Yesterday was my day off. Last month on our anniversary, my dear husband gave me one of the best gifts ever: gift cards to get my hair cut, get a spa treatment, and get something to make me feel like my “old self” from Hot Topic.

So yesterday Aaron kept Cordy for the day. I got to sleep in, and then I went to the mall for my day off. Four hours later, my hair was styled, and my eyebrows waxed. I had a massage and a facial, too. I felt five years younger.

Oh yeah, I love my husband. I made the hairdresser jealous when I told her why the day was so special, and the lady who did my facial said she hopes her fiance will do that for her after they’re married. Aaron may not have known it, but I’ll bet he was glowing all day from everyone thinking so well of him.

And damn was that day off needed! Why you ask? What stress has entered my life that could warrant an entire day of pampering and rest? I’ll tell you:

Cordelia has not napped for the past week.

The week before, she resisted her naps but gave in most days. But the past seven days, any time she’s been put in her crib for a nap, she has sat there the entire time, playing with her blanket and talking to her feet.

No sleep. You can see the fatigue in her eyes, but her will is stronger. Near the end of the day, she sways back and forth as she walks, occasionally stumbling and falling over as if drunk. She’s tired, she’s grumpy, but she won’t give in.

The only time she gives in to sleep is when she’s in the car. While she’s never been good at napping in the car, she will now nod off for a few minutes – just long enough to keep from taking a proper nap.

She’s 18 months old. She dropped her second nap around 12 months, which is early but entirely in the “average” range. All of the “experts” say a toddler will continue with one nap at least until two years old, if not longer. Those filthy liars. It’s no wonder I cancelled my BabyCenter e-mail updates.

Truthfully, no one I know has a child who didn’t nap at this age. I’ve asked for advice, but our local friends and our relatives have never encountered this situation. She has to stay in her crib for a minimum of 45 min., even if she doesn’t sleep, so she is getting some down-time, but it’s obvious she needs the sleep.

This afternoon we went to an 80th birthday party for Aaron’s step-grandmother. She asked why Cordy was acting so cranky, and I told her it was because Cordy was trying to drop her nap. She looked at me, shocked, and said, “Well, you can’t let her do that.” I can’t let her do that? OK, short of drugging her, how can I keep her from it?

So now I turn to you, oh wise and knowing blogosphere. Has anyone encountered a child younger than two who has given up the last nap? Is there anything I can do? Will she go back to napping again, or is that golden time in the afternoon gone forever?

Sigh…of all of the developmental milestones for Cordy to be ahead of the curve on, why did it have to be napping?

You would think we never buy toys for this child.

No one is drinking any of those for at least 24 hours. And yeah, we’re making a stop at Toys ‘R Us tomorrow to get her some proper blocks.

Mrs. Fortune asked to see video of Cordelia throwing one of her “fake” tantrums that I wrote about yesterday. Well, we caught a mini-tantrum on video last night.

I now present to you the proof of Cordelia’s acting talents:

There’s nothing quite like receiving your weekly BabyCenter update e-mail to make you feel like a complete parenting loser. I signed up for these e-mails while still pregnant and loved getting my weekly fill of what my developing baby was doing. After she was born, I still enjoyed reading what skills I could expect her to master next.

But then it happened. Cordelia’s development didn’t match up with the tidy, compact e-mails. She started to fall behind what the “experts” said she should be doing each month. I began to worry, to examine what I was doing wrong as a parent, and attempt to fix those problems.

I purchased all of the Baby Einstein and Leapfrog toys to stimulate her mentally. I forced her to partake in tummy time several times a day to build the strength she’d need to crawl. And yet she was still slow to say her first word, slow to sit up on her own, and at nine months other babies were crawling circles around her, while she sat there and cried in frustration.

The BabyCenter milestone charts said the majority of babies were starting crawling at eight months, and had mastered it by ten months old. The chart also pointed to my failures at verbal communication, as she was nowhere close to saying mama or dada at eight months. For the record, she still doesn’t say mama. (Yeah, just a little bitter about that.)

This week I received my regular e-mail, giving me tips about potty training, and of course linking to their fabulous selection of potty training supplies for sale. Holy shit, I’m supposed to start potty training? She can’t even say poop yet!

I also read the following:

Some toddlers can even make simple two-word sentences such as “No more” or “All done.” And, as a sign of your child’s growing self-awareness, she may even start referring to herself by name: “Claire go,” for example. But because pronouns can confuse toddlers, it may be months before your toddler can say “I go” or “I need …”

Apparently the verdict on why Cordy’s head is so large is now leaning towards “thick skull” and away from “lots o’ brains” since two word sentences haven’t been heard here yet. As for knowing and saying her name? Ha. She’ll come if I call “here kitty kitty”.

To make things worse, each article at BabyCenter also has a comments section, where readers can comment on their own experiences about these topics. This is where the competition begins. Imagine that one mom you know who brags that her little 14 month old genius can now type her name on the computer and her art is the beginning of a new post-post-modern style. Now multiply that mom by 10,000.

Thanks to the anonymity of the internet, many of these women continue to one-up each other in order to prove they have the most advanced kid on BabyCenter. Your kid can count to six? Well, this kid can recite pi to 10 decimal places! Your kid can put on his own shoes? Well, this kid can lace her shoelaces with a cord she braided herself in colors that match today’s outfit!

Luckily, I no longer rely on these BabyCenter milestone updates to gauge my daughter’s progress. I also have given up most of the mainstream parenting books out there. I’ve reached the point where I now understand that there is no single pattern of development, just as there is no single way to parent your child.

In fact, I often find myself falling away from the experts and looking to my friends with kids and parenting blogs more and more now. Some of the best advice I’ve received has been from other parents who are presently out in the trenches, learning as they go along.

I see child development and parenting in less rigid terms now; it’s actually a fluid process of trial and error, of synthesis and modification. And I think one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that nothing works for everyone. I’ve seen others struggling with and debating this over the past week. It seems so easy for guilt to overtake us and leave us in a funk of self-doubt. Whether the topic is sleep training, working or staying home, preschool, TV-viewing, or organic foods, anything that threatens the optimal development of our kids forces us into waves of guilt.

So here is my advice: let it go. Let go of What to Expect and Dr. Sears and BabyCenter. Let go of the milestone charts and one-up parents. Let go of the experts who haven’t been parents of toddlers since before Nixon was President. Simple, right?

Instead, listen to your heart and follow your instinct. Pay attention to that voice inside you: it isn’t your pediatrician, your mom, or the Baby Whisperer. If you are making choices that are the best for you, your child, and your family, then you are doing the right thing. Ignore those who tell you there is only one way to do something. There are lots of ways to do anything, and sometimes you will have to try several to find what works best for you.

Also, talk about the issues that do bother you. If you have a blog, get them out there in black and white. (Or whatever colors your design uses.) Ask friends for their opinions, and use the advice you find helpful and discard the rest.

As for me, I think I’m past due to unsubscribe from BabyCenter.

So I was looking at BlogHer‘s conference information yesterday, dreaming of the opportunity to go, and for the first time noticed there is a student price. Wait, I’m a student! And $52.03 is a lot more do-able than $258.97!

Oh, BlogHer, you’re making it far more difficult for me to resist your siren call. But I still must somehow justify a $350 plane ticket and $75 a night hotel stay to my husband and to our budget. The student price puts it into the realm of possibility instead of just dreaming, though,.

Oh, the temptation!

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Cordelia has picked up a new behavior. Now, when she falls but isn’t really hurt or I scold her for something she’s done wrong, she fakes being upset.

Today she made a move at biting my arm, but bit only my shirt. I gave her a stern “No bite!” and pulled my arm away from her. She then scrunched up her face as if to cry, put one hand up to her left eye and poked herself in the eye to produce a tear, and made half-hearted “Wa-haa. Wa-haa.” sounds, all the while peeking between her fingers for my reaction.

If you have never encountered something like this, let me tell you: it is damn hard not to burst into laughter when your child is putting on a melodramatic act like this. I fought off the smirk and just watched her act. After about 10 seconds, she realized I wasn’t buying it, and smiled at me and started babbling something happy. Whew.

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Thank you to those who commented on the post about my father. It was good to get it out, and I’m sure eventually I’ll talk more about him. I appreciate the advice – my relationship with him is dependent on his actions. If he starts to regress back to the way he was, I will not hesitate to break off contact, in order to protect Cordy. So thanks again – I had no idea so many people have problems with family members in their lives.

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To end this post on a lighter note, new pictures of the little princess: