Maryam at the park with Mommy

You would think that after running around in the sun for 3 hours that she would have exhausted all of her energy, nope! When we got home from San Diego I took her to the park to run out a little more. Unfortunately the lights weren't on so we had to leave before the sun went down.

Here is a picture of Maryam and Mommy before going down the big slide together.

Here is Maryam on the swing. I'm so glad that she started liking the swings. She still doesn't have strong enough muscles in her shoulders to pull herself up on many of the climbing equipment, so the swings and slides are nice alternatives.

Maryam did not want to eat dinner tonight. She threw every piece of food that I put on her tray. Finally she calmed down and just hugged on a pumpkin guy until her dinner was done. I think she just finally ran out of energy. You can see that she looks a little tired in this photo.

First Temper Tantrum

Well, I must say that I'm grateful that Maryam made it to 21 months before having her first temper tantrum and I'm even more grateful that she hasn't had one since! Friday afternoon when I was trying to feed her she pitched the biggest fit! I was amazed. I wasn't trying to give her finger food, I was trying to bolus feed her. She bucked and jerked and cried and tried screaming, it was the strangest thing. NOTHING calmed her. I tried holding her, Brett tried holding her, we tried having her sit on the couch, we finally put her back in her high chair because we were having a hard time keeping hold of her.

Finally I decided to walk away from her and see if that made her calm down, as if maybe she was just mad at me or something. That didn't work AT ALL. In fact, she cried and screamed even harder. Poor punkin. I had no idea how to calm her, for the first time in her life I was of no comfort.

When I came back to her she reached for me. I took her out of her high chair and walked straight out the front door. Once we got outside she started to calm down a little....I thoughy, yay the power of distraction! We heard a dog bark across the street and we both made woofing sounds. Then I pointed out 4 Doves on the roof and she did her version of the sign for bird and said "teet, teet, teet."

All was finally better with the world. Man, that was a rough 5 minutes for me, I can't imagine how terrible she must have felt. I have to remember to distract her early if and when she has another tempter tantrum.