Chinese Food, Memories and New Habits (Good and.... DISGUSTING)

First, a sidenote - I'm being featured as part of A Moderate Life's new meme Baby Steps to a Rockin' Life today. Go check it out!

Update on S
She is obsessed with Chinese food. DH introduced her to it a few weeks ago, and now she wants it all. the. time. They had it for supper last Tuesday since I was gone on a girls night for dinner and pedicures (lovely!). Thursday morning she said she wanted it for supper that night. I can't get her to tell me what she wants for lunch when we're about to eat half the time. I told her probably not. She said, "But I want Chinese!" I told her we'd see, but probably not. "Chinese is on the way home." And her cute little 3-YO voice saying "Chinese" repeatedly? Cracking me up. DH sent me the following text when he picked her up from my parents' house: "S wants Chinese 4 dinner. Ur mom told her that if she eats 2 much Chinese, her eyes will start to slant."

OMG. What are grandparents for if not to pass down bigotry? The funny thing is that my mom is not the racist (usually). My dad is. So for my mom to say that? Totally made me laugh.

Then there's S's memory. I'm always amazed by it, I think because "experts" say you don't remember anything from before age 3. When we lived at our old house, we bought S a bedroom set when we put her in a big girl bed around March or April of 2009, so she would have been about 20 months. About a month after she had it, we decided to return it (lots of reasons, the last one being that a slat broke and the bed collapsed). We had sold the house so we didn't want to buy a new set until we found a new house, so for May of 2009, she slept on the mattress on the floor. May of 2009. One month. She wasn't quite 2 years old. Last week, a year and a half later, she mentioned to me, "Mommy, remember when we lived in our old house when I was 2, and I slept on the floor?"


It's funny because lately I've read several posts about moms being concerned with their children and how other kids see them and treat them and how their kids react to that. I have always had anxiety about her finding good friends, and now that she's in preschool and playing with her peers more than alongside them, the time has come to see how it will pan out in real life. From what I can tell, everyone at preschool is really nice. There's another little girl there who has the same first name as S. My S has been drawn to her since learning about their special bond. Not to mention that the other S is one of those little girls who is completely put together with her long, brown hair in pigtails or braids with cute hair ties and adorable outfits. Who wouldn't want to be friends with her? I don't think the other little girl dislikes S, but she really prefers to play with E, another girly-girl in the class. Since I'm not there the whole day, I don't know exactly how things play out. I don't hear anything negative from S or the teacher or the other girls' parent, so I'm sure it's fine. It's just a source of worry for me sometimes. I try to help her with pretend play to know how to handle different situations, so hopefully that's helping.

Like most of the U.S., we got several inches of snow here over the last couple of days. When I'm putting the girls in the van in the morning, it's an incredible chore. I've got to get both girls, both of their bags, both of their blankets for nap time, my purse, my lunch and now my shoes since I'm wearing snow boots, loaded and everyone buckled and situated with toys to entertain them. I can't carry it all at once, so I make a couple of trips. Invariably something is forgotten - after I've set the house alarm - and I run back in for it. Since S is big enough to walk and get in by herself, she usually wanders around while I'm loading everything else and Baby R into their assigned spaces. During this time, I'm simultaneously squawking, "Get in the car, S. Buckle in, honey. It's time to go!" Monday I was getting frustrated because she was just ignoring me, and it was FREEZING cold, so I was trying to have the doors open as short a time as possible. I finished getting Baby R situated, closed her door and walked around to the other side. S was throwing Cheerios on the ground, then burying them in the snow. "What are you doing?" I asked her. "Feeding the birds, Mommy!" Interesting process you've decided on.

This is relevant to a story below about Baby R. S still wants us to wave good-bye when she goes potty. She occasionally just flushes and tells me she's done (then I remind her to wash her hands, for the love of all that's holy before touching that spoon or your baby sister!). But she has never, ever gone and not mentioned it. Until Sunday. Hold that thought....

 

Update on Baby R
While so much growth and change happens the first year, I think months 13-18 are when the biggest leaps and bounds that we see take place. In the last week she's figured out how to do up buckles, which S loved to do, too. She gets frustrated that she can't undo them yet. She's still opening and closing cabinets and drawers, but now instead of just taking things out, she's putting things away. She can following simple commands. (CAN, not always does.) She is enjoying roughhousing with Daddy and Sissy. The other night, DH was on his stomach on the living room floor and S was rubbing his back and karate chopping him (the beauty of preschooler massage). Baby R toddled over and body-slammed him to join in the fun. It was hysterical from my perspective. DH found it amusing later.


Sunday was Dad's 71st birthday. We had my parents and sister, D, over for dinner. As the oldest of our children is only 3, we are possession of candles with numerals on them that only go up to 3. For my bday a few weeks ago, DH had put "32" on top. Aw, honey, so sweet of you to make me younger than I am! I thought he was going to do that with Dad's cake, too, but he went for obnoxious instead. (Should have known!) He came down the hall and we started singing. And saw it had "123" on top. Ha!

We finished dinner, and I was taking dishes back to the kitchen. I passed the bathroom and saw Baby R standing by the toilet. She's been waving bye-bye with us when big sister goes potty now that she can walk. But in doing so, she tends to grab the seat - gross! I stopped in my tracks and started telling her "No" while trying to block her to keep her from touching anything with her hands. Then I noticed toilet paper. Wet toilet paper. Dangling from her MOUTH. (Imagine me doing the heeby-jeeby dance here.) I had a moment of panic where all I could say was "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" Everyone else was alarmed at my freaking out. I had my hands full so asked my mom to grab her and get her out of the bathroom. "Clean out her mouth! Wash off her hands! Gross! Gross!! GROSS!!!!" I set everything down and tried not to throw up thinking about how disgusting it was. My sister, D, was trying to control her amusement. She knew I was overreacting. She said, "Someday, Jenn, this will be funny." I know. It will. But at that moment, it was all I could do to keep my dinner down. (I have a weak stomach. List that as an option for Understatement of the Year. I stopped eating ketchup when I was 8 because kids told me it was blood. I know it isn't, but I still don't eat it.)

So Monday night on my way home from work, I was telling my other sister, J, about it. She was joking that Baby R must be getting influenced by her "cousins," the dogs. I laughed, and was walking into the house at the end of our conversation, and pretty much on cue, she had to chastise her dog to get out of the garbage. I laughed again, said goodbye, and as I opened the door to go inside, the first thing I saw? Baby R in the recycle bin. Oy vey.