Are there words eloquent enough?

Are there words eloquent enough to express the range of feelings a parent feels for a child? Are there words that can describe exactly the intonation and expression of a little person's voice? Probably, but I don't know that I'm the best person to do it. But I will try. If only for the fact that I will re-read this post one day and the memories will come back to me.

One night this week, I was tired. Emotionally, mentally, just tired. When I got home, I got Juliana to playing and I sat on the couch. She was wearing her rain galoshes which are pink with Hello Kitty on the toes. That morning she had insisted on wearing them because they were "Ba-reena" (ballerina) shoes. In addition to her knit snowflake dress, which was also a "Ba-reena dress". Brian was upstairs, and she kept telling me "Dada crying". I don't know why she thought that, but she kept insisting that "Dada crying". So, I suggested she go check on him to give him a kiss and a hug to cheer him up. "Oooo-kay!". She walked over to the stairs, in these galoshes which are still a bit on the bit side, and proceeded to delicately climb up the stairs, one by one, in the most painstaking fashion. Before ascending each step, she'd turn to me and say "Momma help?" to which I'd respond, "You can do it!". Once she finally reached the top of the stairs, she turned back to me and said "Yay, Jana did it!" (As in Yay, Juliana did it!). Then she motioned high-five to me and said "High five!", so I motioned high five back to her, and then she said "Pound!", which means that each person would make their hands into a fist and touch fists together. It was so cute that I literally felt my heart squeeze with pride and love. Then she set off to find "Dada?" and proceeded to get into trouble (by pulling things off of our bedside tables, and then if we aren't watching closely, we can't find them again...).

Since moving her bedtime back to 7 instead of 6:30, she has been sleeping in in the mornings, which is awesome. It has allowed me to grab 2 morning showers this week without Brian being there, and has made the mornings much more pleasant over all. I'm normally up before her this way, so when she first starts stirring, I'm able to quickly go in, and we can start our morning so she's much more chipper. Plus, some mornings this week I was able to get laundry folded from the night before! It's a great feeling to be more "in control" of what's going on that the chaotic feeling I had been feeling before. Next week I think I'm going to try and make it a goal of getting up to get in some exercise and a shower before needing to start our morning routine... We will see how it goes though.

We're also shifting how she's eating her meals. Typically, I would eat breakfast with her before leaving for school, then she'd have mid-morning snack of Cherrios and milk at school, lunch, afternoon snack, and they'd try to get her to eat dinner around 5/5:15. The last week or so though she has been completely disinterested in dinner and mostly just plays with her food, so they suggested that I try feeding her dinner at home. I've been testing out how she does with having dinner at 6:00/6:30 (the time we would normally get home from school), and so far so good. The only challenge with this is that although the food we have to pack for her to take less (so the process the day before is quicker), I still need to make sure to think through and set aside what she'll have for dinner so it's ready to go when we get home. What we eat for dinner usually doesn't get started/cooked until after she's headed to bed. One of us reads her 2 books, and then sings her a song, snuggles and puts her to bed, while the other starts on the meal for the evening. Unless we both start getting home from work earlier, I don't see that changing in the near future. On the weekends though, we are all able to eat together for the most part (if it's something she'll also eat...).

She has become quite the little parrot, and her phrases now, I'm realizing, are exactly the same as what we've said to her. For example, the other day I was reading an article about addiction (in response to Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death) on my phone.
J: "What doing, Mom?"
M: "I'm reading an article about addiction"
J: "'bout addiction?"
M: "Yup."

One of her favorite games is peek-a-boo. She covers her eyes with her hands and then says:
J: "Jana hiding!"
To which the correct response is to play along with her, saying you can't see Juliana, and where is Juliana, etc. If you don't respond right away, "Jana hiding!" becomes louder and louder and more frequent. The persistence of a toddler. Then she'll say:
J: "Pee-ka-boo!"

She loves playing with her baby dolls. She'll be very particular in how she lays them down in a laundry basket, or toy bed. Covers them up with a blanket (covers the face too), and then pats the babies on their tummies. "I pat baby" She'll tell me "Shh, baby sleeping" and then a few seconds later will say "wah" which means the correct response is to say, Oh no is baby awake? "Yes." The past week and a half or so, she wants to go into the baby room at day care, not into her room with the other toddlers. She "helps" the teachers, and when we get in the car, that's all she'll talk about is seeing "Miss Carrie" and "Miss Rhonda" and "my babies." She knows all the babies by name, and I'm trusting them to tell me if she's a problem, but so far, I think they love having her in there. I hope she's learning how to deal with crying babies, personally... And also learning that baby care takes the number one priority, so that one day if/when she has a sibling, she won't be too put out if the baby needs a little more attention...

When she says "No, Mom." she's so matter of fact that I see a future teenager. When we listen to music while making breakfast, if I start dancing, she'll say "No, mom" and give me "the look" that communicates all sorts of embarrassment, if it's possible for a toddler to be embarrassed by her mother in the privacy of the kitchen?

Whenever she does something that she wanted to do, like take a lid off of an empty spice bottle, she'll say "Yay, Jana!" or "Yay, Jana did it!". She'll also say "I do it" (oh no... independence here we come), and will definitely get frustrated if her steal her thunder by doing it for her. However, she is receptive to "Can I help you?".

She is also talking much faster, so a lot of the time her phrases are completely lost on me. She doesn't get too frustrated with me asking her to repeat herself though. She has a marker shaped like a cow that she has recently renewed interest in and will cry "My cow!" except that to me it sounds like "My towel!", so it took me a couple of tries to realize exactly what she was saying and wanting.

As far as learning my phrasing with her, I frequently would tell her what we were going to do, i.e. let's go downstairs and get some juice, okay?. Now she says things (very fast, so hard to understand her) like "I get it, Okay Mom? Okay? Okay? I get it, Okay?" And then just takes off like I said it was okay (which normally it is, except when she's procrastinating bedtime).

Her teachers say she's so smart. She's the only one in the Young Toddler's room who can put on her shoes. It's still 50/50 if she gets them on the right feet, but she tries. She's close to being able to put her socks on by herself. There are still little piggies that don't make it in, so she gets frustrated quickly "Help Mom! Help!". She can put on her jacket by herself (when she wants to of course), and her hat. Sometimes in the mornings when she's procrastinating going to school, I have to be "mean" and leave, head downstairs and start the van in order to entice her to pick up the pace and follow.

Since her four canine teeth have come in, we're trying to scale back on pacifier use to nap time, bedtime, and car seat time only. Surprisingly, she's picked it up fast. My tactic is, whenever she asks for it when it's not one of those designated times, to try and tell her she doesn't need it and distract her. If that's not working, then I tell her she can have it but she has to snuggle. Then when she's ready to go play, she has to leave paci behind. They follow this at school as well, but sometimes the teachers are too busy to snuggle with her, so they tell her she has to sit by the wall. We've even been able to make it through diaper changes now without her asking for it! Is it bad that when she fights me during a diaper change I tell her that if she'd use the potty then she wouldn't have to wear diapers anymore? She consistently will use the potty if we put her on it, and aren't seriously into potty training, but I feel like eventually she won't fight me at diaper changing time if she knows that there's an alternative?

This morning, she was going to have a waffle for breakfast. I asked her to sit in her high chair, but instead she said "I sit in Mommas seat" and proceeded to climb up into my chair and refuse to move. Then her eye caught the picture we have on the fridge of our Moore cousins, and she started talking about "Juoo-duh" (Judah). I said "Judah would sit in his seat..." And she was quiet, and then proceeded to tell me something to the fact of she wouldn't sit in her seat because "Juoo-duh in my seat." And then I tried, "Levi would sit in his seat...". To which she said "Lee-vi?". Finally, I had to try the counting game. "Juliana, I'm going to count to 3. When I say 3, you need to be climbing up into your seat, or Mommy will pick you up and put you in your seat." Yeah, that didn't work, but she didn't fuss when I eventually put her in her seat, so that's good.

She wants to know who every one is. Even strangers, she'll point to them and say "Who dat Momma?" To which I'm repeatedly saying "I don't know, Juliana."

The other day she said her first "Why" and I was completely caught off guard. In the mornings, she normally wants to hold on to all sorts of things while I'm holding her, which usually means I'm holding 2-5 items and her, and my hands are most definitely full. I was holding her and the empty case for the iPad. I said "I'm going to put this case down, okay?" And she said "Why Mom" And I stumbled for words "Because I can't hold it and you at the same time."

But my heart literally melts every time she says "Thank you, Mom" and "I love you! Mom." And I know that I'll do anything to help her grow up into a sweet, kind, loving little girl. At school, she cares for all the other kids, and her teachers say that she gives the best hugs. And she does. She wraps her arms around your neck, presses her cheek to your cheek and squeezes as tight as she can for a long time.