It’s not a big deal to most anyone except those who doing the changing… but this morning (not 20 minutes ago) - at her request, Amira got on the toilet. We read her Joseph pop-up book and then her Potty Time book some 4-5 times. In the middle of the final reading, she pooped into the toilet. Woohoo!
After hugs and few cheers and a proud “Hooray!” by Amira… we had our first successful potty mission! 
I wish this picture had come out better. The flash blew it out and then it is a bit fuzzy too… but it still had to be saved. Grandpa is a real trooper here. He is half way through reading to Amira book number five out of what would be eight!
Amira loves to read, although sometimes it is more of a speed-reading, turn-the-pages-as-fast-as-I-can kind of reading… but she does love her books. She reads to herself too, which is one of the sweetest things to watch. I hope to instill her with a love of books. Both Paul & I love them, so hopefully she’ll inherit that from us.
And like her Mama and Daddy, she also loves a good show. In this case, she’s watching Kiki’s Delivery Service. She adores the movie and will ask for it by name. “Kiki!” Unlike this picture, she is rarely still. It takes a really interesting show for her to sit and give the TV her undivided attention. When she does, she really soaks it up!
her close friends…
On the far left, almost out of view… is little Gromit… then, Horsie! and Max.
There are more, of course. Someday we’ll get a photo of them all - a sort of stuffed animal family photo.
“Who needs a canvas?", she asks. “I!… I am the canvas!”
Today, Amira asked me for some Cheddar Bunnies. I gave her some in her spill-proof snack cup. As I handed it to her, she said unprompted (and not signed) - “dank you"… and padded away with her treasure of Cheddar Bunnies.
…and a Mama’s heart swells and bursts with love.
Wow.
That was a first.
I was getting Amira dressed so we could go to the gym… her to Kids Club and me for my workout. She was out of her pajamas and had been running around for half hour or so just in diapers. I sat her down on my lap to put on her golden yellow t-shirt with fuzzy cats on the front when any and all fury that there was released. Furious. She was absolutely furious with me for trying to get her dressed. Through screams of anger and what you think was tortune, I got her shirt and jeans on. I thought once we were done that she would settle down.
Nope. From there, completely and utter meltdown. She pulled at her t-shirt - trying to rip it from her body. She fell to the ground, face red, eyes streaming tears, and body convulsing with anger. She was so loud that the entire household came in to see what was going on. Grandma, Grandpa, Daddy, Tova, Seurat and I looked at her astonished.
Mom suggested I get up and walk away - so as to not encourage the tantrum. I did and she immediately got up and chased after me. It was obvious she wanted to be angry at me and in my presence. It was no good if I didn’t know and see just how mad she was.
After a bit of this, Mom, the veteran survivor of strong-willed children, suggested I put Amira down in her room for some time out. I picked her up despite the fact that she was 25+ lbs of struggle and resistance. I hauled her downstairs and put her down on her bed, turned out the light and shut the door.
Screams. Bloodcurdling, horrorific screams of anger and hate. My little girl was so not happy.
I held the door handle while she yelled and tried to get out. After 5 minutes or so, she finally went quiet. I waited another 2 minutes and went in to find her curled up around one of her monkeys. Her face was still flushed, her eyes wet and swollen. I picked her up briefly, hugged her and gave her a kiss… gave her the packy and laid her back down with her monkey clan.
As I type, I’m listening to her over the monitor. She’s making small self-soothing sounds… little sweet hums. My sweet baby.
I know that tantrums are a part of toddlerhood. At the same time, I’m convinced that the severity and length of this one was brought on by pure fatigue. For the last two weeks, she’s not slept very well. She went from sleeping 12 hours a night and around 2-3 hour naps… to 10 hours a night and only 1 to 1.5 hour naps.
Times like this, I really feel the fact that this is the first time I’ve ever done this parenting thing… and why I pray for wisdom everyday.
I thought it was due to her being sick this week. Tonight - I realized it’s daylight savings!
Amira is a good sleeper. We put her to bed and she goes to sleep. Easy as that. This week - not so much. Every night - she has thrown all her monkeys out of her bed and her pacifier. I’ve gone in, and she’s standing on her bed. I put her monkeys back, give her the pacifier and she lays back down. But that doesn’t end it. I hear her talking away to herself… playing with her pacifier… hitting the wall with her hand… running her fingers against the netting of her bed guard rail… and on and on it goes. It hasn’t stopped until sometimes between 7:30-8pm.
Talking with Mom & Dad tonight - it dawned on me. She’s not used to going to bed at night with it light outside. The sun isn’t going down until 7:30-8pm. So, it would appear we have a new learning opportunity ahead of us. “How-to-sleep-when-it’s-still-daylight-outside 101″. I’ve heard of people tinfoiling their child’s bedroom windows. I’m thinking maybe another set of curtains on the window… Or, she could just learn to go to sleep. She does at naptime every day - so she should be able to sleep even though there is daylight sneaking in through the curtains. At least theoretically… 
They say we’ve entered the stage of mimicry. By looking at this picture - I’m giving you only one guess as to what I was doing.
The other thing that you can tell by looking at this picture, and specifically at her eyes, is that she’s sick. We just got back from the pediatrician’s office. They confirmed one thing that I had thought. It seemed like she had been going through a growth spurt and indeed she has. I didn’t get her height - we’ll get that at her scheduled wellness check-up - but she weighs 24.9 lbs!!
We went in because she’s been sick with a cold and an off and on low-grade fever for 4+ days. The physician’s assistant confirmed that she has a ear infection. I’m to keep an eye on it for 24-48 hours and make sure it doesn’t get worse. The PA was impressed at how amenable Amira was to being checked. I have to admit, I was too!
The staff thought her curls were amazing and gushed at how she roared like a lion and hugged the lion mural painted on the wall. Even sick, she gets so much attention…
Because she has been sick and has really low-energy, we’ve been watching videos. She lounges in my lap while her favorite videos roll. When a video is done… or when she’s done with a video (those events don’t always happen at the same time), we go to where the DVDs are stored. She pulls out the DVD case that we just finished - and she helps me put away the DVD. Next, we finger our DVD choices and pick out the perfect one (she’s very particular as to which one she wants - there’s no picking a video for her!). I open the case and give her the DVD. She places it in the open DVD player. To close it, she uses not her hand - but her belly. She walks up to the DVD player and gently, how should I describe it, belly-bucks it! She’s quite pleased with this new method. And, I actually prefer it because she is more gentle closing the player that way than with her hands.
She’s napping now. I hope she feels better soon!
I’ve always loved this bit from Buechner.
from “Where Your Feet Take You,” from Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner
Feet are very religious.… If you want to know who you are, if you are more than academically interested in that particular mystery, you could do a lot worse than look to your feet for an answer.
Introspection in the long run doesn’t get you very far because every time you draw back to look at yourself, you are seeing everything except for the part that drew back, and when you draw back to look at the part that drew back to look at yourself, you see again everything except for what you are really looking for. And so on. Since the possibilities for drawing back seem to be infinite, you are, in your quest to see yourself whole, doomed always to see infinitely less than what there will always remain to see.
Thus, when you wake up in the morning, called by God to be a self again, if you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because where your feet take you, that is who you are. (emphasis mine)
There’s something magical about those feet and little toes. Daily I pray for the steps that Paul & I help guide her in now and those she will take on her own. When I look at Amira’s feet, I find myself wondering where her feet are going to take her. Who is she going to be?
I struggle when taking photos of Amira because so many of them turn out like this one. Fuzzy. Only every 1 in 50 photos does she opt to stay still long enough for me to take a shot without what could be dubbed a Photoshop filter… “motion blur". Amira 1.8 - now with motion blur!!
Last night I was inducted into a new rite of passage for all mothers. I was up all night with Amira because she is sick. Even the early days of waking up every two to three hours the breastfeed are different than the sitting up all night with your sick baby girl. Despite feeling that scratchy I-need-to-go-to bed-feeling right now, I’m thinking how lucky I am. Amira is very sweet and tender when she’s sick. She wants to cuddle and it seems like she takes the time to do what I interpret as thanking me for taking caring of her. She gives me spontaneous little hugs. She smiles even when I can tell she doesn’t feel like it. She tries to accomodate whatever I’m doing, whether it be changing a diaper, putting on her pajamas, etc. It’s like she knows that it’s hard for me to see her sick and she’s trying to dampen the blow for me herself.
Tonight, so far, she is sleeping well. Hopefully she is able to make it through the night. She needs some solid sleep to help her little body heal.
Last night, I turned to Amira and told her that it was time to get ready for bed. She looked at me, turned the other direction and began to cry. I held my hand out to her and said: “Let’s go get ready for bed. The monkeys are waiting…” She ran over to me and grabbed my hand, while at the same time throwing her head back and crying as we walked to the stairs, went down them and into her bedroom. I shut the door and she stopped crying. We began our nighttime routine and she was calm and peaceful. We had a fun time together. After giving me a long sweet hug goodnight, I put her in her bed where she curled up gratefully with her monkeys.
Paul & I have commented recently that it’s hard to keep up with Amira’s growth. Daily, she has a new facet of personality, communication, physical dexterity and emotion.
This morning she slept in until 7:30am. What a gift. Somehow, getting to sleep any amount of time after 7am feels like a luxury. Amira has always been a good sleeper. I’m grateful for that. She also seems to know that she needs sleep to feel 100%. She rarely resists or protests going to bed. She typically dives towards her bed and her tribe of monkeys (she has three stuffed monkeys that she sleeps with). She cuddles up with the big monkey and hugs one or both of her little monkeys and is ready to drift to sleep. (I need to get a picture of her monkeys…) To Paul and I, she has always seemed grateful to be going to bed. It’s so nice to not have to fight with her about sleep.
I found a new pediatrician for Amira last week. I’m grateful. She’s a traditional as well as naturopathic doctor. I love both the balance and diversity that will bring her Amira’s healthcare. Up to this point, I have been really uncomfortable with the peditrician we were seeing. I felt like we were going through the motions and just going down a checklist rather than receiving a personalized and attentive approach. Our new doctor was noticeably different from the minute we met her. It was a pain - but I’m glad I kept looking for someone that I was really comfortable and confident with.
We still haven’t cut her hair. Her curls continue to pile up - but don’t show any sign up dropping down yet. When her hair is wet, her hair is past her shoulders and touches about the middle of her shoulder blades. You’d never know it though. Her curls stay tight at her neck, above her collar. It’s a challenge to know what to do with all those curls sometimes, but her hair is lovely.
I’ve cheated myself out of 6 months of memories and observations as Amira is growing up. So much changes in 6 months. There are things that I know I’ve already forgotten about. A friend of ours in the church had a little boy about 2 months ago. The first Sunday she brought him to church - I saw his little bundled form and couldn’t believe Amira had ever been that small. I asked her how much he weighed. 8 lbs 12 oz. Amira was that small. I couldn’t believe it. I have already forgotten on tiny she was. So, this is going to be a stream of consciousness brain dump.
She will be 18 months old tomorrow. A year and a half. Amazing. She is beyond amazing and fun right now. She talks in her own language. Single “words", short sentences and long paragraphs, on and on she can talk. She’s very persuasive with whatever it is that she’s saying. She pops off and says words as clear as can be and then immerses herself back into her native tongue of Amira-ish. Or Amira-ese. Or Amirian. Words that I have heard her say: Daddy. Mama. Doggie. Cow. Grandpa. Bird. Duck. T. (as in Big T, aka Tova), Kitty and/or Cat. Ball (pronounced ba) Bear. Monkey (well, she says “key"), Teeth and I’m sure there are more. I’ll add them as I remember.
In the last 6 months, she’s learned to walk and run. She loves teriyaki chicken and rice… and the fish burrito from Taco Del Mar. She loves YoBaby Yogurt and her Living Fuel shake.
She loves to be outside… running and exploring. She laughs and giggles when her Daddy runs around with her. There’s nothing so as beautiful as Amira outdoors with the sun highlighting her hair… her eyes sparkling and her cheeks pink.
Alphabet. The gorgeous girl LOVES her alphabet. For about a month now, she has been able to recognize all the letters by sight and make their corresponding phonetic sounds. This has been facilitated by both her love of letters and great little video by LeapFrog called The Letter Factory. She’s learning her numbers and a couple of days ago said “two!” when Paul pointed to one on a sign in Costco.
She was a slow teether. She didn’t start until after a year old. At 18 months, she is still teething. She has more teeth on the bottom than the top. She only has four on top - the two front teeth and two molars. Tonight we put her to bed early because she was hurting and tired. Her cheeks are swollen and she has a mild fever. Poor sweetie is really feeling it.
More to come…
I know this is a HUGE photo - but I couldn’t resist! Look at that hair!! This is what we call “Amby Head!” When she wakes up from naps - her hair is typically a bit wild… between her moving and squirming around in her Amby to the curls that are naturally there - the results are fun!
Amira is walking. With help. She giggles convulsively when she does. It’s like she can’t believe she’s actually doing it. Or that it’s excruciatingly funny that we get around on two legs… I mean, imagine that!
There are times where you can see her contemplating walking and then dropping down to crawl merely because it is far more efficient. She’s a speedy lil’ crawler and I think this fact may slow down how quickly she learns to walk on her own. But that’s okay – I’m on your schedule, Punkins.
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