17 Months Down

I have to say, I'm really glad I started keeping monthly update blogs on Rini. It helps me remember all the little things, and I just wish I had started doing them since her birth. So without further delay, here's Rini as a 17 month old (up to August 15th).

Height: 78.5 cm

Weight: 10 kg

Clothing size: 80cm

Shoes size: 11.5cm (or 3 in the US)

Diaper size: medium

Teeth: Most of those teeth I discovered last month have come in quite nicely. The top two molars (#4s) have a full surface now, as well as her left bottom #4. She's currently working hard on the bottom right #4, and bottom left #2, which was discovered on August 10th. This brings her up to the total of 12 teeth! She's halfway there!

Food: Rini really LOVES corn on the cob. She devours a full cob on her own easily, and keeps asking for more. Another big hit are peaches, and can anyone be really surprised? The ones here are really delicious, even if a bit annoying to part with their pits. Broccoli came back recently, too, after a few months of indifference.

Nursing: We shift between 2 times a night to 3 times a night, including bedtime nursing, depending on Rini's mood, and how tired or thirsty she is. Generally after bedtime, she nurses between 1 and 3 AM, them sometimes around 5AM.

Sleeping: Lately we've been having a little problem with her napping really late, and then not falling asleep until past 9PM, sometimes almost at 10PM. My husband tries to make her nap soon after lunch, but she refuses to do so. This past month she mainly napped around 4PM for an hour, if she even napped at all. This is especially hard on me, because trying to wait her out at bedtime, after she nursed, guarantees that I fall asleep before her. This is not very helpful when I'm hoping to work a bit before going to bed. So many times have I waited patiently 30 minutes or more for her to nurse herself to sleep, just to be wide awake as soon as I move away... On days when I know I really should stay awake and she needs to be asleep before 8:30PM, I started to take her for a walk or to the play ground in the evening, right after dinner usually. This works most times in tiring her out enough for her to fall asleep fast.
However, the question of nap-time eludes me still. The main problem is that I can't tell if we're the ones at fault, not doing something right to get her to nap, or she is just leaving her nap stage behind. She has never been a great napper. Until her first birthday, we were surprised if she napped more than 20 minutes at a time, twice a day. Then it slowly started getting longer to 30 to 45 minutes, but dropping morning naps pretty quickly. She has always been the type of child who was wide awake and playing until she was not and asleep. We couldn't make her nap when she didn't want to, and when she did, she would crawl to us, and fall asleep quite fast in our arms on her own. Now that we, as parents, got used to this behavior, and she coming to us later and later in the day, I wonder if a change of attitude and tactics is necessary.

Milestones: This past month was more about fine tuning skills she already has, instead of gaining major new ones. She can now build blocks up to 13 blocks high, for example. She also holds onto us and lifts her leg to put ON pants, not just when we take it off. She's trying hard to put her own sandals on, and at least half the time manages up to the buckle part. In the last few days, I've seen her try to put on her own pants and shirt. Though she can't really manage it without help, it's the first time I've seen her wanting to try. Furthermore, when I hold her PJs out to put on, she holds her legs, then her arms out automatically.
Now, with 17 months of age comes the reason terrible twos are terrible: tantrums. Yep, our quiet and sweet little girl has entered full tantrum-mode this past month. It's been slowly building up for a couple months, but until now we were able to quickly distract her or quiet her whenever she started crying because we wouldn't give something to her. Now, many times she throws herself down the bed wailing, or hits things (sometimes even us), if she doesn't get her way. It's been hard on both my husband and me to deal with it, mainly because we're still learning how to balance that fine line of letting her deal with her emotions without bottling them up, and trying to make her understand that at the minimum, hitting is not allowed. I also have a feeling that since our parenting styles are somewhat different, we might confuse her as to what's allowed and what is not for her to do. Finally, we're trying our best to learn the possible signs of an upcoming tantrum and counteracting it in time, like has she had a snack, is she tired, does she need to go outside and work some energy off, and so on. It's so hot now in our city, that going out seems like a chore, and I just hope the weather cools down soon, so she'll have more space to explore and play.

Here's Rini after we tried several times to stop her from trying her best to crawl behind the TV. In the end, we gave in to see what happens. Beware, the video is LOUD!


Last little bits of milestones: she likes playing with our tiny broom and to sweep the floor with it. She also uses wipes to clean up around herself, and whenever we accidentally leave a child-lock open, she goes and tries to close it back up. She seems to have a great tendency for cleanliness, which I appreciate and hope we can cultivate in her.

Rini loves to help out whenever her Daddy does anything on the balcony, whether it'd be laundry or beating the futon.
 
Sorry about my reflection in the door glass. I didn't want to open the door, in case I startled her away from what she was doing.

On a final note, for a couple months now she has been bringing books to us to read to her, like Eric Carle's "Brown Bear, Brown Bear..." and "From Head to Toe." The reason why I'm mentioning this under milestones is because she has been able to do all the gestures "From Head to Toe" now for a couple weeks at least, even when we don't read the pages to her in order, or show her the pictures. I've been meaning to catch the whole thing on camera, but with no luck so far.

Words: She keeps on babbling as usual, many times imitating words, but I'm not convinced she knows how to use them regularly, yet. However, there are a few words she has been using more consistently, one of which is "így" from Hungarian. It means, "like this," and I have been using it around her quite a lot when I show her how to do things. Another expression she started using lately is "oh-ooh." She uses it whenever she drops something, or something goes wrong. It's quite cute! Finally, she's been saying "hi" regularly now, whenever she meets someone familiar, and sometimes she even waves bye, though that's still somewhat rare. Finally, she's also been saying "csüccs" a lot, which is the sound we use in Hungarian with kids when we sit down, so I guess it kind of means "plop."

Favorite toys: Books, blocks, and crayons. She loves flipping through books for pictures, and brings all kinds of books to us to read to her. She still loves playing with blocks as well, so I'm really looking forward to getting Legos for her for Christmas. She loves to explore and be outside. A week or so ago, we bought a little inflatable swimming pool to put out in our balcony, and she loves playing in the water.

Finally, just short of a month ago we've received a care package from my mother-in-law, and with it came crayons that can be used during bath time! She loves scribbling on the bathroom walls with them. Though initially we were worried that she would start scribbling on other walls as well, she's been pretty good at avoiding them, except for the one curtain in the living room, but luckily those were done with washable crayons, and caused no lasting damage. Speaking of which, she loved those bath crayons so much, and taking away my pens to draw, that we ended up getting the washable crayons for her to draw with. She still needs adult supervision, just in case, but it's been one of her favorite past times.

Likes: Besides the things I just mentioned above, there's not much new going on. Luckily, she's not a picky eater, and generally eats anything in front of her, if not everything. Fruits, like peaches, watermelon, and Asian pears, are 9.5 out of 10 are a big hit; corn, including popcorn, is 10 times out of 10. She loves feeding us as we eat, and sometimes she actually waits to see if we eat the food, before she eats some herself... almost like if she's checking to make sure we didn't put poison in it.
Oh, by the way, though this is old news, I don't remember mentioning it before, but she's getting great at blowing things that are hot before putting it into her mouth. She's done this for months now, maybe even since she's turned one, but it's quite cute to see how she went from pretending to blow, because she just didn't get the mechanics behind it, to now, when there's actually some air coming out.

Dislikes: Recently we switched Rini to a "big kid" toothbrush, and she seems to be a bit more enthusiastic about the prospect of brushing her teeth, so that's good. She's still not thrilled about being in deep water, but more about that in another post.

Mommy/baby update: I've been trying real hard lately to spend more time with Rini, partially because I really want to, and partially because I know that once school starts up again, I won't have much time to do so again. The biggest thing that I've started doing with her is to go to the nearby public bathhouse with her once a week. I'll write about the details later in another post, but it's been a lot of fun! I hope that I can keep our relationship close while we're still in Japan, because I don't want to miss a single precious moment, if I can at all help it!

Enjoying summer on the balcony. Glad we got this little pool!

The Person that I Am...

The last few days I've been feeling a bit down due to stress most likely, but it just could be that time of the year for me. These bouts of blue come and go every so often, so it's nothing special, and I'm hoping that by writing about it, it will leave sooner rather than later.

There have been a few things floating through my mind, with the most significant one being the comparison of me present and 6-8 years past. It's quite shocking just how much has changed, and trying to figure out if I "grew up" or just hit a temporary stage in my life is something that only time will tell. But don't let me run ahead of myself.

To make things clear, this is what I remember about myself from 6-8 years ago:

First and foremost, I dressed completely differently. It was relaxed and casual, where T-shirts, jeans and black took the front seat. I also played video games a lot (sometimes through the night), read manga all the time, went to geeky conventions, played tabletop RPGs with friends, knit, and was just generally up to date on what was happening in the geek world.

This is how I see myself today:

I have a work-self and a mommy-self, two personalities that my wardrobe makes painfully obvious. I also have a bunch of T-shirts, some a bit geeky, some music related, and some just cute, which I almost never wear anymore. I never play video games or read manga anymore, don't play RPGs, forget conventions, and live quite in the past when it comes to anything geeky, due to lack of time I guess. I can barely hold up my end of the conversation in anything that doesn't relate to my work or being a mom. I still knit, when weather permits, and I've been "reading" a lot more novels through Audible.

Now, before I go any further I have to say that I like my job and becoming a mother is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I guess, what I'm trying to say is, I just miss my old self, and I keep wondering, can I still call myself a geek, like I used to, even though I don't do anything anymore that could warrant the label? I can't tell if this is just something that happens to every working parent, or it's mainly me, though in all honesty, I feel it's mainly me. I also don't know if this is temporary until our child(ren) become older, or it's more or less permanent. Maybe I should just accept that from now until the foreseeable future I'll be this two-dimensional person with nothing but work and children on her mind. I can imagine people telling me to just change what I don't like, but I just don't have the time or the energy. The fact that I have to choose between sleep and having some me-time in the morning is simply mind boggling to me. 

Could I read manga during my commute to work? Maybe, and only when I walk or take the train, but it would cut back on what precious time I have for knitting.

Could I play more video games if I really tried? Only when my daughter was asleep, which in turn means sacrificing my own sleep as well.

Could I go back to reading webcomics? I don't have that kind of screen time, either. 

Could I dress differently? That I'm not sure I really want to. Rather I'd like to dress more feminine, without my clothes screaming "work" or "mother."

Could I play boardgames or RPGs with friends? Only if someone watches Rini.

Could I ask someone to watch Rini? It'd have to be someone from the group who I would want to hang out with.

***

I looked at myself in the mirror last night after going out for an hour, and I saw a tired and old-looking girl in there. No, not a woman, just a girl. The makeup, the accessories, the clothes... none of it helps. There is something very wrong with my self-image, something I don't even know how to begin to fix. Sure, it may be temporary, but honestly? This is nothing new. I don't feel like an adult, I don't feel like a woman, I don't feel like a geek, and I barely feel like a mother. Who was I? Who am I now?

I feel like I'm waiting for this miraculous change, where I'll know I'm an adult woman. It's like I'm this character in a video game who just keeps gaining experience points, but is perpetually stuck on Level 15... out of 100.

Who am I really? Beyond my work and being a mother, I feel like I have nothing. I feel like I've lost something, or I'm missing something that I should have had by now. An identity, my identity. The identity that should be there at least when work is over and Rini is asleep. But I have nothing. I go through the motions, like a robot, and while I enjoy many aspects, when it's done, there's nothing but emptiness...