despite the fact that violet's feet have finally reached size 5, opening up a world of new footwear opportunities, she has entered into the shoe refusal phase. you may remember her very vocal protests when she first started walking? well, now she can rip off the shoes herself, and when she can't, it's full-on hulk rage. i mean for crying out loud, who wouldn't want to wear these damn cute red vans? at this point she's basically shoeless 90% of the time. don't DARE bring a sock into her sight line. she will give you the smack down, and i mean that quite literally.
yeah, we're working on the hitting and pinching and hair pulling. by "working on" i suppose i mean continuing the same strategy of telling her not to do it because it hurts people. einstein should redefine insanity as parenting a toddler. violet's latest thing is to unleash one of these favorite activities, and then immediately give your wound site a kiss before you even have the chance to say "no (violent action gerund)." then she smiles with pride that she made your boo boo all better with her magic lips. at least the vampire bite marks on my neck are still trending, right?
daycare was closed for staff development last friday, so i took violet to meet up with my mom and sister for brunch and an outing to the very cute zoomars. auntie courtney got some great shots of violet feeding lettuce to the zedonks -- an endearing donkey-zebra hybrid -- so i'll have to snatch those from her to post. the most popular attraction by far was the "sandbox" filled with dried corn. it was a pretty sleepy weekday morning in the little beach town of san juan capistrano, but the corn sandbox was going off like a vegas hotspot. violet did not want to leave.
i took an additional day off for a "mealtime behavior modification session" with my original (and awesome) lactation consultant. you can skip this paragraph if toddler nursing makes you squeamish. for you few interested parties, the first step of her "gentle" weaning plan involves getting more calories into violet, and offering beverages before she asks to nurse. i have to admit, i was pretty floored to see the feeding strategies in action at our lunch table. violet ate like a horse: salmon, then roasted-in-olive-oil carrots and zucchini, then a biscuit with almond butter, then berries and yogurt. afterwards, violet did, as always, want to nurse down to her nap (which of course she only does at home with me; at daycare she just lays down on her cot and goes to sleep, wtf?), but she took no milk because she was presumably too full. number one rule at the meal table? declarative sentences, never questions. the food is "mine," i take the first bite, and then i offer the plate to her. "do you want some ____?" is replaced with "i'll share this with you." you build interest by eating first, and by god, violet could barely stand to wait her turn while the lc and i took bites. when offered the plate, violet shoved fistfuls in like she might not get offered more. i could go on and on; there are lots of rules. you do shared plates, courses, order the foods a specific way, never say "mm mm" or the like, etc. it's ellyn satter stuff, and it's clearly designed to have the kids serving themselves from family-style plates as soon as feasible. i don't know how realistic it all is on a day-to-day logistics basis (it ends in lots of dishes and requires lots of meal planning), but i do know that the various ways i've been modeling eating for violet have been working like a freaking charm in terms of getting her to eat more, and more variety. i've heard far less of the usual dohn yikes. "vivi dohn yike turk." "vivi dohn yike yohg." "vivi dohn yike (fill in the blank with things that she does like)." to be continued.
we're heading into a hiatus week for kevin and jury duty for me, so i'm not sure when i'll return. a couple more pics to tide over you grandmas.
vivi yike ama (dada-daughter date at baskin robbins):
vivi dohn yike gee peeg:
This toddler feeding thing sounds very intriguing!! Where can I learn more about it? I'd love to get Hank weaned by 18 months (maybe earlier... it depends on how much hair I have to lose at any given point), so any tips would be great. Johnny didn't even blink when I switched him over to a bottle at 10 months... I have a feeling Hank will be rather upset.
ReplyDeleteI agree - that mealtime session sounds amazing. I love, love, love Ellyn Sater and think she's a genius, but I'll admit that there's always a pretty big gap between what I read and what I actually end up doing. I've always thought that if someone could just show me/model for me some of that stuff, maybe I'd take to it sooner than I've done in the past. Ah well, I guess Simon has had to suffer for all of our ignorance and Linus will reap the rewards of having parents who have finally wised up. But please keep us posted on how things go - my hope is to wean Linus off of daytime nursing at one year, which is a couple of weeks before I start work again....
ReplyDeletei'll get my act together now that i'm back from vacation and email you some of the info, kelly. as taryn notes, the gap between the ideal and the actuality is indeed pretty big, but not because of flaws in the approach so much as my inability to commit fully. but i'm tired and i can't. i'll keep you posted on any progress (or more entertainingly and likely a lack thereof)!
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