On the poop deck

(Warning: discussion of gastrointestinal function ahead.)

"I don't need 'positories any more!" Maia said brightly yesterday. Then she took a wipe and tried to stuff it up her ducky's butt.

We went to Seattle last week. While we had a good time overall, travel didn't agree with Maia's digestive system. There were no poops for the first two days, and when she was straining but getting nothing out, we decided to use suppositories, which we've used for her once before. They were highly effective then, but she was ambivalent about them--she knew they worked, but she didn't like how they went in, which I really can't blame her for--and refused these. Of course, being two, her refusal didn't mean as much as she might have wished. We administered several of them, as well as tons of fruit and juice and gummy fiber pills (Chloë also had a couple since they tasted yummy, she said, but since she didn't need any of that sort of help and we're the ones who wipe her butt, she went off them), and eventually a vegetable laxative pill.

She didn't do terribly well the remainder of the trip, but it wasn't so bad we wanted to take her to a doctor. She did start crossing her legs when she was straining, presumably because it hurt--she mentioned this a couple of times when I was changing her, so I took extra care cleaning her, and when I forgot once told me, "Wipe gentwy!" We discouraged the leg-crossing, and by a couple days after we got back, she had gotten back to normal consistency and frequency. She got milk today for the first time in a week.

We're not sure how much each remedy helped, but I'm fairly confident that getting back to her normal schedule was a part of it. Funny how travel can affect something like digestion and excretion. She didn't have this problem our last trip out, admittedly. But it certainly wasn't the change in diet, since Mom and Dad pushed fruit and vegetables even more than we do.

Unassailable logic

"I want that," Maia said, pointing up to Chloë's solar system mobile this morning.

"Which one?" Chloë asked her. "Jupiter?"

"Yeah."

"She wants Jupiter," Chloë told me. "But not the real Jupiter."

"Why not?" I inquired.

"Because one, she couldn't carry it. And two, it wouldn't be in orbit any more. And three, it would be bigger than a room."

Rip-off

"Where's your ow?" Chloë inquired of Maia in the bath the other day.

"On my chest," Maia decided, and together they applied a wet washcloth onto her chest.

"Now, it's time to take off your Band-Aid, Maia," Chloë said kindly. "It's not going to hurt. Ready? One--" She yanked off the washcloth. "That didn't hurt, did it?"

The removal of Band-Aids is Chloë's hangup, not Maia's, of course. I thought it was interesting she chose to channel her experiences in that way. (The "I'll count to three...one [rip]" technique is Eric's; I just reach over and pull it off quickly when she's not prepared.)

Status report: Chloë, 4 years 1 month, and Maia, 28 months

These girls. How they grow. How they amaze. How they annoy. In other words, all is on schedule and perfectly healthy.

Chloë is such a big girl these days. She acts old...I mean, when she's not crying for ten minutes because we refused to let her change her socks so that her clothes would match. Eric has taught her checkers and a number of card games, and she wants to play those all the time now. She's also learned how to think about hypotheticals. Some time ago I asked her about a hypothetical, and she couldn't get past "but that isn't true." The other day we read "Olivia Meets Olivia," in which Olivia is designated Olivia One and does various things to deal with a second Olivia in her class. Afterward I asked her what she would do if she had another Chloë in her class. She said, "Well, I would be Chloë One, because I'm the first one I know, and she would be Chloë Two."

She likes to get in people's faces a lot--not aggressively, just darting in for lots of kisses or to show me something an inch from my eye. She's still pretty clingy; we had trouble leaving a few times when we were in Daytona Beach, even though she had tons of family around her and our assurance that we wouldn't be gone long. But she's eagerly looking forward to preschool again (next week!).

She and Maia are still great pals. In the morning they'll often greet each other with a hug. They squabble about who gets to play what--Chloë definitely isn't old enough to understand the "other people have rights too" concept--but they love to play together, and make up games and stories, and Chloë will include Maia on things like decisions while she's playing a game on her LeapPad.

Maia, in the meantime, is our fiery little girl. We're definitely getting more of the Terrible Twos with her than we did with Chloë. (Does this mean the threes won't be as bad?) She very often refuses to clean, saying, "I don't want to," and we then have to yell at her and/or threaten room time before she complies. Chloë tattles on her all the time, and it's annoying, but it's also true that she's not nearly as obedient as we'd like. When we bake I still have to yell at her about not putting measuring spoons in her mouth and not sticking her fingers in the bowl. Or picking up the spilled baking soda off the counter and licking it, though really if that actually appeals to her I'm not going to oppose it. 

She's not progressing on potty training, but she's not backsliding either; she uses the potty sometimes, but mostly she just uses her diaper. She's much more likely to use the potty the later it gets past her bedtime, though.

She loves to sing. She's not very firm on the ABC song, but she can do Twinkle Star and Baa Baa Black Sheep and part of the Dora theme song with the best of them. When Chloë wants to dance (which she does, often), Maia will generally dance along and start singing whatever's in her mind.

She asked me to sing a song about "woman" last night. After I did ("big women, small women, short women, tall women"), she sang, "I love woman, lots of woman!" As Eric said, maybe there won't be any grandchildren out of that one. However, her bedtime song is usually the Soft Kitty song from "The Big Bang Theory," passed on from Uncle Bob, with a couple of added verses by me because it gets monotonous when she wants to hear it for the tenth time that night. Her latest potty-training prize is a tiny stuffed kitten, now named Banana (mostly by Chloë) because it's light yellow, and when I tuck her in she hands Banana to me and says, "Sing kitty song," expecting me to make Banana dance to its tune. She still hasn't given up playing kitty, being kitty, loving kitties. And mewing when she wakes up. I think we all know what she's going to be for Halloween.

In the meantime, Chloë and I ended up talking about Christmas at bedtime tonight (it followed naturally from her checkup tomorrow and cranberry juice...just trust me) and she said, "I love Christmas and Thanksgiving! They're my favorite days!"

"They're good days," I agreed, and prepared to say something about having to wait for them.

"Every day is a good day," she sang, her head nestled against me as we snuggled. "Every day is a good day!"

Because I like water

Yesterday the girls had lunch a little late, because we'd been working outside. I was hot and sweaty and intended to go back out as soon as they were down for naps, so I didn't eat, but I did decide to finish off the last of the juice container. When I sat down at the table, Maia looked suspiciously at my glass. "Is that juice?"

"Yes," I said.

"Why?"

"Because I wanted some."

"Water!" she cried. Her little fist landed on the table. "You like water!"

"I'll have water next time," I promised.

...So I think my little unplanned hiatus is at an end. We'll see. I'm feeling less robotic than I have been the last several weeks. Eric says I'm yelling at the kids more, which I suppose could be interpreted as another symptom I'm feeling better. Or that it's time to hire a babysitter. Or make cookies with Chloë.

Best Friends

Chloë had a nosebleed today while swimming with Addie and Raegan--not exactly an uncommon occurrence.  Raegan was a little worried, though:  "Does she have a bloody nose?"  She hung around while Chloë was taken care of.

This evening, near bedtime, Chloë and I were talking about that scene; I told her that Raegan was very sweet for asking about it.

"Why was that sweet?" asked Chloë

"Well, when you worry about someone, that shows that you care about them.  Like when you tell me when something happens to Maia, it means you care about her, right."

"Yes, because she's my best friend!"

Awwww.

On toddler time

We visited my friend Courtney on Saturday. While the girls and Courtney's son played together (another item for that brochure on Things They Don't Tell You About Parenting: sometimes, to get peace what you need is more kids in the house) we played a game in the dining room. I sat by the window, and at one point I noticed a rabbit sitting in the backyard.

"Maia," I called, since she was close, playing by herself at the moment, and I knew she'd want to see. "Come over here. There's a bunny in the yard."

She looked up from the aircraft carrier toy she was playing with. "Maia," I said again. "Come here."

She gave me a few more seconds of face time (a look Courtney interpreted as "Aircraft carrier, Mom") and then went back to playing. I shrugged and went back to the game.

A few minutes later Maia got tired of the aircraft carrier. She carefully put away the little accessories she'd been playing with, stood up, and walked over to me. "I comed, Mama!" she said brightly.

The rabbit, of course, had moved on. But it actually wasn't out of the yard, so I was able to show it to her after all.