maddie diary      winter 1998-1999

19-21 months old

this quarter
     - excellent sleeper
      - rough napper
      - willful
      - good player, but a bit shy

size
      - 33 inches
      - 27 pounds

activities

      - trip to Florida at Christmas

interests

     - Barney, Pooh, Sesame Street
      - Farm Emergency
      - medical kit
      - playground

Christmas

This was her first real Christmas.  She understood who Santa is and met him a few times, including on Christmas Eve.  She was overwhelmed (shaking) by the phenomenal display at the house around the corner, which featured a glowing Pooh.

Sleeping (2/15)
She's become great at sleeping at night.  Most nights she suggests going to bed.  As long as she has her stuffed animals around her, she'll say "bye-bye" and we leave.

But she has a problem with naps.  She's never been put down for a nap unless she's already asleep.  And she freaks out if she wakes up while being put in the crib in mid-day.  Trying to get her to nap is an energy-intensive, multi-hour effort that frequently results in no nap.

Discipline problems
She has little concept of not being supposed to do certain things.  If it's interesting to her, she'll do it.  She likes  pulling pieces of Augie's food and putting them in his water.  She also likes to torment Augie.  But, although we've scolded and explained many times, she still does it.  The only way to stop it is to physically pull her away.

Daily life
Wakes up at 7 or later, says "mama" or "Dada", we take her downstairs with her bears and sit her down at the kitchen table to watch Sesame Street while we eat breakfast.  We get her back from Louise's parents in time for dinner, when she plays with her food for 5 minutes.  She then clamors to play her favorite game. 

We play, maybe I play the Snoopy song on the piano, which gets her dancing, maybe play with the medical kit-- giving the stuffed giraffe and exam-- and then it's upstairs for a bath, which she enjoys.

Then, pajamas, a cup of milk on the couch, and she generally asks "Mama? Mama? Mama? Um...um...um...bed."

Daily life-  The weekends
We go to Gymboree in the morning.  I used to worry that she didn't interact with kids enough, but it seems no kids her age interact with other kids.  She does very well on the equipment, at least as well as any others.  She occasionally comes out with "Mine!Mine!" or "I turn, I turn", but generally shares fairly well.

In the afternoon, if it's nice, we'll head to the playground.  She'll occasionally latch onto another kid.  The other day she was playing well with a kid until they ran into each other.  He cried, she verbally reconstructed the scene in a very urgent (but not understandable) tone.

We'll try to eat out at least once a weekend so she'll get used to it.