The Sadness

But first, a photo...

Work it.

Most of the time, when things seem to good to be true...they are. The poop is back. The goodness only lasted for a few hours. The donning of underwear lasted a few days and was officially put to rest today when Sophie took a giant poop in her undies and we had to throw them away.

Why?

Reports on Poop

But first, a picture...

Suspicious in the Pantry

We have big poop news...

Two critically important and, I think, integrally linked things have happened:

1. Ava peed in her little potty.  It happened yesterday and I missed it.  I have a sinus infection and was at the Saturday walk-in clinic. KC mentioned it in passing later in the way only a father can, like it was nothing. Like we haven't spent the last 3 years trying to get our other daughter to do just that with little to no success.

2. Sophie put on underwear and voluntarily peed and pooped in the potty.  Yes.  It's true.  It's too soon to bust out the pinata, but she did tell me that she thought she was "ready". Then she promptly went into the bathroom and took a crap the size of a 6" Subway Club. I wept.  For real.

What happened next was less happy.  She and I had a little moment of joy together, then she went outside to tell her news to the her friend, Lucy, and the pack of 7 and 8 year old boys that play on our street.  "Guess what?!?!?!  I'm wearing underwear and I peed and pooped in the potty!!!!"  Lucy was very happy for her.  The boys, of course, tormented her and then suggested she show them her underwear.  Which she did.

Then I went outside and the boys and I had a thoughtful discussion about what it means to "take advantage of" someone. Here's how it went:

Me: You guys are old enough to know better.  Sophie is only 5 and you're supposed to be looking out for her, not taking advantage of her.

Charlie: What's "taking advantage"?

Playdate Boy: (He is visiting my neighbor's kid and I can't remember his name. He is older and, thus, wiser.) It's like when you go to one store to buy something and then you go to another store where it's on sale and you buy it at the store where it's on sale.  You take an advantage.

Me: Um...
Sal: No!! It's kind of like bossing around.

Me: Right.  It's sort of like that.  So don't do it.

WTF?

Fashion vs. Nudity

   Ava in her preferred state.      Sophie in her preferred state.

Sophie loves clothes. Ava hates them.  Both attitudes present challenges in the morning.  With Sophie, the conversation goes something like this:

Me: Time to get ready for school.

Sophie: I want to wear my purple dress.

Me: Okay.  Go put it on.

Sophie: (from her room) I need my _______ (fill in the blank with needed accessory).

Me: No you don't.  Just put some shoes on. 

Sophie: (from her room) No!! I need my wrist warmers-green-sunglasses-hello-kitty-ballet-slippers-pink-babylegs-candy-necklace!!!!!

Me: Sophie, we're going to be late.  We'll look for those later.

Then there's some anguished crying over not looking her best; then we go to school.

Ava starts her day in a diaper and nothing else. If the world was a kind place, she'd stay that way.  Here's how school prep goes with her most mornings:

Me: Ava, time to get dressed.

Ava: NO!!!!

Me: (holding up an article of clothing) You need to put on some clothes.

Ava: NO!!!!

Me: You can't go to school in a diaper. Don't you want to go to school?

Ava: NO!!!!

Then one of two things happen:

1. I threaten to leave her home while Sophie and I go to school. She lets me put her clothes on, but with great protest.

2. I threaten to leave her home while Sophie and I go to school. She says, "bye bye." I put her clothes on, with great protest.

Jesus

Tonight I put the girls to bed while KC was out shopping (he returned with a sweatshirt that I'm pretty sure he stole from Usher). They got in their pajamas, brushed teeth, got their various beverages (milk for Ava, warm--NOT HOT--ovaltine with mineral oil for Sophie) and both got into Sophie's bed for a story.

Tyler often takes the girls to the library which I think is so cute.  They went recently and got a new crop of books and videos for our, now postponed, trip to Sunriver. It was Sophie's night to pick and she chose one of the library books entitled, "On that Easter Morning".  Here's an excerpt:

"There they nailed Jesus to the cross and raised it into position on the the hilltop.  Two criminals were crucified on either side...As he hung there, the sky turned dark and the air grew cold."

Night night, kids!

I should note, that although we are technically Jews, we're really Jew-ish. We celebrate the non-religious version of Christmas. We went to an easter egg hunt. And I haven't been inside a temple in years. So I was not initially afraid of "On that Easter Morning". I was envisioning bunnies. Not Jesus.


We only made it about 2 pages in before I had to stop, against much protest from Sophie.  Then I gave a totally lame, wannabe PC parent explanation about how the book was "not about including different kinds of people," when what I should've said was, "we're not reading that crap."

Seriously, though.  Jesus or no Jesus, is that really a bedtime story?

We read "Martha Speaks" instead and afterwards I got online and bought a bunch of books to read to her that don't include the lord.

A Discussion About Boobies

There's been a lot of talk about boobs in our house lately.  Sophie has finally discovered hers (my previous mosquito bite post  is evidence of that) and has a very healthy interest in the subject which prompted a good conversation last night.

But first, a fond booby memory. Every winter we vacation in Hawaii and one of our rituals there is to walk to Starbucks in the morning.  Just after I had Ava, and had particularly large nursing breasts, this conversation took place:

(I am in line at Starbucks chatting with the handsome gentleman in front of me. Sophie is wandering around, checking out the merchandise. She comes up and stands between us, facing me.)

Sophie: (pointing up) Are those your giant boobies?

Me: Yes they are.

Last night's conversation was much more enlightened. I was buying a bra on Amazon on my iphone. Ava was watching Dora and Sophie was swinging on the treadmill safety bar. This is actually an abridged version of the conversation:

Sophie: What are you doing?

Me: I'm buying a braziere. That's a bra.

Sophie: For your big boobies?

Me: Yes.

Sophie: Do you like wearing a bra?

Me: Not really.  I wish I didn't need to wear one.

Sophie: Well, I don't need to wear a bra.

Me: That's true. But some day you'll grow boobies. So will Ava.

Sophie: Yes! But now I just have little kid boobies. (to Ava) Ava! Do you have little kid boobies?

Ava: NO!!!

Ava's Joke

Ava has a knock knock joke that she loves to tell. We're not sure where it came from, but here's how it goes:

Ava: knock knock (sounds like na na)

Other Person: Who's there?

Ava: Do do (sounds like dough dough)

Other Person: Do do who?

Ava: A do do!!!

Then she laughs like "isn't that a riot?" and inevitably, anyone who she's telling the joke to laughs too.

Recently, though, the joke underwent a revision. It happened when we were in LA last weekend and she heard Sophie tell the banana/orange joke ("orange you glad I didn't say 'banana'?").  Here's how the joke goes now:

Ava: knock knock (sounds like na na)

Other Person: Who's there?

Ava: Do do (sounds like dough dough)

Other Person: Do do who?

Ava: Beeoooooo!! (an attempt at 'banana who?', I think)

Definitely not as funny as the origianl version.

Losing Money

Sophie's "hot" face

The girls slept in this morning—Sophie until 7:30 and Ava until 8.  It was awesome.  I actually had time to make coffee and fold some laundry.  When I was folding said laundry, Sophie called to me...

Sophie: Mooooooom!

Me: What?

Sophie: What are you doing?

Me: I'm folding laundry.

Sophie: Doing chores, huh.

Me: Yup.  I'm doing chores, but you know what?

Sophie: What?

Me: I don't get an allowance.

Sophie: That's because you're the adult who's supposed to pay the allowance.

Me: Right.

Sophie: You're losing money, huh?

So true.

Nina

A striking similarity

For a 2 year old, Ava is very good at playing by herself. She's especially interested in her dolls and the Dora dollhouse that we've had since Sophie was her age. It's hard to know exactly what's going on in her games—there's a lot of unintelligible conversation—but one thing is a constant: the dolls, all of them, are named "Nina".  We work downstairs in a dedicated office and throughout the day we hear, "Oh Nina!" or "Nina no!" or just, "Nina!".

We're not sure where it came from. The only person I know named Nina is my massage therapist and Ava has never met her (she doesn't yet need massage). When I was a kid, I called my mother's friend "Joanna" "Apple". It took them a long time, but eventually they realized that I had thought her name was "Banana" and since I couldn't say that, I substituted the next best fruit. 

So lately I've been wondering if "Nina" is not a name at all, but some identifier she's using, her word for "doll" or something. And I'm a tiny bit afraid that we'll realize she's saying something awful that she learned from us like, "not now," or "nimrod," or "numb nuts."

mosquito bites on her nipples

Tonight, as she was getting ready for bed, Sophie put on a bikini top.  Here's how the conversation went:

Sophie: Is it okay if I wear this to bed?

Me: Underneath your nightgown?

Sophie: Yeah. Under my nightgown.

Me: Why are you wearing it?

Sophie: (pulls down the front of the bikini top and fingers her nipples) I need it so that the mosquitos won't bite these.

Me: Your nipples?

Sophie: Yeah.  My nipples. Is it okay if I wear it?

Me: Sure. Now go put on a nightgown.

Then we read the Lorax and she fell asleep.

Just before that conversation, I almost killed her.  She had pooped in her pullup and wanted me to clean it up.  The policy around here, per the poop doctor, is that she is supposed to clean it up herself.  She knows that and yet any time she has to do it before bedtime, she throws a fit, complete with tears and her special form of of ranting to herself. She did it last night too, and KC just ignored her.  But tonight it pushed me over the edge and I chewed her a new one.  I didn't raise my voice, but I told her to "get in the bathroom, clean up, and don't say one more word about it" in my most serious, pissed off mom voice. She looked at me, walked into the bathroom and the next thing I knew she was all cleaned up, ready for bed, wearing a bikini top and singing to herself.

It was at that moment I realized that she is totally yanking my chain. The poop doctor keeps saying, "don't comment on it," "make it a non-issue," "leave the room if you have to," but there is a growing part of me that thinks this method won't work with Sophie. It is possible that of the hundreds of children she's seen, mine is different.  I'm contemplating just laying down the law, and seeing if Sophie magically gets it together. This "turn the other cheek" crap isn't working.

Poop

Sophie is a poop holder.  As a result of this, she has given herself "encopresis", a condition that is characterized by "involuntary soiling". Translation: she poops her pants.

The pants pooping started a long time ago.  We took her to the pediatrician; he told us to give her Miralax for a week; we did it; she stopped pooping in her pants.  But this January, she started again and with a vengeance. We ended up at the Encopresis clinic where we were given a strict regime to follow that includes "potty sits", bowel charting and enough laxatives to make a horse explode.

It's been 7 months and she's not really any closer to just pooping in the toilet.  In fact, the poop lady suggested that we put her back in pullups. Her thinking was that Sophie would object and get her act together, or that Sophie would experience some peer pressure and get her act together, or, at the very least, we wouldn't be washing poopy undies all the time (we had renamed our utility sink the "shit sink"). She was right about that last part, but only that last part.

Here is a conversation I had with our nanny about it shortly after we re-instituted pullups in our house:

Tyler: I think we've taken a step backwards.

Me: How is that possible? I'm pretty sure my back is against the wall.

Tyler: Lucy asked her mom if she could wear pullups like Sophie.

Me: Awesome.

Sophie is perfectly happy to wear pullups and NEVER use the toilet unless forced. Everyone keeps saying that one day she'll just stop, but I'm thinking of that woman from NASA who wore adult diapers so she wouldn't have to take potty breaks as she drove across Texas to shoot her boyfriend's fiance.

I'm worried about insanity.

Comments

The Cousin Visit

There's a lot of talking in our house. Sophie talks constantly and when she isn't talking, she's singing or humming.  They say that some kids are verbal and some are physical.  Sophie is as much the former as she isn't the latter.  She's been talking in complete sentences since she was two but regularly wipes out on her bike (which still has training wheels on it).

Ava talks constantly too, but no one can understand her. She says a few words perfectly--mama, money, McDonald's--but the rest sound like "jooooooo".  She's all vowel. That said, she's incredibly coordinated.  She's a tiny person (25th percentile) and can't reach the pedals of her Tinkerbell big wheel.  But she's faster on it Fred Flinstone style than Sophie is on her bike.  She's a climber.  She can dribble a soccer ball. She'll probably be the next Pele.

So who cares?  You would think no one, but people comment.  When Sophie was little, one of our babysitters always mentioned how "tentative" she was.  And my mother constantly comments on Ava's inability to use consonants.  Other people mention it too, albeit less directly. "She may not talk, but she makes herself known," kind of thing, and the underlying suggestion is that something is wrong. 

Are you a child psychologist? Or a speech therapist? Did I solicit your opinion? Maybe there is something wrong, but seriously, shut up about it. 

Sophie's First Dance Recital

Note: Sophie is the one NOT in costume...