Ninja Poo

I hate Ninja Poo. You know. When you start changing a diaper, just to discover a toy surprise inside. No warning. No lumpy bottom. No stinky smell. I especially hate it when I'm doing a vertical diaper change, or a wipeless one. It's very, very hard psychologically to put a filthy diaper back onto my child in order to prepare a changing area.

Normally there's plenty of warning. There have been times she's sitting on a chair and I watch her grow as she poops. Literally raises herself up with all the new 'padding.' Or the noxious smell wafting across the room (my child is apparently stinkier than most.)

One time, at my OB-Gyn's office, as I'm sitting on the table wearing a tissue-thin cloth 'robe' and a paper sheet, I hear the dreaded sound. Pbllblblblllblbllt! Pbblblbllblblt! Pbblt! Blblbllt! I can literally see her diaper ballooning out behind her. Naturally I hadn't bothered to bring my diaper bag, or even a diaper inside with me that visit. So I call the receptionist and ask if I have time to get dressed and back to my car. Oh, very much yes. The doctor will be very grateful if I could take care of that problem, and she'll just help the next person in the meantime. Phew!
So I get dressed, schlepp us out to the car, carrying her toxic-waste-style with my hands under her armpits, holding her out a foot in front of me as I watch the expanding stain on her pants. Naturally, every. single. person. on the way out stops me to tell me what an adorable child I have. Yeah yeah. Adorable. Coming through, people!
When I get to the car... Hmm... Where are my keys...? Are they in... Ugh. I see my keys locked inside. I kid you not. Worst. Day. Ever! Luckily, I had been locking myself out of stuff lately, so I quickly remembered the spare I kept in my little useless pocket in the jeans (the one for a comb?) Whew! Crisis averted!

When Push Comes To Shove

Just had 4 fun-filled days (and 3 nights) at my sister's house. [You can't tell from the font, but that statement should be dripping with sarcasm.] She lives about 90 minutes away, and needed me to babysit my nieces Tuesday afternoon and Thursday evening. I had planned on going home in between, but my DH made plans for Wednesday night, the one night I was going to be home (I usually just sleep over at my sister's to avoid the 3-hour round-trip all in one day.) So I just set up shop at my sister's for the week!
I love my sister (all 3 of them actually) and I love my nieces (and nephews.) But I do not love spending 4 days trying to protect my 3- and 1-year-old nieces from my menace of a child. I don't know what got into her. Push push push. She spent practically every waking moment pushing one of her cousins. I want that toy! Push. I want that chair! Push. I'm just randomly walking by! Push. You're not bothering me in any way, so I'll go out of my way to push you! Push. You didn't fall over! Push again. In between pushing, she jumped on the couch (forbidden,) jumped OFF the couch (onto a pile of pillows,) ate 3x her body mass [or so it seemed,] and watched DVDs and Netflix. However, much of the show-watching was interrupted and punctuated by pushing.
To give you an idea of the extent of the problem: we arrived Tuesday, around 1pm. By 4pm, the 20-month old had 2 new words: "Push" and "Pushing." And she used them appropriately!
While babysitting I couldn't take Z for time outs with me (normally I remove her from the situation and sit with her for time-outs.) But placing her in a chair by herself seemed ineffectual. Placing her in the kitchen (a baby gate separates the family room from the kitchen) didn't deter. She enjoyed playing with the fridge magnets, and the 3-year-old kept wanting to be in the kitchen with her tormentor friend. Several times I had to just shut her into the baby's room so I could take care of my nieces without her causing more damage. (Like changing a poopy diaper, only to discover that I don't know where the diapers are stored. The normal stash in the living room had been depleted. So I had Z shut in the baby's room, an unhelpful 3-year-old and Free-Range-Baby-Goes-Commando in the living room while I searched the bedrooms and basement for clean diapers. I finally scrounged one out of our diaper bag, and then found Piwu playing on an entire package of them in the living room. Whuuuuuuck? I have no idea where she found them!)
Nothing worked.
She was surprisingly obedient in many cases - when I'd order her to sit at the kitchen table (so she wasn't playing with magnets and couldn't be seen by my niece) she'd go. She just wouldn't comply to stop behaviors, such as couch jumping and pushing. She'd stand there and ask if she could come back and play without pushing. And immediately walk over and push someone. She seemed to think pushing was a fun game, and was almost compulsive about it, and couldn't stop! I'm almost scared to take her to preschool on Monday.

I tried yelling. I tried calm and serious. I tried logic (although telling her that if she hurts her friends that they won't want to play with her loses its edge when said friend is begging and crying to sit back next to her, or to be put in the same room as the her.) I tried separation from the pushees, with and without me. (Without me, she just found stuff to play with. With me was less exciting, as I held her in my lap and read my book.) We tried rewarding the 'good' ones with activities (but by the time we got the paints out, say, they'd made up and Z had already been invited to partake in the fun by Tually.) Only thing left I can think of is spankings, but how will hitting her teach her that hitting is wrong? ["We don't solve our problems with violence!" *Smack!* Yeah.... Not so much.]
Plus she thinks spankings are fun.  -_-    [Remind me to write about that sometime!]

Gettin' My "B" On

I have to keep reminding myself to take deep breaths... that I love these people... that this isn't really ME, it's the hormones and brain chemistry. I've been out of my anti-depressant for a few days, so I'm a little dizzy and woogy feeling (an out-of-it kind of feeling.) But add in some PMS hormones, and I feel like The Hulk. Or Mrs. Hyde.
I had some leftover uncooked noodles from another project and thought it would be fun to let Little Z play with them in a large bowl. I put a little shovel and rake and bucket in with it, and took it down into the TV room. She thought it was great fun... to throw around the room. Sometimes she makes intricate little floor mosaics out of noodles, pistachio shells, and a little toy centerpiece. I've been picking up these noodles for a week now. Today, DH came up and told me to come down and pick up the noodles again, since Z had thrown a ball into the bowl and bounced the noodles out everywhere. I told him he could suck it I'd be right there. I got downstairs and Z was jumping around giggling, throwing and kicking noodles around, pretending to help clean. Hubby and I cleaned up the noodles. She'd do some raking motion with her hand, like she was helping, only it just flung noodles further out. And then laaaaaaugh and laugh. And her diaper was poopy.
We finished cleaning the noodles up. Changed her diaper. While I'm sitting there with a poopy diaper balled up in my hand, my head about ready to explode with a heady mixture of fatigue, medication withdrawal and hormones, Little Z decides to jump up and down on my legs. I asked her to Get. Off. *Jump jump jump.*
I finally just stood up and left, which kind of rolled her off of me, but I had been sitting on the floor, so she didn't fall or anything. I didn't smack her, fling her across the room, or toss her out the window, which were my initial Mrs. Hyde preferences.

My husband came upstairs. Asked if I was upset about something. Me? Upset? Why would I be upset? It's only Friday, Day 5 of Stay-At-Home-Mommying without a break this week. It's not like I WARNED you that I was feeling depressed this cycle. It's not like I WARNED you that my anti-depressant was out. It's not like you asked me to come pick up some stupid noodles, which could have just been placed out of reach to begin with. IT'S NOT LIKE I'M A WOMAN WITH HORMONES AND STUFF RAMPAGING THROUGH MY BODY LIKE MADDENED WILDEBEESTS! No. Why would I be upset?

My Girl Wants To Potty All The Time

So far, potty training has been a breeze. I don't really bother with it, and she gets to pee in her diaper(s) all day. Win-win.
I'm not being entirely honest. We've been actively potty training since she turned around 18 months. It's just been picking up more lately. But I have a low-key approach. I ask if she needs/wants to sit on the potty and then respect her decision. At my sister's house, it's almost always a 'yes,' especially once my niece pipes in that SHE needs to use the potty FIRST. The potty successes have been few and far between, until recently.
I've known for a while that she's had the muscle control, since from the very start she'd hold her pee in until she got off the potty and had her diaper back on. Sometimes, she'd literally be holding it in. But we've been ultra casual. No pressure. No stress. Do it and get a big hurrah; don't do it, and it's okay, we'll try again later! I had a bucket of 'potty presents' - little dollar store trinkets, individually gift-wrapped, and she could choose one just for sitting on the potty. Then she'd at least sit long enough to un-wrap it! I'd gotten some packs of necklaces, bracelets and rings at Claire's clearance when they had 10/$10, so I got almost 30 pieces of jewelry for her. And the Dollar Tree had packs of plastic animals, mini squirt toy animals, and such for $1/packet as well. So we had quite a stash.
Her first present opened was an Elmo stamp, from JoAnn's or Michael's dollar section (although I've since seen them at Target as well.) She loved it, but it made all future presents pale in comparison. So for a while, I'd just set her up at her little potty with some paper and her Elmo stamper on her stool and let her sit and play. We had a few potty successes. But she'd never pee while I was in the room. Either she just had to sit long enough for it to happen, or she'd hold it until I left (I got bored.) After months of this, and rejected potty presents (she liked opening them though, so I'd let her open a few each time and toss them back in, then re-wrap them!) I moved the potty into the computer room, where she could watch her shows.
Potty training took off! We went quickly from sitting long enough so that pee eventually fell out; to her grabbing her potty present bucket and asking to sit on the potty, with pee following shortly thereafter! We have good days, and stints where several days go by with no potty successes (or even attempts!) I'm terrible at remembering to ask her, and she goes through phases where she doesn't want us to change her diaper or use the potty. But overall we're moving forward and my laziness patience has paid off! Somewhere in there we graduated to 'big' presents for potty success, and she hardly ever bothers with the potty present bucket of cheap treats for just trying. She gets anything from a Dollar Store toy to a Littlest Pet Shop animal for peeing on the potty... but it's starting to get expensive! When she hasn't used the potty in a while, we tend to ramp up the rewards, and give her something bigger, like a LPS or My Little Pony set, rather than just 1 animal or part of the set. I'm fairly sure if I banged out a sticker chart, she'd adapt well to the new rewards method. But I'm lazy forgetful.
There was a mystery pee/poo at my sister's house one visit a few months ago. Her daughter denies using the little potty, and Z had been sitting on it, but she wandered off fairly quickly and I was distracted helping my niece clean up an accident. So it's inconclusive, and I hate to count that as her first poo, since I just don't know (and suspect it was my niece, for various reasons.) And we had a little teeny tiny microscopic poo once on the downstairs potty (while cleaning the garage we found another training potty from my sister-in-law, so we put it in the TV room.) But just last week, we had, what I will call THE FIRST REAL POO! An intentional poo. She asked to use the potty, and then had a normal bowel movement. BOO-YAW! None since then, all have been in the diaper, but I'll take what I can get!
I've changed my methods a little, and we've seen more success. Instead of asking her if she needs/wants to use the potty, I ask if her body is telling her that she has pee or poo that is ready to come out. Because, hey, no one WANTS to stop what they're doing to use the potty, and she doesn't NEED to.... she can just go in her diaper! And if I know she's due for a pee (10-20 minutes after eating, 5-10 minutes after waking up, right before and right after bath, etc) I tell her that it's potty time, rather than asking her. (If you aren't going to give them a choice, don't ask.) If she adamantly refuses, I don't push it, since the objective is to have her be comfortable with the potty process, rather than view it as a dreaded task, or associate yelling or frustration with the process. And often, when she initially says she doesn't need to go, she asks to use the potty shortly after, when her body is sending her the signals, which is the ultimate goal anyway! It's not like I want to be texting her at college to remind her to go to the bathroom!

Life's the Pip's

Just got home after visiting one of my sisters and her 2 girls. I love visiting them, because my sister makes good food, is always whipping up another batch of cookies or cinnamon rolls or cheesecake, is fun to hang around and bitch about family with, and my daughter loves being with her daughters.

We always make lofty plans, like 'Let's do a mosaic!' or 'I'll help you make a stuffed animal/quilt/clothes!' But mostly I let her have a break and see what having a brood of kids might be like. Granted, MY potential brood of kids would be more spaced apart, so it isn't really a fair comparison. These guys are roughly a year apart. Pip, the oldest (hers) is 3; then mine, Z, (at 15 months younger) is almost 2; then 8 months younger is her 1-year-old, Pidu. I'm either playing referee all day, or being chastised because the baby is playing in the toilet while I'm starting the bath for the older two. Sometimes I tune them all out and read my book (until he screaming starts.) Sometimes I take my book into the room they're in and actually get some supervising done.

My sister has always had a bug up her butt about germs around her kids, so I taught my daughter not to touch babies, but if she did, only when the mommy said it was OK, and only touch the foot or top of the head, NEVER the face or hands. (Babies don't enjoy being poked in the eye, and since they put their fingers in their mouths, they're sure to catch whatever disease your child plants onto their hands.) So Z has spent the last year avoiding the baby, while being drawn like a moth to flame. When Pidu was in the baby swing, it was like watching the Earth orbit the Sun. Z would watch, and play nearby, and want to grab at the swing, but knew she shouldn't. Hover hover hover.

In fact, she was so well trained to not touch babies, that when Z and I were visiting a friend and her baby, and my friend asked Z, 'Would you like to hold the baby?' Z just froze in place. It was like watching life go into slo-mo. Her hands went slack. She was so excited, and didn't want to mess up this baby-touching opportunity, so she froze, and the blocks she was playing with dropped out of her hands. My friend said 'Okay, come sit over here.' but Z was unable to process that many words in all her anticipation. She must have heard the 'sit,' since her butt hit the floor! So we brought the baby to her. Ah! Toddler nirvana!

When Pidu was a blob, then a sitter, then a crawler, Z mostly ignored her, and Pip protected Pidu's toys like a mother lion. 'NO Z! That's PIDU's toy!' Mostly because she herself was told to leave the baby's toys alone. Now that the baby is walking, the older two treat her like an equal. I just spent two days yelling at both kids for grabbing from and pushing the baby. Actually, it was kind of refreshing, yelling at Z. I don't normally have to yell at my kid, and usually I spend the visit yelling at Pip. In fact, for a while, whenever I was telling someone to stop something, I'd automatically say Pip's name, even if it was Z I was talking to!

Since Z and Pidu are closer in age, they might become better friends than Z and Pip. On the other hand, Z has known Pip longer, and has looked up to Pip her whole life! Last visit, Z and Pidu were happily playing in Pidu's room, until Pip came in looking for her friend Z to pay with. Then the grabbing and screeching and crying began. Pip wants Z to play with her all the time, but won't actually share many of the toys. It's strange. Sometimes she'll hand over a previously coveted toy when I tell her she needs to find something for Z to play with if she's not going to share. But most times, she'll bring something out, like blocks, dump them out, make Z come play with her, then proceed to cry and insist that she NEEDS each block that Z picks up. I tell her to pick a color Z can play with, and then have to continually remind her the yellow ones are for Z. It's quite tiring. We've tried teaching her to trade if she wants what someone else has, but she isn't equitable about it. She wants the doll... Hmmm.... Z can have.... this block. NO! Not the other blocks! Well, Z doesn't want that block. She wants the doll. She'd be happy with a different doll, or even a nice stuffed animal, but Pip can't (usually) part with anything Z might actually enjoy!

This visit, when coloring with Z's pens which I brought for sharing, she had to have any color Z was using. Then would hoards all the others. 'I need green!' 'Okay. Z, do you want purple, so Pip can have the green?' 'Aaaugh! I need purple!' 'Okay, Pip. Let's let Z finish her turn, then you can have the purple.' 'NO! AAAAAAAAAAAH! I NEED PURPLE ONE NOW! WAAAAH!' (Slide off of chair, tantrum on floor.)

Z's favorite color currently is purple. Pip's was red, which was nice when we got there. Z wanted the purple necklace, Pip wanted red. Everyone was happy. (Except Piwu, who got the orange one tangled around her arm.) Then later, Pip told me her favorite color was red. I told her that was very convenient, and my sister bristled and got a little defensive and said that red had been Pip's favorite color lately, and not because Z wanted something. I explained that it was convenient because then they could both be happy with their different favorites. Well. Today, when Pip asked what Z's favorite color was, and I told her it was purple, Pip spent the rest of the day rounding up anything purple and declaring she NEEDED it, and purple was her favorite color. Argh. I don't know if all kids are like this, or just some. It makes me want to stop at the toy store on the way home and buy everything Pip refused to share, so that next time Z could have one too!

In the Trenches

I'm a mama of one little girl. I waited a long time to meet her, and I love her to pieces. But some days, I'd prefer if those pieces were taken away by Gypsies or the circus or something! This blog will have stories, not necessarily entered sequentially, and not necessarily 100% true. I will exaggerate and embellish for the sake of humor, or to make the story more interesting. I will use initials, nicknames or change names to protect the privacy of my friends and family, since my husband would probably not prefer to have a co-worker read a post and ask him detailed questions about, say, our sex life! In this blog, I will try and keep to the time since she's been walking, or her 'toddler years.'

People told me that when you sit there looking at your little baby blob, you long for them to roll over. And when they roll over, you want them to crawl. And once crawling, you are wistful about the easily controlled blob-phase, while eager for them to reach the next milestone: walking. Then once they walk, you wish all you had to worry about was them rolling over!

Well, not me! So far, I have enjoyed seeing each new development. I love the challenges that come with her growth, since each day I get to see just who this little person is becoming! So far, I haven't looked back fondly on her blob days. To be fair though, my kid is fairly well behaved, easy to tolerate, doesn't have a lot of discipline issues or health and/or behavioral problems, plus cute as a button and smart as a whip! And I love how she has helped me to grow up too.

I'm slightly ashamed at the amount of TV I let her watch, although it isn't strictly TV. She watches DVDs or the 'watch now' stuff on Netflix (like On Demand for some cable companies.) So at least she isn't getting her shows broken up by commercials. Thanks to Elmo, she can identify the letter Y ('Y is uh YAK!') and maybe a few random others and she can almost count to 20 (1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 16 17 18.) Despite evidence to the contrary, she steadfastly refuses to believe in the existence of the number 4. Thanks to Dora, she can say 'Ayudame' (help me,) 'Embujen' (push,) 'Abre' (open') and a few others, as well as count to 6 in Spanish. Thanks to me, she knows that my farts are 'pushin air out uh mommy'sh bah-mum.' (pushing the air out of mommy's bottom) and that the chocolate stash is reachable if she pushes her kitchen stool over to the counter!

I read somewhere that the word 'fart' is considered offensive to many adults when said by a child, so I'm teaching her to call it gas. But when SHE farts, I praise her for getting the air out of her tummy through her bottom. (We've had many restless gassy nights where she wakes up crying and/or screaming until we help her rock and massage the gas out. Now we just give her Simethicone drops at bedtime, just as I've been taking the adult version almost nightly for my gas.) So when I fart, thats the kind of thing she says to me. I joke that she inherited my husband's looks, and my bowels! At least she got my mom's long eyelashes too!