Daniel at 19 Months

Daniel is going through a clingy phase right now and wants me to be in his sight at all times. Since this is not always possible, he has started to play Marco Polo with mama. He will be sitting somewhere (usually in his booster seat, eating, so he can't come find me on foot), and he will call out, "mama!" and he wants me to immediately respond, "Daniel!" otherwise he gets very distressed that he can't see me. He also does it in the car when I am driving and he can't see me. Its part cute, part annoying that I can never be anywhere alone, ever. He is also the only kid to invade my bathroom space. In fact, he likes to sit in my lap, while I'm trying to pee. I regularly have to tell him to back up so that I can wipe. I will be glad when this phase is over, for sure!

The other reason that I can never really ever leave him alone, is that the moment I do, he quickly takes the opportunity to GET INTO EVERYTHING! For example, the other day I went upstairs for 5 minutes tops, to switch loads of laundry over. When I came back down I saw that he had gone into the pantry and removed all of the spices from one rack and placed them around on the floor. In the center of that he had build a soda can tower that was around 4' tall. He had completely emptied one box of soda and must have climbed on the step stool to complete it as it was much taller than he is. Then once I had cleaned that up, I realized that he had also gone into the bathroom and emptied the entire roll of toilet paper, plus the cardboard roll, PLUS the hand towel, into the toilet. It was my good fortune that he has not yet learned to flush! I had to don gloves and fish all of that out and throw it away (the hand towel went into the wash naturally - the laundry never stops here!). Ugh this kid is a walking disaster and sure does keep things 'interesting!'

He is still a constant little jabberer and never stops 'talking.' You can't understand most of what he says, but I have come to understand him enough that I know that most of what he is saying is him narrating his day non-stop. Whatever he does, he has to tell me about, even if I am standing there watching him do it. He is slowly getting more clear though and I have heard his speak the following words lately: sock, shoe, mama, ball, car, cracker, cookie, bath, balloon, pickle, puppy, and he can shake his head 'no', and sign 'more', 'all done', and 'milk.'

Daniel's general mentality these days is that if he can't have a hand in every pot, life is not worth living. He wants to be doing everything that anyone else is doing, at all times, without exception. He loves to help in the kitchen and with laundry, and even with cleaning up. He wants to do anything and everything the big kids are doing. The other day I found him standing on top of the play kitchen. He had climbed up there after witnessing Nora do the same. Hes remarkably capable and is just so excited to be involved and 'big.'

We finally decided to sleep train this past month. I was just plain tired of STILL getting up 3 times a night and at this age, he is capable of learning to put himself back to sleep. I basically just turned the baby monitor off so that if he was lightly crying or whining, I couldn't hear him at all, but if he was screaming, I still could. It took a solid two weeks of him waking up and crying, and me NOT going in there, for him to learn to resettle himself back to sleep after 10-15 minutes (or less). I also made sure there was a water bottle in there as he would often wake up thirsty and want to nurse, so the water cup solved that problem. Every now and again he wakes up before I go to sleep, and in that case, I will nurse him back to sleep, but once I am in bed, he is out of luck! Now I just need to train my brain to stop hearing phantom baby cries. I can't tell you how many times a night I am positive I hear him yelling, only for me to get up and check the monitor, and he is passed out completely. Its really annoying. Stupid paranoid brain!

He loves to be a helper in any way and every way that he can. He helps sort and put away laundry, he helps to clean up the toy room after hes made a mess, he loves to put laundry into the washer and dryer and start the machines. But his favorite helping routine is helping Michael to make tea at night. Every night after the kids go to bed, while I am still upstairs doling out extra stories or kisses, Mi
chael makes tea. Somehow or other, Daniel became involved in this process and gets the biggest kick out of helping to make the tea. Michael will sit him down on the counter next to the stove. He takes the tea container out of the cabinet and opens the sealed tea bags. Then he lets Daniel pull the tea sachets out of the sealed bags and put them into the cups. Then once the hot tea has been poured, Michael allows Daniel to select a box of cereal from the cabinet, and gives him some to try. Sometimes he even gets to try a second variety, or other sundry treats from that cabinet. Daniel is in sheer heaven with this treatment. He gets treats AND gets to help. Its to the point now that if Daniel is upstairs and hears Michael making tea preparations, he will book it downstairs to join him, just as fast as his little legs will carry him. He just gets SO excited about it. Tonight I personally witnessed him doing a little happy dance in anticipation, on the stair landing. That kid is too cute!

Meal times are a bit of a challenge lately. If it were up to Mr. Daniel, plates filled with a variety of food would be placed out at all times, for him to graze on like a gazelle. He'd rather not ever be constrained to a chair. However, even when I have done that, though he does constantly eat a little all day, he never ends up eating much in total. However, when I limit him to just 3 meals a day, he will sit there at each meal and eat a sizable amount. This matters because if he doesn't eat a big enough lunch, he will not take his full nap, and if he doesn't eat enough dinner, he will want to be up all night nursing because he is hungry. Its is NOT ideal. And even the smallest amount of food can throw him off. He starts whining for snacks the minute he gets up from nap (generally 3pm). Since we do not eat dinner until 5-5:30pm, that means 2-2.5 hours of non-stop whining I get to endure. It is torture. If I break however and feed him even a tiny amount of snack, he will refuse to eat much dinner. I've seen as little as 4 puffs throw him off. Its maddening! So I am fairly strict these days about providing zero post breakfast and post nap snacks. Michael found this out the other day when he casually informed me that he had given Daniel a whole banana at 4pm. I nearly had a heart attack. And as I predicted, Daniel was up allllll night. Not fun.

This month we've been hit with a boatload of snow,
out of the blue. Its the most I have ever seen here, and its Daniel's first real experience with snow. Hes definitely intrigued by it, but tires of it quickly. Mostly because we don't own real snow gear.But every few hours he motions to the windows and grunts that he wants to go outside, and the older kids have been out there lots as well. His biggest challenge is walking in it. He has enjoyed sledding in our laps, and we've been walking everywhere while pulling he and Nora in the sled (since we can't drive anywhere). So its all novel (though we are all ready to get back to our normal Pacific Northwest, pre-spring weather!

Daniel is a man that knows what he wants! He is vigorous and involved! He loves his dad! Out of all the kids, he reminds me of Michael the most (both physically and personality wise). This second year has been so much easier than last year. I am enjoying getting to know his true self and the little spice that he adds to our family.