling again, bouncing all over!)

It was an unexpected day! It seems we get lots of these with children. (Gulp!)

How do we get them to grow up? All in one piece?

(Photo: Mieka on Sunday - busy with one of her favourite activities - "talking on the telephone".)

The Toddler’s section at day care

I am so impressed with my Mieka. She is taking it in her stride: moving from the babies to the toddler’s section at the day care this week.


Yesterday they reported to me that she even slept on her mat with the other toddlers.

There are pictures of autumn and autumn leaves pinned up against the wall with her name on it every day of the week. It is the theme of the month: Autumn. (We are beginning to feel a little pinch of winter here…)

When I fetch her in the afternoons, she is walking around outside with the other children. On a mission by herself, of course! She looks so small walking around with the bigger children, and my heart goes mushy when I see her. She is always so excited when we go to fetch her!

It is doing her good, because she seems a bit more eager at home to read her books, and she watches with great concentration when they show animals or planes or babies on the television. She gets very upset when the picture changes… Enquiring to us with her little hand (showing “come-here, come here”) to put up the same footage again. Very cute!


(Photo by Grandfather James)

The toddler’s last day at the baby section at day care

Another milestone! The toddler is apparently ready to move over to the toddler’s section at the day care. Today is her last day with the babies!


This is how we have to let go... Small little steps turn into big steps! And tomorrow she goes to university!!! Oh, come on, Karen. No need to be dramatic! (Powerwoman welcomes the opportunity to help her child into the big(ger) world!)

I am feeling a bit apprehensive. She is still my baby, but apparently not!

The one lady that looks after them at day care is also of the opinion that they are still too young to move. There is another toddler who started to walk months before Mieka, and she went to the toddler’s section two months earlier. She struggled adjusting, crying; and they had to bring her back to sleep with the babies during the day.

I want to do the right thing. Are they ready to move at 15 months? I see that she enjoys doing things with her hands, like scribbling and painting. Luckily they have been taking Mieka to the toddler’s for two hours every day for the past two weeks. They said she was in awe of the other children, and just walked around, looking at everything.

They don’t have cots in the toddler’s section, only small mats. How do they get them to sleep on them? We struggle to get her to sleep in her cot at home...

I hope they prepare their bottles with the same care as with the babies...

No, stop it, Mrs. Neurosis! You can always ask them to take her back to day care if she does not adjust well.

Our baby is BIG already!

(Photo: Mieka with the strong arms of her dad in the background)

Small milestones: Potty training 1st and stairs

The toddler and potty training. No, we haven’t started with potty training for the 15-month old, but we caught her doing the right thing!


We have noticed that she regularly shivers and let’s go when we take off her nappy just before we put her into the bath. She loves sitting on the potty with her clothes on. Last night we put her directly on the potty after we took off the nappy, and she made her first pee. We applauded her, but I not sure that she made the link?

The things you get excited about when you are parents... A pee in a pot makes us go “Whoop de whoop!” (Smile)

Mieka also loves nowadays to sit on the first step of the stairs. She goes round in circles before she does a back-up with her bum to land it on the step. Sometimes she misses, and does it again. She then sits smugly on the step for a few seconds before she tries it again.

It progressed yesterday to her beginning to climb the steps. I know; it is very late for her to only now start climbing the stairs on her own. I have heard of babies who climb/crawl the stairs since they were six months old. She is a bit more reserved with regards to trying new things. Which I think is a bit of a blessing for us – we don’t have to check her the whole time. (She loves climbing the stairs when we hold her hands for month now, and she climbs it with one foot on one step, barely making the height of a step with her short legs.)

She started to climb by going up on her knees, and enjoyed it tremendously when we clapped hands. She was going up, and clapping hands for herself on each step. No we will have to close the security gate at the bottom of the stairs as well... (We have a gate at the top of the stairs already.)

Cute, very cute!

The toddler is 15 months

It sneaks up on you! She is 15 months. What happened to 14 months? Gone! Oi!
Our little girl is getting more independent by the day! How I love watching her; exploring and walking and making her little demands. The pointy finger is still getting the job done! (Smile)
Eating is a bit more difficult now. I am still buying some Purity for times when we haven’t finished preparing a meal. I get her to eat about three or four spoons before she shuts her mouth. But she loves playing with it (See photo). She loves eating with us, but we are not exactly sure that’s she gets a substantial amount to eat. Because most of it lands on the floor...
She enjoys Barney very much. We have a Barney DVD, but it does not keep her occupied for long. The little Barney book or Barney doll gets her excited every time. I know three lines of a Barney song:
“I love you
You love me
We are one big family...”
When I start singing it, she starts dancing and nodding with the head. She doesn’t get tired at all of hearing it! I have to repeat and repeat... (Who knows the rest of the song?)
She repeats most of her words. When she starts with “Mama-mama-mama”, or “Papa-papa-papa”, we say “Mieka-Mieka-Mieka” to her. Not really sure what she wants... But I think it is some sort of verbal love expression. (My heart melts every time! Sweet!) I will do anything for her, for sure!
When we call to Arnia, her sister, she also calls her name. It is a difficult name to learn to speak. Arnia took a very long time to say her own name.
Mieka enjoys playing with the cube with blocks and numbers that fits into their specific places. Her dad has taught her to clap hands, and now she claps and smiles every time she gets it in (with help, of course!)
She uses the remotes to phone her grandmothers, and we giggle every time she walks around holding it to her ear... 15X cute at 15 months!
(I am glad I am able to pin down these cute little milestones and things that she does. Thanks, Blogger!)

Mermaid-speak

The toddler has been speaking to us in recent times in a rounded vowel–type of language. It sounds as if she is speaking underneath the water. She looks at you, very seriously, and rolls beautiful sounding “words” out of her mouth. (I am struggling to describe it.) I am calling it mermaid-speak. We do not recognise any words in this mermaid language of hers.
It is SOOO cute; we starts smiling as soon as she starts a conversation, and sometimes we find ourselves bursting out with laughter. It is too difficult not to smile, at least.
I hope it won’t impact her negatively; the fact that we are not able to hold a straight face/s.

I hope that she understands that we think she is adorable when she speaks in her mermaid language?

The toddler is 14 months - UPDATE

Mieka, our baby (translate toddler, but I still wants to call her my baby), was 14 months on Sunday! Every day we think she can’t get any cuter than this, but she does!
When I look back at the baby videos of earlier I am amazed at how much cuter she is now. The lights were on, but she was not there yet! (Smile!)
She is getting more vocal, but we only understand the few obvious ones, like papa, mama and tata (goodbye). The hello is there as well. The pointy finger STILL gets the job done, with a few grunts here and there! (Talking is highly overrated…).
She is fascinated with planes and birds, and makes circular movements with an mmmm-sound. Where are all the planes when you want to look at them?
She enjoys music! (We have hopeful visions of one member of our family being musical…) She starts bobbing and humming with music on the radio or television. Last night she was taking her bum right down to the ground, but lost the rhythm and only got it back when she got upright again. Very funny!
The sleeping is going much better. We only struggle to put her down, but then she sleeps through, most of the time. I have to wake her (which I hate doing!) on week days to get her ready for day care. (Working mother complaint!)
Walking is a great source of enjoyment. We enjoy watching her, and she enjoys exploring on her own. I think she is not the most adventurous explorer, but it has its benefits. She usually explores in our vicinity, and it helps to keep the eye on her.
She loves unpacking cupboards etc. and walking with the goodies to place it somewhere else. We don’t mind her unpacking, as long as it keeps her busy. Strange how easy we exchange a neat home for a bit of peace and quiet AND reading.
She has got 8 teeth now, and it seems another one is due, because there is a constant dribble on the chin.
She has turned into a fussy eater, but the baby books/experts say it is okay. We try to keep her occupied to get in a few spoons of food, and she takes a few bites of what we are eating, especially if it comes from our plates…
The breast feeding is continuing. It got a bit of a knock this last weekend with us being away on the cruise. I expressed a little bit, but I don’t think it was enough. It was only last night that she seemed satisfied again, and dropped off to sleep while still on the breast…
(Sigh of relief! It is the easiest by far!)
What’s next? We enjoy her with every single new milestone reached!

(Photo by grandfather James on Sunday)

Related posts:

The toddler is officially a walker

Baby milestones

The toddler is officially a walker

One of the biggest milestones has been reached: The toddler is walking! The day care has been telling us every day that she is walking further and further (from last week)! One of those awful irritations when you have to work! You don’t get to experience the first FIRSTS…
She has been doing the three steps for nearly a month, but now she is standing on her own, and WALKING! We can’t get enough of it, cheering her on with each step! Very cute!
She is thirteen and a half months old!
She skipped the crawling altogether. There are consequences because of it. (The worrying was not neurotic, after all!)
The crab creeping did not do the job. There is a lady who comes in to massage the babies at day care. (The lucky little fish! I am in my forties, and can only count on one hand how many times I had a massage. Now my little one is getting a weekly massage (which I am paying for)). Apparently Mieka’s neck is not stiff enough! When she is pulled upright by her hands, her head still hangs to the back.
I have to find ways of addressing this.
Do you have any ideas, or know of places where to search for information when a baby skipped the laying on the tummy and the crawling? (What if there are even bigger consequences later on when we don’t address it now?)
The little tortoise is walking! We are so proud!

(Photo: Gys Oosthuizen)

Related posts:

The personality of the toddler

The baby is a toddler

Baby update

Why go vertical when you can go horizontal?

The toddler is 13 months & THE DIET starts today!

13 months today! She is waving to us with open arms, not the “come-here” hands of earlier. And she is able to get up by herself from the floor, and stand for a second or so. But that’s it! Walking without holding onto things, or the finger, is not yet an option…
At day care they move the babies to another class when they start walking. It worries me, because I think it is good for them to stay for a bit longer in the same class with the same caregiver. Mieka, take your time…
The frown is also a regular feature nowadays. I will try to get a photo. She frowns when she is unsure, or when we bother her. Utter cuteness! (Says the mom who thinks everything she does is cute, in any case!)

(Photo: Kwa Maritane: Another pointy finger)

I stood on the scale at the dietician this morning. It is one of those scales who gives you your whole history and where there’s no more bullshitting! It even gives you your metabolic age, but I am not going to divulge it. I feel too embarrassed about these huge details! The fake healthy until you are did not do the trick.
I have to eat better, and exercise!
I am stiff today for climbing stairs the day before yesterday (the second day is always the worst), and it’s a good reminder of the effort I will have to exert.
Unfortunately it doesn’t help to know all the health tips, but not to put it into practice… (Duh, Karen!)

Related posts by category:

Mieka: The personality of the toddler

The pointy finger and the crab creep


Health: Fake healthy until you are

The toddler is going back to day care

The joys of being a working mother!
We have left the toddler at day care again. I was on leave for three weeks. I started to work this morning! I am sad all over again. It feels like the first time when she was four months and three weeks and I had to go back to work again. She is now nearly 13 months old! I hope she will be okay and that she won’t feel deserted.
I have written a note to the new day care person/mother who has been appointed in the meantime after the previous one was fired last year. I hope she will be a very caring person. And I hope Mieka will like her. When they are as young as Mieka - babies and toddlers – the worry is always there that they won’t be able to verbalise when something is wrong.
Mieka has been spoiled rotten during the holidays. We, the parents and my family, were walking with her and holding her the whole time. The pointy finger and the shrieking got the attention she wanted. I hope the day care people are not going to complain and that she is going to be a sweet little angel. Maybe she will be so fascinated with her friends at the day care… (Thumbs crossed!)
Mieka is starting to walk three steps on her own. Her face beams when she has completed the steps on her own. It is VERY cute! But she still prefers to hold onto our fingers, and to complain until we rescue her with the finger. She has skipped the crawling altogether, and we rarely see the crab crawling now. She is by all means vertically mobile! The Year of the Toddler is showing big promises!

The toddler is not hitting other babies anymore

A while back we were worried about the baby hitting other babies. We saw the disturbing behaviour while she was “playing” with a friend.
But yesterday Mieka was happily playing alongside her friend Zander . They both complained a bit when the other one had a play thing in their hands they also wanted to have. But it was not a major upheaval in the baby politics. (Take that for worrying about the little things – most of it get sorted by themselves!)
It was another day in paradise, enjoyed with friends in Potchefstroom in South Africa.
Really awful times! (Evil grin)

The baby is a toddler

The baby is a toddler already! One year olds are not babies anymore. I feel sad to realize that my baby is not a baby anymore. I’ll have to change my status now. I am a mother of a toddler, and not a baby.
Where are the BRAKES?
She is one bundle of inquisitiveness at the moment. When she opens her eyes, it starts with the pointing (yes, it seems the pointy finger are going to stay for a while). Points, points, points… and when there is no reaction from us, it is scream, scream, scream… VERY exhausting!
She is becoming more mobile by the day. She stands and moves along the furniture or whatever she can hold onto. She has given her first few steps already. The crawling is not an option anymore. The crab creeping works very well for the little lady. It has a bright side as well; I can keep on putting on dresses, because with the bum shuffling the dresses does not get caught up underneath her knees. And she looks very cute in a dress.
Eating has become difficult - for us as the parents, not to her. No more the easy way out with foods from jars. We have to think of finger foods for her to eat. She just closes her mouth and turns away (with a look of disgust) when we bring a spoon near her.
“I am not a baby, Mom/Dad!! I can eat on my own!”
She mostly uses her hands, and the back of the spoons and forks to pummel the food.
Sleeping has also not been mastered by the parents. We are still doing the nightly rounds. When I compare it with the first few days and weeks, it is now a breeze. (Powerwoman will not complain!)
She has a new thing; she starts to kick her legs vigorously when we try to put her into her bed. A tantrum type of manoeuvre? Or is something bothering her? Bad, bad teeth!! (?) She also wakes up screaming, but with the eyes still closed. She wants to sleep, but something is out of whack. We need that baby translator badly!
The hair is starting to grow. Not long, and we will be able to put in the ribbons…
Hold on to the reigns; our baby is a toddler!

(Photo: Mieka was not impressed with the musical water fountain at Silverstar Casino last night.)