I never thought I’d be tickled that my kids have started arguing.

Oh, not the push-pull-gimme-mine-scream kind of arguing. They’ve been doing that for ages and there is no end in sight. It’s not pleasant.

Nor am I talking about the times when they seem to be fighting over a syllable. We’ll be in the car, and Daniel will say “Becca! Becca! …. uh-huh!”  And she freaks.  “Nooo, Daniel!”  And he continues.  “Uh-huh!”  “NOOOO!”  “Uh-huh!” *giggle* “NOOOO, DANIEL!”  That one’s weird, and a little hilarious, but not my current favorite.

No, what I love the most right now is the actual conversation.  They pointedly speak to one another, listen, understand, and disagree. Hello, cognitive and language development! I love you!

Yesterday’s example: we were in the car on the way to a friend’s house.  Daniel saw a backhoe, which is, of course, an endless source of delight and amusement.  In his excited, drawn-out, stutter-y way, he said “It’s a backhoe, mommy! It’s for pushing dirt. And it spins.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what he was saying, so I repeated back to him, “it spins, buddy?”
“Yeah!”
Uh, OK.  Not sure about the spinning backhoe.  Apparently, neither was Rebecca.  She replied calmly but firmly, “no, Daniel.  Backhoe not for spinning. It for pushing dirt.”

They now do this sort of thing all day long.  They verbally invite each other to play a game, take a toy, or any of their other daily activities.  Sometimes one kid goes along with what the other says, and sometimes not.  But I love watching them process the demand/order/request from the other kid and formulate an opinion and a response.

And to think that, this time last year, I was feeling a little nervous about the fact that they each had basically a single word in their vocabularies.

There is a major power struggle going on in my house right now.  Daniel has hit that most delightful stage of toddlerhood where he feels the need to exert his independence/power/control at every possible opportunity. And let me tell you, it’s a blast.

He has his favorite tactics.  Oh, sure, sometimes he just straight up says “no.”  But he tries to get more creative than that.  If I say we’re going upstairs (or out to the car, or whatever), it’s almost guaranteed that I will hear a sentence that starts with “first I…”.  “First I gonna wash the hands.” “First I gonna play with the toys.”  Et cetera, et cetera.

Another favorite phrase when he’s in a defiant/delaying mood is “I no like (yike) that.”  “I no yike dat snack.”  “I no yike the blanket.” The one you have refused to sleep without for the last 20 months? “I no yike it.”  “I no yike the bed!” Et cetera, et cetera.

He nearly always tries to pull something at bedtime, now.  Bedtime, which has been darn smooth sailing for over a year and a half, is now when Daniel likes to assert himself.  “No sleep sack!”  “More stories!”  “I no yike to lie down!”  [Yes, we still use sleep sacks. The times I've let him have his way and not wear the sleep sack are the times that he has skipped his nap. No thanks.]  I pretty much ignore all of the bedtime delay tactics, but M has a tendency to get sucked in when Daniel pulls out things like “more hugs, Daddy?”  Sucker.

I know that the desire for control is normal for this age. I know that they are having this sudden realization that the world is kind of big and overwhelming and that they don’t  have much control over what goes on.  I try to diffuse some of the situations by offering him choices, or letting him think it was his idea, all along. But I can’t always do that, and it doesn’t always work, so there are a lot of highly dramatic meltdowns with hysterical wailing and giant tears.  Man, does it grate on what little patience I have.

Oh, but when he forgets about that struggle for power, he’s so incredibly sweet and funny.  The things that he remembers, the phrases he parrots back to you, the stories he tells.  He shares with his sister, he asks me to play catch and read a story.  He says things like, “it’s de-wicious in my tummy!”  He sings songs on demand. He says “thank you” without prompting, and bids farewell to the women at the gym with an enthusiastic “have a good day, lady! See you later!” He really is just about the sweetest boy you have ever met.

When he forgets.

This morning, we hosted three lovely folks from Early Intervention.  For anyone out there who is not familiar with EI, it’s a pretty awesome thing.  Basically, if you or your pediatrician have concerns about your infant or toddler’s developent from birth through age 3, you can request an evaluation.  They will send out a team (developmental specialists, occupational therapists, and the like) and do a complete evaluation on your child.  That means, if you call because you’re worried about speech, they’ll evaluate your child for fine and gross motor, too.  The eval is free, they billed my insurance.  And if you qualify for services (generally by showing a 30% delay in one or more areas), they’ll send someone to the house to work with your child.  A win-win situation, if you ask me!

Anyways, I called about Daniel.  I had a very odd, specific concern.  Basically, he still drools what seems like an awful lot (though, of course, it slowed down noticeably once I made the call a few weeks ago!).  And he has some difficulty chewing certain foods.  In particular, ones that you can’t just easily mash, but have to really break down with your teeth.  Crackers are no problem, nor are most kinds of fruit.  It’s not that he dislikes crunchy things or smooth things.  But with, say, a piece of tortellini… he’s most likely to mash it up in his mouth (getting out the yummy filling) and then spit out the actual pasta if it’s even the slightest bit al dente.  And it’s not a question of dislike.  He’ll ask for more tortellini (or clementine wedge, or grape, etc.).  And he eats a reasonable amount of food, is gaining weight, etc etc.  It’s not a huge problem, and I honestly suspected that we probably would not qualify for EI services.  But I just wanted it to get checked out and maybe get some suggestions for how to work on it.

So, three women came to my house this morning.  All very friendly, all fairly young.  Basically, two of them played with Daniel while the third asked me some health history-type questions.  It was fascinating to watch.  Each toy or object they’d bring out of the bag was designed to get at a particular behavior.  See if he’d do pretend play, model behavior, stack blocks, match shapes.  As far as he was concerned, of course, he was just playing with these nice new people.  He was his usual charming, sociable, talkative self.  There were a few things when they would ask him a question, and I had to stop myself from chiming in “c’mon, buddy, you know that one!”  Especially when it’s something he most definitely knows/understands/is capable of.  But he’s a toddler, and sometimes he’s just going to elect not to participate.  And you can tell those times, because he gives you the Daniel face.  It looks something like this, but with a bit more brow furrowing:

Oh, and when it came time to check on his chewing? I gave him some clementine for a snack, which he always mashes and then spits out.  Except when the nice lady is there watching him.  Then he swallows segment after segment.  Show-off.  Way to make mommy feel silly.

At any rate, at the end of the eval, they will let you know how your child did, basically scoring them at a particular number of months for each developmental area.  So, if he were scoring right on target, that would be 19 months.  He would have to score at 14 months or below to qualify for services.  How did he do?

Gross and Fine Motor Skills: 19 months

Spoken language: 20 months

Receptive (understanding) language: 22 months

Cognition and problem-solving: 24 months

Social interaction: 26 months

Oh, and the feeding/chewing is under the umbrella of “self-care,” where he scored… 19 months.  She did notice the drooling, and said that he does show a little bit of low muscle tone in the lip area, which usually would lead to speech concerns. Not with my chatterbox.  She suggested having him use a straw (which he already does), and try sucking thicker things like yogurt or smoothies.  Also blowing raspberries, buzzing your lips, and trying to blow bubbles are all good for that kind of muscle tone.  For things specific to food, she suggested that we try to work on more foods with mixed textures, which is where he seems to have a hard time.  So try dipping things, like fruit in yogurt or cracker in hummus, or even try eating things like soup that have more than one texture in the same bite.

Yeah.  Basically, my kid rocks.  Obviously, as his mother, I have long suspected it.  But nice to have outside confirmation.   He did particularly well on imitating unfamiliar sounds (zoop! zip!), finding a hidden toy in several different variations, and grouping similar objects together.  He showed good understanding of basic shape puzzles, even if he couldn’t quite get the triangle to fit properly, and did a great job labeling familiar objects with the correct word.  I’m so proud.

All of this is not entirely just to brag about my own kid (though, it’s my blog, so I can do that), but also to say that getting evaluated by Early Intervention was a really good experience.  The people were nice and great with the kids, and gave immediate and helpful feedback even though we didn’t qualify for any ongoing services or therapies.  Birth to age three, people.  If you have any worries, use it!

A year and a half.  Six months until TWO!  As always seems the case, it’s incredible how time flies.  And for once, we actually had their well-child checkup on their actual “birthday,” so I have both stats and stories for updating.

Daniel, my big Baby A, is just shy of 25 pounds (24lb 14.5oz).  But the pediatrician was onto something when she commented that he looked leaner. Apparently much of Daniel’s growth has been vertical, as he grew nearly two inches in the last three months, up to around 32″ tall.  That puts him right at about the 40th percentile for weight, and 50th for height.

Daniel has become quite outgoing and friendly, and showed that right from the get-go when he walked up to our doctor and asked her to pick him up.  He says “hi” to everyone he sees, and frequently will repeat it until that person says “hi” back.  He loved showing off the words he knows, the list of which is up past 30 now.  He proudly pointed to his nose, eyes, and ears, and to mommy, daddy, and Rebecca (or, in Daniel-speak, “Nee-nee”).  Everything else checked out well, and the doctor pronounced him healthy and an absolute genius.  OK, so maybe I’m paraphrasing.

One of the very few concerns we have with Daniel is his drooling. He’s been a drool-monster forever, but I feel like he’s starting to approach an age where maybe he shouldn’t be going through 2-3 shirts every day, simply due to drool. (Mealtime messes not included.)  Our doctor said the drool itself isn’t inherently a very bad thing, except if it seems to interfere with language (which it does not, Daniel’s words are reasonably clear for a kid his age), or if there also seems to be an issue with chewing food.  Ding Ding! Aha!  That was the next question on my list. Daniel has a weird thing where he doesn’t seem to chew very well, despite having a full set of 16 teeth.  The doctor was not terribly concerned, but suggested we could always get an evaluation from Early Intervention to see if he qualifies for a little occupational therapy.  I think I’ll give them a call, just in case.  Either it’ll be nothing at all and I’ll be reassured, or he’ll qualify for and start receiving services. It’s a no-lose situation, I feel.

My little peanut Rebecca does not appear to have suffered for all the times she seems to skip meals entirely.  In fact, she put on a bit more than a pound and a half to reach 20lb 10oz.  Woo, 6th percentile! The measurements would suggest that she only grew about a quarter of an inch in height, but she had no interest whatsoever in sitting still, so about 30″ was just a best guess.  It only puts her at about the 10th percentile for height, which I think underestimates things just a little.

Rebecca has been extremely wary of strangers the last couple of months. If she knows you or is comfortable, she’s very independent and outgoing, and will happily get a book, shove it in my sister-in-law’s boyfriend’s hands, and climb up into his lap so he’ll read it to her.  But if she’s feeling uncertain or doesn’t remember who you are… she’ll give you the stink-eye, big time.  She had no interest in speaking to, or even looking at, the doctor.  She only wanted to cling to me or M, and screamed bloody murder when so much as approached with the stethoscope (not unlike the barrette fiasco).  It was hard to get accurate measurements as she was so busy screaming as though we were about to poke out her eyes with a sharp stick.  Oh my lord, does that girl have the capability for absolute rage.  Ever since she was a newborn.  Quiet, calm, and then red-faced in anger.

When she’s comfortable, though, Rebecca is all over the place.  She shrieks (often to wake Daniel up when she’s done napping… Daniel is not always as well-rested as she claims to be), she talks to herself and to us. She initiates chasing games with Daniel, yesterday it was each of them with one end of the dog’s leash, running circles around the first floor and giggling.  She loves to dance, she loves it when I sing the alphabet song.  “More, more, more” she signs, and I have to keep coming up with more songs to keep them awake when we’re driving home before naptime.  Her vocabulary is nearly as good as Daniel’s, give or take a few words, though Daniel is at a stage where he much more actively repeats everything I say.  Rebecca, you can tell, knows exactly what’s going on. Her receptive language and ability to follow simple directions is incredible (“go get Daniel’s other shoe, get mommy’s jacket, get Rebecca’s hat, etc.”  she has no problem distinguishing each item). But she plays her hand close to her chest a lot of the time.  She’s clever and calculating.  Trouble, I tell you.

I wrote an entry yesterday for HDYDI about whether or not things get “easier” as they get older.  And I maintain that there’s no real answer.  Some things get easier, some things get harder.  But despite the temper tantrum that Rebecca threw for about 30 minutes when we got home today, I really do like this age. Every new skill makes things more fun, even if it also makes things more challenging.  As I said yesterday: hard is always hard, bad is always bad. But good keeps getting better.