Biffy

Tonight, Dan and I took Anja to a park. After a bit, she needed to use the bathroom. Dan volunteered to take her to the biffy. It was her first time. A momentous occasion, obviously.

Upon their return, Dan mentioned that she refused to use the regular toilet inside and asked to use the urinal. Who could blame her really? Dan acquiesced and held her up so she could use it.

Suddenly he heard the hard to mistake plunking sound of a no-longer-constipated toddler relieving herself.

Wordy Wednesday

Meet Lyla and Rowan's dad, Headless Dan. At ECFE today, he was in charge of the boys while I took the girls outside to play. While I was gone, there was apparently some deep conversation (and some cuddling). We're okay with it.

On the way to ECFE today, Anja and I had the following conversation:

Anja: Mommy, what is that?

Me: A car.

Anja: Why is it a car?

Me: Because that's what somebody made.

Anja: Somebody made? Oh. Look at that little girl. What's that little girl doing?

Me: Going to Caribou.

Anja: Oh. Caribou coffee place? Why she go to Caribou coffee place?

Me: To get coffee.

Anja: Oh. Why she want to get coffee?

Me: Because she likes it.

Anja: Why she...(continues list of random questions about clouds, boats, water towers, Ian, school, etc.)

(5 minutes later)

Anja: Mommy?

Me: (exhausted by all the questions) Yes, Anja?

Anja: Sometimes I like to talk.

Whales Jumping Over Turtles

Anja, a whale ready to attack.

A few weeks ago, Anja and I started playing a new game - the Turtle and the Whale game. This is truly a "Dad's game." I simply huddle up on the floor (as the Turtle) and Anja hurls herself over me (as the Whale). Fundamentally, I lay about while she expends all her energy jumping over me. Anyone with a toddler should recognize the genius in this game. This game repeats itself until Anja is distracted by another potential game or she hits her bean on one of the surrounding pieces of furniture. These may seem like advanced animals for a two year old. It's certainly beyond simple piggies and cows. Her animal recognition is mostly due to watching the combination of Diego and Dora. The two of them have become constants in the house despite a drastic reduction in the amount of TV Anja actually watches.

She's also managed to learn some songs from the shows. The piñata song is one that happens to be rather cute. She'll start singing, "Piñata, my piñata," then whack something with a stick. While less cute and more hopeful, she also sings a rendition of "Rain rain, go away." Instead of the standard, "come again another day," which has never made any logical sense to my adult sensibilities, she continues with another verse of "go away, rain rain." Apparently, the traditional second clause makes no sense to a toddler either. Pay attention illogical nursery rhymes: your days are numbered.

Lately, there has been much more need for singing the "Rain, rain" tune. It rained very heavily on Saturday and Sunday nights. The sirens sounded and the wind made the type of terrible noise that justifies a look out the window. The rain on Saturday was bad enough to justify sneaking into our basement. We keep up a guest room down there and so the entire family snuggled into the bed and waited out the weather. On Sunday, we were already annoyed by the frequency of the sirens. We readily prepared to ignore the suggestion we head to the basement yet again. Settling into a comfortable half-sleep state, Susi and I were awakened not by anything outside but by a call for, "Mommmmmy!"

The noise was a bit much for Anja. Ian was perfectly happy to simply stay in his crib. He remained blissfully unaware of the goings on out side of his bed.



Ian, blissfully unaware.


We hustled her into our bed and calmed her down. Susi's tactic was a stroke of brilliance, the scary thunder is simply the clouds playing a very noisy game of Turtle and Whale.

Knitting Circle

Ah, yes - that reminds me that I forgot to wash out his wrist crevices today.

On another note, let me first state that I openly admit I am not cut out for stay-at-home-mom life. In fact, I've decided that daycare providers are crazier than people who want to teach middle school. And that's coming from someone who chose to teach high school. But since I had/have 6 straight months of being a stay-at-home mom due to maternity leave and summer break, I decided the best thing to do was to schedule at least 1 thing a day for at least 4 days out of the work week. It's basically to insure that I have adult human contact. So we have swimming lessons every Monday and ECFE classes every Wednesday. The other days' activities vary drastically, but we try to get out of the house as often as possible.

Anja loves her classes, especially ECFE, which she calls school since it's in the same building that her preschool will be in.

I talked Lyla's Daddy into signing up with us. Little did he know that he would be the only dad and that there would be an hour of separation time, during which the moms (and dad) go to another room and kibitz about poopy and pee pee and bed time rituals and the most effective way to wash a lovey. He likes to refer to this as the women's knitting circle. So when he discovered Wednesday when we met him and his kids at the pool that I had met another ECFE mom and her daughter at the pool the previous Friday, he asked how our sweaters were coming. I wonder what he'll think when he hears that I was there with 2 ECFE moms and their kids today. We finished the sweaters and started on matching hats.

Attitude

Ian now weighs in at 18 pounds. In related news, my biceps/triceps are becoming far less flabby.

And yesterday, while forcing Anja into clothes, I may have developed a bit of crankiness. Anja smirked and simply said, "I don't like your attitude." At least she used it accurately. After that episode, I was reading a sheet we received from our ECFE class on where she should be developmentally. Did you know that at this stage she should be saying basic words and beginning to form 3 word sentences? Huh.

Bath Time

Bath time around our house had gone through some major changes recently.

Anja, our resident diva, has decided that she no longer likes taking baths and insists that she takes showers now.

She no longer screams whenever the water hits her head, but she still requires Mommy or Daddy to be in there with her. Baby steps.

And our little man is getting too big for the infant side of the tub. He better get better at sitting up on his own so I can switch him to the sitting side soon!

Meanwhile, we're working on his abs in his exersaucer.

Cereal

Mr. Man has been continuing to pack on the pounds and has been eating more and more and isn't sleeping as long through the night any more. So, like any horrible parents who ignore the "your son/daughter isn't exactly 4 months old yet and will therefore grow up to be obese and allergic to all foods" research out there, we attempted a tiny bit of rice cereal tonight. It went pretty well.

He gobbled it up and then continued to drink 4 oz of formula and then nurse. Yeah, he eats a lot. I tried to tell you. Well, if I'm honest, I guess I should tell you there was a slight break in the action. After the cereal, Ian decided that eating was exhausting and had too take a short break. After a five minute snooze in his Bumbo with his eyes partially open (frequent occurrence), he woke up and continued feeding.

Unfortunately, the cereal, which was supposed to help him feel full and therefore provide more sleep, has done quite the opposite. He woke up hungry while I wrote this. Maybe we'll wait a bit before trying again.

Or maybe I just had no idea how much he really eats.