We’ve always known that CootieGirl was big/tall for her age – she positively towers over other kids at church who are her age or even slightly older. Supposedly you can calculate how tall your child might be using their height/weight on their second birthday as well as the heights of the mother and father.

So we didn’t do this on CootieGirl’s 2nd birthday, but taking her height and weight as of now it looks as though she will be completely normal by the time she’s 18: a healthy 5′5″ (just like me). If on her half-birthday (in late October) she is 33 pounds and 3′2″ (she’s 3′0″ right now) then she could possibly go up to 5′9″ tall. I highly doubt she’ll grow 2″ in height in the next 7 weeks. If she grows one inch more by then, the “test” says she may be 5′7″.

Either way it’s just a fun goofy test, but I’d love for her to be a tall willowy girl – we don’t have those in our families. CootieDad’ mom is as petite as they come and my mother isn’t too much ahead of her. And forget about my grandmother – she’s always being teased about her height. So tall and willowy would be a nice change of pace for both sides of the family!

Last night when CootieGirl arrived home from daycare she was sporting some bruising around her nose and much swollenness. Apparently she battled a drawer full of puzzles at daycare and the drawer enjoyed a resounding victory. CootieGirl seems no worse for wear, even though she looked a bit post-op for my liking. However, when inspecting her nose she didn’t wince or whine so I don’t think she broke her tiny little nose.

In other news I bought a booster seat for her yesterday at Target. It’s quite nice, quite fancy and she seems to like it. For now I’ll continue to have CootieBoy use the infant car seat in my car until I get a chance to buy the other booster seat for CootieGirl. I originally was going to order them both from Amazon but they wanted $54 in shipping for them. Forget it!

I may see if I can get the booster seat that Jen gave us from her former roommate to work – I couldn’t find an exact match at the Graco website in order to download the install instructions, and I also think there are some belts missing, but if I can find the right instructions and confirm the seat has all the stuff it needs to be properly installed, I’ll go ahead and install one of them in my car. We’ll just save the other one in the event we have a third child in the next year or so.

Just a quick post to say I adore my daughter. The major tantrums have ceased – she’ll still get upset about stuff and even fall to the floor to cry, but last night she flounced onto the floor because she wanted dinner before it was even done cooking (actually it was still frozen). We tried explaining that it had to be cooked first and she got all huffy and fell to the floor to cry.

I quickly knelt down and picked her up, and she leaned into my arms and began to hug me and basically stopped crying. I offered her some banana bread and she took the piece and said thank you before running into the other room to watch tv.

Later in the evening I decided to put together the tricyle that CootieDad bought her at Target earlier in the week. I had the pieces in the kitchen and CootieDad was keeping her occupied in the other room so she had no idea I was doing it. Suddenly she came running in and saw what I was doing and decided to “help”. She got in the way a bit but never got upset when I grabbed small pieces out of her hand and scolded her. She was relatively patient waiting for the bike to be finished. When it was all put together we went outside in the fading daylight and went for a short ride past the neigbor’s house and back. She doesn’t use the pedals, but I think she’ll pick it up quickly and it’ll be her new favorite after-daycare activity.

Last night at 7:30 p.m. we turned on an episode of “Dora the Explorer” for CootieGirl to watch before she went to bed. Unbeknownst to me it was an HOUR long episode instead of 30 minutes. So as 8 p.m. approached I knew I’d have to deal with a tantrum when I turned off the show before Dora “went home” (CootieGirl’s term for when a show ends).

After Dora finished her second task of four I turned to CootieGirl and said, “You know what time it is, CootieGirl?” She turned to me with fear in her eyes because that question almost never leads to fun things for her – only naps and night-night. “It’s time for night-night,” I finished.

Tears welled up. “Nooooo!” she said. “Please! Dora!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s 8 o’clock and that’s bedtime.”

“Noooooo, Mama. Plllleeeeeeeeeease!!!”

“CootieGirl, I’m very happy that you are being polite and saying ‘please’ – that’s what you should do and that’s great. However, we’ll finish the show tomorrow because it’s time for bed now.”

When I stood up she scrambled off the sofa in an attempt to escape me. “Do you want some water?” I asked, holding out her sippy cup to distract her.

“Yes!” she said, coming to take her cup. I led her into the kitchen and I poured a couple ounces of water for her and then took her upstairs with her sippy cup.

I laid her down in her bed, put covers on her, gave her a big kiss and told her I loved her. Walked out of the room and closed the door.

I can’t tell you how relieved I was that we had no theatrics and that she didn’t throw a tantrum after all.

We’re still getting tantrums occasionally. But now she knows that if it goes on too long she WILL end up on a step, in a chair, wherever is handy, and that she’ll be required to sit quietly for two minutes in order to calm down. She’s really responsive to it. Tonight she started a tantrum, more due to fatigue than anything. Fortunately CootieDad was there and saw the exact action I took.

I made her go to the chair and sit down, and then I got down onto her level and said calmly, “We do not scream in this house. Sit there for two minutes, and do not scream or cry for those two minutes.” Within 30 seconds she was calm again, so after only a minute I had her get down from the chair for a hug and kiss, after which I reiterated that screaming was not to be tolerated.

I then got her in her bathing suit and we went to hang in the neighbor’s pool for about 30 minutes.

As for potty training – forget about it. We attempted to go cold turkey this weekend and it was a complete failure. F.A.I.L.U.R.E. Twice I went to get her to put her on the potty because I knew she was “due” and sure enough she had JUST messed herself as I approached her. She also had two other accidents. All in one day. That’s a lot of carpet cleaner being used there. So she’s back in diapers and pull-ups. I’ve told CootieDad that once the diapers are gone he shouldn’t buy anymore – strictly pull-ups from now on. They are more expensive, but less absorbant which will aid in training her.