Trip home II

Just being cute

Nicole was so pleased to be eating a lollipop, she didn't even care there was a mealworm in it.  She licked it gone.

Grandma splurged and bought a bunch of pieces of cake at a small bakery.

Lunch at Al's college town

Trip home I

Apparently, on Sunday, Allie was just lying on the couch next to Colin for several minutes.  Sometimes, it's just one of those days...

On Monday, we went to a neat little play place.

I put Allie on a leash for the first time.  Tan took this picture and showed me, laughing , "She's looking indignant because she's just become self-aware that she's attached to a leash."

Indeed. 

I came over and shot a couple pictures of their feud.

Save me, Mommy!

A single tear.  It's probably because she was stuck with Colin.

Nicole in the cheese.

What does the fish say?  "Glub, glub."

Pirate ship

Afterward, eating crab on Grandma's dime!  Poor Al, who is participating in a study at her college, ate her cold pasta!  (Though the restaurant was kind enough to eventually warm it up.)  That was the story of the week - we eat ice cream and and delicious food, Al eats her food brought in from a snack baggy.

Someone doesn't feel like smiling

Mommy abandoned Allie in Colin's arms so she could attend the bathroom.

It's the worst thing ever.

Seriously.

Those people aren't stuck with Colin...

Nicole's civil disobedience

On Sunday night, I drove my nieces and nephews and my children home in a snow storm, driving a van that wasn't mine.  It was...not the best driving conditions I've been in.  We passed the Field of Death that, on top of barely being able to see because of the snow, was blowing all sorts of debris at us.  At one point, I passed a section of road littered with tumbleweeds.  Nicole kept saying, "I can't see anything!"   It was only after we got home that I learned from my three nieces and nephews who were in the back of the van how scared they had been.  (I was less scared because I was driving and got to drive as slowly as I wanted - 35 at first, 15 toward the end, because of the skidding.)

When we made it to the main road, which is currently under construction, the stop lights were out.  Fortunately, there was a large opening.  However, our tires started to skid, so we pulled over briefly to check on the tires.  I figured the van must be equipped with some sort of anti-skid measure, because of the orange light and picture flashing on the dashboard.  A few cars sped past us, but when we turned left and were climbing a hill, we saw two of the cars on the side of the road with their hazard lights flashing.  I ever so carefully turned right onto the next main road.  As we were quite elevated, I took care to not drive over the side of the road (they don't have any sort of reflectors on the roads here, so it was a bit difficult to tell where the road was).  On one occasion, we encountered an SUV stopped in the middle of the road.  Anyway, when we finally made it home to my nieces' and nephews' house, I looked at their driveway and knew that we wouldn't be able to make it up.  My nephew encouraged me to try anyway.  Well, it didn't work, so they got out and shoveled snow and I went around the block.  I made it back around and tried the shoveled driveway, but the tires just didn't seem to have the traction they needed.  My nephew informed me that the front tire he could see was just spinning wildly.  (I later compared the front and back tires and the traction on the front tires was pathetic compared with the back.)  I backed up and tried using the momentum again, but it didn't work.  I considered leaving the van out on the driveway, but my nephew said it has slid backward into the road before, so I'd better get it into the garage.  I tried one or two more times, and finally forced the van up the steep driveway, all while the van was jerking this way and that, I was afraid I would damage my sister-in-law's only vehicle.  We stepped into the house, so relieved to have made it home.  I had asked my nephew to say a prayer that we would make it home safely, so we made sure to gather in a circle and say a prayer of thanks.

Anyway, after that ordeal, I was NOT going to drive that van in the morning.  Since Nicole is missing four more days of school this/next week, I really didn't want her to miss another day; so amidst the chaos of herding six kids around the house to get to bed at a reasonable hour, answering their questions, a baby crying,  phone calls, and trying to get on the computer (which apparently locked at 7 pm so I couldn't access it) to find someone's number to help get Nicole to school the next morning before the hour was too late to call, I snapped at Nicole while she was repeatedly asking me questions while I was on the phone.  Unrepentant, I told her to go upstairs and brush her teeth.

After getting off the phone, I went upstairs to talk to her, still feeling sour.  She hadn't brushed her teeth.  Nicole drew the line, explaining with quiet defiance, and managing to keep her emotions at bay, "When someone yells at me, I won't do what they tell me to do."

I thought about it, and decided that was perfectly reasonable.  Everyone deserves to be treated with basic respect.  I'm glad that Nicole knows when she isn't being treated with dignity.  I apologized to her, and agreed that she needn't obey me when I yell at her in a mean way (emergencies are different).  After apologizing and talking with her, and restoring her human dignity, I explained why I had yelled, and Nicole adorably went into problem-solving mode - how, when I have so much to do, we could split up the jobs.  Her solutions were disjointed, and she didn't really grasp the issue, but I offered that she could help by watching Allie, and she agreed that was a good idea.

I double-checked with the hubby afterwards about the line Nicole had drawn - I think it's okay for her to disobey when I yell at her, does he agree?  It's like a civil disobedience.  Sure, he said.

Animal sounds

I have been teaching Allison more and more animal sounds.  For several weeks, she has been periodically crawling around on the floor saying, "Ruff ruff!" and panting like a dog.  Aunt Rachel taught her an elephant noise on New Year's Eve, along with an arm signal for the trunk.  We spent time with a few cats last week, and Allison's "meow" seems to have significantly improved, and got much more frequent.  The last week or so, I've been working on "quack, quack," "moo," and "baaaaa" with her.  Yesterday, she became a little bit obsessed with this one Sondra Boynton book, which was at her cousins' house (who we were babysitting for a few days).  She kept bringing it to me to read.

"What does the cow say?"
"Mooooo!"
"What does the duck say?"
"Daht-daht!!!"

I tried to read the book to her, but she kept flipping me back to the page with the duck and the cow.

Tonight, she had "Barnyard Dance" at her disposal.  As I read her the book, I stopped at the animals, as I always do, and asked, "What does the cow say?"
"MMMmmmmm!"
"What does the duck say?"
"Daht-daht!!!"

"What does the sheep say?"
"Baaaa!"
"What does the kitty cat say?"
"Meeow."
"What does the chicken say?"
"Ba-bah" (bock bock)

"What does the dog say?"
"Daht-daht!!"
"What does the dog say?"
"Daht-daht!!"
"The dog says woof woof.  What does the dog say?"
"Daht-daht!!"
"The dog says woof woof.  What does the dog say?"
"Daht-daht!!"
"What does the dog say?"
"Daht-daht!!"

Later, as she looked independently through the book, she could contain her enthusiasm for the duck no longer.  She yelled,

"Dah-daht!!  Dah-daaaahhhhht!!!  DAH-DAAAAAAHHHHHHT!"

Finally, she gave up all pretense.  As she deliberately flipped through each page one last time, she paused briefly on each page to yell, "Dah-daht!!" - "Dah-dahht!" - "Dah-dahht!!" - "Dah-dahht!!" - "Dah-daht!!" - "Dah-dahht!"

I think she might be a little bit obsessed.

Three stories

When Allison poops, I throw her up in the air and say, "You pooped!  You pooped!  You pooped!"  About a month ago, when I would do this, she started saying, "Ah POO!  Ah POO!"  I figured she was saying, "I pooped!"  But three weeks ago, her aunt babysat her, and when we came home, she said, "Did you know she says, 'apple'?"  Apparently, "apple" sounded like "AH-poo."  Oh, I thought, feeling pretty foolish.  I didn't realize she meant, "apple."

But over the next few weeks, Allison continued to use, "Ah POO" and "AH poo" in their appropriate contexts.  So, apparently, they were both in her vocabulary.  I felt bad the other day when she was in the high chair crying and fussing.  She said, "Ah poo."  "Apple," I thought.  So I washed and cut up an apple.  But when I offered it to her, she pushed it away.  30-45 minutes later, I discovered she had a dirty diaper.  "Oooooh," I thought, "She must have meant, "I pooped."

******************

So, for a long while, Allison started saying, "Dah," to everything.  I took it to mean yes.  One night, I asked her, "Are you sleepy?"
"Dah."
"Do you want to go to bed?"
"Dah."
"Shall I put you to bed?"
"Dah."

So I put her in bed, and she immediately lay down and went to sleep.  This sort of pattern continued.  However, a week or two ago, she started to say, in a day-dreamy sort of way, "Nooooo..."  We went sledding, and Aunt Sondra asked Allie if she wanted a ride on the sled.
"Noooo..."

No, she never says, "Dah."  If you ask her a question, her answer will always be, "Nooooo..."

I joked with my nieces and nephews today that Allison started saying "Noooo..." because, when she said, "Dah," that meant she went to bed.

**************************

Last night, I put Allison in her crib (at my nieces' and nephews' house).  Allison was not happy.  She cried and screamed.  She yelled at the top of her lungs.  Tears streamed down her face.  Finally, I went over to her and told her to go to sleep.  She was not getting out of the crib.  she stopped for a bit, but when I left her side, she started screaming again.  Eventually, I returned to her side and talked to her again.  I tried rubbing her back, stroking her face, but she was still unwilling to lay down and sleep.  She would throw herself down angrily on the crib mattress, then stand up, and throw herself down again.  She tried climbing out.  She rejected any toy offerings for comfort, throwing them out of the crib.  After about 30-40 minutes, she finally says, "Ah-duh, Ah-duh!"  (All done.)  This has been effective in other situations.  I told her sorry, she wasn't all done; she needed to stay in her crib.  More angry crying and yelling.  Finally, she says, "Ah poo!  Ah poo!"
"You pooped?"
"Noooo..."

So close.