TWO YEARS WITH EVERLY
Monday, 24 September 2018
I'm not even sure I want to be typing this out haha, I cannot wrap my brain around the fact that Everly is now two years old. She is fiercely independent and currently waiting to become a big sister. I was looking at some of her updates I wrote when she was 12 months and under and oh my heart! What a little ham she was, now she is her own person with her own schedule! We have come so far together and every day we learn something new about one another, here is a little update on Miss Everly:
Currently I think she is going through a developmental leap because a week before she turned two things went crazy real quick. All of a sudden she HATED the car, she would cry and it looked like she was scared to be in her car seat. After a lot of drives (my gas tank loved me that week..) and a few bribes we are back to a place where she can sit in her car seat and be happy again. That week was really hard because it felt like I would be stranded at home because it almost wasn't worth the effort to take her anywhere. I had never seen her act that way, and certainly not in the car. But I am glad she seems to be doing much better and she doesn't cry or squirm anymore.
Along with the car seat also came an insane sleep regression. She has been a terrific sleeper from the getgo, and I don't think I ever really appreciated that until now lol. She always went to bed when told and slept through the night. However a week before she turned two again things went into chaos. All of a sudden she was unable to go to bed by herself, she needed one of us to lay with her until she fell asleep (and if she woke up while we were sneaking out she would lose her mind). We have made slow progress I guess, because now she seems to be fine with us just sitting in a chair beside the bed, but when she wakes up between 11/12 at night she does not go back to sleep with us sitting with her. We started having to sleep with her in her bed, but now in order to save our backs and sanity we pull her into bed with us for the rest of the night. It is not a habit I enjoy, but after talking to Kyle we think it's best to just try and work through whatever she is going through with her instead of trying to fight her on it. Unlike the car situation, sleep is still ongoing :(
Her learning is on another level, I know it's typical for every parent to say their kid is a genius lol but I really think Everly is smarter than some kids her age. Every child develops differently and at different rates, and where Everly thrives in some areas she may lack in others. Her tacting is crazy, lately I have made more of an effort to sit and really listen to the items and things she tacts and I have no idea how she knows some of these things. She can also count to 10 and I think we are pretty close to showing signs of potty training (she always tells me she went to the bathroom after she went lol but she knows the difference). Her sentence structure has also improved, she usually talks using 3-4 word sentences and phrases. She also LOVES shapes, especially hearts, and loves identifying them whenever she can.
We are having a lot of issues with hitting which is pretty typical for her age, but what we have started doing is giving her one warning to stop and if she continues (which is 99.9% of the time) we bring her into our room and get down to her level and ask her why she thinks she is in here. We have started explaining to her that we do not treat others that way, and that hitting is not the right way to express your feelings. We then ask her to say sorry and she will usually follow it with a hug. We have to do this multiple times a day lol but afterwards I do see a difference in her attitude, even if it is short lived.
As far as toys and interests go she likes a little bit of everything. She loves trains, painting, colouring, and her dolls. She has also recently started playing with her kitchen more and cooking for us. She enjoys watching Elmo and Masha and Bear on t.v, and she likes watching "Super Simple Songs" on YouTube. She definitely enjoys being creative and it is fun to watch her explore that, especially since Kyle and I are both creative in different ways. We also just started a "morning box" with her this week, I plan on making a blog post about it later once we have done it for a little bit but so far she really enjoys it!
Her schedule before this sleep regression was as follows:
6:30-7:00am:
7:30: Breakfast
9:00: Snack
11:30: Lunch
12:00pm-2:30pm: Nap
2:45: Snack
6:00: Dinner
6:30-7:00: Bath/Bedtime rountine
7:00: Bedtime
As of right now it is kind of all over the place, if she does nap it is only for about an hour if that. So this week we are going to see how she does without napping. If she seems cranky I will bring her into our room and put a movie on for some quiet time. Part of me does feel like she is slowly weaning out her naps, I have always had a baby led schedule, she always shows me what she needs and it has always worked for us. So I am going to try it out and see how it goes, if it's a terrible idea we will just go back to naps!
Overall, Everly has grown and changed so much just in these last few weeks alone. She has such a crazy personality, it is definitely true what they say about two year olds! She is giving us a run for our money, but we have enjoyed watching her develop and turn into this little person.
