Tuesday: The Toddler

I started writing this in yesterday's post but it kept getting longer and longer and I decided it needed its own day.


Peabody is very entertaining these days. She is one smart cookie. Get this: she can COUNT. How smart is that? Okay, well, she doesn't actually get the concept of counting. And I have to get her started by saying "one" ... but then she says "tewwww, dreeeee!"

She is into everything. EVERYTHING. Until recently her favorite place was the shoe rack in the front closet. I would see her from the across the room and cry, "No! No shoes!" and run toward her to intercept while she would grab a shoe and dart away as fast as she could. She got into trouble enough times that she finally (mostly) stopped. If we forget to put the gate across the bathroom doorway she goes in there and pulls things out of the trash and grabs the toilet brush and bangs on the toilet lid (thankfully she hasn't figured out how to open it yet) and gets under the sink. If we don't put the gate across the kitchen doorway she goes in there and bangs pot lids and pulls all of the plastic bowls out of the drawers and goes into the laundry room where the pantry food is and empties boxes of tea bags onto the floor and brings boxes of crackers out to us so we'll give her some. She gets under the tv stand and pulls out all of the dvds. She pulls the cds out of the holder. She empties the toy bins. She empties the drawers of play food and dishes. If the Boogie leaves her clothes drawer open, Peabody yanks everything out. She pulls all of the books off of the shelves.

She loves to be read to. Her favorite is a Crayola board book about colors. That is always the first one she pulls out. Her second favorite is called Baby Cakes, which was also the Boogie's favorite at this age. We all have it memorized.

She will bring a book to me and push it into my hands saying "MamaMamaMamaMama" which is universal for "read this/open this/pick me up/give me crackers."

She is still in love with Barney and playing a Barney DVD is the only guaranteed crabby-toddler-soother. It also will completely keep her attention for 45 minutes if there is something I must do uninterrupted. She sings the "I Love You" song. If I sing it to her she must hold my hand, and she hugs and kisses me at the right times. Sometimes I sing it to her just so she will give me a kiss, since she will willingly kiss her sister and Daddy at any given time, but mostly refuses me when I ask for one.

She sings the ABC/Twinkle Twinkle song, and another ABC song from Sunday school, and the happy birthday song: "ha dirday oo yewwww."

She just cut two more teeth on the top, and I think she is working on two on the bottom. Once those last two pop through she will have all of her teeth except for the 2-year molars.

She signs more, please, and all done. She says lots and lots of words. I have completely lost count. She'll try to say almost anything we tell her to. The ones she says consistently are mostly identifying words like ball, book, baby, cup, cracker, Daddy, snack, teeth, shoe. She can point to and say eye, ear, nose, mouth, teeth, head, belly, toes. She also says hi, hello, bye, more, mine, uh-oh, and has started saying no but with an "m" which gets confusing since it sounds just like the way she says more. 

Me: "Do you want more crackers? More?"

Pheebs, shaking her head no and signing "more": "Mo!"

I pour a handful of crackers on her tray.

"Mo!" she yells, violently swatting crackers off the tray and bursting into tears.

"Are you all done?" I ask. She signs "all done" while weeping. I unbuckle her from her seat and put her down where she stops crying and crawls around on the floor hiccuping and eating the crackers that only moments ago were so repugnant to her.

Do they make Midol for toddlers?

We sometimes have conversations.

Peabody picks up a toy phone and holds it to her ear: "Hello?"

Me: "Hello?"

P: "Hi!"

Me: "How are you?"

P: "Gooooo' [good]"

Me: "I love you!"

P: "Bye-eee."

If I miss my cues she says her part anyway.

When she sees her blankie she sing-songs "Whey ah yooou?" and ends with a little gasp of delight.

She calls "Daddyyyyy" with an upward inflection at the end. When he responds she babbles a long string of gibberish that sounds like she is explaining something to him.



On Sunday Chief was doing the rounds at church counting everyone, and opened up the door to the temporary nursery. Peabody adores him. He knelt to her level to give her a high five but she wanted a hug and rested her head on his shoulder ... for a looooong time. She was very still and the longer she stayed there the more we adults laughed. Then she decided that was enough and straightened up and pushed the door closed in his face. 


She is very scowly. It started with a little game where she and I would scowl at each other and say "heyyyyy" in a deep voice and then burst out laughing. Now she just frowns at us all the time. Such a lovely child. 

She is beginning to understand and follow instructions. She will go get a diaper when we tell her to, and also come lay on the floor in front of us for a diaper change. After she is changed she gathers up the wet diaper and the box of wipes and drops them over the gate onto the kitchen floor. Sometimes for variation she drops them over the other gate into the bathroom. I have no idea why she does that.

She is just too cute and I love this age a lot.