My Name Is Now Mom

We were on a walk one day and we passed some workers installing solar panels on a roof listening to a radio.  It was playing "Ain't No Sunshine" and it got stuck in my head.  Over the rest of the day I was probably singing portions of it.  TerraDactyl apparently caught the ear worm and she started singing it randomly too.  It was soooo cute.   I often end up singing the "Alphabet Song" when I change TerraDactyl's diaper because it distracts her and I need very little attention to sing it.  But lately, TerraDactyl hasn't been wanting me to sing that song.  I've also got the " Lady Picnic " in my repertoire.  But the other day she rejected that song too.  I'm terrible with song lyrics, and having to come up with a song under pressure is also really hard for me.  But I managed " Lean on Me ", pretty decently if I do say so myself.  I even remembered some of the verses, not just the chorus.   Well.  Yesterday, TerraD...

Lately, TerraDactyl has been staging weird little scenes.  It's pretty funny.  Often it's at a meal.  She'll arrange her trains so they can eat from one side of her plate while she eats from the other.  But sometimes it's just at a random time, like above.  It wasn't actually time to eat, but she still staged a meal for her dinosaur and elephant friends.   Other times, she just makes some bizarre scenes.  Like this one.  It's weird.  It makes me think of a rebellion leader standing on a soapbox, rallying the workers to strike or something.  My interpretation probably says more about me than TerraDactyl.  It could just as easily be a teacher, or lecturer, or even a preacher.   Sometimes TerraDactyl will spend half an hour just arranging and re-arranging things.  She LOVES stacking and unstacking these silicone muffin cups.  I bought them to serve her snack food, but if I leave them out on the drying rack, she...

Here's TerraDactyl in disguise as a Triceratops.  ;)  A while ago I was making pot roast while TerraDactyl was playing in the kitchen.  TerraDactyl was very interested in all the chopping I was doing.  She managed to steal some of all my veggies (carrots, potatoes, & radishes).  I kept pushing them farther back on the counter, but she ran and got her stool and managed to sneak a few of each of them.  She promptly ran out to her kitchen to "wash" and "cook" them.  And then she brought them back into the actual kitchen to serve them up (below). She also tried eating them.  But she prefers her carrots and potatoes cooked.  And I don't think she liked the radish at all.  She made a really great face after trying to bite it.   At the end of the day, I thought I'd collected all the bits of veggies that TerraDactyl had collected.  But apparently, I'd missed a couple baby potatoes that she'd squirreled away somewhere.  Th...

The other day I was trying to make TerraDactyl dinner and she kept saying "chic-no-no".  Neither DH nor I had any idea what she was talking about.  I ended up trying to play a variation of Hot/Cold with her, asking her what color it is, before finally asking if it was food.  She agreed it was food.  DH and I are standing there scratching our heads while TerraDactyl continues to insist on  "chic-no-no" and then FINALLY, it came to me.  Chicken nuggets!  Which really, isn't that far from chic-no-no.  It was kind of embarrassing how long it took us to get there.  So yeah, TerraDactyl really likes chicken nuggets now!  Except she prefers them microwaved over oven crispy because she's a weirdo.  The picture above is actually of TerraDactyl flying her own spoon around and making "shew" noises, sort of like adults do airplane noises for babies.  Except we never really did that because TerraDactyl never fell for it and ate the food....

I think it's odd that TerraDactyl likes to pretend to nap.  She doesn't  hate  napping, but she's not exactly excited about taking real naps.  However, she regularly pretends to nap.  She usually grabs her changing pad and puts it upside down and then lays on it.  I'm not sure of the significance of the upside down mat.  It could be like a magical transformation, or maybe it's just that she finds the blue grippy ovals on the bottom interesting.   Sometimes, TerraDactyl gets more elaborate and actually gets her sleep sack, hat, and mittens.  Or even grabs her stuffed dog & carrot -- one for each hand, just like she prefers to sleep.   And sometimes, TerraDactyl facilitates nap time for her dolls and stuffed animals.  She'll lay out a blanket and then put her dolls on it.  Sometimes she even puts hats and mittens on her dolls.  The whole hat and mitten thing is something we started doing in the winter....

  I finally finished TerraDactyl's growth chart!  The cross stitch part has been done for a while, but I had to iron on a backing to the cross stitch and then sew on a backing.  And I've got loops at the top to hang it up.  Now we just have to hang it.  That will probably take another 4 months or so...  :) TerraDactyl often requests to eat whatever I'm eating.  So I've started eating a lot of oatmeal.  Her favorites seem to be Apple Pie Oatmeal  (with hemp hearts because, why not?) and Sweet Potato Oatmeal Breakfast Casserole , even without the amazing brown sugar & butter topping.   Riley has taught TerraDactyl the comfort of finding a cave to hang out in.  Riley always likes curling up under the footrest of recliners, and TerraDactyl's also experimenting with it.   If you look hard enough, can you find the toothbrush?  It took me forever to find TerraDactyl's toothbrush when I was cleaning up the other day....

  I've been reading a lot of expert opinions on child rearing lately.  And while I have a hard time buying in directly to "expert" opinions, especially for something as varied and subjective as parenting, I did enjoy these books.   First up:  No-Drama Discipline  by Daniel Siegel, MD & Tina Bryson, PhD.  This book helped me see tantrums differently.  We haven't fully entered the toddler world of tantrums yet, but it's definitely coming.  We've had a few sneak peeks.  It was good to be reminded that kids literally don't have the ability to process their emotions yet, hence the meltdowns.  And the way they learn self control is by observing others and practicing.  So if I can't keep my cool in a tantrum, it's not going to help TerraDactyl learn how to keep her cool. The book also brought up some common triggers for misbehavior.  Being: hungry, angry, lonely, or tired reduce a child's ability to use higher thought process...