50th Percentile
We just got back from Tori's 12 month check up. She currently weighs 21.3 lbs, is 29 inches long, and has a head circumference of 45 centimeters. On both the 11 month (correcting for her premature birth) and 12 months scales, she falls basically within the 50th percentile, making our wonderful and amazing little girl just about average.
Feh. As if charts and graphs know anything.
For the first time today they gave her the immunizations in her arms so that her legs won't be too sore to keep her from walking. Very nice of them. But MAN did she ever HATE everything about being at the doctor's office today. Poor thing. But she's now off the hook for another three months.
Since I spent so much time working on that little movie of Tori's first year, I didn't end up doing my monthly letter to her. I'm not going to do it now, but I thought I'd give everyone a little update on Tori's latest developments. Especially about the screaming. Have I mentioned the screaming?
Since we last discussed things, she has become a champion cruiser. She sails around the perimeter of everything soooooooo fast now. It's become quite hazardous, actually. As I mentioned a few days ago, we had to buy one of these (which works well, by the way, although it doesn't really come apart very easily AT ALL) to keep her confined to the area of the first floor that presents the fewest dangers. Instead of making a playpen out of it, we've stretched it across our living room so that it blocks access to the stairs, the television, and the end table with a lamp on it and the surge strip that my computer plugs into beneath it. Now the most dangerous thing she has access to is the fireplace, and since a) it's summer and we're not having any fires and b) I was able to secure the doors (it has glass doors), that is actually not a danger at all.
For a while we didn't need any baby-wrangling things because even though she was cruising she wasn't crawling so she was limited to whatever she could hang on to. That worked great when all she could do was circle the ottoman endlessly. But now, she is crawling. Still mostly crab-crawling, but she does do a bit of hands and knees crawling now. And MAN OH MAN she is fast.
Hence the need for the security gate, or as Charlie calls it, "Abubabe " (he also calls it "Guantoddelo Bay").
She still is, for the most, a very well-behaved baby. But last month when she wasn't given, or had dropped, or had taken away from her a toy or something she liked, she would cry. But now? Well, now she screams. Shrieks. At top volume. Ear splitting.
Without even realizing it, I've rewarded this behavior by giving her whatever it is she wants--anything, you know, to STOP THE SCREAMING. My mom noticed this and pointed it out (in that way that moms have) but I have NO IDEA how to deal with it.
Before we got the security gate, if she persisted in poking/grabbing/crawling into things we didn't want her to, I would sometimes pick her up and hold her (against her violent protests--she almost gave me a bloody nose from head-butting me) for 30 seconds in an attempt to do some sort of precursor to a "time out" (it's actually more of an editorial comment on a time out). It never worked; as soon as I put her down she went right back to the thing we were keeping her away from. Oddly enough, though, she has no resentment against the security gate. Once something is blockaded by a closed door or a security gate, she just accepts the impossibility of having whatever it was she wanted and heads off to find something else to get into.
But now, I have no idea how to deal with the screaming. I mean, obviously she has to learn that she can't have everything she wants. But is that a lesson she needs to learn now? I mean, it's not like she can really process that information yet, right? While obviously we don't think we should allow her to have access that really fascinating electrical outlet, do we really need to deny her the bottle she's just dropped on the floor for the 65th time (actually, I do try to do a "three times" rule--the third time she throws/drops something, I don't let her have it back right away) when I know she's not really done with it? It just seems cruel to have to learn such harsh lessons already. I know a lot of this throwing around of stuff is just her testing out skills and boundaries, and also about controlling what little elements of her environment she can. So I don't know if being firm and not returning the bottle to her is really--well-- fair.
By the way, suggesting to your child that she "practice the Buddhist lesson of non-attachment" does nothing to help the situation. You know, in case you wondered. It is, however, a GREAT way to get people to look at you funny while shopping.
I remember when Heather would talk about her daughter screaming all the time and I had this vague sense of discomfort like she was being mean to Leta to talk about it so much. But if she screamed more than Tori does now, WOW. I can see how that would make one want to kvetch a bit.
So I guess my question for you more experienced parents is about early-not-quite-yet-a-toddler discipline. Do you do it? How? What worked for you? I'm mostly interested in non-corporal punishment methods, obviously. I mean, actually, I don't want to sound like I'm interested in punishing Tori--really, what I want to do is train her rather than punish her (and don't think I haven't considered some of my old animal training techniques--do you think shaking coins in a can really hard when she's getting into trouble, or maybe spraying her with a water bottle when she's trying to get something she shouldn't have might work?).
So with that in mind, how did you get your kid to tolerate having a toy taken away when it's time for dinner, or to get out of the tub, or because it belongs to another child? How do you address a deliberate behavior--like the throwing of her bottle--without being cruel?
Surely I barely need to mention the usual disclaimer:
As is often the case, this could be a contentious issue. So PLEASE play nice and DO NOT attack other commenter's disciplining styles. Unless, you know, they are throwing their child to the lions or whipping them with a belt or something (cause, yeah, I equate those two as being about equal--now you know where my prejudice lies). Try to stick to sharing your own experiences without criticizing others (although if something worked for someone but didn't work for you, that would be interesting to know as well--but again, that doesn't mean that method is bad--it just didn't work for your kid). Keep it nice. :)
