Manners

I'm so proud of our little miss.

But first, I was getting rather annoyed with the whining and pointing when she wanted something. I totally understand that she's reached an age where she wants to express herself but that she can't quite do it yet. But the pointing and whining/screaming/crying was getting old very fast.

I had been working on her signing "please" for quite some time, but I admit that I wasn't very consistent.  Recently, I started to sign "please" more and more and she eventually started to sign it on herself and not on me. About a week ago I had had enough of the temper-tantrum toddler so I let her wail. I felt like I needed to rectify the temper tantrums now versus continuing to reward her for throwing a fit. I knew what she wanted but I also knew she could sign please. So I patiently told her to say "please" if she wanted something. Over and over and over and over again. She ended up throwing herself on the floor and letting me really know she was unhappy with the whole situation and I walked away. A few minutes later, she had forgotten why she was crying and started playing with a toy.  One day, through alligator tears, she whimpered briefly, listened to me telling her to sign "please", and she rubbed her chest. I praised her so much and handed her what she had wanted and the rest is history. She will pull on me or point, make an audible but unrecognizable word and look at me when she wants something. I do have to prompt her to sign please, but she immediately does it and I hand her what she wants. This whole process took about two to three days and she is super proud of herself when she signs please (probably because I still praise her to no end when she does it.)

Oh, and I prompted her to sign "more, please" (she was eating stewed apples for the first time) and she signed it again all on her own!

Yup, I'm proud of her!

Her chatter is increasing by the day. She attempts to mimic many things we say and I'm amazed at what words she does know but doesn't know to say yet. Wow. Makes me watch every single thing that comes out of my mouth! She's recently started mimicking the vowel sounds in "thank you" and "I love you." There are many more but it's hard to keep up! I've been working on family names and she's starting to say some of them fairly well. Unfortunately, when she doesn't want to say (or can't) any name, she replies, "ca-ca."  haha. One of her aunts is "ca-ca" every time.

In other news, she's certainly doing something with her nap schedule. She still needs two naps, but she's spreading them out, but that makes for a late afternoon nap.  I've had her skip her morning nap and her afternoon nap, but I really don't know what's going on. Gratefully, she will play in her crib while I get some work done while she refuses to nap. Usually, it is without any fuss, too. Hopefully, I'll be able to figure out when she needs rest soon. If she would drop the morning nap and lengthen her afternoon nap, she would be great, but she is currently napping for about an hour in the afternoon despite whether or not she naps in the morning. I may just have her continue to skip the morning nap all together and enroll her in a morning program a few days a week so I can work in peace. It's a struggle to balance work and caring for her at the same time, so dropping her morning nap will be a welcome change if I can find a suitable program for her.