I found this stuck on my head earlier. My only question is: Who taught my girls (yes, both of them) how to read?
Posted by ktjrdn
at 18:20 CDT
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I found this stuck on my head earlier. My only question is: Who taught my girls (yes, both of them) how to read?
The other day I was nursing Anya in her room (next to the bathroom). I heard what sounded like the handle to the stepstool. I thought she was turning on the lights which she does often. Then she goes around and turns them off. Awful entertaining to her. Me - not so much. Then I heard the toliet lid opening. Ally is not a troublesome girl in that she hasn't ever tried to play in the toliet of gotten into stuff she shouldn't (much), so I wasn't too worried. What I was, was hopeful. Maybe she would go to the bathroom by herself. Maybe we were pressuring her too much, and she just needs to be able to do it on her own. (I'm an optimist it seems - who knew?)
Didn't hear from her for a little while, so I burped Anya and checked on Ally. I found her kneeling on her stool with her diaper and pants around her ankles. There was a small pile of poop behind her on the bathmat, and she was "swimming" her fish (metal on the nose so she can catch them with the fishing pole in the tub) in the toliet. The kid has a short attention span. What I figure happened is that she sat down to poop. Nothing happened in the first 2 seconds, so she got down to play with something, and while she was squatting, out came the poop. No longer needing to sit on the pot herself, she thought she would give the fish a dip in the water.
I do give her an "E" for effort though. She knew she had to go and sat (for a little while). Praise for the notion. Soap for the hands and fish.
Hey all, I got a new truck! Saturday, we went out looking at SUV type vehicles versus vans. The car we had was kinda small for 2 car seats, and impossible if Ally ever wanted to bring home a friend or anything (plus, you never know, we may have a 3rd or 4th or 5th kid). We knew we wanted something bigger eventually, but hadn't decided to do it yet. We went on a fact finding trip and ruled out a bunch of vehicles that just didn't have enough room for our purposes. Then we looked at a Durango, that Rob had put on the top of his possibilities list. He really liked them. So we looked and saw one that was perfect. Rather than wait, we just decided to buy it. We're instant gratification people. It's an 05 with lots of neat features and stuff, but mainly - it's big. It's been about 2 years since we traded in the Chevy, and I missed having a truck. of course, hte gas mileage isn't great, but it wouldn't be in a van either, and that's where we were headed if the SUV things didn't work out. And it was actually cheaper than a new van would have been. Ally loves it. She's currently sitting all the way in the back of the 3rd row. She has her own seat. I'm in class this week away from my desk, so don't have my cord for my camera. You know I would have posted pictures already otherwise. (And don't give me any crap about "you could always upload them at home"! You know I have no time for that stuff at home!) I'll post pictures later.
Oh, and it's really hard to get used to saying "truck" instead of "car". Rest assured I will get used to it. Ally will make me--> Me: "Get in the car, Ally" Ally: "It's not a car - it's a truck!" Me: (sigh) "Well, do it anyway"
I can not believe it! (cookies for everyone who knows what show that came from (but you have to hurry. I'm eating them now) )
Sunday, Ally had eggs and biscuit for breakfast, ham and cheese sandwich for lunch (and french fries I think), and pizza for supper. Last night, she tried and ate 2 cooked baby carrots. Can you say Hallelujah! (can I spell hallelujah?)?
Ally ate breakfast with no fuss at all. She threw a fit over the ham on her sandwich at lunch. There was much screaming and many tears and much snot running down her face. I got a Kleenex for her and wiped her nose. She turned around and said something alnog the lines of "My sandwich is tasty for me now" and climbed back into her chair at the table and took a bite of her sandwich. Brat. Then for supper, she started to fuss that she didn't want pizza, but I headed her off and told her that (you're too late. the cookies are gone - Want to guess anyway?) I was cutting it into bites and asked if she wanted it in a bowl or on a plate. She happily accepted a bowl and ate her supper. We gave her a break and gave her fish sticks last night, but added a vegetable, and it worked.
I AM more stubborn than my child. Thank God.
Ally knows that the lights progress from red to green to orange (I mean yellow). She knows green means go and red means stop and a green arrow means we can turn. She also knows that orange (yellow) means slow down and look around. Unfortuately, she expects us to obey that rule. We go through a yellow light and she says "Hey, you didn't slow down". Or "orange doesn't mean go"
She also knows that honking the horn means "Everybody get out of the road!!!" Hey, at least it doesn't mean "Get the f*** out of my way". Yet.
Both my kids have a mind of their own. I've detailed this many times with Ally, but Anya is starting to show it too. If she wants to "talk" to you and you're not paying her enough attention. She yells at you - then smiles and coos. She coos and talks a lot. I don't really remember that much about when Ally was this age except that she was fun. And that she smiled constantly. Anya is more - uh... what's the word I'm looking for? - internal? When you're not interacting with her, she has a very serious look on her face. Like she's just trying to figure everything out. When you laugh and smile at her, she almost instantly smiles and gigles right back, but it doesn't stay long. She reacts and then goes back to thinking. Or talking at you.
And a lot of the time, if you lay her on her back, she's over on her belly before you even realize it. She started by rolling from belly to back, but still isn't that good at it. As soon as she figured out how to go the other way, she quit trying as hard. She perfers her belly. Unless there is someone sitting next to her staring down and laughing with her. Mostly she only goes from belly to back if she's in her crib waking up.
She's going to be a lot like Ally, I can tell, but it's certain that she's her own person too. I love raising kids sometimes. It's so rewarding to see them become their own people. And it starts happening so early. So fun.
Ok, so we're still not having much progress. Monday, she wouldn't try spaghetti. Tuesday, she wouldn't try prok chops. Wednesday, we went to dance, so we had McNuggets. Thursday, she wouldn't try Sloppy Joes. Friday, she wouldn't try Spagetti o's shaped like Dora. Oh, wait, that hasn't happened yet. I bet I've just had a psychic moment. The weekend is coming up, and we'll have a chance to starve her again, but there just aren't that many foods that I think she'll even consider eating even when she's really hungry. It's going to be fun. Not.
Ally woke up yesterday morning at 6:00. Normally this wouldn't really bother me because I'm usually up then anyway, because Anya wakes up around then to eat, and stays up. Yesterday, however, Anya decided to eat at 4 and sleep in. I thought I would get to sleep too. When will I ever learn?
Anyway, she wasvery hungry, so I got out the piece of sausage. She will be presented with the meal Rob and I eat, and if she wants something else in between, she gets whatever she didn't eat last time. About 8:30 I made scrambled eggs and toast. Ally loves toast (as she told us 50 bajillion times while she was waiting for breakfast to be ready), but she doesn't like eggs (which she told us 5 million bajillion times while she was waiting for supper to be ready). Finally I told her that I knew she didn't think she liked eggs, and I didn't want to hear her tell me anymore. if she said it one more time, she was going to have to go to the living room and wait for breakfast in there. So when breakfast was ready, I told her she could get off the couch and come to the table. She got one piece of toast, and could get more if she tried eggs. She actually ate 3 or 4 bites! of eggs! without much prompting! She's a lot more compliant when she's starving to death. She was even polite most of the day. Much more so than usual.
We went to the fair and she had fair food for lunch, and we all ate fried fish filets for supper. She usually won't eat them if they are not in stick form, but had no problems last night. Even asked for more (which she didn't eat). We'll see how it goes now that she's back in day care for the week.
We are having a showdown with Ally. The kid Will. Not. try any new foods. She eats a very small variety of things which is really not a variety at all, but more of a category - carbs. She eats some fruit, chicken nuggets, oatmeal, french fries, cereal, muffins, biscuits, bread, garlic bread, peanut btter and jelly sandwichs, and occasionally fish sticks. Oh, and Cheese. Once in a while, she deigns to eat pizza. We are sick of making her special things, and also, she needs to eat more healthy things too, like a vegetable now and then. The kid won't even eat spaghetti for god's sake!
So, she ate a little bit of bread and fruit at lunch at day care yesterday like usual. Unlike usual, though, we did not fix her anything special for supper yesterday. She had a choice. Hamburger helper (heathy, right? shut up) and/or corn, or nothing. One bite is all we asked (demanded). She chose nothing. So this morning, we had sausage and biscuits. Except, she only got a biscuit if she had a bite of sausage first. She chose nothing. That went on all the way through lunch. Everytime she said she was hungry, or asked for a specific food, we told her we'd be happy to get it for her if only she took a bite of sausage first. She chose nothing. So after nap, she was very hungry, and very cranky (Oh yeah, she did start asking to go potty even when she had her diaper on - unlike usual, but we figured out it was only to get candy because she was hungry, so she only fooled us once - no more candy).
We had cheeseburgers for supper. All through supper, she whined and pitched a fit. The table is not a place for crying, so we sent her to the living room to play (we have an open floor plan. The only difference between the kitchen and living room is that the kitchen has no carpet). She sat at the table for a while and tried to sneak peices of cheese off the burger, but ultimately decided to eat nothing again. She was VERY whiny. Then, after Rob and I got done eating, she was happy again. She's very good at manipulating my feelings. I actually felt sorry for her. Thought she was starving. She was acting so pitiful. Faker. She is definitely hungry, but she's going to learn to taste new foods, hopefully. and hopefully before day care Monday.
I'm thinking of eggs for breakfast tomorrow, and maybe spaghetti for lunch. Tomorrow is not going to be fun. She will be really hungry by then. She hasn't had anything except a very small amount of milk, a couple bites of fruit, and 1 piece of candy since yesterday at lunchtime.
Why will she not try just one bite of something new? That's all I want.
* Is that not PC? I don't keep up with these things
So we went to the fair last night without Anya. I tell you what - my feet are really starting to hurt. All this walking around stuff sucks. We wasted some time at Conservation World - boring. Then we went on rides. Ally had a blast. We got her an armband, and some tickets for us, and she went crazy. The ride operators weren't that interested in taking our tickets though, so we still have some left, so we might have to go back, because god forbid we waste that money.
So anyway... We all went on the Ferris Wheel. The last one we went on scared her, but this one was okay. It had an encloed basket instead of the typical set-up with opposing bench seat, so she wasn't scared. Then we walked all the way to the back to the Octopus, since she liked it so much at the other fair. She saw it from the Ferris Wheel and got excited. But they wouldn't let her on even though we were with her because she wasn't tall enough. She was very sad. We put her on the motorcycles a couple times and then she got to go on this assissted jumping thing. She got strapped into a harness, and jumped on a trampoline-like thing, but she could jump very high. She really liked it, but didn't think she actually had to jump. She was waiting for it to jump her. She even did a couple straddle jumps like at dance (She has been very well behaved there since I lost it that day and took her home). Let's see, there were the flying elephants, and the fake hot air balloon rides, and the giant slide, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the dragon thing you sit in and it's like a sit and spin... Lots of rides
There was a dragon roller coaster ride for kids. Now, up til this point, most of the rides didn't really care how tall she was. She went on some that she wasn't tall enough for, all by herself. No big deal. She walked up the steps to board the roller coaster, and the operator asked me if she was 36 inches. I had no idea, but very clearly the sign said she had to be, so I said "Yes, she is" He asked if I was sure, and handed her back down to stand against the pole. There was a piece of duct tape on the pole marking the height. Her head reached it just fine. But, since he was above her, he didn't think so and wouldn't let her ride. It was getting late, and Ally was getting tired, and this really hurt her feelings. it really pissed me off. She was tall enough! And he made my baby cry! GRRRR! So we walked away and started looking around at the height restrictions, and it changed the whole mood of the ride finding. Then I found a measuring sign, and stood Ally up next to it. She's almost 37 inches. GRRRR! So I took her picture with my ever-present digital camera, and marched right back over to the bad man, and made him let her on the ride. GRRR! She had a great time, and I felt all powerful and stuff. Don't mess with my baby! RRRROAAR!!!
I think Ally had a great time. She hasn't had any one-on-one time with me and Rob since Anya got here, and I think it's important that she gets a little occasionally.
While we were gone, I guess Anya wanted to go to sleep, but cried for about 20 minutes because Nancy wasn't me. She does that to Rob too. Most of the time, I can lay her down in her crib when she's sleepy, and she looks around a little and gets comfy, sicks her thumb and drifts off. She apparently doesn't do that for everyone. But, otherwise things went ok on the homefront too. Nancy even did all our dishes!! wow. Good times.
Hey, here's a little trick question for you:
If the thermostat in your house is set at 73 degrees and someone says "Turn the air conditioner up", what do you do?
A. Set the thermostat at 75.
B. Set the thermostat at 71.
C. Tell him to do it himself, he's got legs.
The answers I posted first, because then they will be below this post when you scroll down.
Oh, and by the way, since I'm already asking very important questions, here's another one.
You come into the bathroom to find that someone has put on a new roll of toliet paper. It is aligned in such a way that the free end is farther from you/closer to the cabinet the roller is mounted on. Do you ...
A. Think nothing of it, that's the way it's supposed to go.
B. Become annoyed and turn it around, because that's not the way it's supposed to go.
C. That's not the way it's supposed to go, but ignore it because you have more important things to worry about.
D. Ha, that would never happen. I'm the only one who ever changes the toliet paper around here.
1. Ok, C was not the answer I'm looking for here. See, I hear that and think of making the air conditioner (the actual subject of that sentence) work harder, thus would turn the thermostat down (So the answer would be B). Rob thinks that since the thermostat controls the air conditioner (and so they're joined in his head), you would turn the thermostat up (Thus the answer is A) To me, "turn the air conditioner up" and "turn the thermostat down" meean the same. It a big communication problem.
2. D is the most likely, but I alternate between B and C. See the toliet paper should never roll away from you. Then in the middle of the night, you could turn the damn thing til you drip dry because at every turn, it rolls itself back up (assuming that is you turn it by pulling toward you). However, if you put it so that the free end is out toward you, it will unroll itself, and you will always be able to find the end.
I didn't have time to tell you all about the non-maddening part of Monday. The non-maddening part of Wednesday got in the way. Well, not really, but... oh nevermind. Let me just tell you about it.
Monday we (Rob, me, Ally, and Anya) went to the state fair. (For any stalkers out there looking for me, well, this should give you a big clue) The weather turned out gorgeous, and Rob called me when he got off work (I was at the ear doc getting Ally's recheck that took 5 minutes, but had to sit in the office for an hour. Btw, her tube is fine, it was just all crud-ed up, so she couldn't see it very well last time. Yay) and asked if I wanted to go. Of course we did. How often do you get a mostly cloudy 80 degree day in the middle of Aguast at fair time? So, when I got home, we packed up everybody and everybody's 50 pounds of stuff, and off we went.
Ally got to see and pet a bunch of goats, horses, cows, pigs, and rabbits. She got to ride a pony (which she did all by herself for the last part of the ride. The beginning, she didn't think she could, so she insisted that Rob hold her hand, but then she got braver). She got to see a really lame lion and tiger show - buy hey, there were lions and tigers. We ate some food, and walked around a bunch, and then went to the rides.
She loved it, of course. She rode the Tilt-A-Whirl with Rob. The Tilt-A-Whirl!! That's a big kid ride. Not for little 2 1/2 year ollds. She loved it. In fact, Rob had to make her get off (That was a common theme though for all the rides) Anya and I stood around quite a bit just talking to each other. She sat very well in her stroller for most of the evening. Ally rode a bunch of little kid rides, and whined about not being about to go on the sky ride. it's one of those things that mostly looks like a ski lift and runs about half the length of the fairgrounds. Not happening with 2 strollers and 2 kids. We'll go tonight instead. She played a fishing game and won a couple little things and a stuffed dog. She named it Chloe. This is the first thing that she's actually given a name. Mostly things are just called dog or baby, etc. She's growing up. Of course Chloe is a day care friend's new baby sister's name, so she didn't make it up by herself, but still... So, that was nice, but when we got home, Anya wouldn't go to sleep, so I went to bed WAY too late.
So, Wednesday I left early and didn't have time to finish typing this, because I was going back to the fair. Mom's family (That looks weird. I know I'm her family, but I meant the fdamily that she lives with) and my uncle were going to be there, so I grabbed Ally out of day care early and we walked around some more. No rides yesterday, lots of animals, and some more whining about the sky ride. Very tiring.
Tonight we have a babysitter coming for Anya, so we can go with Ally by herself, and ride anything she wants too. I'm sure the sky ride will be first. I'm also planning on more fair food, because , really, what's a better reason to go to the fair for adults? Yummy. Then, that's it. no more fair. We've already spent far too much money this week there. It's just so hard not too, when it's been gorgeous weather and Ally loves it so much.
Okay, so the last few days were a madhouse here. Except part of Monday which was only a little crazy, but that is a happier story, so I'll tell it last and can leave you all on a happy note.
This weekend, Anya decided to get pissy again. Not constantly, but enough that I couldn't really put her down very long without her crying again. She's got a little runny nose and stuff that she got from me, after I got it from Ally (And it seems, she also gave it to Rob - She sneezed in his face the other day) I thikn that's it. She's just feeling puny. Not a big deal. Although, when she does this it drives me up the freakin wall!
First of all, there's the constant neediness. Then the ache of carrying around a 15+ pound kid all day for days. Not to mention the headache of listening to the husband whine because she's driving him up the wall. And to top it all off, Ally is feeling left out, so she whines and crimbs on us and just generally tries to get in trouble just to get some attention. When I'm standing up jiggling Anya to get her to calm down and for-the-love-of-all-that-is-holy please just go to sleep already, Ally is running circles around my legs doing her damndest to trip me, all while singing some non-sensical song that she just made up with words like bloupes and grish, like I'm some Maypole at a backwoods county fair where they make Maypoles out of halfdressed, dishelved moms with murder in their eyes. No one ever shuts up, and it's just so LOUD.
I hope I get some sleep tonight. I can't take to many more days of this.
Let me set the stage:
Anya sitting propped on the couch with a little toy ball between her legs. She has her hands on it. (It's one of those balls with another ball suspended inside with lots of pegs sticking out, and lots of little beady things in there, so they roll around between the pegs and make noise when you roll it) She's sitting kinda un-steadily and mostly leaning forward.
Ally is standing beside the couch "helping" Anya roll the ball.
Rob is supervising.
I am making grilled cheese.
Ally takes the ball away. Rob tells her that it's Anya's toy, and asks (tells) her to give it back. Ally ignores him, and Rob repeats himself. (You can see where this is going can't you?) Ally puts it on the couch and gives it a shove (passive-aggressive like. "If I have to give you the ball, HERE take it" implied in her actions). BONK! Right in Anya's face. SCREAM! SHREIK! AHHHH! Next thing I know, Anya is in Rob's arms, screaming her freakin' head off and Ally is sitting on the couch, crying her eyes out. Anya didn't even get a bruise (just a few little traces of blood in her snot that went away within 5 minutes), but it sure scared the crap out of me. Oh, the screaming!
Rob had to have a talk with Ally about expressing her feeling and not hurting Anya while she was mad at him. It was very obvious that was what had happened.
Is this what I should expect between sisters? It seems to me that I remember similar circumstances from my youth (at a little older age than these 2 of course)
We went to see a parade at our state fair the other day. It was looong. I had thought maybe we'd let Ally ride a couple rides before going home, but we didn't even get to stay for the end of the parade. It was bedtime. (Ooh, those of you who live here, you'll get a kick out of this. It's the republican gubernatorial (sp?) candidate's float. The theme for this year's fair is "Experience it") She had a good time though.
To start with, we asked her if she wanted to go. She got really excited. I asked "What are we going to see at the parade?" Her reply? "Um... candy" "yes, but what else?" We went through firetrucks, and bands, and floats, and all kinds of stuff. She was excited to see a couple schoolbuses there too. We were toward the end of the parade, though, so she didn't actually get much candy. I'm glad. She still hasn't been allowed to eat all the candy from the last parades we've gone to.
Saturday (or maybe Sunday) she wanted to talk to Grandma on the phone, so I called her. Grandma asked her what she saw at the parade. Her reply? "Uh... candy" <sigh> She also told grandma that I wouldn't let her ride the rides. I wasn't nice. I guess I'm doing my part to teach her that life isn't fair. And anyway, we're going back 1 or 2 other days to let her run around as much as she wants. She can't wait.
So, Anya finally figured out the rolling thing Thursday (Yeah, I know. It takes me a while to report these things. I actually have work to do now. Actual work! anyway...) I say "figured out" but I guess that's not exactly accurate. She did it in her sleep. but then she did it again the next night (in her sleep) and did it wide awake on Saturday morning. She was kind of a grump the rest of the weekend, so she didn't get a lot of down time. My back hurts.
She rolls from her belly to her back. She also scoots along on her nose. She can get pretty far if she sets her mind to it. I've wondered about this before. When does it become crawling? Is it when they can move themselves on purpose? Does it require the belly be off the ground? Is it elbows and knees (If so, I don't think my nephew ever crawled. He did the whole elbows and hips/toes thing)? Anyway, I don't call it crawling yet. I think there needs to be less nose involved before it becomes crawling, but other than that, I don't know where to draw the distinction.