We have a running checklist of goals for Buggy – you know, now that she is becoming a big girl. We, as parents, aren't doing a very good job of driving these goals. We need to step it up. But it’s simply way more fun to play pirate ship.
Here is the current Big Girl checklist – and our status:
No more pacifiers. Bugs and I talked all last week. We were committed. We were ready. We had verbally processed the transition. And we were going to do a “no pacifier nap” on Saturday. All was well. Until naptime on Saturday. Then I listened to the most heartbreaking sobs for 15 minutes. Not the “I don’t want to take a nap” screams. Real sad-from-the-core-of-my-being sobs. Like her best friends had been taken away by an evil mommy ogre. So I gave in and gave her the stupid pacifiers. She looked up at me with tear-streaked toddler cheeks and said sadly, “are you mad at me, mama?” And what was left of my heart after the 15 minutes of agony shattered. I assured her that I was proud of her for trying and that we would try again. And then I mentally made peace with the fact that she’ll go to college with pacifiers. Or we’ll try again next weekend.
Potty training. Sadly, this feels easier than pacifiers. That’s how important pacifiers are to Fiona’s world. Again, we’re prepared. We have Dora pull ups. Daddy has installed a special toilet seat with a little insert in the lid so she doesn't fall in. We've read the horrendous Caillou “No More Diapers” more times than I can stand. We ask her if she wants to go potty and she politely answers “No thank you.” Fail. Just downright fail.
No more bibs. We are all about low-hanging fruit. This was an easy one. We just stopped putting a bib on her. She fought it for a couple days (Q wears a bib, you know), and then she was good. Until we had spaghetti. And I put a bib on her. Hello Square One.
Taking shoes and jacket off. The zipper on a few of her sweatshirts is hard. But if you unzip for her, she shrugs her sweatshirt off. If the hooks in the entry were lower, I would make her hang it up. And we are working on shoe removal as well. The summer shoes work pretty well. She is proud to be in control of this part of her world. Progress points for us.
Alphabet and Counting. Thankfully, the daycare curriculum theme for the month is Animals A to Z. That helps our fledgling efforts at home on letters. She is super at spelling FIONA, QUINN, and YOGI. We are working on identify letters and writing her name. She's interested, but there are a lot of letters. It gets confusing at times. She likes Qs and Ks. And F ("for me"). She is also getting much better at counting things. She likes to count. We all have fun counting together.
Climbing up and down from her seats. She can climb into her booster chair and get down all by herself. She had a little stumble this weekend that set us back for a couple meals. But she seems to mostly want to do it. She also enjoys getting down from her car seat by herself. She slides down to the ground with just a little assist. She is very proud - as she should be!
3 comments:
Pacifier fairy whi brings big girl presents! one pacifier a night. and when he/she cones and makes the exchange throw the pacifier in the garbage so you are not tempted to give it back. Getting them out of the house completely is the only thing that worked for Ben (read me).
Oh, Sara! This made me laugh out loud! At least there's a pretty high chance that she won't go to college with a pacifier AND still wearing a bib. ;) But at least you know she's polite so your obviously doing a few things right.
Been there done that:) Evie had it easier with letting go of paci's for naps but then night was a different story. Falling asleep wasn't so bad it was staying asleep. I had two VERY early mornings with her and it Shawn's turn and he failed. I was ticked and marched in and asked her for it. She gave it to me and I tossed it. Maybe give it to her for naps and let her give it to you. Then she is choosing to let it go. Maybe?? Who knows, but I tell you this. I've never seen a teen yet with a paci:)
Tawnda
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