Category: monkey antics

For all of my experience with children, especially preschoolers, it never ceases to amaze me how much I *DON’T* know about toddlers. A few years ago, a girlfriend told me about her “punishment couch”–where her then-toddler had to sit when she did things like spit milk in Daddy’s face, torment the dog, things like that. Things, that at the time, I couldn’t imagine a small child doing–after all, where would her motivation be, anyway?

Fast Forward to today:
M is so totally hip, it’s scary. Last weekend, while we were all home, alone, enjoying a quiet holiday, we devised a consequence system for Miss Thing. “No”. “Stool”. “To your room”. That’s the part I left out in my Christmas post!!

The game in question is , “turn on the dishwasher”. It is SOOO much fun to turn the dial on the dishwasher, and after being told ,”No” and “Walk Away”, M just erupted in to scores of laughter. Soooo we now have a stool in the foyer where nothing exciting is, and if she turns on the dishwasher, she has to sit there while we count to 10. 10 is a very big number to count to these days.

Another fun game? Standing on a chair. What chair, you ask? Any chair. Her arm chair, her rocking chair….so after being told “No”, the chair gets put away. Typically, she’ll go find another chair to stand on. Today she stood on the chair, got down when I told her no (I, foolishy thinking she wasn’t up for games today) and waited until I wasn’t looking……AND STOOD ON THE CHAIR AGAIN, hysterically laughing. Hysterically laughing until I turned around and took the chair away. Seriously–she knows when I’m watching and when I’m not.

Another fun game? Wiggly worm during diaper changes. Running around the room naked. Curling up on her pillow, naked. Streaking through the neighborhood if we let her.

IF the stool fails (it does for me–a lot), I leave her in her room for 1-2 minutes alone. That will generally solicit a much more cooperative girl. Unless she gets into the drawers, the wipes, the diapers…anything not 4 feet up off the ground or securely tied down.

Seriously, at 17 months, should she be *THIS* smart?

Update, May 12, 2010: This post remains one of the top ways readers find my blog. I thought I’d update what works for us for toddlers this year, now that Jr is about MaM’s age when I posted this. Check out Punishment Stool, circa 2010.  Thanks for reading!

The great thing about having a doctor apt during naptime is that a) I got to leave work a little early and b) we were home at 2pm for the day. Ahhh

The bad part about it? Baby Girl more than likely will not sleep until tonight. I dozed a bit in her room when we got home, she went about tearing open her drawers and pulling out clothes. And tried to put her socks on my feet. And shrugged her shoulders when they didn’t fit!!!

I digress. The doc says Yup, there’s fluid and Yup, tubes are the way to go. The nurse who schedules the procedure was out today, so she’ll call next week to set it up.

The other avenue I’m pursuing is the chiropractic one–M’s coming with me on Monday. I’ve heard of “adjusting” helping the sinuses and ears, so the doc working on me will look at M as well. He said it would be obvious (to him) if he could do anything to help or if she would benefit from some tubes. So we’ll see. I’d like to explore all avenues before subjecting her to surgery, but as all three docs (family, chiropractic, ENT) have pointed out–the beginning of winter is NOT the time to have fluid in your middle ear. So there you have it.

I’m off to catch my sleep-deprived daughter who’s just closed the door to her room…with a shoe in one hand and a jumbo black Sharpie in the other!!!!!

Ah….the words every parent wants to see on her child’s first “report card”. Ok, it wasn’t a report card–it was a comment on her developmental checklist from daycare. Much to most people’s surprise, I had M’s first parent/teacher conference today. And it was great. Not only because Ms. A said all nice things about M (minus her budding graffiti artist and acrobatic tendencies) but because we had a chance to chat uninterrupted about things we’ve both been observing. So we are on the same page where she is developmentally, and I got to hear lots of cute little bits about what M does during the day. And in talking with her, I can tell that she loves her job and my child, despite (or maybe due in part) the fact that M’s been timing her BM’s to happen about 5 minutes after Ms. A arrives each day. Seriously. Each day now for the past two weeks. And she still laughs about it every day.

So where is she developmentally?? Well, at 15 months she can kick a ball, loves books, climbs, eats with a spoon, follows simple directions, and the list goes on and on. Did I mention this is a form for 18-24 month olds? What I like about the form she filled out is that if there were many boxes checked “unobserved”, you could take that form to your doc or call your health dept for a First Steps intervention. For us, we need to just be aware that she’s learning to sit nicely at the table (no straps or restraints!), and is still learning to balance on odd surfaces like playground mulch. She sometimes tires out when using her spoon, is learning NOT to color on things like the trash can, and NOT to climb on the lunch tables.

What will be cool will be seeing where she goes from here!