Tales from the front

R is growing into such a delightful, funny little girl. Last night, after watching yet another episode of Dora in which the bilingual tot jumps into the book she’s reading, accompanied as always by her primate friend Boots, she selected The Polar Express as her bedtime story.

When I got to the part about the kids all singing and drinking hot chocolate, R stopped me for a moment.

“Mommy, I want to jump into the book!” she said enthusiastically.

“Like Dora?” I asked.

“Yeah. I want Mommy to come too and Daddy to come too and me to come too. We all go together.”

“That sounds like fun! I’d like to jump into the book,” I told her truthfully.

“Okay. Maybe later.”

And we went back to reading. We started a Christmas list too, which thankfully includes several items already purchased for her by me or others (Barbie Island Princess! Strawberry Shortcake!), but also several items that I’m not exactly sure what she means – Christmas trap? Flowers – pink blue green red yellow orange purple? But now is as good a time as any to start teaching her that she can’t get everything she wants.

She’s growing into a wonderful helper, too. I had to bake a cake today for a colleague’s birthday, and R joyfully measured out flour and cocoa powder and vegetable oil, covering herself – and the kitchen – in every ingredient she touched. But she also happily sprayed down and wiped the countertops when the cake was in the oven, cleaning up her own mess. I rewarded her with the spoon to lick, watching her take a lick, then offer me a taste, back and forth until all the batter was gone – or on her face.

She still has her moments – if she is denied something she lashes out with an immediate tantrum or even an angry, outstretched arm met to injure the offender. I fear that temper was inherited too honestly from her mother. But after a few moments in time out, she will apologize, and mean it. Last night, after a time out she told me she was sorry for hitting me. And a few moments later, after we’d moved on and begun cooking, she grabbed my face and told me that she was really sorry, that she didn’t mean to hurt me. That she loved me very much.

Before that, I’d suspected that her apologies were rote and simply came because they were required. Now I’m starting to think that she might actually get it. She might actually understand that other people have feelings too. And this is a remarkable thing to watch.

Next time won’t you sing with me

 

 Christina did this last week, and I thought would join in!

A is for age:  I am 32 on Friday and proud of it. PROUD I SAY.

B is for burger of choice:  Bleu Ribbon Burger at Red Robin. I only recently acquired a taste for blue cheese on my burgers/steaks/red meat of most sorts. I still need ranch with my buffalo wings though.C is for the car I drive:  Toyota Camry, my heart is yours now and forever. If I were a poet, I would write you a sonnet. Or an ode. At least a limerick.

D is for your dog’s name:  Otis who turned 8 (!!!) on Sunday and Lucy, age undetermined but probably pretty close to Otis though the shelter tried to tell us she was much younger. We got Otis as a puppy two months after we moved in together. And Lucy joined us one year to the day before R was born, as sort of a transition-dog for Otis. I wouldn’t recommend that plan to anyone. They are both beagles.

E is for essential item you use every day:  Like Christina, I need my contacts.

F is for favorite TV show at the moment:  The Office!

G is for favorite game: Scene It! I also love Trivial Pursuit because I am a smarty-pants. And very competitive.

H is for home state: Illinois. I-L-L —- I-N-I! 

I is for instruments you play: Piano, 14 years of lessons. Wondering if my daughter can start as early as I did?

J is for favorite juice: Cranberry. Frequent UTIs.

K is for whose bum you’d like to kick:  The woman who called one of the publications I work for “worse than irrelevant, useless.”

L is for last restaurant at which you ate: Turoni’s – a pizza place native to Evansville, Ind., my home for five years and place of residence for Dave’s sister and her kids. Then we had carry-put from Romano’s on Sunday night, but we didn’t actually eat at the restaurant so I figured it didn’t count.

M is for your favorite Muppet:  Dr. Teeth. So cool. So laidback.

N is for number of piercings: Two in each ear, but I only use one in each ear. My navel was pierced until I got pregnant. My goal is to have a belly flat enough (and rest of the body toned enough) to get it back in when I’m done having kids. 

O is for overnight hospital stays: Just when R was born, for the max four nights after a C-section!

P is for people you were with today: So far, just Dave and all my wonderful co-workers. R was still sleeping when I left for work, so I guess she doesn’t count.

Q is for what you do with your quiet time: Read. Yoga.

R is for biggest regret: I don’t know about biggest regret, but I do regret not keeping in touch with more friends from high school/college/grad school. Facebook is starting to change that.

S is for status:  Looking forward to a three-day weekend.

T is for time you woke up today:  5:30 a.m. I accomplish a lot before I leave for work at 7.

U is for what you consider unique about yourself:  I can name the entire starting line-up for the 2003 playoff Chicago Cubs. I also know more about college basketball (and college sports in general) than a lot of men I know. But that’s just because of my job.

V is for vegetable you love: Asparagus! Though I’ve ditched the Hollandaise sauce in an effort to keep healthy habits.

W is for worst habit: Anxiety.

X is for x-rays you’ve had: Right index finger. Broken.

Y is for yummy food you ate today: Stuffed Green Pepper Soup, made from a Cooking Light recipe.

Z is for zodiac: Scorpio, on the cusp of Saggitarius. But I can’t keep a secret.

Thievery

So I’m at work, just finishing up lunch at my desk as always. An older woman who works upstairs comes down and begins attacking the candy dish of the woman whose office is just across from mine.

When I say attack, I mean she emptied the thing out, sorted out the roughly dozen pieces of candy she wanted and dumped the rest back into the dish. Obviously, the owner of the candy dish isn’t here today.

Why would a person do this? I mean, chocolate is awesome and all, but really? You’re going to just take a dozen pieces of candy at once? And be incredibly noisy about it? Most people skulk around and surreptitiously take a piece, which I think is silly too, but come on! At least leave a note.

Vultures.

Down the toilet

So I haven’t talked much about potty training. You might make the assumption that that is because it wasn’t going well, but that wouldn’t be exactly right. I have a confession to make. I hadn’t even really started potty training until about two weeks ago. I didn’t even care that much.

See, R first expressed an interest in the potty more than a year ago. So we bought her the little potty and she started using it. Shortly after that, she developed a terrible bladder infection, and the pediatrician attributed it, at least in part, to pressure to “hold it.” Well, the bladder infection led to a diagnosis of kidney reflux, and eventually of damage to both kidneys (though not major). We were told to back off the potty training.

So we did. And I didn’t care. Even when my mother reminded me she had never had two children in diapers (my sister and I are only 16 months apart) and my mother-in-law just couldn’t understand what the holdup was. What’s the holdup? It was me.

I was partly too lazy to start again, partly afraid of causing another infection, partly wanting to keep the last vestiges of babyhood, to savor the dependence she still had on me.

Now, it’s all gone.

She’s been in panties during the day for more than two weeks now, with mixed success. The first two days were awful, then she went to school and went almost the entire week without an accident (except once during a nap). She was sick one day, and had several #2 accidents another day (by several, I mean four, and I was spraying out the tied-grocery bag full of her underwear in the backyard with the hose on the power-wash setting).

But since then? Not a single accident. Not even during her nap. Saturday, we spent an hour at Lowe’s. While Dave tried to work out a ceiling fan issue, I entertained R with – the potties. She saw one, and was fascinated. She wanted to flush it, then when she saw there was no water, she was on a mission to find a potty with water in it. She searched to no avail, but enjoyed lifting the lids and even sitting on a few for comfort. She was particularly confused by the electronic potty.

She’s getting better at it every day, even stopping her play and going to the bathroom while we were at one of her friend’s houses Saturday afternoon. So she’s certainly not potty trained – we haven’t even started at night yet – but we’re getting there.