Maia on pictures

We have a bunch of photographs on our fridge (top part only, as the girls mercilessly rip down anything they can reach), mostly a year old or more now. I guess it's time for a new crop. Anyway, Maia likes ordering Eric or me to take her over so she can look closely at them. Today I was her ride, and we had these exchanges:

Maia (points to picture of herself and Gunnar at James's wedding): Who that?
Me (pointing to Gunnar): That's Gunnar.
Maia (pointing to herself): Maia. Pretty little baby.

Maia (pointing to the picture of herself at the dentist with Eric and Chloë--the dentist took the picture and gave them a copy because she was so good her first time): Maia.
Me: Where?
Maia (pointing): There.
Me: Where's Daddy?
Maia: Holding sisters.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 6 months, and Maia, 21 months

Meet Toë McWhinerson, age three and a half.

These are Chloë's most prominent traits at the moment. She whines. All day. For no reason. (Well, sometimes for reason.) She whines for food. She whines to snuggle. She whines that she's tired, and then that she's not tired. She whines because she wants a shoooooooow, right noooooooow. She whines because I gave her a straw cup instead of a sippy. (And let me tell you, it annoys me when my clients get upset with me for not reading their minds. It annoys me no less when my daughter does it. Though she did learn--this morning she said very carefully, "Mama, will you give me my hot chocolate in a sippy? In a sippy.")

We've moved to a sort of hybrid temporary sleep schedule for her. She really still needs a nap after lunch, but she's very reluctant to get it, and if she does, she generally doesn't get to sleep very quickly. So she gets a mandatory fifteen minutes of quiet time during the day. If she sleeps (as will happen when Eric snuggles with her), she gets to stay up an extra hour at night. If she doesn't, she goes to bed when Maia does. I'm hoping this settles out one way or the other, because I don't like the variability, but it seems to be working so far. But the no-nap days she's particularly whiny, and snaps angrily whenever we suggest it's because she's tired.

And then there's the "Toë, Maia's Big Sister" aspect of her. Especially now that Maia can really communicate and understand and respond, she's very in tune with what Maia's saying and where she is and what she's doing (or not doing). There's plenty of bossiness there, but also plenty of concern and affection. She craves Maia's company. Several times a day she'll say "Maia, grab my hand!" or "Come with me!" or "Don't you want to play?" Maia would obviously be just as happy to be left alone, but she goes along with whatever Chloë wants, and they're both happy. The other day Chloë was upset about something--I forget what--and said plaintively, "Maia, do you want a hug?" Maia agreed, indifferently, and Chloë swiftly closed in because what she really wanted, of course, was to get a hug from her beloved little sister.

Maia is also devoted to her sister--her most frequent question when they're apart is "Where Toë?"--but is definitely working on her independent and defiant side. She continues to be happy to play by herself much more than Chloë ever has. And she's showing an inconvenient amount of rebellion, often running away in the store or in the street, refusing to do things I ask. Possibly her most annoying habit is, when Chloë gets told not to do something, to immediately do whatever Chloë was just forbidden. I assume she would have gotten to it sooner but didn't realize it fell into the "forbidden therefore desirable" category.

But she's also working on becoming her own little person. She's very sweet about saying "thank you" and "you're welcome" and "I love you too." And her sentences! Were there ever any girls so good at language so early! (Yes, I'm sure there were, but don't burst my bubble.) One of her favorite Christmas presents was Big Dog, Little Dog, and she often comes to me to say, "Read Big Dog Little Dog please Mama." Then she'll recite, "Big Dog Little Dog P. D. Eastman," because I have a habit of reading out the author's name when I read books to the girls. (I can tell you where this comes from, too. When I was little I had an audio book of Sleeping Beauty, by Freya Littledale. I remember it distinctly, after some twenty-five years, because the tape said so at the beginning and I played it so often.) She says "Help Maia Mama. Dolly falling down!" and "My banana. Daddy banana," pointing, and "Maia eat cookie too."

And then there's Chloë, talking about "the proper order" for her Memory cards (because Scout and friends talk about it on the "Numberland" LeapFrog show) and saying knowledgeably, when shown a picture of me at eight, "When you were little we looked similar." She often comes out with some tidbit she learned from Diego or preschool, or remembered from a book. 

Maia is progressing nicely, developmentally. She knows her colors and can sing most of the ABCs, and can recognize some of the letters. She can draw circles and lines, and sing along with songs, and tell me "Take pants off Mama please" when I'm in the middle of getting dressed and have neglected to remove my pajama pants quickly enough.

Her canines have finally started filling in, and she's started saying "poopy" to mean a diaper with anything in it. She's had a few successes with the potty, but I consider this "hey, I just went in my diaper" to be the best next step for her potty training. Though considering the trouble we went through with Chloë, I can hardly set myself up as knowledgeable about it.

Oh, and I forgot to say, but Maia was definitively weaned a little over a month ago. We'd been down to once a day in the morning anyway, and then I just quit. She didn't fuss too much. She still talks about "milk in there," pointing to the glider, but she doesn't argue when I then take us downstairs to get milk. She'll even sit in the glider, snuggled with her dolly or Beep, and wait for me to get it. It's nice. 

And then there's this morning, when the four of us were all in our big bed. Maia leaned over and poked at the R.I.N.D.S., alternately, saying, "Pop pop pop."

They're silly girls, is what I'm saying. They're funny and happy together, and growing well and not driving us crazy...totally...all the time. Smart, sassy, strong girls, and I'm proud to be their mama.

Our own little Herbie

Chloë says she wants to be a dentist when she grows up. This, Eric tells me, is entirely because at Maia's recent dental appointment Chloë watched avidly and the dentist said, "She's going to be a dentist." Apparently he wanted to be a dentist from the age of three. Tonight Chloë and I talked about how she would decorate her dentist office. Then we talked about whether she would take care of children or grownups (she says both) and what she would have to do. "But I don't know how to fix cavities," she said when I mentioned them.

"You'd go to dentist school to learn how to do that."

"What's dentist school?"

"It's a school you go to to learn how to be a dentist. You would go after you finish regular school."

"After preschool?"

I explained about the different levels of school (and didn't describe college as being optional) and how dentist school would come after that. "I don't think I can do all that," she said.

"Of course you could," I said. "A lot of grownups do it. And all dentists."

Then we discussed what toys would be best for her waiting room and whether the kids would have to wear bibs in the dentist chair. It was probably not the deepest conversation I'll ever have with her about her future, but it was a good first one.

Two more things about Maia

I forgot to mention: Maia can count! Sort of. It goes like this: "One, two, pee, pour, tick, eighteen, aheven."

And, tonight she went in the potty! Chloë's seat on the toilet, to be exact. She was having constipation issues, and after changing two diapers (one bloody, poor kid) I noticed her starting to strain again and suggested she try on the potty seat. She likes it, so she agreed, and after a moment we heard a tinkling noise. I started in on the joyous praise, and Chloë, like the good sport she is, added her own "I'm toe proud of you, Maia!" and kisses. Maia beamed and said, "Again!" and tinkled a little more, and we duly repeated ourselves as she laughed in delight. Then she strained and produced a poop, and we went wild. She got three stickers and two mint M&Ms (I went a little overboard), and was wholly delighted with herself, saying "Yay Maia!" and clapping. I was delighted too with our big girl. This augurs well for the coming year.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 5 months, and Maia, 20 months

And so on the last day of the year I bring you the last monthly update of the year. The girls know that we're having a party tonight, but not why; and though they're big, big girls, they're not big enough yet to stay up for midnight.

"Aw, Mom."

Chloë is going through a whiny, defiant stage. Have I mentioned this before? It's still true. "No fair!" she was yelling at intervals all morning. (Eric blames me. I'm afraid this time he's correct. It's from the "Bedtime for Frances" miniseries I found on Netflix.) "I didn't want you to zip it all the way," she complains when we help too much. "You don't both need to tell me," she says when Eric and both holler "Yes!" when she's called out "I can flush, right?"

Vis a vis the potty, she's almost entirely independent now. We've been checking her wiping (visually), but she's been doing well, so I told her last night that if she felt dry, she could just pull up her underwear and proceed to flushing and washing. I expected her to call me anyway, but she didn't. Next step is to get her off the potty seat. I keep mentioning it and forgetting to do it.

Maia's been doing some sitting on the potty, occasionally, but I think it's mainly so that she can read her potty books. She does enjoy the attention, though, and especially being on Chloë's seat. And Chloë's always very helpful in telling me "Maia wants to sit on my potty seat," and putting the seat on and moving the stool so I really have no choice.

Chloë showed the probably typical but unbecoming "Are there more presents for me?" attitude during Christmas, but other than that they were both delightful during the holidays. They enjoyed their toys, helped clean up without much grumbling, helped enthusiastically with baking. Chloë's fairly good at measuring out dry ingredients, and is eager to say "I can do that!" whenever I introduce a new step. She wants to learn about cracking eggs, but I'm not ready for that yet. Maia likes to stand on the chair with Chloë and dip her fingers into things. Chloë got an easel for Christmas, and when Eric started to put it together, she clamored to help. "I don't think there's much you can do," he told her, "but we'll see." But, in fact, she helped gather and hold things, keep track of the "L," hold pieces in place, and screw on the wing nuts. She also did her first screw-driving helping to change batteries in her moon and stars. We'll have her fixing the roof in no time.

She's still keenly interested in the alphabet and counting. She's getting better at the teens and can work her way up to one hundred if you prompt her a few times. She also knows two plus two is four, though I'm not sure she could do two plus three. 

Maia is talking, talking, always talking. A lot of it is mimicking, especially anything Chloë says; but she comes up with her own sentences too. Like "Mama eating pizza too" and "Mitten falling down!" and "Daddy sleeping, tiptoe, shhh," and, heart-meltingly, "Happy see you Mama." She's starting to take more interest in her wardrobe, and whenever I help her on with something she particularly likes, she wants to go show Daddy.

She's now our adventurous eater; Chloë doesn't like anything remotely "spicy" (occasionally including basil and oregano, though not cinnamon) and has recently declared she didn't like tomatoes, though she then ate about a third of a pound of them at Memaw's with her cousins, so she's clearly not being totally truthful there.  But Maia likes my spicy cheese (pepperjack) and the cheese-onion tart at Christmas and my potato omelets and, in general, anything her sister and father won't touch. She's not keen on bacon or sausage (though Chloë adores them both), but she liked the ham at Christmas and in general is eager to try anything on Eric's plate, or mine, that she doesn't have. Or that she does have. She also likes to eat with my fork.

However, Chloë still loves her mermaid food, seaweed and seaweed soup and rice. Maia too. Mom made them soup when they were here (she makes it better than I do) and they both literally slurped it up.

Maia is so funny these days. Dad invented a game wherein he's sitting on the couch, and she's trapped between his legs, and the only way to get out is to tickle his toes. She loved this game, and of course played it with me when he was gone. Then the other night she played the "Mama tunnel" game (crawling between my legs, particularly when I'm standing right against a counter). I trapped her and said "What do you do to get free?" and after a few seconds' thought she tickled my feet.

Also, she continues to like playing with her blankets:

The girls are really engaging with each other these days. They have actual conversations sometimes ("Maia, do you want to play sleepover?" "Yeah!" "Okay, let's go to my room." "Wait, Toë." "Oh, you need your babies? I'll help carry them." "Thank you Toë.") I came down the other day to find they'd dragged Maia's little couch to the entryway and were kneeling backward on it, talking animatedly about fish. Turned out they were on a boat. They're considerate of each other most of the time, responding to each other's wants and upsets. They're such sweet girls.

Merry Christmas from the Overlords

Christmas with the Overlords was busy but fun. They went and saw Santa (while I was home sick):

...after which Chloë told me solemnly, "If Santa Tom comes to our house in the dark, he will be surprised."

We baked cookies:

I'd suggested that we make gingerbread men and put gumdrop buttons on them, but it was Chloë's idea to make one for each person coming to Christmas dinner, with a letter to designate whose was whose (there were a lot of Ms: Maia, Mimi, Mama, Memaw, and Matt) and red-hot eyes, nose, and...um...bow tie, I think. She did the red-hots and piped some of the icing for the bow ties, and was very proud of herself. So was I.

And, of course, we opened lots of presents:

(Notice the pure joy on Maia's sweet face on seeing that they both have their own packets of what they've been calling "minties," mint M&Ms.)

(I made the sweater. Mom sewed on the buttons.)

The girls got a good haul: dolls, necklaces, sweater for Maia and mittens for Chloë, stuffed animals, books, baking stuff and a space puzzle for Chloë, a dump truck for Maia. Chloë also got a training laptop from Mom (which I helped pick out) that we upgraded tonight to a LeapPad, because the laptop we chose turned out to have some issues.

Then family came over for dinner and more presents, and the girls got into their Christmas dresses, which Chloë in particular professed to love. They liked Eric's yams and the green beans, and the apple pie, and their cousin Raegan two-fisted cookies when I made the mistake of putting the plate too low. It was a good Christmas.

Inevitable

We were discussing something, I forget what, right after I got home from work today while Chloë ate from her bag of "blue chewy fruit snacks" (blue referring to the color of the package; they're the Welch's, and she accepts no substitutes). Eric said something about the annoyingness or cuteness, I forget which, of something Chloë had said, and quoted it.

"Maia?" Chloë asked brightly.

"No, you. Maia doesn't talk in sentences."

"Snack too, please," Maia said.