Friday, July 29, 2011

The Proper Use of Potties

The proper use of potties has been a topic of discussion around here lately.

It started several months ago, when Lucy started following me into the bathroom and learned how to flush a toilet.

Lesson #1: Do not flush "things" (toys, cats, your brother, rolls of toilet paper) down the potty.

Lesson #2: Do not flush the potty while Mommy is still sitting on it.


Lesson #3: Do not help Mommy wipe. Lucy noticed a pattern. Mommy sits, Mommy wipes, Lucy gets to flush. In an effort to expedite the flushing process, Lucy started "helping" me wipe almost as soon as I sat on the toilet.

Lesson #4: Pee goes in the potty. Lucy had this major breakthrough about a week ago when she accompanied Daddy into the bathroom. Daddy did not appreciate her efforts to "help" him pee.

Lesson #5: Doll potties do not work. I tried to put a diaper on Lucy the night after her breakthrough that pee goes in the potty. She ran away from me (not unusual) and, of all odd behaviors, crammed her naked butt into her dollhouse. When I asked her to get up so I could put the diaper on her, she replied. "NO! I go potty!" She sat with a look of concentration on her face for another few seconds, then stated "All done," stood up, and flushed the dollhouse toilet, which makes a surprisingly realistic flushing noise. Luckily for me she did not actually pee in the potty. That moment made me glad that she is not potty trained yet.

All of this had me wondering if perhaps it is time to potty train Lucy. So a couple days ago I tried putting big girl panties on her. She had them on for all of five minutes before she peed in them, through them, and onto the floor. Luckily, she peed on the kitchen floor. Unluckily, she thought that the "water" on the floor was fun to play with but was not at all bothered by her wet pants.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Your Brother is Not A...

Lucy, your brother is not a pet...


...or a purse...


...or a doll...


...or a seat...

...or a hat...


....or a toy...


...or a stool...


...or a pillow...


...or a bear...




...or food...


...or a pack mule.


Okay, good. I'm glad we cleared that up.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

How to Wear a Shirt

Lucy is starting to take an interest in dressing herself. It's quite the process. Here's how to put on a shirt, according to Lucy

    1. Find an arm hole.
    2. Put your leg in it.
    3. Pull the shirt up as far as you can.
    4. Get stuck.
    5. Run (hobble) in circles.
    6. Trip.














    7. Find the arm hole again.
    8. Put it over your head.



    9. Pull down until your nose pokes through.
    10. Run blindly into a wall.
    11. Remove the shirt.




    12. Find a bigger hole.
    13. Put the shirt over your head.



    14. Backwards.


    15. Pull down until you have a skirt.


    16. Run.
    17. Trip yourself.


    18. Take the shirt off.


    19. Take your shorts off too.
    20. Take your diaper off too.
    21. Do a naked dance.
    22. Declare yourself "Cute!"
    23. Find pajamas and wear them as a hat.





















    24. Roll on the floor and say "NO! NO! NO!"
    25. Admit that you might need help.

    Who knew getting dressed could be such an event?! 

    Saturday, July 9, 2011

    Why Fondant Makes Good Handcuffs

    Last year I made Lucy's birthday cake myself. And I iced it myself. And you could tell. She turned one, and SHE could tell. In case you haven't noticed, I am not a domestic diva. Cooking really isn't my thing. It was the mother of all pathetic homemade cakes. If you don't believe me, here's a picture:

    In my defense, at least it tasted good.

    This year I thought I would learn something about cake decorating, so that her two year old cake is slightly less embarrassing. Maybe she'll at least smile for her picture this year. Maybe if I improve a little bit each year, we'll have a cake she's willing to eat by the time she turns sweet 16.

    I started googling cakes, and I thought that the fondant iced cakes looked really nice, and kind of like they were made out of sculpy. I like sculpy. I can relate to sculpy much better than I can to a sticky can of icing. And - bonus points! - when I googled fondant recipes it turns out that fondant only has TWO ingredients! Totally my style of cooking.

    So we (as in Lucy and I) made fondant. How hard can it be? Ha. Don't ever think that when cooking with a two year old.

    We dumped all the marshmallows in the bowl.

    We microwaved them so they got nice and mushy. And sticky. Very Very VERY sticky.


    Then we added powdered sugar to the mix. Lots and lots and LOTS of powdered sugar. But not enough. Lucy was in charge of adding the sugar. And she added sugar to the counter, to the floor, to her hair, to my hair, to her shirt, to her shoes, and to the dog as well as to the marshmallows. So when we dug our hands in to knead the marshmallows into a sculpy-like dough they were still Very Very VERY sticky. My hands, Lucy's hands, the bowl, and the marshmallow/sugar concoction ended up glued to the counter.

    On the plus side, poorly mixed fondant makes great handcuffs. Lucy's hands stuck together so well she couldn't get them apart.

    It took most of a bag of sugar to get the fondant to the right consistency and unstuck from the counter. While I was working on fixing that, Lucy got her hands unstuck from the counter and glued them to the bowl. This was slightly concerning as the bowl was breakable. I dumped Lucy, and the bowl, in the sink and put her in charge of "washing dishes." It took lots of hot water, but I eventually separated most of the fondant (aka glue) from Lucy and evicted her from the kitchen while I cleaned up the rest. 

    This is Lucy's sad face:

    It took us two more days to finish the project. On the second day we baked cupcakes (from a box). Aside from making them too large for the cups, they turned out well (because they came from a box). On the third day we rolled out the fondant and decorated the cupcakes. Cookie cutters were a bit beyond Lucy's comprehension, but she was very very good at greasing and sugaring the counter top so that the fondant wouldn't stick. Of course, she was also very good at greasing and sugaring the chair, my hair, the floor, her clothes...I'm not sure the fondant experience was worth the amount of laundry it created.

    Here is our finished product:




    I'm not sure I have the energy to do this again for her birthday, although I might consider using poorly mixed fondant as a toddler restraining device in the future. I can just hear my husband now: "Honey, where's Lucy?" "Oh, I glued her to the ceiling with fondant."

    Friday, July 1, 2011

    Goodnight Puppy

    Tommy is teething.

    Tommy is cranky because Tommy is teething.

    At about 6:30 tonight, Tommy was DONE. I was DONE. So even though it was an hour before his bedtime, I decided to go ahead and bathe him. He likes water, so I envisioned a calm, relaxing break from crying, and then I could put both kids to bed at the same time. Well a mom can dream.

    I decided to bathe him in the kitchen sink so that Lucy could continue to play in the living room (she was prancing around in front of the TV with a Wii controller, pretending to Zumba. I hope that's not what I look like when I Zumba). As soon as I turned the water on, Lucy started having a crisis.

    Lucy is nearly two, and she does not do well with change.

    THIS WAS NOT THE ROUTINE.

    On top of that, she was upset because she was in the living room and I was in the kitchen. She was upset because I was playing with water and Tommy and not including her. She was upset because she wanted to "help" and I wasn't letting her.

    Or so I thought.

    I'm sure you can imagine the drama at this point. Hysterical teething infant. Hysterical crisising toddler. Fun.

    I tossed Tommy in the water and started to try to calm Lucy down, and that's when I realized the REAL problem.

    Puppy was dirty. This Puppy:



    And Mom and Tommy were hogging the bath tub. I was on track for Worst Mother of the Year tonight for not allowing Puppy to share the tub with Tommy. So I pulled out another washcloth, held Puppy over the sink, and proceeded to "wash" him. Then I gave him to (a slightly calmer) Lucy and let her finish "wiping his paws."

    All was well until I pulled Tommy out of the tub, and there was only one towel. So I had to find another towel (accompanied by hysterical crying from Lucy) and ensure Puppy was dried off. Then I had to diaper him, and clothe him in pajamas along with Tommy. Lucy very closely supervised this process. While I was swaddling Tommy, Lucy wrapped Puppy up in the washcloth. Then Lucy and Puppy and Tommy and I all went upstairs.

    I tucked Tommy into his bed.

    Lucy tucked Puppy into HER bed.

    Then Lucy very nonchalantly started back downstairs again. Isn't that what Mommies do after their babies are in bed? She wasn't very pleased with me when I reminded her that she was still a baby and needed to go to bed too. Goodnight Tommy. Goodnight Lucy. And Goodnight Puppy.