Late-Night Craft Projects

I'm currently embroiled in a new crib-cover project for Charlotte's foot board. If you recall, that is the piece of bed that she chews to bits. We had a padded cover for it (also the topic of a post), but Charlotte has picked the cover open and is pulling out bits of polyester batting and sucking on the fluff.

Urgh.

At this point, I almost have to wonder if she has some weird form of pica, but I know that's not the case. Charlotte just investigates things with her mouth, like a horse, or puppy or...her mama. I did the same things when I was a kid. HOWEVER. I did not stick fluff up my nose, requiring a trip to the doctor's office. Dr. Chabot was very nice and efficient, and very carefully explained to Charlotte that noses are for smelling with and breathing with. NOTHING is to be stuck up there. I was just so happy that Charlotte's practice has weekend hours for urgent care, so that we called ahead and got an appointment within an hour, and paid a regular co-pay, rather than sitting in the emergency room for hours with the pig flu and huge co-copays and all that.

Charlotte was not suitably concerned by all this. That was on Saturday; by Tuesday she was telling me that she had fluff in her nose and that she needed to go to "dockta office." The fact that they have a fishtank, chalkboard and stickers apparently wins out over any trauma that pulling a small, bloody & mucusy piece of grossness out with mile-long tweezers may have caused. So now I am making a cover for the footboard of the bed that is just fabric. It never needed to be padded, it's not like Charlotte is a head-banger, just that's the only one we could find. There is a minor issue; two, really. One, I can't sew a straight seam and two, my sewing machine is in my sister's basement, along with any fabric I might have. I got creative - bought some fat quarters at Michael's and some iron-on fabric tape. We'll see how this works out.

In happier news, Charlotte is really enjoying the books she got for her birthday. She got three Mo Willems books, Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus, Knuffle Bunny, and Are You Ready To Play Outside? Her "auntie" got her several books, including Blueberry Girl and Crazy Hair, both poems by Neil Gaiman that were illustrated into childrens' books. Auntie Jen thought that Charlotte might be "too young for Neil," but wanted her to have them anyway. Charlotte surprised us all, and loves the two poem books. I guess she's about the age that really enjoys rhyming and predicting the future. It's some sort of developmental stage, I know that, I just can't remember if it's called anything in particular.

We read a zillion books a day in this house - new books, old books, library books, board books, everything. Matt reads 2 to 5 stories at bed time, I read a few before naptime, and a bunch more in between. So it's not surprising that she has books memorized, and that she repeats our tones and inflections. The stuff that sticks with her, though, can be pretty strange.

Charlotte will bring out a book and then read it out loud. The other day it was The Giving Tree. She opened it and said, "The Giving Tree, by Neil Gaiman." I laughed out loud at that. That is seriously funny, because I started imagining a version of The Giving Tree written by Neil Gaiman. You can bet that the tree eats the boy at the end, I'm just saying. Or at least tells him off in a rhyme.

Other favorites have been, "Goodnight, Moon, by Mo Willems," "The Mitten, by Neil Gaiman" and today's giggling moment, "The Bread Book, by Neil Gaiman." The Bread Book is Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day which Charlotte loves for the pictures. Or, maybe not. "Ooh, recipes," she said.

Is this how Jane Fonda started? Because I'm okay with it, if that's the case.

Today's instance of hilarity ensuing had to do with my yoga mat. For some bizarre reason, possibly Sesame Street induced, Charlotte calls it an "octagon." Anyway, the last two days Charlotte has been very intrigued by the yoga mat, and asking me to unroll it so she can use it. Yesterday we did some Winnie the Pooh up-and-down excersizes, and she kept bending over and "go sideways." Today she turned into a tiny Aerobisize instructor:

"Up and down, Mama, up and down!"
"Do jumping! Jump, Mama!"

I showed her a few more things, some arm and neck stretches, hip twists, and up-to-the-sky stretches. This so delighted her that I actually had to roll up the yoga mat and put it away so that we could stop "stretchin'" and move on with our lives. My sister Nicole and my nephew G came over for a visit, and I told her about it. Nicole thought it sounded so funny that she wanted a demonstration. "Good luck with that," I said. Auntie Nicole spent the next five minutes at the whims of the tiny dictator.

"Onnie Nicole, uppa sky! Down, uppa sky!"
"Stretchin' you arms, Onnie, stretchin' you arms!"

Nicole then showed Charlotte a couple modified yoga moves (one is that you hold lay on your stomach and hold yourself up on your arms so that you look like a seal) that she used to do with her third-grade class, and Charlotte ate them up. Charlotte also started doing "fallin' down," which means lay on your back and breathe deeply. This is the point at which I realize that Charlotte must have seen a yoga class on TV somewhere and has taken it upon herself to teach us that we must all have quiet meditation at the end of our workout.

This is seriously one of the randomest funniest things that Charlotte has started doing in a list of random funny things - but there's this kind of creepy undercurrent of how just seeing something a couple times on TV has made this deep impression on her. I'm really struggling with making sure that she watches less TV vs. getting more work done vs. Charlotte begging to watch "mo dye-saur twain." It's probably the singlemost guilty conscience thing I have going on.

Well, that and all the goldfish crackers.

Being the parent of a toddler is like being recruited to be in some piece of performance art. Charlotte has a very specific vision that is completely beyond me. This thought occurred to me today as I held a small decorative gourd in each hand, and Charlotte had a pumpkin bucket on each arm. "Now, hold it! Hold it!" she screamed, even though I was already holding the gourds. I tried to explain trick-or-treat to her again, but she just kept telling me to "Hold it!"

Then she ran off to cook something in her kitchen while singing the "I'm a T. Rex" song.

Terrible claws!

Well, I could have started this post with a burst of motherly guilt about not having handmade Charlotte's Halloween costume, and how it's not even that creative or ordered from a small Etsy shop, but that's all moot now. Because Charlotte LOVES her Old Navy 2T-3T tiger costumer. I mean, LOVES it. She said, "I have a costume! I like wear-a costume!"



I tried it on her today in order to buy us some post-nap, pre-grocery store trip time. And to make sure that I wouldn't have to exchange it, etc. I put it on her and told her it was a tiger. "It a costume," she corrected. Charlotte was impressed at the claws on her hands. "Terrible claws," she told me.

"Terrible claws?" I asked. "Terrible claws like Where the Wild Things Are? Or terrible claws like deinonychus*?"

"Like a dinosaur," Charlotte insisted. "I tyrannosaurus. T. Rex!" Then she roared and stomped around the living room and my heart grew three sizes too big. It's hard to be a Grinch about a cranky toddler, messy house, and more work to do when your kid is having such a great time. I'm not gonna post pictures yet, I'll save them for actual Halloween, but I did take some and show them to Charlotte. "That Charlotte in a costume! Tiger!"

* The other day on Dinosaur Train they talked about deinonychus, and how it means "terrible claw". And then yesterday I was reading her some dinosaur book and I pointed it out again, "That's deinonychus. Remember from Dinosaur Train? It means "terrible claw"." Charlotte said, "Gnashed it terrible teeth," which is a line from Where the Wild Things Are, and follows the line, "showed their terrible claws."

House of Germs!

Phew, the last three weeks have been crazy, and the last 10 days Charlotte has been sick. Not serious, but not fun for anyone either. A couple days after her birthday, Charlotte had her 2 year-old immunizations and the FluMist flu "shot." She had a fever, malaise, and one incident of vomiting. Poor kid. After she threw up and while Matt was cleaning her room and I was cleaning her, Charlotte said, "I spitting. I spitting, Mama."

"It's okay," I said. "You weren't spitting" - spitting is Not Allowed - "you threw up. It's okay, you were sick and you threw up."

"I spitting," she repeated. Clearly, she didn't really get what was going on. Luckily, we have a friend with a carpet cleaner, so it wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it was fairly traumatic all around.

Charlotte recovered from that in time to catch a totally DIFFERENT cold that I had, that involved a sore throat, stuffy head, and losing my voice. Now Charlotte is bossing me around in a nasal voice, and coughing when she should be napping. How is it that we have TWO erectile dysfunction pills clogging up my TV air waves, but no one has yet developed a safe and effective toddler decongestant? Priorities, people.

Lots of crazy developmental stuff right now. Charlotte's current obsessions include the new PBS show Dinosaur Train. There is nothing sly or jokey about this show - it is quite literally about a train for dinosaurs. It is like toddler crack. You know how Elmo is crack for one year olds? This is like that - but even more unexpected. After a couple episodes, Charlotte says to me, "That a brachiosaurus," and "Triceratops eat plants!" She found this little train that was attached to a play table, and the only train she has, and she brought it to me saying, "That Dinosaur Train. Dinosaur Train!" Charlotte got some dinosaurs for her birthday, and she was showing them to her baby doll, Judah (named by Charlotte!!). "That stegosaurus. Here triceratops. Triceratops eat plants. Plants inna garden!"

Negotiation has kicked in...she's been doing this for a while. "How 'bout Play-Doh, Mumma? How 'bout more book, Daddy?"

I'd love to post more, and I'm working to get back in the habit, but I gotta get some work done before midnight.

two years old.

2 years ago today, right at this moment, my doctor broke my water and the pitocin-fueled contractions hit. That sucked. But 11 hours and one c-section later, I had my little girl. And here, she is, my little girl, not a baby any more.

The Not-Quite Terrible Not-Quite Twos

These last few weeks have been a real excersize in holding my temper, and an excersize in the amazing brainpower of toddlers. Charlotte has recently learned how to/started to:

* Stick things up her nose (mostly paper and stuffed animal fluff)

* Gnaw on the slats of her crib, after we covered the rails, footboard and headboard

* Climb out of her playpen

* Climb onto our bed

* Say "uh-uh"

* Say "dank you" for thank you

* Get her milk cup out of the fridge

* Play pretend on her own

The list of cons - the "uh-uh" has got to be the most annoying thing she knows how to say. I know that some people hate it when their kid says "No!" to everything, but I just have a hard time dealing with the whiny, "uh-uh!" when asked to do something. "Charlotte, can you come hear please so Mama can put in your ponies?" "Uh-uh!" The sticking-things-up-her-nose phase came earlier than I was prepared for, but after she sneezed out a huge wad of paper, Charlotte may be re-thinking that hobby. But the most terrible issues of all are the ones surrounding the bed and bedtime.

I will be the first to admit that I'm a chewer. I chew my nails. I chew gum. I chew on pen caps and toothpicks and water bottle caps. I still remember how it felt to chew on the top bunk bed railing, and the coffee table in the living room and erasers in art class. My sister once joked about me, "Oh yeah, Barbie shoes are like gum!" So I wasn't surprised when Charlotte started chewing on the crib rails. We covered them up with a hard plastic cover that was too easily removed, and then the silicone teething rail cover that attached with adhesive. (Which, by the way, is cheaper from onestepahead.com than from Babies R' Us, even taking into account the cost of shipping!) That held the chewing instinct at bay for a while, but then Charlotte started gnawing on the footboard of her crib! We searched the internet for something to cover that up, and found some fleece covers that tie on - which are now EVERYWHERE but we couldn't find to save our lives three months ago. We thought we were save, until one day when we found Charlotte laying on her side, chewing on the vertical slats of the crib.

Chewing. On. The. Vertical. Slats. Of. The. Crib.

To. Splinters.

I'm just stunned and hysterical at this point. We put the bumpers back on, and she just pushes them down and goes to town. This is the point where we have the brilliant idea to only put her down for nap in her play pen, since naptime is the worst chewing time. This works out great for about three weeks, until one day the play pen is placed just a little too close to another piece of furniture, and Charlotte climbed out during naptime and trashed her room.



Right now we're in this state of denial where we know that sooner or later we'll just have to bite the bullet and completely toddlerproof her room and convert her crib to a toddler bed. I'm just not ready for Charlotte to be in a big girl bed - she's not even two! And her room is babyproofed, but that's not the same thing as toddlerproofed. To me, babyproofed means that a 1 year old under adult supervision is safe. Toddlerproofed means that you can leave your kid in that room overnight and she won't find some furniture to climb, or pull on top of her, or cord to pull on, or toy to destroy and choke on. I may be a little more paranoid than most, but I also have stories of my own childhood to go from. Apparently "I climba out!" is genetic.

At the same time, Charlotte is just growing so fast mentally that it almost makes up for all the craziness. Her language has just taken off, and she can tell longer and longer stories and sentences that make sense. Sort of. Last week she dumped all her food off her tray, and as I gaped in annoyance, she said, "Mama, Maddie will clean it up." Now, granted, Maddie is a toothless 8 year old cat who never cleans ANYTHING up, but it was pretty funny that Charlotte decided that would be her excuse for making a mess. And as a sentence, it was clear as day and made perfect sense. Kinda blew my mind, really.

Pretend play is really taken off. She's been "doing voices" for a really long time - partially in imitation of us when we read stories to her, and partially just out of her really insane love of Elmo. It's not that she has a lot of Elmo toys or books, she just likes the ritual of Elmo's World on Sesame Street, and likes to go through the routine herself. Frequently on the changing table or in her high chair, Charlotte will say, "Hi, Elmo!" in her high-pitched Elmo voice. That's our cue to talk about the things they talk about in the Elmo's World segment. We talk about Dorothy (his pet goldfish, for anyone w/o kids, or lucky enough to be a no-TV family) and whatever topic of the day. Once I suggested "Plants" as a topic of the day, and made up all these things that Elmo would say about plants, and now that's the fallback subject. Anyway, the point is that this is frequently done in an Elmo voice, and it is hilarious. Charlotte's bestest stuffed friend, a very pathetic Tigger, doesn't have a voice, but he does have some bad habits. He likes to chew on beds, touch things he's not supposed to, and touch poopy diapers. These are all things that Charlotte knows she's not supposed to do, and blamed on Tigger. I once came in to get her up from nap and found her chewing on her crib rail.

Mama: Charlotte! What are you doing?

Charlotte: No chew. No chewing!

Mama: That's right, no chewing. No chewing on beds.

Charlotte: (holding Tigger up to freshly splinted crib rail) Tigga, no chew! No chewing!

Today, while watching some episode of one of the four TV shows I let her watch, there was a bee flying around. Charlotte then looked at me and said, "I a bee!" and ran around the room with her arms out, saying, "bzz, buzz!" and I was floored. It was the first time that Charlotte has ever spontaneously decided to be something (other than Elmo) all on her own, and then acted it out appropriately!

I swear, my kid is a genius.