Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2013, I may not have got much sleep, but...

It's been a long year. Last January Olivia was up once an hour all night long for two, ten-day stretches. I gave up wheat and eggs, and then a few months later dairy. I relearned what to eat when, and adjusted all my cooking. I figured out how to make a simple pasta dinner for four, when the toddler eats regular pasta only with butter and cheese, the baby eats gluten-free pasta with oil, and my husband and I enjoy interesting sauces, but he eats regular pasta and I have to eat the gluten-free pasta. Olivia still isn't a great sleeper, she has a very sensitive stomach (raisins are on our list of forbidden foods) and painkillers do nothing when she is teething, but every once in awhile she sleeps for six hours straight and so we have hope.

On the upside, my girls have grown in amazing ways. Alessia's favorite game at the moment is to sing songs and recite books taking the first consonants off all the words. "Ark the erald angels ing. Ory to the ew orn ing." Sometimes she substitutes another consonant. "Posty the pow pan." Olivia speaks in full sentences and has stared singing herself. My mom sent her a card that plays the tune to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." She recognized the tune and chimed in at the end with "Happy New Year." We've started painting together and drawing on big sheets of paper taped to the floor. We've become semi-regular museum-goers again. The girls have become good at playing together, which means I make dinner with both hands, and occasionally write a blog post like this one.

For myself, I started reading books again. That may sound crazy, but up until about July of this year, I didn't have the brain power to do much more than read the news and browse cookbooks from the library. I've also started finding bits of time here and there to make things again. I made Alessia's Halloween costume and a few Christmas presents for my family.

Mostly what I have to say about 2013 is, I did it. I survived. I didn't think I was going to at moments, but I did, thanks to the loving support of my amazing husband who took on more than his share of laundry and vacuuming and scrubbing the tub, pretended not to notice when I couldn't make dinner without dropping broccolli on the floor, and waited patiently when I struggled to put words together to make a coherent sentence at the end of the day. So, here's to 2013, one of the longest years of my life, and here's to 2014, I look forward to the adventures it will bring.

 

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Olivia's First Time Out

Yesterday Olivia was throwing crayons. I told her to stop several times, and each time she responded by throwing a large handful of crayons and laughing. So I decided it was time. I picked her up and said, "Olivia, you get your first time out today." I put her in a chair at the dining room table and told her she was in time out and needed to stay there for one minute. When I went back to get her, she smiled at me and said "I time out" in her cheery just-glad-to-be-part-of-the-team voice. I tried to continue with my stern face and a level "we do not throw crayons," but instead I started grinning ear to ear, and she added "get down safe."

I have an old-coworker whose 2-year-old son refuses to be punished. Whenever they tell him he is getting a time out, he cheerfully obliges, by getting into the time out chair, singing himself little songs and smiling at them the whole time. I think Olivia might be this type as well. She's very much the little birichina, always with a twinkle in her eye. She's just so damn cute though.