1. We bought at little potty!
Sydney now sees the bigger kids using the potty at school (literally) and some of the kids her age (or a little older) are taking interest. Early Days suggested we get a potty and see if we can get her interested. So today our potty arrived courtesy of Amazon and Meghan sat it in the kitchen and showed it to Sydney. Sydney started by taking a small glass bowl (we use them for melting butter for popcorn) off the shelf and carefully putting it in the potty. Later when I got home she proceeded to drag it across the kitchen and disassemble it. She took the lid off and started to take the inner liner out. After that she climbed in (not on... in). See the pictures below.
Well I suppose Rome wasn't built in a day. Later we moved the potty to the bathroom. She wasn't too interested... except in disassembling it.
Back to my original comment, at Early Days when they take the bigger kids to the bathroom, they leave the door open. In fact, sometimes they stand a little boy at the toilet and sit a little girl on the potty next to him. Yeah we thought that was kind of weird too, but the alternative would be shutting the door with them in there alone. After consideration, we're ok with it.
2. How much yogurt is too much yogurt?
Sydney is obsessed with yogurt. How does a 16 month old get obsessed? Well she will lead you to the fridge, get you to open it, and take the yogurt out herself if it's on a shelf she can reach. We're limiting her to 2 cups a day. That created many meltdowns on Sunday when we could have easily gone through 4 cups.
She will even act especially cute and do a little dance for yogurt. It's totally bizarre.
3. HOT!
Somehow Sydney knows the word hot. We all went out for pizza the other night and I blew on this piece of pizza for probably 2 minutes. I was literally light headed. Then I handed it to her, she started to take a bite, recoiled, looked at me and said "hot!". Apparently I needed to lift the cheese before blowing because sure enough, it was hot under there. After that she wasn't too interested in the pizza.
This makes me think back to when we visited my parents in Pittsburgh last Father's day. On the trip back we ate in a restaurant and gave Sydney some fries. I handed her a hot one without really thinking about it (wasn't really hot unless you squeezed it). She squeezed, started crying, and continued squeezing. I felt really bad about that one. ...hey at least now she lets go.
Tonight we had sweet potatoes for dinner. After much coaxing, Meghan got Sydney to try them. ...and she liked them and quickly finished off the portion Meghan had out. So Meghan went and got some more for her. While she was blowing on some trying to cool it down, Sydney helped herself to the steaming sweet potato and stuck some in her mouth. Yeah, that didn't go over very well. As with the pizza she wasn't very interested after that but we did finally talk her into eating more. Hard to believe this is the same kid who used to demand sweet potatoes faster than we could spoon them into her mouth.
4. Really bad cough
Sydney has had this cough since her last cold that continued for a couple weeks after the cold ended. During the onset of her next cold a few days ago, it got really bad. At school, they said they thought she was going to throw up she was hacking so hard. It was one of those dry hacking coughs where nothing comes up but you just hack and hack. It turned her face bright red and she just kept coughing.
On Friday night (at the peak of the coughing) we decided we had to do something. We discussed whiskey and honey. We discussed honey and lemon juice. We dismissed the possibility of cough drops (Sydney doesn't know how to suck on hard candy). Eventually we agreed to go get something (although we knew nothing was recommended for kids under 2). We decided close enough, we'd just cut the dose. Unfortunately when we got to the store, everything was labeled 4 and up under the direction of a doctor, otherwise 6 and up. Sydney doesn't look much like a 4 year old or a 6 year old so we aborted that plan. I had visions of frying her brain, kidneys, or liver. I considered the whiskey and honey approach but didn't know how she would react. Eventually we settled on this children's cough syrup that was basically honey and lemon juice and labeled as an herbal supplement (ie. Not FDA regulated... ).
When we got home, we put some in a little syringe we use for giving Sydney ibuprofen and squirted some in her mouth. Sydney then proceeded to gag and throw up all over me (I was standing and holding her in this moment). That pretty much ended the night for Sydney and she was in bed within 20 minutes. We put Vicks pads in the vaporizer and rubbed some on her chest. Somehow mercifully, her cough subsided and she slept through the night mostly cough free. There's still a little bit of cough left, but it's mostly gone now.
5. Understanding
Sydney's level of understanding is going up.
When we went out for pizza the other night, I packed what remained up to take it home. As soon as I started taking pizza off the pan, she started handing me the left over pieces on her plate. Very very cute.
Speaking of the pizza night, as soon as the waitress brought our bread sticks, Sydney helped herself. She grabbed one off the plate in the center of the table and went to town. ...fortunately it wasn't too hot.
She's got these puzzles with pictures of animals that go in holes that are the shape of the animal. She can put all of them over the right hole but hasn't figured out how to rotate them to actually get them into the hole. It's improving though.
Meghan has been showing Sydney pictures in one of her books and asking, "Where is the cookie?" "Where is the banana?" "Where are the shoes?" Surprisingly, Sydney can pick some of them out. This is just in the last few days. It may be time to give the flash cards another go.
6. Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes (knees and toes) is HILARIOUS!
No really. Sydney thinks it's hilarious.
7. Clingy with Dad
For some reason, we're in the dad phase right now. Sydney is extremely happy to see me at all times and usually wants to be in my lap. It's cute and endearing... and I know that when she's older she won't want anything to do with me so I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.
I'm sure there are dozens of cute stories but none are coming to mind, and it's bed time. I'll close for now and hope to post more later.