Back to Normal?

We are finally feeling somewhat back to normal in our house.  Unfortuately, it has been very rainy and pollen is everywhere, so we are spending lots of time indoors.  

What have we been doing?  Let me show you:

I normally do not like to vacuum, but Rebecca LOVES it.  If she hears the big vacuum or the handheld vacuum, she gets so excited.  I personally do not like the process of getting the floors clean, although I do love a clean floor.  Needless to say, we have vacuumed the downstairs 3 times in the past 5 days, just because it makes Rebecca happy.  Sometimes she gets her small vacuum and follows me around.  Sometimes she tries to ride on the vacuum.  Sometimes she is busy trying to push the buttons on it.  But if I am lucky, she wants to do the big vacuum herself.  There is nothing wrong with early training.  

We started art class at Gymboree.  It was SO much fun.  We (and I do mean we) played with playdough, painted apples, talked about the color red, played with blocks, and made ladybugs.  It was hard for me not to step in and do the art projects for Rebecca.  I have to learn that art does not have to be perfect.  It is more about the process.  

Rebecca has started and then stopped eating tomatoes.  She loved them for a few days; now she will not touch them.

Rebecca is back to climbing into things.  

She is also talking so much more these days.  She can almost always communicate what she wants or needs.  She is even talking in short sentences.  My favorite is "Gets you, Momma!"  which means, pick me up.  

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In the craziness of our "getting back to normal" I forgot to post about weaning Rebecca off of milk right before bed.  It is something that I have been wanting to do for a while, but I have been dreading because Rebecca has always had milk right before bed.  It was also my favorite snuggle time with her.  She would sit in my lap, drink her milk, and rub my face.   But the doctor told me that it was not good for her teeth to have milk right before she went down for the night, because it could lead to cavities.  

At any rate,  being in Jamaica helped with the weaning.  Rebecca did not like the taste of the Jamaican milk, therefore she would not drink a whole lot, even before bedtime.  When we got home, instead of giving her a whole cup of milk, I would give her half a cup.  After a few days, she got a fourth a cup of milk.  After a week of this, we would give her milk at dinnertime, but only took water to bed with her.  

The first few nights she would ask for milk, but we would tell her she had water instead.  She cried a little, but it finally sunk in that she was not getting milk. Now she loves taking her water to bed with her.  We put it in the crib with her which is something we never did with her milk.  

When she wakes up in the morning, I often find her chugging her water down while she waits for me to get her out of bed.

Just another sign that my baby is growing up.