Sep
9
Dear Ashden: Month Twenty-Four
Filed Under Dear Ashden
Dear Ash,
You’re 24 months old today! You’re “two yea-ol” as you say. I can’t believe you’re two already. You’re getting to be such a big little kid.
This month has been full of changes. It went from summer to fall, we moved houses and you’re potty trained!
August was fun, and there was lots of outside time as we soaked up the last bits of summer. There were trips to the beach and playground and we had a wonderful time playing together. I’m going to miss the summer months now that we’re heading into autumn and then winter- summer is so much more fun now that you’re old enough to do things and we, as adults, have a great excuse to take the day off and spend it outside.
On August 20 we moved- hopefully for the last time for the next couple of years- into a huge old house. You sensed the upcoming change and had a hard time going to sleep at night, and there were many nights where you’d fight it until 11 or 12. It was hard on both of us- I had so much packing to do and you need those precious hours of sleep, but luckily you’re pretty well behaved at night when you know you’re not supposed to be awake. It’s about the only time recently when you’re awesome at solo play. You used to be fantastic at playing by yourself, but since you started daycare and we don’t get to see you very much, when you’re home you tend to need a lot of attention.
The transition into our new house went well. It’s much bigger than our old house so you would get lost for about the first week, and turn around in circles and say, “where’d the basement go?” or “where’d the bedroom go?” You have your own room now, a place that’s mainly somewhere to store your toys, and you’re still sleeping with us. We kept you in our bed for the first few days, trying to make the transition smoother so you wouldn’t get scared or confused about where you were, but now you sleep most of the night on your little mattress beside our king size bed. You sleep SO MUCH BETTER there, it’s amazing. We went from waking up every 1.5 hours a night to waking up once at 3am and 6am for a quick nurse and then back to sleep. You even slept through the night THREE more times since last month, bringing up your grand total to four times in your entire life. I’m in no rush to move you out of our bed, I love-love-love snuggling you if you do come up into the big bed, and I love knowing you’re there, safe and sound, a couple of feet away from me. And you like it too. Remember last month when you were able to fall asleep without me being in the room? Yeah, you don’t do that anymore. I’m hoping this is part of the transition into the new house and that you’re going to be able to do it again (SOON, please) .
You’ve um, started acting two… and then this happened. I’m not going to say anything more, for fear that acknowledging it will make it happen more often:
All summer we’ve had you go diaper-free while you’ve been at home, trying to fully potty train you, and I must say that it’s been working. Skipping training pants (we do have one pair of cloth training pants that you just end up using as a diaper) and moving slowly into big boy undies was our ticket to success, and now you’re even going to day care without a diaper on. You still wear one for naps and overnight, but the end is near, and it feels great. Because we’ve been putting you on the potty since you were three months old I feel done with it and just want it to be over. Never do I regret ECing with you, the less poopy diapers I have to clean the better, in my opinion, but it’s about time.
Your speech is getting more and more advanced, and now you speak in full sentences, using the words “I” and “and” and things like that. What used to be, “no school!” is now, “I don’t wanna go to school.” What used to be, “poop in da potty” is now, “I need to poop in the potty, no pooping on the floor, no pooping on the mat.” It’s pretty awesome to watch it happening, changing every day. You know your full alphabet, you’re starting to recognize the letters when seeing them in print, you can count to thirty with a little help and it’s amazing. Your teachers are impressed that you know all your animals (you’ve been able to tell the difference between a rhino and a hippo for months now) and their sounds, all the cars and their logos and you can sometimes even tell what kind of car it is just by the curves it has! You and I were out for a walk this month and you said, “a Porsche!” about a car that you’d never seen before, and lo and behold, as I read the back of the car (because I sure as hell don’t know about these things), it said Porsche.
One thing we realized this month is that you’re quickly growing out of your current book collection. You’ve started being able to sit for twenty minutes reading real books, not just baby board books with simple pictures and a simple storyline (if any at all). So soon we hope to stock up on a lot more advanced books for you.
This month I’ve tried to put everything else aside on our days together. One day specifically you and I had a wonderful day, full of handmade playdough and examining bugs and a trip to the playground. I feel so lucky to be your mom, but it’s easy to get caught up in errands and responsibilities and work on my days off, and you’re the one who suffers most. At the end of the day, after putting you to bed, I will still look at pictures of you, or videos of you, and miss you even though I just saw you ten seconds ago. It’s not enough, and sometimes I feel like I’ve got my life sorted and it’s balanced between being home with you and giving you a nice social life at school, but this month was hard and you started disliking school and clinging to us. I hope we figure something out soon because your happiness is my number one concern.
I have to say that this month has been amazing, mostly because of how well you’re able to communicate the things you want and how you’re feeling. Listening to you speak and realizing how much you actually HEAR and PROCESS is absolutely amazing. Sometimes if you hear a new word, you repeat it and it’s as if it goes into a vault and it’ll come out again- being used properly- without any more effort on your part. It’s so fascinating. All of the other perks of this month- the good sleeps, the lack of diapers etc have all been great, but being able to talk to you more than I ever have in your life trumps them all.
I love you so much, little man.
Love,
Mama