Crawling all over the main floor

Week 172 motherhood of 3 year old and 1 year old: 

Dec. 28 to Jan. 3, 2024:

• January 3, 2024:  This week, the 1 year old started walking with the wooden walker even more.  She enjoys pushing it around back and forth on the main floor, but she knows we have to be the one to turn it around for her as she’s not capable of doing that yet.
• It’s so cute when she is crawling on the floor.  Her little tush wiggles back and forth.  In fact, the way she crawls is so cute.
• She definitely knows what she wants and is vocal about it.  There was a boxed toy sitting on top of the sofa ledge and she saw it.  She pointed to it with her index finger and grunted, “Uhh”.  I tried to ignore her at first because I didn’t want to give the box to her to play, but she kept grunting and pointing.  She was soo adamant about it.  Eventually, I did bring it down for her.  Upon realizing that the box wasn’t openable, she left it alone.
• I use this trick for when she is interested in my phone as well.  Sure, I let her play with it and handle it but I don’t unlock the screen for her.  Once she discovers that she can’t do much on the locked screen, she will then leave it alone.  Same thing for when the firstborn was at this age; I did the same thing.
• The baby has been standing so often this week.  She barely stays still anymore.  She is discovering everything.  She is opening the cabinets and crawling all over the kitchen and living room.
• DH brought out this old school mini curling game that he had and the baby was holding on to the mini curling brush like she knew how to play.  It was so cute.
• The baby was playing with the tegu blocks and trying to stuff a block inside of the tegu fabric bag that the blocks came with.  She was trying to figure it out for a long time.  The magnetic blocks also fascinated her as well.
• We attended a baby shower for one of my dearest friends.  We were the only family who had two kids there; the crowd was quite young and didn’t have many kids yet.  In fact, when we were sitting down and eating, the baby was trying to get the attention of one of the adults in front of us but the adult was on his phone or talking to the girl beside him.  No one paid the baby any attention at this social gathering, which is rare.  The toddler was very content sitting and eating a tangerine that she peeled herself.  She also ate a double chocolate cookie.  The baby ate a lot of the raspberries.  I love attending parties ^_^  especially now that the pandemic is mostly over, it’s such a joy to gather with others again and eat and enjoy good food :D.
• We had a front-row seat to the baby shower games that the attendees were playing.  The toddler watched the adults try baby food and asked about it.  She also watched them put on diapers on the stuffed animals and verbalized what she saw.
• We were there for about 2 hours and the kids did fairly well, all things considered.  Nearing the end, the baby was tired though (she missed her morning nap because we went to FMP before the party).  Once in the car seat, she passed out.
• For the transition of the old year into the year, we didn’t count down at midnight at all.  There is no priority to doing it anymore now that we have two young kids.  When I put the baby down to sleep around 9 p.m.ish, I also slept for a while.  Miraculously, I woke up around 11:58 p.m. and climbed in with DH in the bed and I watched the time on my Fitbit turn from 11:59 to 12:00 a.m.  Happy New Year!  We actually did a mini countdown with the baby before we put her down to sleep.  We did a quick count from 10 to 1 haha.  The toddler doesn’t know what new years mean either.
• When we had a new years lunch the next day with family, the baby slept in the car seat for once for the majority of the meal.  This is the only way that DH and I can eat without having to tend to two kids.  We are trying to work on the toddler sitting by herself and not in someone’s lap.  It is so difficult to eat otherwise.  And especially when I’m hangry, having a toddler in my lap is really not ideal.
• The toddler has been eating really well during meals and especially at dinnertime.  She intakes a lot more than she used to.  Still, when it comes to bedtime after bath time, she will try to sleep with DH or grandma and then announce that she’s hungry and want to eat.  This has happened almost all nights where she needs to eat something before going to sleep again.  DH said she must be going through a growth spurt or something.  I, for one, am really happy to see her eat more.
• During dinners this week, the baby likes to get out of the high chair after she’s full (or just fussy) and crawl around the kitchen and explore the territory.  I will feed her bits and pieces of food too while she’s at it.
• She has been climbing up the stairs this week as well!  She is super fast at it.  When she is climbing up the stairs, the toddler also needs to go up too.  She was constantly in the way of her sister so we had to tell her to move aside.  Grandma tried to teach the baby how to climb back down, but the toddler kept trying to get in her way…
• So cute that the baby was at the fridge and saw our friend’s holiday cards and pointed at their son and waved.  Too cute.
• It was the baby’s 1 year old checkup this week as well.  It was supposed to be on the 19th of December but because I had the belly binding treatment then and DH didn’t want to attend the appointment with the baby himself (and I wanted to be there for the appointment anyway), we moved it to the 2nd of January.  It was a quick appointment as usual.  The pediatrician asked us if baby was speaking now and what does she say (“ma ma, ba ba”), if she has started to walk (yes, standing and starting to walk with a walker), how many teeth she has now (2 on the top and 4 on the bottom[!] and to brush her teeth with mild toothpaste, whether she responds to her name (yes).  He reminded us of babyproofing the house like for the stairs and electrical outlets and sharp corners, to put sunscreen on her despite gloomy days because there’s always ultraviolent radiation.  He asked how she is fed nowadays and I said I breastfeed her and she is getting cow’s milk and yogurt too.  He said I can breastfeed for as long as I want — 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 years old even — and that’s normal and fine.  She can have full fat milk and yogurt up to 2 years old (3.25 or 3.8%) but since she’s being breastfed, it doesn’t matter that much anyway.
• The baby got 3 shots in her arms.  Two on the left side and one on the right side — the most painful one at the end.  For the first time, the nurse asked us to go to the room where the vaccines for the adults usually are administered.  I held down the baby and the nurse did the shots.  DH watched and filmed a video.  The baby cried for the shots after each one was administered but surprisingly didn’t move around or squirm or get overly upset.  Once we were done and we walked out of the room, she stopped crying immediately.  Such a good sport!  She didn’t have any side affects like a mild fever or anything either afterwards.
• We returned to attending EarlyON sessions this week for the first time since we returned from our trip.  We attended the Family Stay and Play at the Richmond Hill location.  It began at 9:30 a.m. and ended at 12 p.m.  The toddler woke up early that morning so we were able to make it there by 9:30ish.  There weren’t a lot of people at first but then once the din started to get loud, there definitely were a lot of kids and adults in the room.  It is still the week of holidays (school’s out) so lots more kids were in attendance than usual.  I saw some kids older than 4 as well.
• Now that the baby is learning to walk, she was able to move around the classroom and play and touch more toys than before.  She used the walker to walk around as well.  Such a pleasure to play with her now.  It’s so simple too because she plays with anything and everything.  So easy to supervise her.
• So cute when she found a ceramic cup and then took it along with her as she crawled on the floor lol.
• The toddler used a drawing utensil called a “Wonder Stix” for the first time.  It’s like a crayon nestled inside of a plastic case.  I guess it’s more clean and easier for them to hold?  She drew on a piece of paper and made some formations.  Then we used coloured glue sticks for the first time where she stuck on some small pieces of paper.
• There was a long foam-like thing with mirrors where you can manipulate into a fort or step on it.  Both kids liked playing inside of it.  At EarlyON, the toddler can play together with her sister nicely.  One of the facilitators commented that that’s how it usually is.  They aren’t nice to each other at home but in public, they are lovey dovey.
• When at the supermarket, the baby doesn’t like sitting in the car seat and shopping cart.  She cries and wants to be let out and held.
• The baby is super clear in saying “ma ma” now.  Especially during the night when I have tiptoed out of the room and she needs me, she says “ma ma” in the most heart wrenching way that you can’t help but go to her immediately.
• She frequently mixes up calling DH “ma ma” and “ba ba”.  I told her that grandma is “mom’s mom” so she can call her “ma ma ma ma” lol.  She can’t pronounce “por por” just yet.
• The baby waves to the turtles in their tank and says something close to “gwai” (turtle).  So cute.