I've already mentioned how quickly Trinity is growing up. It's just so fascinating to see her personality shining through as she does it. One of her favorite words right now is "tattoo". We bought tons of temporary tattoos because she just loves them, and clearly wants to have them on her. She has also requested very specifically on more than one occasion that she have her bellybutton pierced. I think 2 years old is a bit soon, so we'll pass on that for now. So aside from tattoos and body piercings? She loves to sing and dance. I think we definitely have a future musician/dancer/artist/whatever on our hands.

Trinity is a very interesting mix of Andy and me, and we can see it in everything, from the way she plays with her toy kitchenette set to the way that she eats. Eating and sleeping have been my biggest issues over the last number of months. I thought that Trinity had a problem, but now I'm coming to realize that I just didn't know what I was doing and have gotten us into our current mess. As far as eating goes, Trinity was doing great, until she started feeding herself. Then the only thing she would eat was bread, rice, tortillas and the occasional slice of ham while we were shopping at Comercial Mexicana. (Her favorite breakfast food is toast with bovril on it, which she refers to as "poo." I do correct her whenever she calls it that, but I can't help laughing, not being a fan of marmite or bovril myself.) But now I see where the problem is - it is not that she doesn't want to eat, it's that she can't be bothered to feed herself when there is so much going on. If I cut up pieces of omelet, and shove them in her mouth as she passes me by during breakfast, she eats the entire omelet, asking for more after she's finished each piece. The same goes with slices of beef, chunks of chicken, and the occasional piece of vegetable (she is her father's daughter, after all). The other night she ate almost all of my grilled salmon. But if she had the choice, milk alone would sustain her, and it would be injected or fed to her while she slept, so she didn't have to miss anything important wasting her time consuming fuel. This is almost exactly her father's approach to food, although he's learned to enjoy my cooking over the years, and actually takes time out for meals nowadays. We still let Trinity feed herself, but I'm realizing that she eats better if I help.

As far as sleeping goes, we are almost over the trauma that I created by ignoring all the parenting books I read. When Trinity was little, I just couldn't fathom waking her up after nursing her to sleep so that I could put her in her crib and let her cry and finally fall asleep on her own. All that crying and drama just seemed unnecessary. But when the nursing to sleep approach stopped working last November, I realized I had created a bit a of problem. We started a new routine in December with Andy reading to her, but she still wouldn't go off, so he ended up driving her in the car until she dropped off. That started taking forever after a while, so I took over again in February, after she had been weaned, and after she read a bit with Andy, I would lay down with her on the day bed until she fell asleep. It took a while, but we finally got fed up with all the effort, and gave in to the "cry it out method." The first night didn't go so well. Trinity cried up a storm for the entire 3 minutes I was out of the room each time I left, until the 4th time I was out and she threw up all over her bed. The next two nights didn't involve quite as much tears, drama or vomit, but since then, it's been up and down (with several more vomit incidents). However, last night Andy and I went out to dinner and left the babysitter alone to put her to bed, and Trinity didn't cry at all. And the previous 2 nights I had put her in her crib with Teddy and she said "no cry" and I left, and she fell asleep quietly. Phew!

So in spite of me having no idea how to be a proper parent, Trinity seems to be overcoming the hurdles and learning how to eat and sleep as she's growing up. Thank goodness! I thought for sure I had screwed her up for good, but I suppose children are designed to be more resilient than that.

As Trinity's birthday approaches, I'm having loads of fun organizing her party and getting all the party supplies lined up, but I'm sure if I just gave her a bunch of temporary tattoos and some toast with bovril on it, she'd be happy enough. Maybe I did screw her up a bit after all!