Mommy's girl

Since Little L was born, it has been apparent that she is a mommy's girl.  I'm not-so-secretly glad about this since Little T has been a daddy's boy since day one.  Unfortunately, (and also unlike Little T), my daughter's separation anxiety has hit an all-time high.  If I leave her with a babysitter, she cries; if I drop her off at my gym daycare she screams; and if I walk into another room without her, she whimpers. Needless to say, my frustration level has almost reached its limit.  According to Baby Center, my usual go-to parenting resource, anxiety can peak between 10-18 months.  So, we're right on track.  I'm hoping Little L's separation anxiety dies down before my gym sneakers get too dusty.

One

In two days, Little L will celebrate her first birthday.  I have mixed emotions about this.  On one hand, I am happy to see my little girl develop into an adorable toddler.  But on the other hand, I am sad and depressed.  I cannot fathom how quickly this past year has passed.  I have tried to savor each and every moment with my baby in case we don't have any more children (which is most likely the case).

After doing some online research, I found that I am far from being alone in feeling depressed about my baby's first birthday.  I'm hoping to find some comforting ways to deal with my emotions.  In the meantime, it's just good to know I'm not the only coping with these feelings.

Scrapbook

After I had Little T nearly four years ago, other parents I know kept telling me to savor every minute of babyhood because it flies by in an instant. And it did. Now that Little L is eight months old, it seems like the past several months since her birth are one big blur. By his first birthday, I finally had finished Little T's scrapbook. Needless to say, I have yet to start Little L's book.

Looking back, it was fairly easy to manage Little T's schedule when he was a baby. However, now that I have two children, it is much more difficult to keep everyone's schedule straight and manage my time efficiently. There is never a dull moment which is probably why the days, weeks and months are gone in an flash. Scary.

My goal is to start Little L's scrapbook before she turns one.

It's been a while...

Well, after nearly 10 months of taking a blogging break, I am now learning "how-to" be a mommy to a baby all over again.  However, I have found that all the ins and outs of mommyhood are returning quickly to me with my 9 1/2 week old baby girl.  "Little L" has been an absolute joy from birth.  My favorite book, Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect and Communicate with Your Baby would categorize her as a "textbook baby," meaning she reaches milestones pretty much on schedule and is generally an easy infant.  In fact, Little L has been sleeping through the night since she was 5 1/2 weeks old (no complaints here!).  Although the blowouts are still a pain in the rear (pun intended), I'm willing to overlook these dirty disasters since my beautiful daughter is perfect to me in every other way.

Yesh

For several months, when Little T wanted to answer a question with a "yes," the usual response was "yeah." Recently, at nearly 2 1/2 years old, my son now answers with "yesh." That darn "s" must be really difficult to spit out!  One mispronunciation that has caused some trouble for T is the word "ship."  It usually comes out sounding like "sh*t."  (I was reprimanded for this by a worker at my son's daycare.)

According to Baby Center, two-year-olds have trouble pronouncing many letters and sounds.  For now, I'm hoping my little man keeps his "ship" comments to himself.

The impossible twos

The past two weeks have been a big blur of temper tantrums, throwing objects, screaming in restaurants, not sharing and "nooooos."  Whoever came up with the term "the terrible twos" was being too kind; to say that Little T has been terrible the past two weeks would be putting it lightly.  According to several reputable baby and toddler Web sites, I'm doing all the right things to help deter my son from using poor behavior (i.e. maintaining regular routines, setting limits, offering choices, etc.).  Nevertheless, something is not clicking with my two-year-old.

I know that children go through stages and some are faster than others.  Here's hoping a new stage starts tomorrow....

Let it snow...or not?

I've never known any child not to jump at the chance to play in the snow. After getting pummeled by a record 18 inches of the white stuff (and still counting), I thought Little T would love to put on his snow boots and play in all it's glory. I was wrong. I had to carry my two-year-old outside kicking and screaming. When I finally got him to our courtyard, he stood in one spot sucking his fingers and crying.

Little T eventually warmed up to the cold snow once he witnessed other children throwing snowballs at each other. I just hope he keeps his gloves on next time--his hands are still defrosting.