Two Years!

Recently Belalu turned two. This amazing girl of mine just gets sweeter and sweeter. She hasn't lost any of her determination, though. People who meet her, many of whom don't know her as anything other than an average toddler, tell me "you're not going to have to worry about this one." And those who do know that she is extra special, they reassure me that, well, we won't have to worry about her. I should clarify that I'm not going around telling people that I'm worried about her or anything- they just watch her for a while and then make their pronouncement without prompting.

This girl just projects confidence in herself and her capabilities. She figures things out. She gets where she wants to go, one way or another.

Her annual well visit was uneventful, as we hope they will be. She is progressing along her own curves. We celebrated her day as a family. The boys made her cupcakes while she napped, and then we ate them after dinner on the river.

It's been a busy, fun summer, so I've been absent on the web. But I didn't want to miss this occasion. Happy Birthday, sweet, gorgeous girl.

22 Months: An update

Belalu is quite the toddler these days. She will emphatically point her finger at you and say "no!" in a very firm voice. She oftentimes insists on walking up and down the stairs by herself. When she can, she'll hold a railing, but if not, she'll use the wall and then swing her leg around till it's on the next step. Going down, she carefully will walk or scoot on her butt, depending on how tired she is and how high the rise is between stairs. She sometimes will pull her brother's hair or hit him when he won't share with her, but then immediately rubs the same spot and gives him kisses and hugs.  Getting her in the car seat these days is often a physical struggle, and then she has to be removed screaming from the same seat when we reach our destination. However, it's not all testing limits and gauging power. When she hasn't seen me in a couple of hours, I get a very high-pitched screech of pleasure and then an enthusiastic "mama!!!" She talks a lot, and prefers to sit and look at a book by herself rather than be read to, though that is being requested more and more, too, especially if it involves Elmo. This amazes me, because she has no interest in watching Sesame St, and has maybe seen three clips of it in her life, and yet adores all the books and toys we have that feature him. She loves to sweep and help wipe up spills (in fact I think she often creates those spills just so she can wipe them up).

When I try to sing to her, she usually puts her hands over the ears or says repeatedly until I stop, "no, no, no!" When her brother sings to her, she claps and says "yay!!" They both are working on sharing, as her interest in what he's doing grows. E has learned to ride a big boy bike now, so we lowered his balance bike hoping it would be low enough for Belalu, and I really thought it would be, but was very disappointed to discover that it's not. She's really interested in bikes, and every Tues when we leave the Y, there's a women's bike group gathering for a ride at that time. Belalu just stands there and looks at all of them. I have to pick her up and carry her away or she'd never leave.

The biggest milestone for me lately is hard to discern below, but is the best picture I currently have on my computer of her ..... pigtails!!! Her hair is finally long enough to put up! I'm trying to get her to let me pin her hair back with a barrette in the front, since she sweats so easily in the heat, and the best strategy so far seems to be putting in about five in a close row and hoping she tires of pulling them out before she reaches the last one or two. I've never been able to keep a headband on her for more than three seconds.

She's now in the toddler room at daycare, and the teacher told J yesterday that she's going to order Belalu a higher stool for the sink. I guess she wanted to put her cup in the sink by herself and couldn't do it, so another kid helped. But the way she described it, B wanted to throw it into the sink and couldn't, so we're wondering if it was more about her coordination than her height. I need to talk to the teacher myself and ask more questions for clarification. Obviously, we are happy she is being sensitive to B's needs, but we're wondering if it's really necessary right now for her to have a different apparatus already.

Besides bikes and bubbles, Belalu's favorite thing ever right now is babies. She is mad about babies. Whenever she sees one when we're out and about, she shrieks "BABY!!!!!" and runs over to pat its head or give it kisses or stick her finger in its eye or nose or mouth. Given her affinity for them, I thought she'd like the documentary "Babies," which E had seen and liked at about her age. Ummmmm, yeah.... she might be a bit obsessed. Every time she sees my computer now, she shrieks "babies!!!!" and runs over to it, repeating the word until I put it on or dissolving into a fit of tears if I don't. She won't watch cartoons, but she'll watch this for a good 30-45 minutes. One day I had taken it back to the library and she was insisting on watching it, so J found a National Geographic documentary on Netflix that she happily watched most of. I was happy she didn't like watching tv, but with her toddler moods, it has been nice to have a little peace and quiet while I prepare dinner or to be able to sit and knit while watching it with her.

So, that's our soon-to-be two year old lately. She is adored by us all, and we love witnessing her develop, even as she continues to be the sweet, independent, determined girl she's always been, just in new ways.

Update on Belalu

I don't have anything big to share, but since this blog started because of her, I wanted to bring it around back to Belalu for a minute. She is now 16 1/2 months old. In the past week she has started nodding her head "yes" and shaking her head "no," and generally they appear to coincide with her actual feelings, so I am able to have these very clear, simple conversations with her. "Are you hungry, Belalu?" ...(nods her head)... "Do you want some cereal?"... (shakes her head and points to the fruit bowl: "dat") "Oh, you want a banana?" (nods her head "nana").

Just this little thing is so huge to me. It makes her seem even more like a person than before, when she was a baby. We are having conversations. Actual conversations where meaning is being exchanged, as opposed to those conversations where she will babble something and I mimic her babble back and people give me strange looks because I sound ridiculous. She makes it very easy to understand what she wants; her communication skills amaze me. We have another hearing test on Thursday, and I will be shocked if they tell us that she cannot hear well; she doesn't seem to miss a thing.

My sister asked me today if Belalu gets comments from people about her size. She had taken the kids to the library the other day and there were two girls around her age- one was also 16 months and the other was a bit older. The moms had asked my sis how old Belalu was, but she said it was in the context of how much she was doing and how strong she was. Neither of the other girls could pull out a chair from a kiddie table and climb into it on their own. She said neither mother seemed interested in a competitive way, they just seemed curious. There was a comment about her being a "little peanut," but it was again in reference to her strength and dexterity.

So, I thought about my sis's question and told her that yes, people often comment about her size, but almost always they just seemed amazed by her. And that's a feeling I share. Maybe I am being naive, but when people marvel at her, it seems to me that it's not just because Belalu is small or "looks like a little doll." They are also responding to that amazing ability to communicate- the eye contact, the "hi"s and "bye-bye"s and little waves she gives as she continues on with her explorations, that amazingly winning smile; her dogged determination to go where she wants to, whether it's into somewhere she shouldn't or up on top of a chair or table to reach something mama thought she put out of reach; her habit of patting her belly and squealing with joy; her pointing at something interesting and exclaiming "uh-oh!"... this girl gets attention everywhere she goes, and why shouldn't she? She is amazing.

One Year Well Visit

Today Belalu had her one-year well visit. She's actually 13 1/2 months, but I called at the last minute for an appointment and we had to wait this long to get in. Here are the stats for the AH growth chart:

Weight: 19lbs, 11 oz or 8.93kg = 10th percentile
Height: 27" or 68.6 cm = under 3rd percentile
Head: 19" or 48 cm = over 97th percentile

As we already knew from our PT appointment, Belalu has blown past the 12 month milestones and has actually gotten most of the 15 month ones down alreay.

She's walking, waving and saying "bye-bye", says Mama and Papa, that, hola and hi, signs when she's all done, gives hugs and kisses, feeds herself, scribbles with a crayon, puts small objects and different shapes in their corresponding holes, stoops and recovers. She likes to drink from a cup, but gets most of it down the front of her. She understands "no" and "cacaplá" the sound we make with corresponding tongue out if she tries to eat something she shouldn't.

She loves to put on necklaces and bracelets, and then shakes her wrist or walks around patting her tummy and the beads. She'll point to pictures on the wall and say "that" so we'll talk about them with her- really she points at everything and does that, but we do it as a bedtime routine up the stairs and in her room with all the pictures along the way. She loves being outside, playing in sand and water and on the boat, even if it's parked in front of the house.

She is so communicative these days. She points at things and "talks" about them. The past few nights have been cooler, so she's been sleeping in footed jammies. When she wakes up in the morning, she'll start talking in her crib, and when I come in to get her, she's standing up, holding her foot up and pointing at it, "talking" - clearly showing me that her foot has gotten caught in her pajama leg and she wants it back in the foot part. She also looooves taking off her shoes and telling us to put them back on her feet.

She currently has three molars coming in (the first is already all up), but even so, she's been really sweet lately and a lot of fun to have around. She loves playing with her brother and gives him lots of kisses and hugs, along with her Cabbage Patch preemie who came with the name Bella Liv so my mom just had to get it for her. It's the perfect size for her to carry around, and sometimes I'll come in her room in the morning, and she'll be sitting and hugging her baby.

Whew! I didn't mean to go on and on. We're having so much fun with her and enjoying playing and spending time together. Now, if I could just get her to settle in the car so we could drive medium-to-long distances in peace, things would be near-perfect!

We Have Walking!!

A couple of weeks ago, Belalu took her first steps. It was to get an ice cream drink of Essie's. (hmmm, food motivated much? ;) After that first surprise (even for herself), here and there she would get up and take a step or two and then sit back on her butt. She was content to do that, adding another step from day to day. But suddenly, last weekend our sweet little restless one decided that she liked the vertical view and has been working hard to get around walking. She's still very slow and unsteady, but her determination will prevail soon enough, and then I won't be able to catch up. I have a feeling this will be a recurring theme with this one.

I'm hoping to shorten the silences here. This semester has been very overwhelming for me and I'm up most nights until 1 am trying to get classes prepared for the next day. I'm working on getting ahead so I can have some quiet time for myself most nights instead of doing work.

Getting There

Belalu does not stop moving. She is really into pulling herself up and cruising, and her height doesn't prevent her from finding things to hold on to. She is also doing the experimental "let go with both hands and see what happens" move. Essie didn't walk until a month after his first birthday, but I'll be surprised if it takes Belalu that long. She just has too much trouble to get into.

There's an easy metaphor here for our own process of coming to terms with hypochondroplasia. J and I are coming from very different places, but I know we're on parallel paths. I'd say these paths will lead to the same destination, but there isn't really a final stop, is there? It's a life-long journey for our Belalu. I've been thinking these past few days about raising a girl and how it is going to be a challenge to make sure she knows her self worth and values her intelligence and wit (because I can already see she is overflowing with both). And I wonder about body image, which is already so complicated for women in our society. There is a period of social development when most girls are loath to be different, and she will not be able to hide her difference behind the usual masks girls use. I see it as my job to make sure she has a solid, iron-clad sense of worth, confidence, and the insight to see beyond the rough patches. Whew. Deep breath.

If I get overwhelmed as I think about it, I just call on her wisdom. One step at a time. Pull up, fall on your butt, lean on others who are stronger, get up again, move forward.