The weeks of one day of snow after another that made up the bulk of January were also challenging weeks for Maia, it seemed. On Saturday, I was reading about this concept of "disequilibrium vs. equilibrium" as something that can help organize one's thinking about toddler behavior and development. It certainly helped me think more clearly about what was going on with Maia last month. It was challenging: lots of automatic "No!"s, discontent with basically every option that was put in front of her, cranky wake-ups, etc. The whining seemed never-ending on some days, although I know it really wasn't. I could feel my patience being whittled away, incrementally, and it felt like it was corresponding with the incremental piling-up of the snow outside.
Maia was in a state of disequilibrium, to be sure. She was clearly trying to figure some things out, and I bet that it didn't feel so good for her. In the last week or so, as we've all emerged from the fog, Maia has claimed some new sentences, along with a new attitude. Now that she's really adept at using the personal pronoun "I," we often will hear Maia clearly asserting "I want _____" or "I don't want _____" or "I think ______" . . . that sort of thing. We're also frequently hearing her say "Mama/Dada, don't say that!" I think that many of our difficulties last month all had to do with her further clarifying her individuality, her understanding of herself as a separate person. This all starts will stranger and separation anxiety in babies, and continues into defiance and oppositional behavior in toddlers. I try to think about it from her perspective: what a monumental task it must be, intellectually, to learn that "I" am a unique being, separate from my primary caregivers, I am a different person, I have my own thoughts, opinions, body, self, mind . . . to learn something that huge is really quite amazing. No wonder she was cranky! And there's no doubt the crankiness will return, in a different form, soon enough.
We already had a really verbal toddler before her second birthday, but her language has really reached new levels of detail and variation lately. Some of the new words and phrases she's picked-up in the last week or so: utensil, spatula, "lost my marbles," hospital, ridiculous, delicious . . . there are others that are slipping my mind right now. Oh! I remember: she also knows the names of her parents and all four of her grandparents, so she'll go down the list and say "Mama's name is Cara, Dada's name is Brian, Nana's name is Dawn," etc. She's also working on the question intonation, she seems to be grasping past tense sometimes, and occasionally slips into a stuttering sort of rhythm when her brain seems to be moving too quickly for her words to keep up.
I try to be here for her, as best I can, every step of the way. Every day is a balancing act of negotiation vs. direction, independence vs. interdependence, her needs vs. ours/mine. Although there's an element of monotony to it, the variable is Maia herself. The activity might be the similar from one day to the next, but it's not always easy to predict how she'll need to approach and process it. Ann Arbor has become a network of familiar and frequently-visited places for us, places where the surroundings are known and Maia can test herself and challenge herself in different ways, depending upon how she feels and what she needs. It's really fascinating to watch.
Finally, I'll wrap this up with other cool stuff in our lives:
- I attended another birth last week, and have doula clients booked for March and April.
- My car is paid off in a couple of months. We'll own both of our cars! Yay!
- No-TV update: going smoothly. We watch about one hour of TV on Thursdays, and perhaps an episode of BSG on Netflix here and there.
- YMCA membership update: we've outlasted the New Year's Resolution rush. The gym is quieter now, and Brian and I have both stuck with it. Good for us. I'm back to running 5Ks. :)
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