A big milestone, Dexter is 1.5 years old today. It's such a short time, but our lives completely revolve around him. It feels like forever - in a good way. He's working on a growth spurt, I think, by his recent sleeping and eating patterns. He's now saying 3 syllable words like "chocolate" and starting to string together 2 words. He even said "bye-bye Henry" to his best friend. His moods are funny too because he bounces around from happy to mad in the blink of an eye. Some days he's just awesome, on his best behavior. Other days, he's just in a bad mood and it doesn't end.
Last weekend Mike was out of town, so it was just me and Dexter for the weekend. Saturday wasn't fun because he was in a foul mood that lasted all day. He only had a 30 minute nap instead of the usual 2 hours which greatly contributed. On Sunday, he was my sweet little boy. We went to brunch at a friend's house in Berkeley. I was worried since it wasn't baby-proofed, but he did really well. Sure he got into some things, as to be expected, but overall he was so good! I was very proud, and he was good the whole day. It was very cute to see him play with our friend's kitten. They got along well. The cat even had Dexter trained to fetch toys for him. That was hilarious.
The rest of the week was hit or miss on whether it was a good day or bad. He tends to have tantrums after the nanny leaves for the day. I thinks it's the switch that throws him off for a bit. Also, he started throwing fits for the nanny this week, so she's no longer safe from his temper. I guess I jinxed it for her by saying he only throws good tantrums for me.
It's a little weird when Mr. Cobra and I have differing parenting styles. We'll never be 100% in synch, but there are some times when I'm like "what?!" I know how to avoid tantrums and have certain methods of dealing with situations. It was funny because this morning, Dad was taking care of him and he did something to set Dexter off. It was something so minimal too, he just took something from Dex without asking for it and threw it away. I think it's just because I'm around Dexter more that I've learned to not do that. The simple fix, fish it out of the trash, give it back to Dexter and let him throw it in the trash. It worked like a charm to diffuse the situation. This difference has just been coming up more and more lately. I'm just waiting for the first whine of "but mom said…" I'm certainly not perfect though. Dad has the specific talent I'm lacking by always getting Dex to laugh by tossing him in the air!
