Week 79: 18-month-old checkup, fussiness

Looking at a French book and matching the toy vegetables to the pictures

Week 79:

March 30: She had her 18-month-old checkup this past week which also included one injection — the last one she’ll have as a toddler. The next one won’t be until she is four years old!
When we entered the clinic and the nurse got ready to weigh her and get her height, bb was already in defense mode and didn’t want to step on to the scale to get weighed. We took off her coat and boots and she started to retreat. Since it didn’t work out for her to step on to the scale herself to be weighed, one of us had to hold her and weigh her that way (subtracting the difference afterwards). I had shoes that were easier to take off so the nurse asked me to hold her instead of DH. During the transfer, bb wanted to stay in her dad’s arms so she struggled and cried furiously. 😬
It was a struggle to get her height too since we had to lie her flat down on the bed and mark off the paper for the nurse to get her height. Bb was so unwilling.
She was curled up against DH and crying with her eyes shut (something she’s been doing recently when she’s upset and doesn’t get her way — it’s almost like she thinks that if she can’t see us, we aren’t there and so she feels safer). She was still crying when the pediatrician came in and head leaned against DH. You couldn’t see her face at all lol…
The pediatrician asked us some questions to benchmark her 18-month-old development: Is she flipping through pages of books? Can she name common day household objects? Can she scribble with a crayon? Does she run? Can she use a spoon to eat? Can she identify who’s who and call us by name? (And a few other questions) All of the questions, we answered affirmatively. The only one that was a bit on the fence was scribbling with a crayon because we haven’t given her crayons to use yet but she’s used a pencil and scribbled with that lol.
He told us that we can start giving her less homo milk per day (she’s still on a 50 percentile in weight and height which is great development) and that 18 to 24 months is when we can consider starting to potty train her. 18 months is the earlier we can start but he said that around two years old is when they’ll probably understand it more. He said that once she can point out that she’s wet or soiled herself, that’s when she is aware of her bodily functions and we can start potty training her.
Bb was great with shots on all her previous visits but this time was probably the worst one. She already was not in a happy mood and so when we had to prepare her bicep area for the shot, she just cried and cried. Poor bb.
I wrongly made the assumption that since she won’t be getting shots until she’s four years old that that’s when we visit next lol. Her next visit is when she’ll be two years old in the fall and then continue to visit every year just like regular checkups for adults.
I’ve been watching the Open-Ended Play Coaching week online workshops and picking up bits of info on how to encourage bb to play independently and creatively/open-endedly.
Bb has been so fussy and whiny this week — extra fussy for some reason. And every time she doesn’t get her way, she’ll crunch up her face and close her eyes and cry and then 80% of the time cry big drops of tears that pinch out from her eyes and roll down from her face. Her cries are also the very whiny type which is different from a regular cry. We can’t give in all the time because then we’ll be spoiling her but she is so damn persistent! When she wants to play, she’ll come and drag us to the play mat. She has an unbelievable grip and it’s so strong she can almost pull my finger out of my joints if I keep resisting. But this little girl needs to learn boundaries and we need to be firm about them. It works when I try to distract her with something else or talk to her calmly about something, but it’s still a work in progress.
Because of the online workshops this week, I’ve further learned that some of the toys that she plays with aren’t open-ended and thus not the greatest to have around. First, I was all about the wooden/Montessori toys (limiting electronic toys) but now it’s about whether the toy can be played across several ages, is it versatile for unlimited ways of playing, and buildable/constructible, etc. It’s fascinating and because of this, we decided to buy a set of magnetic tiles for her to play with. I’m so excited for her to build and explore more with her toys and see how we can apply what we’ve learned to help her play better.
This week, bb can take out the shape sorter by herself and sit and sort a few shapes just by herself! Then she moves on to the next activity and plays with something else. She still loves us reading to her. That is always a constant favourite.
She is not a big high chair sitter these days and doesn’t really like to stay in it long to eat meals. She’s bossy and commands us to “gor lei” (come here) when we’re already sitting right beside her.
When reading the books about the vegetables, she was able to right on the spot find the toy version of it. For example, we were reading about tomatoes in the French book and she found the plush tomatoes right away. So cool that we actually have all those toy versions of the vegetables as shown in the page in her book.
When starting her bath routine, she knows to take the bath tub and the necessary items like the towel and soap.
She continues to repeat everything we say with improving accuracy.
Whenever she has peed, she always tells us but says “been been”. So she knows. But now the key is for her to know the moment BEFORE she pees in order to train her to sit on the potty to “go”.
Oh, and she had a bit of a low grade fever for an hour or so after her recent injection. She was very fussy and clingy but still playful.
When feeding her food, we use a pair of scissors to cut it down into bite-sized pieces. This week, she would point out when some pieces were too large and ask me to cut it down into smaller ones. (I was actually trying to get her to start eating bigger pieces for practice lol).
Her hair is getting longer. In the back part of her head, she’s had these two wisps that stick out longer than others (near her ears). These must have been the hairs that she first grew when she was an infant.
She lets us cut her fingernails with the nail clippers. Sometimes, she’s more willing to let us do it than others.
My favourite part of the day is putting bb down to naptime because it’s so, so easy and she doesn’t resist. My second favourite part of the day is when DH and I get to snuggle on the couch and watch a movie after she’s been bed for the night (we’ve been catching up on Oscar-nominated movies this week).
I still feel so drained when looking after bb sometimes. It’s like she’s there next to me and literally sucking out my energy bit by bit. Thank goodness I have transcripts to do recently so I can escape in my office for a bit.
She can play with the Duplo blocks and make a tower! She can put it together or pull apart easily.
This week, I encouraged her to scribble with the pencil on paper. She handed the pencil to me a few times to draw FOR her, but I didn’t want to intimidate her by actually drawing anything because I wanted her to just be encouraged to scribble. She did so and I made sure to excitedly encourage and keep her drawing.
A lesson I learned is that if I do anything too complicated that she cannot do, she will just hand it to me and watch me. But I want HER to be the one actively learning and playing. In this case, she isn’t learning and is just relying on me to “play” for her. That shouldn’t be the case.
I learned about the “zone of proximal development” where we have to help the child bridge between what she knows and what we want her to do. We have to model and guide her to success step by step.
She hasn’t been a big fan of using her 360 cup to drink water lately. Most of her poops are small and round balls. It helps when she likes eating fruits like blueberries that help her with staying hydrated.
We put watered down 1% milk in her 360 cup to drink and then the 3.25% milk in her bottle to drink.
She always has to have a bite of anything that we’re eating. If I’m eating an apple, she has to have some. If DH is eating a granola bar, she has to have some.
This week, she’s started to voice her opinion on what she wants to wear — DH is almost always the one to get her ready in the morning and there were a few power struggles this week where bb wanted to pick out what she was wearing for the day. DH usually has two outfits for her to choose from but she wanted to choose beyond the two that were available.
Bb repeats things that she hears randomly. There were a few times where she repeated the catchy jingle of a TV commercial song. “Yenn fonnn” lol. She is getting so good at repeating words that we say — three syllables or four syllables.
Her naps are almost always 2 hours long on the dot. It’s fascinating she wakes up by herself when it’s been 2 hours. She still doesn’t get up on her own and waits for us to get her.
She will go “ma ma” or “ba ba” when she wakes up and waits for us to get her. If we don’t get her, she’ll then start crying. But there also have been a few times where she’s just lie there and play by herself and wait until someone goes to get her lol.
Because she always moves around in her sleep and she ends up sleeping in weird spots in her bedroom floor, DH put another soft play mat in her room to make sure she doesn’t end up sleeping on the bare floor itself. I was able to get a $5 IKEA play mat off from marketplace last week. Yay! 😀
She can scoop yogurt into her mouth much better now. She still gets some yogurt on her hands, but for the most part she likes to and insists on feeding herself with the spoon.
We always try to give her more food at dinnertime to ensure she’s full and then can go a full night of sleep. But we have also noticed that once she’s full, she’s full and if we force her, then at nighttime there’s a risk of her throwing up food because she’s eaten too close to her bedtime…
Whenever we can’t find something, she always says that the item is playing “bok lay lay” (hide and seek) or “lay my” (hiding).
When there’s hair or garbage on the floor, she can pick it up and hand it to us to throw away (or sometimes I’ll direct her to throw it away herself).
After changing her diaper, she sometimes likes to throw away the diaper into the trash can herself. (When changing her diaper a few weeks ago, she used to like to hold it and then place it near her crotch and say “lam” as if she is helping to put the diaper on herself).
When DH is putting lotion on his hands, bb likes to point at him and say “cha go go” (putting on cream). There were a few times when she dragged me over to put lotion on my hands too lol. Like, are my hands dry? 😂