It's funny, not only did my children come out looking completely different from each other, but their personalities are also so incredibly different. I love both of my children more than words can express, but their uniqueness is endlessly fascinating to me---- especially because my sisters and I look fairly similar: we are easily identified as sisters, and we all got along extremely well growing up.
Cordelia was incredibly verbal as a toddler. At this stage, she was talking to us in complete sentences, up to ten words together. Her imaginative play was already taking off. She would sit and listen to a book from cover to cover and then demand you read her a new one. Cordelia showed a little interest in going potty around 18 months, but it quickly faded and she wasn't motivated to potty train herself until almost 3 years old. Cordelia was very loving and sweet as a toddler, and very easy going. She never had a major melt down until after she was 2 and then, as she grew older and more stubborn went through a period where she really struggled with emotional self regulation. Cordelia has always been very ego-centric, and even now is still working on concepts like sharing. Now as a teacher, I don't really believe in forcing children to share, but rather promote things like asking for a turn and waiting to be next and eventually children master the concept on their own and start to share willingly..... I have done this successfully with dozens of children now, but, go figure, my own child is headed to kindergarten and still hasn't figured this out. 😝 Cordelia is definitely ruled by whatever's going on in her head.
Phoebe is my heart-daughter. She is passionate and stubborn too, but also so much more sensitive and aware. Lucky her, she has the added benefit of getting to watch Cordelia model what to do (or what not to do), whereas Cordelia definitely spent her earliest years surrounded with mainly grown ups. If Cordelia gets hurt or is crying because she is mad, Phoebe will try to comfort her and give her a hug or a kiss. Cordelia (unfortunately) is usually not in the mood for physical comfort to be receptive to this and will yell at her "I don't want a kiss! Go away, Phoebe!" But at least Phoebe makes an effort.... I realize Cordelia rarely had the opportunity to even see anyone else get hurt or fly into a rage at this age... how often do Jason or I fall down and scrape our knees? Phoebe loves to emulate what she has seen others doing--- specifically us taking care of her and Cordelia.
Because Cordelia could talk to us, she never really had a "No, ME!" stage. Phoebe is wildy independent. She can take her diaper on and off. She is working on going potty. She can put her feet in her pants and almost pull them all the way up. She wants to climb into her car seat by herself (takes an eternity, I usually don't have the patience to let her). She wants to buckle all her car sea buckles herself, even though the bottom two clips are still too hard for her. She screams and flails if you do them for her (this is happening daily). When Phoebe goes to the sink to wash her hands, she wants to turn on the faucet. She needs to be the one to pump the soap, though she hasn't figured out to hold the other hand out to catch it without help. If you want to make Phoebe really mad, do any one of these things for her. If you try and put her foot in her pants, she will take them completely off, undoing whatever progress she'd made so far, and you will be back to square one of waiting. Honestly, I love it. Sometimes it isn't the best for, you know, needing to go places at a reasonable time, but I love how fiercely independent she is.
And then we have her sister.....Total space cadet!!! Cordelia still needs help to focus on getting dressed! "Cordelia go put your shoes on...... go put your shoes on...... Cordelia, shoes! ..... HOW DO YOU STILL NOT HAVE YOUR SHOES?"
I actually think I see slightly more similarities in these two pictures than I normally do!
And the matching expressions is adorable!
Cordelia loves food; Phoebe loves to eat.
Cordelia has a huge range of things she will eat and a few select things she doesn't like. She loves vegetables. She actually steals vegetables off of my plate to gobble up more. We're talking asparagus, zucchini, artichokes, brussle sprouts, mushrooms, green beans, broccoli, cabbage, spinach (cooked and raw), sweet potato, cauliflower, carrots (raw only), and more. I am beyond proud of her. She is usually wary of trying something new for the first time, but once she has, more often than not, she will exclaim, "I love it!" She doesn't like citrus or strawberries, so tangy and sour is out. So is spicy foods. But honestly, I can't complain. If I pack Cordelia a lunch, she will eat everything I sent. And if I pack a treat, she will wait until the end to eat it.
Phoebe's tastes are much more finicky. One night she may eat broccoli, the next she might not. For a long time she wouldn't eat mashed potatoes, but finally she started to (phew! they're a stable around here). She loves milk. She loves crackers and crunchy things. She still loves fruit pouches. Snacks. She would eat all the time, but not the healthiest stuff. Other times, she will do things like demand to get a cutie from the fridge, peel it herself, and then.... not eat it at all. Ah, Phoebe!! So fickle!
Phoebe took a long time to get into books. And now she loves telling me, "READ!" But Phoebe is already a very different reader than Cordelia. Phoebe gets fixated on things. She has favorite parts or favorite pages that she likes to come back to again and again. You could be moving through a story and she will stop you and go back to her favorite page, or start trying to skip around to find another one. She wants to hear the same book over and over and over again. I mean, Cordelia wanted to hear books over and over too, but that was because she was literally committing the entire thing to memory so she could recite it along with you.
Phoebe also likes to reiterate conversations. As I mentioned in a previous post, we are still almost daily discussing what happened to her at the hospital, the dog sitting on her bed, etc. I have decided that when she was saying OW about her knee, she was actually referring to the blood pressure monitor squeezing her leg, because that has come up a lot. I realized that an important thing we needed to prepare for though--- the yucky taste of Benedryl and Tylenol. So I have made a deal with her. I told her that I knew the medicine tasted really bad and that she didn't like to drink it. But she was going to have to drink it up and then I would give her M&Ms as a reward. Then we shook hands. Phoebe LOVES this. She makes a slurping sounds to say "drink the medicine." then she says "Ball" for chocolate ball. Sometimes she says "Two" because she has to do it twice. Then she wants to shake. She is literally popping her head up in the middle of falling asleep to repeat this conversation with me. I am praying real hard that this pays off, similar to prepping her by playing eye doctor.
Aaand speaking of the eye doctor, I've decided we're going to move on from Dr. N. (Jason's mom is thrilled 😀). I saw him 3 times and I'm not convinced he cares enough about Phoebe and at some point care starts to outweigh expertise. I emailed with Dr. B about this and my need to advocate for Phoebe, and the fact that he wasn't willing to work along with the other doctors to treat Phoebe as a team. She wrote me back an incredibly awesome message about how I am Phoebe's mom and have every right to demand the best care for her, and that she completely agreed with my assessment, though she was sorry my experience with him was "suboptimal". She told me to keep fighting for Phoebe!!
So we are not going to be doing anesthesia with Dr. N in the fall. But I did generously decide not to be a bitch and leave him a nasty review on the internet. I did write one (a long one, full of details so he'd know who it was from) and almost posted it at 2 am, but I couldn't decide if he deserved one or two stars. ha ha In the morning, I was feeling less vindictive.... Uveitis is a very long road and who knows, maybe when Phoebe is older, we'll be back to Dr. N and his lack of beside manner will matter less. I mean, I plan to avoid seeing him for now, but specialists in this field are a pretty small group and I don't need to be burning any bridges.
I'm still deciding on checking out the other specialist. Phoebe did just have her eyes examined, so it doesn't feel super urgent. Though since the weekend I have been noticing some pinkness of veins in her eyes, particularly the right eye. (Cue Anxiety: WHY? Omg is she having a flare???) Anyway, we see Dr. B on Thursday, so I'll ask her about it then, and if we need to see Dr. C.
oh boy, what a ramble! hope you had fun slogging through all this!
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