18 Month Checkup

The Overlord had her 18 month check up today, and passed it with flying colors, of course. The doctor looked her over, checked out her breathing, heartbeat, ears, eyes, mouth and belly. He said everything looks great and she's right on target on height, weight and head circumference. Her motor skills are developing normally as well.

Then he asked about her vocabulary. His words were "Is she saying at least 10-30 words?" I had counted her words from my posts here on the blog, so I was able to answer "She's saying 163 words." The look on his face was priceless. He said that was twice what they expect of an 18 month old - it's more in line with a two year old's vocabulary.

Who, me? A proud momma of a genius? You bet I am!

Momma

Over the past few weeks, she's used a few phrases that have just made my heart melt.

"Sorry momma" after she got out of time out.

"Thank you momma" after I handed her one of her baby dolls.

"Love you momma" - what more do I need to say?

Big Pool!

Yesterday we went with a friend of mine and her two children to their community pool. I had been telling the Tiny Overlord since Sunday that we were going to go to a Big Pool. She seemed excited, growing more so as the day arrived. "Big pool! Big pool!"

The day dawned cloudy with a strong chance of thunderstorms. I tried to prepare her for a change of plans, explaining that we would go to the big pool unless there was thunder. We had a fun morning outside, playing with bubbles and sidewalk chalk and getting covered in sand in her sandbox. A bath followed, and then snacks and play time with blocks, and of course hide and seek with her dolls.

After her nap we headed out, with Her Excited Excellence chanting "Big pool! Big pool!" for much of the car ride. We arrived and I got her changed into her swimsuit, which has flotation built in. Not enough to be a life saving device, but it definitely helped her buoyancy. (Note; this is not the bathing suit in the picture. I didn't get a chance to get any pictures of her at the Big Pool, so I just used a picture from her 18 month birthday party.)

At first she clung to me like a little monkey on its momma, but she soon relaxed and eventually even let go of me, although I didn't let go of her. We bounced up and down a bit and tried floating on her back. That will take some more practice. Then we went "flying" as she described it - I held her with one hand under her chest and one under her legs so that she was sort of in a swimming position. I walked her all around the shallow end of the pool that way, and every time I stopped she said "More flying!".

She also played with my friend's children, who were much older (5 and 9) but who were very kind and patient with my little one. They gave the Tiny Overlord pool toys (floaty balls, a toy boat, etc.). She would throw them and they would retrieve them, swimming back to hand them to the Overlord. Thus the Overlord got throwing practice and fun playing with the big kids, and they got some good swimming practice.

She also got a good look at some planes flying overhead. We can hear them at our house quite frequently, but with all of the trees it's very difficult for her to see them. The view at the pool was fairly unobstructed, so she was delighted that for once the planes weren't hiding in the trees.

We finally had to leave when it was dinner time. I promised her that we would go back next week. She was almost too excited to go to sleep, but she was definitely tired from her big day. As I write this, it's 8:43 am and she's still asleep. Normally she's awake by 7:30. I think we'll try for a somewhat restful day today, with nothing more exhausting than a trip to the grocery store. But next week, we'll head back to the Big Pool.

The little one and I are playing "cooking". She's using a spoon to mix imaginary things in a bowl and runs over frequently to have me taste it. I don't know what she's cooking, but so far she's told me "good" and "sauce" and "cheese", so I'm guessing it's Italian. Good thing tonight's pasta night!

Words for June

*Forward
*Backward
*Camera (Daddy gave her his old digital camera. She's quite good with it; we'll have to post some of her pictures.)
*Blue (Right now, everything is blue. It doesn't matter what color it is, she says it's blue. If you ask her to pick out a blue object from a pile, she can do it, but if she picks up something on her own, it's all blue.)
*Seatbelt (This is any strap that has a connector. She loves to push them together, but she can't get them apart, so she says "Seat belt out. Momma - seat belt out!" I'll put it apart and she'll put it back together. This can entertain her for 10-20 minutes at a time. )
*Shoulder
*Neck
*Chest
*Grab
*Smack
*Hit
*In
*Out (This is usually things like "In pool!" while she's stepping into her pool, and followed by "Out pool!" as she steps out of her pool. Repeat ad infinitum.)
*Play
*Pool
*Bubbles
*Cake
*Tunnel (She loves for us to build little forts for her, which she calls Tunnels. She also recognizes the tunnels on Thomas the Tank Engine)
*Enough (This started with Daddy asking her "Is that enough?" when he was giving her some food on her plate. She now uses it for other situations - for example, the other day she wanted to play one of her favorite game, Tickle Baby. After a few minutes she said " 'Nuff Momma." So I stopped tickling her and we moved on to another game.)
*George (this means she wants us to read a Curious George book, her current favorite)
*Wash
*Rash
*Thunder (she's quite annoyed that she hasn't been able to see thunder yet. Our explanations that thunder is only a sound have in no way deterred her from trying.)
*Little Bit (She knows this means a small amount. She loves to feed her fish and right before she sticks her hand in the container of fish food, she reminds me "Little bit." Of course, she usually grabs too much and has to try again.)
Too much (see the note above about little bit. Also, she says this when she's eating and takes a bite that's too big.)
*Chew
*Bite (she's said this for a while, but the meaning has changed. It used to mean "Give me a bite of what you're eating." Now it has the regular definition.)
*Color
*Get Up
*Hold It (This means she wants to hold it, whatever it is.)
*Big Yawn
*Diaper
*Here (she just handed me her cup and said "Here mama" then walked away to color.)
*Come (She'll grab a hand or a few fingers and say "Come momma" as she leads me to where she wants me to go.)
*Sorry
*Sauce
*Salt
*Pepper
*Good
*Hammer
*Screwdriver (she's been playing with the little "workshop" Grandma and Grandpa H got for her)
*Jump
*Crawling
*Catch (This can be both "Let's play catch with the ball" and "I'm hiding so come
catch me!")
*Almost (She says this when we are playing catch and she misses the ball. She'll say "Almost!" then run after the ball.)
*Hiccup
*Burp
*Mole (I have a mole on my shoulder and she is very interested in it. She thought it was a boo boo or a bug bite at first, so I had to teach her the word mole.)
*Hurt
*Itch
*Bug Bite
*Band Aid
*Berry
*Peach
*Bagel
*Burger (About once every one to two weeks we grill burgers. I buy low fat, grass fed, humanely raised, locally sourced beef. Gordon Ramsey would be so proud.)
*Fork
*Sleep
*Sleeping
*Blanket (she says "blank")
*Love You (my favorite, obviously)
*Twinkle (if she says "Twinkle twinkle" she wants me to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She joins in on the words "Up above" but I don't think she knows what they mean yet.)
*Sing (When we're in the car, she loves for me to sing to her. I end up singing for most of the drive. I need to learn/remember some more songs.)

We sing Old McDonald Had a Farm - she'll pick out the animal and then I'll start. I'll sing "Old McDonald had a farm" and then say "Your turn." She'll say EIEIO. Then I sing "And on this farm he had a ---" and say "Your turn." She'll say EIEIO. I'll ask her what sound the animal makes and she'll tell me and I'll sing the part that says "With a -- here and a -- there" etc. She'll sing the final EIEIO. Then I'll ask her for another animal and we'll do that one.

The pediatrician's office hands out cheap little plastic toys to the children when they are finished. MUCH amused that yesterday's toy was a pink platypus.

18 Months of Summer

Today we had Summer's Half Birthday party. Our guests showed up and the young ones all played while we older folks chatted for a bit. Then we broke out the pizza. The Tiny Overlord had her piece whole for the first time - we usually cut it into strips. She enjoyed having a whole piece like a big girl, although she ate it by peeling the cheese off of the top and then scooping the sauce up with her fingers.



Afterwards we all went outside and the youngsters played in the kiddie pool and in a sprinkler toy. We also had bubbles. Apparently the Tiny Overlord has encountered bubbles before - she squealed with delight and started chasing them. When everyone was tired and quite thoroughly soaked, we headed back inside for cake and presents.



The cake featured Thomas the Tank Engine. The Tiny Overlord quite approved of the picture, but then demanded her cake. She was gracious enough to allow us to share it with her. The gifts were presented to her and she accepted the tribute of books, a beach ball and sidewalk chalk delightedly.





The Tiny Overlord waved and said bye bye as her guests had to leave. We played with bubbles some more and watched a few episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine before it was time for dinner and bed. She told us about her day excitedly - "play pool" and "bubbles" were words that featured predominately. She's sleeping now, and we hope she's having fun dreams about her day.

Today's Adventure

Okay, no worrying - she's recovered completely.

Are these openings helping at all? The Overlord had a Staph infection. Yes, the nasty bacterial infection. Thursday it looked like a really nasty bug bite. We figured something had bitten her when she was outside. It was a bit odd though that she didn't say it itched, she said "Hurts." By Friday morning it had 3 or 4 little yellow pimples where the bite had been. Fire ant bites look very similar so again I thought to myself "bug bite."

That morning we went to a local place, Jump for Joey. It's basically a warehouse with a bunch of bouncy-house type inflatable slides, etc. They have two areas set aside just for toddlers. She loved it, of course, and ran around like a little crazy person. When we were heading out and it was time to put her shoes back on, I saw that her sock had yellow crusty stuff and it looked like the little bug bite "pimples" had popped. I put some neosporin on it when we got home and she took a nap.

That afternoon we went grocery shopping at Publix (a grocery store chain in FL/GA) and while I was there I asked the pharmacists if there was anything I could put on it. They asked to see the bite so I put Her Overlordship up on the counter, where she wowed them with her cuteness and intelligence, of course. (One of them said to me "She pays such attention to you when you talk to her! It's like she understands what you're saying." I told her that for the most part, she did.)

They looked worried when they saw the yellow crusty stuff and said that since staph was common in this area, I should probably get it checked out. I called the after hours nurse for our doctor's office as soon as we got home. (The person working for the answering service was one of my former students, who recognized the Overlord's name. Our country may be the fastest growing in our state, but it's still a small town! And yes, she was one of my really good students.)

The nurse talked to me and said that it would be fine to wait until the morning to bring her in, but that it might be a good idea. I made an appointment as soon as I could. The doctor confirmed that yes, it was a staph infection, but we had caught it very early. So early, in fact, that she only needed to be on the antibiotic for half the normal time.

After a week we went back for her normal 18 month checkup and I had the doctor check the site again. He said it was fine and fully healed - the slight darkening of skin was just bruising.

I went back and definitely gave my thanks to the pharmacists who caught it so early.

Fork

I bought some plastic forks the other day, so the Tiny Overlord has been practicing with them. Last night at dinner she ate about half of her ravioli by spearing them on the fork and then biting at them. The other half she ate with her fingers. She is, after all, the Tiny Overlord. Who are we to say that she can't eat with her fingers?

Bright Red Berries

Before you read any further, she's fine. That's never a good opening, is it?

Today, on the Summer Solstice, the Tiny Overlord and I were outside playing. Before I could stop her, she picked up a bright red berry and popped it in her mouth. Now, I happen to know that these are Mock Strawberries, and they're edible, or at least not harmful. But the speed at which she managed to get a wild berry into her mouth was terrifying. I literally couldn't stop her, even though I was within arm's reach.

I figured that I had to teach her a lesson right away. I yelled at her, which I almost never do (an exception would have been the diaper rash ointment incident, see June 14). I also immediately washed her mouth out with the hose. I must have made an impact, because she looked really scared and started to cry. A lot of times, if she's in trouble she'll cry, but only for a few seconds. This time she cried for several minutes while sitting in my lap, with me holding her. Once she was calmed down, we talked about it. I found more mock strawberries and asked her if she could eat them. She said yes so we repeated most of the process. The next time she said "No bite. No eat." I hugged her and told her that was right.

We discussed that she should only eat things that Daddy and I gave her or if we told her that it was okay to eat it. Then we came inside and I double and triple checked my information.

Later in the evening, as Daddy was making dinner and Summer was playing in the living room by the firewood left over from winter, she suddenly grabbed something and ate it. I grabbed her arm and told her "Let mommy see what you ate." She shook her head No, so I squeezed her cheeks and forced her mouth open. I hadn't seen anything on the floor that should be eaten and I was afraid that she had grabbed something off of the wood, otherwise I wouldn't have reacted so strongly. I was able to see and smell that it was a Cheerio that she must have dropped earlier.

By this time she was scared and crying again. Daddy and I both held her and explained that we weren't mad and that we still loved her, but some things could hurt her and we had to be sure that she wasn't eating anything that would make her sick.

After all of the excitement of the afternoon and evening, she was pretty tired, so we put her to bed right after dinner. We're both watching her on the monitor.

Things I Never Thought I'd Say

Why are you eating your pants?

I have to wash the yogurt off of the train first.

We need more light for your book to work.

I don't think deer moo.

There aren't any bears in the house, I promise.

Chickadees are not dangerous.

Come back with my toilet paper, you little theif!




If you are offended by the F word, don't watch this video. But I thought it was hysterically funny. The idea is that the first two lines of each page are being read out loud to the child, while the rest is what the parent is thinking. Definitely NOT safe for work!

Poison Control

Tonight the Tiny Overlord decided to give us a new life experience. We were getting her ready for bed, which includes putting a disposable diaper on and slathering her up with Desitin to prevent diaper rash. Before we could stop her, she dragged her left hand through the Desitin I had just spread on her diaper area, and lickety split, put that hand in her mouth.

We read the container and it said to call Poison Control, so we looked up the number and called them. We knew that she had only gotten a tiny amount, but we figured it was far better to be safe than sorry. The nurse on the phone talked to us for about 10 minutes and had us wipe her mouth out with a cloth to made certain that there wasn't a ball of the ointment up in the roof of her mouth. Desitin can cause GI tract upset, both upper and lower, but with the small amount the Tiny Overlord ingested, the nurse didn't expect that she would have any ill effects.

On the scale of emergencies, it was a very minor one, but I was happier never having called Poison Control. Here's hoping this is the only time.

Pimi and Papa!

(I'll put up pictures of Grandma and Grandpa soon; in the meantime here's another picture of Her Cuteness)

Two of the Grandminions visited this week. They arrived Wednesday night and we all went out to eat at the local Tex-Mex restaurant. The Overlord got tired, so we parted ways and headed home to put Her Crankiness to bed.

Minion #2 had to go to work the next day but the Grandminions came over and spent time with Her Cuteness and Minion #1. The Overlord decreed that their names would be Pimi and Papa, just like the other grandminions. She was shy at first but quickly warmed up to them. She introduced them to her new favorite game "Hiding". We also played with blocks and in her sandbox. After her nap, Pimi wanted to take her shopping, so on Thursday off we went to the mall, where the Overlord acquired a hoody, pants and a Hello Kitty shirt, much to her approval. Then Grandminion Papa wanted to get her a bear at Build a Bear. When we got there, we ended up deciding on a dog instead. The Overlord has named this "Papa Dog Dog" and has carried it almost everywhere since she got it, including on our morning walk the day after we got it. The grandminions went off for dinner on their own. We had a thunderstorm after they left and the Overlord learned the word "thunder". She also learned that you can't see thunder, much to her annoyance. The Grandminions reported a hailstorm in their location, along with a 30 degree temperature drop within a few minutes. We got neither hail nor lower temperatures, but we did spot a deer in our backyard, so we watched it until it ambled out of sight.

Friday morning Mommy Minion and the Overlord went for our morning walk with Dog Dog coming along. Pimi and Papa showed up and we had fun playing with blocks and other toys. A good game of Hiding was enjoyed by all. After naptime, we went to Target where I bought some essentials (mostly related to the Overlord) and Pimi and Papa bought her a pool. We went home and filled up the pool, which the Overlord promptly climbed in. Pimi and Papa went back to their hotel for a bit, and when Daddy Minion came home we all met up at Olive Garden for dinner. They have an excellent children's menu, and I was able to get her grilled chicken, broccoli and whole wheat linguini with tomato sauce. She approved.

Saturday morning the Grandminions came over early and I headed out for a Girl's Brunch with two friends that I hadn't seen since February. I'm told that there was sliding, swinging, sandbox playing, block building and much Hiding in my absence, as well as a LARGE lunch involving leftover Olive Garden fare. I came home at 1 and we put the Overlord down for her nap, during which the Grandminions and we Minions talked. We spent the afternoon talking and watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans. When the Overlord woke up we watched Thomas the Tank Engine, played with blocks and read some books. The Grandminions said their goodbyes and left at 5 to go to a local racetrack. The Overlord gave them kisses and personalized goodbyes. "Bye bye Pimi" and "Bye bye Papa" said in her adorable voice are really almost too much.

This morning we had to explain to her that Pimi and Papa had to go back home, and they live far away. I'm not certain she understands, but she accepted that they wouldn't be coming over today. She got her Papa Dog Dog and looked at one of her Recordable storybooks that was read by Pimi H. She had a great time, and we really enjoyed the visit. We'll have to make sure that we see each other again soon.

24 Hours at 17 months

7:00 Summer wakes up sometime between 6 and 8, usually around 7 or 7:30
7:00 - 7:30 play in her room, change diaper, get dressed
7:30-8:30 go downstairs, make and eat breakfast for Summer and mommy
8:30 - 9:30 change diaper, get shoes on, get mommy's hat & drinks for both of us and go for a walk around the neighborhood, with lots of stops to look at flowers and trees
9:30-10:30 morning snack, then play outside on swing, slide, sandbox and pool.
10:30-11:00 play time in the tub
11:00-12:00 make and eat lunch
12:30-2:30 nap time
2:30-3:00 afternoon snack
3:00-5:00 running errands - grocery store, Target, house cleaning, etc
5:00-5:30 watching Thomas the Tank Engine because mommy is tired from keeping up with toddler
5:30 Daddy comes home!
5:30-6:30 playing outside
6:30-7:00 Daddy making dinner, Summer and mommy playing inside
7:00-7:30 eating dinner, Mommy cleaning up dinner, Summer and Daddy playing inside
7:30-8:00 bedtime routine
8:00 Night night!

Summer went pee pee in her potty! To those who aren't parents, please disregard this status. :)

Potty!

Summer went pee in her potty today! I was changing her diaper and she said "Potty." I asked "Do you want to go sit on your potty?" and she said yes. So I took her into the bathroom, stripped off her pants and diaper as fast as I could and sat her down on her potty. She sat there for a little bit, like she usually does and then she peed! The surprised look on her face was priceless. So she got to use the paper and flush, which made her very proud of herself, although the flushing was scary.

I gave her a Dora sticker and lots of praise, and so did Daddy when he came home. She was very pleased with herself.

Surprised Mommy

We were laying down, reading a book. The Overlord got up, announced "Mommy Poop!" and pulled my pants back to do a poop check, like I do on her. She serenely announced "Clean" then sat back down for me to continue reading the book. Color me surprised!

Bubbles!

The Overlord loves playing with bubbles. We often go outside and play in the front yard. She runs around, climbs on her playhouse, slides down the slide and when that gets old, we play with bubbles.



Sometimes she blows bubbles. Sometimes I do.



She loves to chase after the bubbles.



Sometimes she tries to catch them.



Such fun from such a simple thing. Watching the world through her eyes is wonderful.

Garden watered and somewhat weeded. Mud puddles achieved, and child got absolutely filthy, ate some mud and had a great time. Still trying to convince her not to eat mud, but getting filthy by splashing in mud puddles is highly encouraged. Need to get a picture next time.