Goals and Teeth

Lilah's been a mess lately. Between nap changes, Jade being out of town, and being a typical toddler, she's just been completely nuts, and her and I were in a real rut with our communication. I realized that maybe I was focusing on too many diversion tactics, too many strategies for avoiding melt downs, so I narrowed the scope this week. My goal was to identify feelings. Identify my own feelings out loud to Lilah before they became intense, and to help her identify her own feelings before they became too intense. It's really incredible how successful this was. There wasn't one major blow up all week, all were avoided through talking about how we felt before it became a crazy struggle. Lilah still had her typical toddler tantrums, but nothing that escalated. Each time she was able to calm down easily when I started trying to talk her through her feelings. By the end of the week Lilah was becoming fairly proficient in telling me when she was feeling angry or frustrated, and pinpointing the reason why. One time she was mad because Bill (the cat) wasn't standing close enough to her. One time she was mad because he was too close. It seems like a lot of her frustration comes from her being so particular. Hmmm...wonder where she gets that from?

In Minels news... Poor guy. His stories are always at the end of the post. It's more like he's the exclamation point of the day though, not an after thought. Miles is working on five new teeth, all at once, which has put him in quite a miserable state, and for a child that is never miserable, that's saying a lot. It's harder to see him so sad because he's never upset. My independent little guy has been so clingy all week. It seems like today we've finally gotten him over the hump though and he seemed to be feeling better. Miles has started cruising all over the place, but does it sparingly. He has to really want something, and if he does, he's moving fast. Usually food is the motivator, but this week he's shown pretty big interest in the bath water. He HAS to be in the bathroom to watch the water pour into the tub, and he'll jet from Lilah's room to the bathroom so fast you hardly notice he went anywhere.

It's fun to see the things that spark his interest because he's usually so contemplative. Lately the Minels' Favorite Things list includes: bath water, food (Pirate's Booty especially,) the metal lunchbox, playing catch, chasing Lilah as she runs around the house, and head butting.

Since I wasn't great at blogging this week, here are some highlights:

Lilah played a game yesterday where she threw imaginary cakes up into the air. The point of the game was to sit around and watch the cakes until the timer beeped, then we could imaginary eat them.

Miles had fun playing catch. I would throw the ball into his lap and he'd laugh hysterically, then pick up the ball and hand it back to me. Compared to Lilah's antics, this highlight could appear boring, but Miles is seriously the sweetest baby and so much fun. Remembering him cracking up while we played this incredibly simple game was such a highlight of my week.

Lilah: Can you do me a favor?
Jade: Sure, what kind of favor?
Lilah: A pink favor.

What???

Me: Let's put on your jacket.
Lilah: ACTUALLY it's a sweater.