Sharing something special

Pound-pound-pound-pound-pound-- the sound of Millie running as fast as she can. Breathless and hair flying, she rushes over to me:

Millie: Mommy! Mommy! Come quick!

Mommy: What is it? (running back to the kitchen with her)

Millie: Look! Look! (throwing the vertical blinds apart) THE MOOOON!

Mommy (delighted with how excited she is to see the moon): Oh wow! Look at that. Millie found the moon!

Millie (thoughtfully): I want to get the moon and bring it for you.

Mommy: (touched and moved) Really? For me?

Millie: Yes. But not now- maybe later.

Mommy: Yes. Let's leave it in the sky for now.

Out of the mouth of my babe

When observing her mother or father getting frustrated with anything...
Millie: Oh Bother, What's to be DONE.


After eating chili...
Millie: Thank you for the delicious dinner mommy.


Sitting in the carseat behind daddy while he was driving her home from a busy afternoon of activities...
Millie: There's a guy behind you who's soooo ti-ud daddy.


At bedtime...
Mommy: Millie you have to go to sleep now. It's bedtime.
Millie: Are you kiddin' me dude?!
Mommy: (Fighting back the laugh- smiles and says) No, I am not kidding you. It's really bedtime.


After sitting for awhile on the potty. Singing, playing games- not much potty happening:
Mommy: Should we get up and wash hands?
Millie: No, I'm going to poop.
Mommy: (After a few more minutes of singing and chatter) Is there any poop happening?
Millie: Mommy?
Mommy: Yes?
Millie: Mommy?
Mommy: Yes?
Millie: (Leaning forward and taking mommy's face into her hands, she whispers) You have to be patient for the poop to come out.
Mommy: (Humbly) You're right. I'm sorry.

Horton Hatches a Nightmare

Millie's imagination these days is on fire. She narrates her life too- She'll say "What is that she muttered?" Acting out the stories during the day time is lots of fun. With that in mind, one must be very careful about what stories you share with a 2 year old.

Recently a well meaning soul gave Millie the book Horton Hatches the Egg. Millie's well meaning parents read her the story. It's about an elephant and it's by Dr. Seuss, sounds innocent enough, right? Well, let me tell ya-- it's actually a pretty grim tale. This mommy bird gets tired of sitting around on her egg so she tricks Horton into sitting on it for her. Then she goes to Palm Beach and never comes back because Palm Beach is so fun. This would be sketchy theme #1- Mommy takes off and never comes back because watching the kid is boring. Ok, moving on- Horton, poor Horton, sits on this egg through rain, sleet and snow waiting for the mommy to return and she never does. Sketchy theme #2- Then these HUNTERS with GUNS spy Horton sitting there. They think- oh great, let's shoot the elephant and point their guns. Horton braces himself to be shot but refuses to leave the egg (this is really all in the story!). The hunters change their mind and decide that the elephant is such a spectacle that they'll kidnap him and take him to the circus and charge tickets to see him. The circus travels to Palm Beach where the mommy bird decides to check out the tent and runs into Horton where a fight over the egg ensues. Eventually the egg hatches and horton and the elephant-bird are free to leave and live happily ever after.

It's hard to stop the story once it's started. Reading it was like being on a runaway truck. There's really no amount of rhyme that makes it ok. After we finished, I thought it wasn't much of a pick me up so I put it away. Unfortunately her daddy found it and read it to her once as well before he came to the same conclusion.

Later that night as everyone was sound asleep...

Millie: The passengers (girl loves her trains) are coming to SHOOT ME! THEY ARE COMING TO SHOOT ME!

I rushed into her bedroom. She sat right up and reached for me. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

Millie: They are coming to shoot me with their guns and I told them, (sob) No I DON'T WANT THAT!

I wiped her tears and hugged her tight. She couldn't settle down. She came back to our bed for the rest of the night. For the next 2 nights she had similar nightmares. And during the day she talked about people pointing guns. It's enough to make your blood run cold. Needless to say that book has been removed from the library. I don't know if it's good at any age- really, at what point is it good to introduce a kid to stories about parental abandonment and guns? No thanks. I feel awful- I can't take that back now. Thanks Dr. Seuss for introducing my kid to guns. What's up with that?

Epilogue: Yesterday she woke up talking about Thumbelina and butterflies "Flapping their flappy wings." Ahh, that's better. Hopefully we're out of the dark for now.

Shoozie-woozie

This morning the alarm did not go off.
I need to be at work by 8am.
In order to get my daughter to daycare just before 8am, we need to leave the house by 7:30am.
In order for us to leave the house by 7:30am, the alarm needs to go off by 6:30am.
This morning the alarm did not go off.


7:15am: I opened my eyes slowly and thought- my, the sun seems brighter than usual for 6:30am. Then I looked at my watch-- I filled with panic and dread and resignation all at once. Nothing to do but give it your best shot, right? Here we go-

I scooped up Millie and got her dressed. I brought her downstairs. I put her lunch together while Daddy gave her breakfast. I ran upstairs and got dressed for work while she ate. When I came back downstairs she was finishing breakfast. I told her we needed to get going to school now. She asked me to carry her. Hooray! I thought- I won't have to coax a dawdling toddler down the stairs. I scooped her up and flew out the front door and strapped her into her carseat.

7:45: Pulling out of the driveway. I raced towards daycare. Daycare is 20 minutes from our home. Fortunately the daycare is 1 mile from my job. Not bad, I think, I would be late but it won't be catastrophic.
8:00: In the home stretch, rounding the corner towards her daycare, a happy singsong voice from the backseat...


Millie: Where are my shoozie-woozies? Where are my shoes? Where are my shoozie-woozies? Where are my shoes?
Mommy: (Gasp followed by groan as she recalls how she scooped up Millie and swooshed out the door without the usual routine of stopping at the front door to let Millie put on her shoes) Your shoozie-woozies?


8:01: At the red light I slowly turn and look at my daughters sweet little sock covered feet. No shoes. Oh I was so close! I almost made it. For a few moments I contemplated whether or not the daycare would mind very much if she had no shoes for a day... no good. I've got to turn around and go home. We round the corner and make a loop and head back home. I call my office and tell them I've got a daycare emergency and won't be there. Hopefully I'll make it in by 9am.

8:25: Home again- run into the house, grab the shoes (and a banana for breakfast- now I've got all the time in the world, may as well eat). I place the shoes on my daughters feet.

8:50: Back at the day care, after her hour long scenic ride to daycare, Millie is dropped off with a smile on her face and shoes on feet.

9:00: Another working mom walks in the door, heart pounding and breathless, and prays for no more adventures for the rest of the day.

A Pun

At bedtime...
Daddy: Do you know which stories you want to read?
Millie: I will pick.
Daddy: Yes, you can pick.
Millie: But not my nose.
Daddy: Correct. But not your nose.
Millie: (grins).
Daddy: (grins back).

Confusing colloquiliasms

The other day we spotted a rainbow over a local ice cream factory. Ever since then, whenever we pass the factory she says, "Do we see a wainbow?" So far, no luck on repeat rainbows.

Today we had the following exchange:

Millie: Do you see a wainbow, Mommy?
Mommy: No. Not today but we better keep an eye out for it.
Millie: (Silence as she tries to figure out what that means).
Mommy: (Silence as she thinks to herself-- that may not be the best way to phrase it for an imaginative toddler).
Mommy: That means we will be watching very carefully for it.
Millie: Then I will keep TWO eyes out for it.
Mommy: That's a good idea.

Sleep Update: The Big Girl Bed

For us it's definitely following a two steps forward one step back course: The first night in the big girl bed she sailed right through till morning without a problem. The second night she was up every 3 hrs. Every time she goes through a bad sleep period we always back-slide in terms of how we handle it. We always start from the beginning where we rush right in and comfort her for as long as she seems to need it whether it's 10 minutes or 1 hr. We never plan on it being an hour but she often asks us to "Sit in the wocking chair" and if we're doing that time passes in a surreal way until the next thing you know you've been sitting next to her bed for an hour or more.

So after the first night she woke up 3-4 times and we started off with sitting with her. Between sitting there for an hour, her sleeping an hour, then waking up again-- it was an awful night of no sleep for everyone.

The next night we decided to go with The pick her up and put her back in bed without talking Method-- SuperNanny style. She was able to do that somewhere between 15-20 times I'd estimate. Maybe it just felt like that and it was only 10 times-- either way it was constant back and forth between 1am and 3am. Not fun.

The next night we found her standing on her bed pulling things off the tall dresser next to her bed. We thought the room was mostly safe- but sometimes we underestimate how creative this little girl really is. So we removed everything potentially harmful from the dresser and put her back to bed.

The next night we tried bribery-- if she stayed in bed all night she'd get a treat in the morning. That worked! She stayed in bed all night and the next morning she got a doughnut hole from Dunkin' Donuts.

The next night, we tried it again... but she discovered how to take off her pajamas and diaper. And she was stealthy and quiet about it-- as my husband would say, "Like a tiny ninja." We were downstairs listening to the monitor when we heard a soft rustling and asked each other, "What was that?" But then it was quiet again-- so we moved on. A few minutes letter another faint noise... I decided to go upstairs and investigate. I found her in the room next to her bedroom, our office, standing by the futon-- naked, no PJs, no diaper- just a smile. She looked like she was thinking about what she should do next. I called my husband and told him he needed to come upstairs and see for himself. It's like the freedom from the crib rails has made her delirious and she wants to free herself of anything confining including her clothing. So we put her clothes back on and sat next to her bed until she was asleep. We also moved the gate we had in the hallway right up to her door. No more naked wandering.

The next morning she asked for her treat but we told her that running around naked does not get you a treat and since she got up she would not be getting one. She fussed but she understood.

That night we reminded her she needed to stay in bed to get her morning treat. She nodded her big exaggerated toddler nod. Can you see where this is going? We didn't say-- "and keep your clothes on." So sometime after midnight we heard quiet rustling. My husband investigated- he found her naked on her bed. We believe she did try to pee on the diaper because there was a wet spot near it but turns out her aim is not great when it comes to trying to pee on the diaper she'd taken off in the dark. So, yes, she stayed in her bed but she got naked and wet the bed.

So the last few nights we've asked her to promise not to get out of the bed AND to keep her pajamas AND diaper on. So far she's doing ok... it's been ok for 2 nights.

The modified cry-it-out did work for us more reliably than anything else back when she was 6 months old-- when she was in a crib.

I don't know how you get a toddler to cry-it-out and go back to sleep in her big girl bed because Millie is finding all kinds of new and creative ways to run amok in her room. She's not crying-- she's getting naked and swinging from the drapes. Is there a chapter on that in the sleep books?

Anyway, 5 nights and counting. We are still rewarding her for staying in bed- a little book or a tiny toy. OK, I confess- we started off with a doughnut hole-- but we're better now. Hopefully some of this delirious energy is settling down.