Rooney, 22 Months
Rooney, 22 Months
- Calls us mommy and daddy, instead of mama and dada
- Obsessed with screen time
- Appears to be right-handed
- Grabs our hands and whisks us away when she wants to show us something
- Can put four words together into a phrase
Firsts
It was a big month of "firsts!"
- Horse ride
- Pigtails
- Climbed out of her crib
- Threw up
- Had a bloody nose
- Cut her foot and wore a Band-Aid
- Hair cut
- Sled ride (and crash)
- Went down a big bounce house slide
Riding Grandma Diane's horse
Just a trim to even things up!
It was above freezing and we had fresh snow, so Eric took her for a ride. She didn't love it. :)
Growth
- Weight: 29 pounds, 3 ounces
- Clothing size: 2T-4T
- Shoe size: 7-8
- Diaper size: 4
Eating
Rooney's appetite seems to have decreased a little in the past month. She also was more picky with what she would eat. She'd much rather watch a show in the morning than eat breakfast!
Roo’s favorite foods right now:
- Blueberry muffins
- Scrambled eggs
- Sausage links
- Pasta
- Macaroni and cheese
- Fish
- Shrimp
- Bananas
- Clementines
- Applesauce
- Yogurt
- GoGo SqueeZ organic (she can pound three of them and still ask for more)
- Water
When I posted the above photo on Instagram, I got some questions about her using a spoon. She does pretty well with it! She doesn't like to get her hands dirty, so she learned fairly quickly.
Toys/Development
- She got some lacing beads for Christmas, and we all think they're pretty cool!
- She likes matching and puzzle games
- Loves to draw and color
- Takes care of her dolls and teddy bear, and prefers them to not have clothes on
- Loves to cook in her kitchen
- Favorite animal noise to make is the elephant
- Pretends to read books
- Likes anything creative
Words
Her vocabulary is exploding! She will sometimes say things I didn't even know she knew what they were (like "box," "Dora" and "Elmo")! I've heard her say up to four words in a row and it is just so cute! I really love being able to communicate with her.
Here are a few of my favorite things she says right now:
- 'Nex (Kleenex or wipe)
- Yes
- Please daddy
- More 'nana please mommy (banana)
- Uppy (iPad)
- Carry you
- Caillou
- Applesauce
- Sit down!
- Stand up
- Mommy comin'?
- Show please
- No mommy do it
- Muffin
- Match
- Kitchen
She also loves to sing! Her favorites are "ABCs," "Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Happy Birthday," "Wheels on the Bus" and "Twinkle Twinkle."
Sometimes she will say something and then glance up to see our reaction. You can tell she is checking to see if she will get away with being sassy. Such a handful, but makes us laugh!
Health
If you were to go back through all of Rooney's monthly posts, you would see that she has rarely been sick. She has had a handful of fevers, but nothing serious. Well, this month it seemed like one thing after the other!
- We woke up a few weeks ago and found that Rooney had thrown up at some point during the night. I had seen her (in the monitor) sit up in her crib and cry for a minute around 11:00 pm, but she quickly went back to sleep. Well, in the morning I walked in her room and I could tell she wasn't feeling herself by the way her voice sounded. She pointed at the vomit (it was all over her crib sheet) and said, "Poop! Poop!" But after looking her over, I could tell it wasn't poop. :( It was in her hair and on her pajamas and sleep sack. Luckily Eric was still home so he gave her a bath while I ran a load of laundry. She threw up one more time a couple hours later (in my hand! it's like a rite of passage!), but we all came out OK. Well, except one doll that we couldn't salvage. RIP baby doll.
- Literally the very next day, she stepped on a piece of glass at home (Eric stayed home with her and was cleaning out a closet) and cut her foot. :( Her first Band-Aid, and I wasn't there to see it. ;)
- The following week, she woke up with a bloody nose. It was on her sheets in the morning when Eric went to get her.
For the love! I was wondering what would happen next, but it came in threes I guess. I recognize it wasn't anything too serious, but still no fun and sad to see her not feeling 100%.
Other tidbits related to health...
- With everything that was going on, we decided to use Thieves on her feet to support her immune system (separate post coming soon about how we use essential oils)
- We bathe her twice a week
- She often has dry, red cheeks from the cold weather (coconut oil works wonders on it)
- We also added a spoonful of coconut oil to her bath for extra moisturizing
- We all still get adjusted at the chiropractor every week
- She asked me to take off her amber necklace, which I did (and I haven't been able to get her to let me put it back on her yet)
- Latest teeth count: 16. She looks so much older without all the gaps!
Sleep
- Bedtime: 6:30 pm
- Night sleep: 12.5-14.5 hours
- Wake time: 7:00-9:15 am (usually 7:30-7:45 am)
- Nap: 45 minutes - 3 hours (usually 1.5 hours)
Rooney is still a great sleeper, but her total sleep hours has gone down lately. In looking up normal sleep time for her age, she is still near the top of the charts with at least 13.5 hours a day. She takes one nap (after lunch), although she fought it a couple times this past month. She even climbed out of her crib! Her sleep sack was in the wash so I put her down without it and I think that was the problem. She hasn't tried to do it since!
At the beginning of the month, she seemed to have trouble falling asleep. Whenever her sleep habits change, I always ask myself, "What has changed?"
- More screen time / stimulation before bed
- We've seen all six seasons of Curious George on Netflix, so we switched to Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood ("Ugga Mugga!")
- Too loud downstairs, when Eric is working on our basement project?
- Bad nap that day?
- Good nap that day?
- Not feeling well?
- Getting more teeth?
Her sleep has seemed to settle back to normal now, so we won't make any changes to her bedtime yet. She sleeps great in her Pack 'n Play and in new places, which makes traveling a lot easier! She sleeps even better at my parents' house than she does at home! I can't tell if it's their crib mattress, or she's just extra tired from all the activity. But we were there twice this month for holiday gatherings, and it's just nice to be able to count on good sleep when we're away from home.
Parenting
I had a request to update you on how The Happiest Toddler on the Block has been working for us. It is awkward to do in public, but works pretty well for us. Eric hasn't done it much, but he said the other day that he needs to start because he has seen how it works for me. She responds pretty well to the "I know, I know, I know" method to empathize with her, and then after she has settled down, we give her the reason for saying no. For example, if she wants "appasauce," but we don't have any, she will start to whine, and I'll get down on her level and look her in the eye and touch her shoulder and say, "I know, I know, I know" in a very empathetic way, and then once she realizes that I am sad for her, too, she will usually stop whining and say "please?" and then I will say, "Oh, honey, I know you want some applesauce. I'm so sorry, but we don't have any. It's all gone." She seems to understand what I am saying. And then usually we repeat the entire thing a couple more times. :) Which can be exhausting, but could be much worse! A couple times it hasn't worked as well, and so then we go the distraction route and try to redirect her to something else.
I don't have much experience with other toddlers, but Rooney seems to be fairly even-tempered, so her tantrums aren't too crazy. I'm not sure how it would work with other temperaments, but I do recommend the Happiest Toddler DVD!
We have had a lot of "teaching moments," and honestly, sometimes they are just as hard on us as they are on her. It's hard to say no and to enforce consequences and to listen to her cry because she's sad about a choice she made. For example, if she throws her pacifier in the car (usually just because she's eating or taking a drink and is careless with her paci) and we can't reach it when she wants it back, we make her go without. She does NOT like this, and it's not fun for us, either, to sit in a car with a crying kid, but we know it's best for her to learn these lessons.
Christmas was so fun, watching her open gifts, show interest and play with her cousins. We were talking that we are kind of to the age where you lose a little bit of the excitement, but she has totally rekindled it in us.
Another thing that has been hard this month is that she favors me most of the time. I know this is common, but Eric is such a hands-on dad that I thought we would escape it. We try really hard to split the duties of taking care of her. We always put her to bed together at night and for naps. Eric does most of the baths. And we split the morning duties of getting her up, dressed and fed (we switch every other day). She does see me more since I take her to/from day care and am home with her on Wednesdays, but it's hard for both of us when she wants me over him when he wants to help. There were also a few times this month where she cried when I dropped her off at day care. That makes for a tough morning!
I'm starting to plan her 2nd (GOLDEN!) birthday! It's a couple months away, but I'm sure the time will go fast. I've already got a lot of ideas but have only purchased a few things.
Almost 2, we love you!