Lessons Learned in the Tub

On the rare occasion when I can give Bitty Girl as much time as she wants in the tub, I love to sit and watch her. Kids learn so much in the tub, about pouring and emptying, properties of water, floating and sinking, balance. And luckily, I've had two kids who love taking baths.

The Boy would stay in for hours as long as we kept warming up the water. Bitty Girl seems to enjoy herself more each time, but it's hard not to rush through her bath, since we can't leave her in there alone.

Monday afternoon she woke up grumpy from her nap, so I offered a bath. No one else was home, so she had undivided Mama attention. It was delicious - I only wish I had the video camera running secretly in the corner.

She filled her cups while the faucet was running, made soup and stew and cookies with her cookset, and played with the Dora the Explorer floating toys that she has recently reclaimed from The Boy's old toys under the sink. Dora has a removable life vest and flippers, which provide endless entertainment.

I can't capture with words the gleam in her eyes as she splashes and realizes that she got water on Mommy. Then she flicks water at me, and searches for something bigger to drop into the water to make a bigger splash. Bigger smile. Then she tries to pour water on my head. (Note: I'm not in the tub with her). Then she stands up, chubby thighs firmly planted, and squeezes Dora's life vest as hard as she can into a ball, gritting her teeth and clenching her muscles. "BALL!" she announces, with even a bigger smile and gleam. She drops the life vest into the water and laughs at the "plop" sound. (Note: Dora makes a SPLASH sound, not just a plop. More water too.) Then she explores how much water she can displace by stamping her feet.

At this I make her sit down and draw the shower curtain closed. Pure joy as she realizes she can SEE me through the clear curtain liner, but not get me wet. Much exploration ensues, with poking and kissing the liner. Then she leans over and blows bubbles in the water, sitting up so proudly, like she knows it's an impressive thing to be able to blow bubbles at 21 months old, and that her brother couldn't do it without inhaling half the tub.

When it was time for soap and shampoo, she insisted on taking off Dora's flippers to wash her feet, soaping up Dora's hair (as much as you can soap up the hard plastic dome that is Dora's unusually large head of hair), and brushing Dora's teeth. She also likes to float on her back like Dora, which helps to rinse her hair.

Lately, bathtime feels like much more of a chore, or something to check off the list, than anything fun. I was so happy to sit and watch her yesterday, without rushing or being distracted, and she obviously had fun, judging from the amount of water I wiped off the bathroom floor.

I am not kidding...There is light at the end of the tunnel

The following is 100% true.

Tonight I DUSTED my bedroom and put CLEAN SHEETS on my bed while the kids played.
In the other room.
For about 15 minutes.
Without anyone screaming or getting hurt or requiring my presence.

I thought it was Freaky Friday.

Pat left at 5 pm to have dinner with a friend, so we ate early. As I was cleaning up from dinner, the beautiful sibling non-rivalry started as they played together with what I lovingly call "the junk box." It's a big tub of The Boy's miscellaneous toys that were deemed "Not Bitty Girl Safe" when she was smaller, and so she thinks it's like a forbidden treasure. There are binoculars, walkie talkies, random latex gloves from his glove phase, neon-tinted safety glasses from Daddy's science teacher days, some necklace from a birthday party, playing cards, etc. You get it--junk.

But she loves it. They scattered the cards around the room, she came to show me the funny glasses, called Nanny on her play phone, and put on the necklace. I heard a loud "NUNU!" from her at one point, and turned to see her triumphantly holding up a magnifying glass. Last weekend she saw that my grandma (NuNu to the kids) had a magnifying glass in her purse to help her with reading. The girl forgets NOTHING.

I got a little overconfident and tried to take the clean sheets out of the dryer, because by some crazy alignment of the stars, I managed to wash our sheets this weekend. Bitty Girl runs over like she wants to help, and I cringe, because her version of helping with the laundry is like the line from the Free to Be You and Me song, "Helping," 'Some kind of help is the kind of help... we all can do without.'
But I realize she's making monkey sounds.
The rare Mama light bulb flash goes off in my head, when I actually figure out what she's saying! Monkey pants... Her new favorite pajamas have monkeys on them, and they were in the LAUNDRY last night, so I told her she couldn't wear them.

SHE'S TELLING ME SHE'S READY FOR HER PAJAMAS!!!

Upstairs, in jammies, she wasn't ready for bed. They wanted to play longer, so they moved into The Boy's room. I gave them 15 minutes and snuck into my room to do the abovementioned dusting and making the bed, thinking there was no way I'd actually get it done.

Here's what I heard from them during the 15 minutes of quiet, non-screaming, non-injury play...
"Bitty Girl, want to play hockey?" (Ok, I had to check--they were using Tinker Toys)
"Yeah"
"No like this. Hold it like this. That's not right. Shoot it here. Push it with your stick."
"Bitty Girl, do you want to play hockey or not?"

I'm going to call him The Boss instead of The Boy. But she was thrilled to play, and my room was dusted and the sheets were clean.

I was speechless, and that doesn't happen often. Maybe this will actually get easier someday. Maybe even soon.

Happy Birthday NuNu!

We spent Sunday in Bellingham to celebrate my grandma's 89th birthday.

And don't let the tongue fool you--he really had a great time and was very well behaved at dinner...



And at the end of the photos, when Bitty Girl was squiggling around and whining for ice cream, and we were trying to get just one more picture, I said, "Smile for Papa one more time and I'll give you a bite of ice cream." She seriously stopped whining, turned on the courtesy smile just long enough to snap the picture, and then gave me a stone cold "Ice.Cream.NOW!" stare...

The Boy spent the afternoon slogging through mud in the wetlands area behind my mom's house, with other kids from cohousing. They had a ball, but his boots literally made that sucking noise when I pulled them off. He was wet up to his armpits. Nothing a little bath and some Oxyclean can't fix!

Bitty Girl busied herself pulling weeds with Papa

and giving snarly looks to anyone who dared suggest that she get out of the dirt or put a dandelion in her precious weed pile.

(Daddy thinks she does a great Bobby DeNiro - "You talkin' to me??"

It was a great day! We love you NuNu!!!

We're all tired around here

Lately, it's common to find Bitty Girl turning our family room into a huge sleepover. All her dollies seem to be tired all the time, requiring many blankets and lots of "shhhhh, shhhhhh" as she puts them to sleep.

On the hard, cold, brick hearth.

Notice this Little Mommy gets to nap with her babies!

As you can see, she's very proud of her creation, right down to the Mr. Potato Head yellow glasses around her neck (only because they don't fit on her eyes).

And it's not just the babies. Look closely, and you'll see, along with Bitty Girl pretending to sleep on the cold, hard brick hearth, that Power Rangers and Star Wars figures and Spiderman get tired too. Lucky for them, they live in the right place.

And I've noticed that I have very few pictures of The Boy lately. That's partly because he often refuses a picture, and partly because the "5 year old smile" just doesn't turn out in pictures.

But here's one recent kids vs. chocolate ice cream event. I think The Boy was already wiped up, because he's not that neat.

Coming soon....

What 5 Can Do vs. What Almost-2 Can Do

21

Twenty-one months ago, this beautiful girl came into our lives.

5/25/2006 - Already giving me the "what for"

2/25/2008 - 21 months old

She celebrated her 21-month Eve by waking up twice last night. Yawn.

We should have known from that first picture that she'd give us a run for our money. Here's what she did when I first pulled out the camera today and asked her to smile....

Can you say STINK-EYE???

I shouldn't be surprised--every day she does something that I'm SURE I did to my mom at that age.

Lately, her newest indignations revolve around me cutting or tearing her food--get this--WITHOUT HER PERMISSION! And you know you can't put it back together once it's cut. Oy, the screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Little Miss "I Am Big, thank you very much" wants to use her own fork and knife for all meals, even cereal, by herself, sit at the table kneeling in a big chair, not her highchair, drink out of an open cup, DEMAND everything, and spend lots of time attached to Mommy's legs and hips.

But she also loves to play hide-and-seek (she is a frighteningly good, quiet hider), bursts into a huge smile when one of us comes home, gives huge hugs and gentle kisses, serves up elaborate tea parties, lovingly feeds her baby dolls, and....... drumroll please....... has gone on the potty several times!

When I was 21 months old, I got a baby sister. I cannot even imagine how my mom (or anyone, for that matter) handled that. Some things would be easier than the 3 1/2 year gap that we have between the kids, but she's still such a baby in so many ways.

A baby, that is, with a 12-year old stink-eye.

No place like home

When I walk in the door from my once-weekly day at the office, I am usually greeted with big smiles (from the kids, anyway) and tackle-hugs. I get home late, right before the kids' bedtime. Some days Daddy looks a little wearier than others, depending on the amount of whining, number of times he had to remind about "head and neck safety," and how long it took to make dinner.

Today was a good one, thanks to Grandma and Papa providing tacos for dinner, a helpful big brother, and a good nap for Bitty Girl.

With a series of hugs, pointing, and monosyllabic grunting orders, Bitty Girl instructed me to take off my coat, come into the family room and lie down on the floor. She pulled up my shirt and proceeded to blow a huge zerbert into my stomach. Luckily Mommy has a FABULOUS tummy for zerberts, what with all the nooks and crannies and soft squishiness... Many zerberts and a few head butts later, she was ready for the "fly like an airplane on Mommy's legs" game.

When the Zerbert Boss finally retired to her crib for the evening, I had time for a quick dinner and stories with The Boy before his bedtime. He was examining a Valentine card he got at school, one of those hard cards with a textured surface, where the picture changes as you tip the card back and forth--it's a duck! Now it's a dog! Now a duck! Dog! And you can't help but rub your fingernail across it to make that scratchy zoop! sound.

As we're heading upstairs, The Boy says, "Wow, this card is scratchy.

But not as scratchy as Mommy's legs!"

This is the stuff that's not in the parenting books. It should be in there. But it wouldn't be the same reading about it before you have your own little monsters commenting on the length of your leg hair...

Look at this girl. She is 20 months old. Almost two and thinks she's almost 12...
Twenty. That seems like so many months, and some days I can hardly remember life before her. But then I think about how much simpler things were with zero or one kid, and it all comes rushing back.

Our days are such blurs sometimes I feel like I can't slow down enough to grab a hold of anything but fleeting moments. And I'm certainly not writing enough of it down...

Here are my most recent favorite fleeting moments.

• The big "light up your face" smile I get when I walk in the door from my once-weekly work-in-the-office day
• The sheer delight on her face when you say "I'm gonna get you" and start the chase
• The look where she's mad at me but her brother makes her laugh, and then she remembers she's mad--sort of "mad, trying not to laugh" and very funny
• The way she rests her head on my shoulder before going to bed, then lifts it up to kiss my cheek
• The way she hugs her brother
• The way she runs over to comfort and hug her brother if he hurts himself (unless she has inflicted the hurt)
• The 20 minutes she spent doing "Hair Salon" with her baby doll in the highchair with a plastic knife from her tea set
• Her very particular seating arrangement for tea parties, as well as the menu (usually her pretend cheese and bacon, with an occasional broccoli or peas or taco thrown in)

New words: Jeans, beans, peas, blueberry (blue blue), cheese, and Boo!
New teeth - finally! She's getting all 4 molars and finally the 4th tooth on the bottom front, so she won't look like she was in a hockey fight anymore.

I really owe her more than this... my goal is to write her a better letter before she's 2!

We had a snow day last Monday, about 4 inches, enough for a snowman! Bitty Girl spent most of her time eating the raisins and carrots that were supposed to decorate the snowman. The Boy was very serious about his decorating, and very irritated about his sister poking holes in its side to hide her raisins. Although he did bury a carrot "lung" and "heart" inside the snowman.


Thank goodness for a teacher Daddy, who is also home on snow days. I decided the only time I'll really enjoy snow days is when the kids are old enough to get themselves dressed and play outside in the snow by themselves. I'm just not a snow bunny.