Take it From Me, Parents Just Don’t Understand
We've been working semi-casually towards potty training Margaret. It's really been us that have been dropping the ball by not being consistent. Still, every time we have to drop $20-$30 for a new package of pullups, our motivation gets renewed. We have progressed to the point where M will gladly perform her duties on the potty, providing that you prompt her to do so by taking her there. She's not yet to the point of telling you that she needs to go. So unless we diligently take her every 30 minutes or so, we end up changing wet diapers. For the last few days, every time we change a wet diaper, we ask her "Why didn't you tell us you needed to go potty? We would have taken you to the potty and you could have gotten an M&M!"
Last night, while Liz was cooking, M came into the kitchen, clad only in a diaper, and said "Want diaper! Want diaper!" She then took off her diaper, and peed on the floor right in front of Liz. Liz wasn't 100% sure what to think of it. 30 minutes later, Margaret does the same thing, coming into the kitchen saying "Want diaper! Want diaper!". I was there this time, and I replied "You already have a diaper." She ripped it off, and peed right on the floor in front of me.
We discussed it a bit, and determined that, considering our recent requests for her to tell us when she needed to go, and the fact that she did the same thing twice in a row, that she was saying "Want diaper" as short for "I want this diaper off of me so I can go pee pee in the potty and get an M&M."
Headbutting as a Conversation Starter
Tonight was my turn to put Margaret to bed. She was upset about going, so I tried to soothe her by singing a little bit when we got in the bedroom. A little singing turned into a lot of singing. It became apparent after a while that she was making no serious effort to go to sleep. So I started reminding her that it was time to go to sleep, using a firm voice. In response, she butted her head towards mine, not quite making contact. She started to butt again, so I rested my arm over my forehead to act as a buffer. She made contact 3 or 4 times in rapid succession, the first one being soft, and each subsequent one a little harder. When she was finally satisfied that she'd butted me w/ the correct amount of pressure, she said "I sorry. I sorry, Daddy. Are OK? Be careful. Be careful, Daddy."
A Marriage of Blogs
Around the time Margaret was born, Liz and I decided to do all our blogging in one place. At the time I thought, Oh, one day I'll merge all the content from my original blog, forkmantis.com, into tsuasai.com. Well, I've finally done it. As of this moment, we have probably 90% of everything Liz and I ever produced on the web housed in this one site. Not counting this post, there are 1197 posts dating back to 2002, which is before we were even dating.
Margaret singing along w/ the Little Einsteins theme song
She gets a little distracted mid-way through, but you get the idea.
Margaret’s First Real Snow
Trick or Treat
Last night we took Margaret out for her first trick or treating. Overall she's a happy and social girl, but when new people are around, particularly men, it may take her 15 min or so to warm up to them. Since trick or treating is almost 100% about new, often costumed, sometimes scary people, we really didn't know what to expect.
The plan was to go trick or treating with our neighbors Tommy and Stephanie. We got a little impatient waiting on them to get home from their anniversary dinner, so we went ahead and dressed Margaret up in her bumble bee outfit and did a trial run at our other neighbor's house. We handed her her bucket, and, and waited behind some other kids as the Diemund's handed out candy. Margaret just kinda stood there, unsure of what was going on. As the candy went into her bucket, she saw McKennah, and tried to walk in their house. We had to grab her and explain to her that we'd be going to other houses, and that we weren't going to be staying to play. We went to one other house while waiting on Tommy and Stephanie. This time Margaret seemed to know the drill. She cooperatively carried her bucket to the door, and held it out to receive candy. She wasn't the least bit timid or shy, much to our pleasure.
Tommy and Stephanie showed up while this was going on, and we waited a few minutes for them to get their kids suited up. We trick or treated our whole neighborhood with them, and Margaret was just amazingly awesome. She never fussed at all. When it was time to go to a new house, she'd grab her bucket and head to the door. If she was the first one there, she'd even knock. If she was behind bigger kids, she'd just sidle back and forth looking for a gap so she could get up to the front and get some candy. Never once did she act afraid or timid of anyone. She continued to try to go into people's houses, particularly if they had dogs.
When we got home, we dumped her candy on the floor and she spent a solid 15 minutes just picking up each piece and inspecting it. She played a matching game for a little while where she'd find 2 of the same kinds of candy, and hand them to me. We let her have a few things, trying to limit the sugar as much as possible. A big thanks to the folks who gave out pretzels!
The best part about it all is what happened this morning. I woke up, and laid in bed for a while. Margaret must have woken up w/o me noticing, apparently still thinking about last night, because the first words I hear out of her mouth, at full volume, are "Trick or Treat"
Margaret showing off her complete inventory of skills
We just tried to get Margaret to demonstrate all of the stuff she knows at ~17 months of age. We cover most of it here, including:
- Nose picking
- Some sign language
- identifying body parts
- singing Itsy Bitsy Spider (w/ hand motions, and dramatic Eee-Aye-Eee-Aye-Oh finish)
- Flipping
- Identifying foods
- Animal sounds
Unh Unh Unh!
Margaret is to a stage now where she just points at things and says "Unh unh unh!" repeatedly until we give her what she's asking for. Liz and I don't want this stage to last any longer than necessary, so we're teaching her to say or sign "please", "more", or the word for what she's asking for if she knows it, like "water" or "milk", etc. She seems to understand, yet sometimes she's stubborn and resists for a good minute or two before finally breaking down and saying/signing her request. Watching her sign, though, is the cutest thing I can imagine at this stage of my life.