Another underwhelming blog….

Ninja Feet

I think Margaret has ninja feet.

We typically have a DVD playing in Margaret's room for most of the day. When Liz makes lunch for M, she gets her all set up at the kitchen table. Liz usually finishes first, and will go bury her head in her computer at the couch, leaving M to finish on her own.

M has decided that she'd prefer to eat her lunch in front of her TV. So as soon as Liz has buried her head in her computer, she'll fly through the living room on her ninja feet, ferrying her food and beverages, sometimes requiring multiple trips, to her room. Liz knows she does this, but still rarely catches her in the act. Usually she just finds M sitting in her bed, eating her lunch, and watching TV.

White Bird

We took Margaret to Splash Kingdom Waterpark yesterday. We showed up at their opening time of 11:00, and spent about an hour at the kiddie area before we decided to break for lunch. Liz had packed up an ice chest full of sandwiches, drinks, chips, etc so we wouldn't have to spend a ton of money on food. I broke the news to Margaret that we were going to leave her favorite slide to go eat lunch, and she wasn't very happy to hear it.

I stood w/ Margaret outside the restroom area while Liz took a little break. M was still whining a bit about "green tunnel", her favorite slide, so I kept trying to build up excitement over lunch by mentioning the dinosaur sandwiches (Liz has a cookie cutter that cuts a sandwich into two brontosauruses). Still fussing, Margaret comes back w/ "Want out eat! Want white bird!" I think "White bird? What's she talking about?". She persists. "Want out eat! Want white bird!"

Knowing that M hardly ever just makes stuff up, I scan our surroundings. About 40-50' away, I see a little shack with a plastic pelican perched prominently on top. It's a snack bar. No one is standing in line or walking away w/ visible food, but somehow Margaret has seen the shack and knows that food can be purchased there. I don't know how she does it, but very little slips past her.

We did actually manage to get her out of the park without any crying, and she did eat a good amount of her lunch. After lunch we stayed until close to 5:00. She spent about 2/3 of that time at "green tunnel" in 30-45 minute stretches. One of us would go to the top of the steps to help her get into the slide, and the other would wait at the bottom to catch her when she came out, and she would just climb those steps over and over and over. It was like she did several 30-45 minute stair-stepper workouts. She almost fell asleep on the way home, which is very rare. Anyway, we all had a great time, and will likely be doing more waterparks in the future.

Reassurance

Liz went for a run early this morning. I woke a little before Margaret, so I went to my office. Margaret woke up a few minutes later, alone. This is a rare event for her, happening at most maybe once a month. She didn't get upset or scared, though. I guess she realized that if she was alone, that I too, must be alone. I hear shouting from the bedroom "I coming, Daddy! I coming, Daddy!" I guess she didn't want me to be scared.

Perfect!

Margaret and I were in her room watching a little Nihou Kailan. In the episode they were making hats out of flowers, leaves, pine cones, and other crap stuff they could find in their back yard. Rintoo (the tiger) was upset that Ho Ho (monkey) had copied his hat. After some discussion, they'd all come to the conclusion that when someone copies you, it means they like what you've done, and you should be happy about it. As all this is going on, I see Margaret move her hands towards her head and say "Perfect!". On closer inspection, I see that she's laid a banana peel across her head in a hat-like fashion.

Woaty Jacket

We've taken Margaret to the swimming pool the last 2 weekends. The first weekend, she didn't have a floaty. She ran around most of the time trying to commandeer unused floaties. A very nice family let her use one of theirs, but it was tedious to keep up w/ it and make sure it was returned.

Liz decided to address the issue by buying Margaret her own floaty early last week. We inflated it immediately, and Margaret carried it around the house all week, calling it her "woaty".

This weekend at the pool, we came prepared w/ her woaty. Of course, she was uninterested, and it spent most of the time sitting on the sidewalk next to our stuff.

Margaret did notice two kids with lifejackets on. She pointed at them, and said "Woaty Jacket!"

Want Out Eat

Liz: Want a hot dog?
Margaret: No
Liz: Want peanut butter and jelly?
Margaret: No. Want out eat.
Liz: Want chicken?
Margaret: Want out eat.

Elephant

Focus

The following transcript is representative of a whole series of conversations we've had w/ Margaret lately (where $donut can represent any item Margaret wants).

Margaret: Want $donut

Mommy and/or Daddy: $negativeResponse

Margaret: Want $donut

Mommy and/or Daddy: $reasonOne

Margaret: Want $donut

Mommy and/or Daddy: $reasonTwo

Margaret: Want $donut

Mommy and/or Daddy: $explanation

Margaret: Want $donut

Mommy and/or Daddy: $redirectionAttempt

Margaret: Want $donut

Mommy and/or Daddy: OK.