Attack of the Whine

As a parent, I'm constantly overwhelmed, amazed, and simply overjoyed at all of the developments and changes I see in Naomi as I watch her grow. I've quickly come to the realization that she is no longer my little newborn baby. She won't just lie in one spot if I need to run to the bathroom. If I answer the phone, she reaches out to take it so she can "talk" too. She's developing her own personality and quickly learning what she likes and doesnt like. As she figures this out, we're starting to figure it all out with her...one of her ways of telling us she wants something or is unhappy, is her whining. This past weekend, Naomi hit her stride (so far) when it comes to whining. On Saturday morning, after waking up an hour earlier than normal, Naomi spent the entire morning fussing, crying and whining. Breakfast became a challenge of her wanting everything BUT what was being offered to her. We're trying to lay down some rules and only let her eat what's being offered, otherwise she has to wait til her next snack or meal time. Hopefully this will avoid finicky eating in the future, and get her to eat a better balance diet (there are days when all she'll eat are strawberries and goldfish..um fruits, carbs and dairy right?). As soon as our unsuccesful breakfast was over, being overly tired from not having a full night of sleep, Naomi just lost it. She was clinging to everyone, not wanting to be put down, but not wanting us to sit down either. Finally an hour before her normal nap time, we decided to her down for a nap. Sunday was equally as bad as our sunday service at church has been temporarily pushed back from 8:30 to 10am. 10am is Naomi's normal nap time. So on Sundays, for the month of August, Naomi skips one nap and ideally, takes one mega nap right after lunch. This week, I was volunteering in the nursery room, the same room Naomi happens to be in. Bad idea. Not only was she overly tired, since I was there, she was super whiny and wanted to be with me the whole morning. The worst was when another baby, who was so much smaller than Naomi, crawled over to me crying cause he wanted to be picked up, so I held him in my lap...meanwhile, Naomi who had been happily playing at this time, looked up, saw another baby in my lap, and immediately started whining. Then she crawled over, tried to shove the other kid out of my lap and squeezed in. Unsuccessful at moving him out of my lap completely, she started hitting the kid!! As my sister in law would say, "no sir" this was not allowable. So Naomi had to be picked up out of my lap and I stood up with the other child. Where did she even learn to hit!? The rest of the day didn't go smoothly either. Naomi unfortunately only took a short 1hr nap after lunch, so by 4 in the afternoon she was exhausted, cranky and super whiny. It was a long afternoon of trying to entertain her and keeping her happy. We even tried to put her down for a small cat nap at 4:30, but she ended up just playing in her crib (at least she wasn't whining!!) I'm hoping things dont get worse from here!!