Party Pooper

I often try to write post titles that include puns. However, in this case, the title should be taken quite literally.

About a week ago, a few of us got together to honor my girlfriend Christina who is about to have her second child. Ella was very excited to go to the "shower party" and play with her friend Loreli. She wore the Christmas dress she refused to wear during the holidays, sparkly pink tights, and her pink boots. We were all dressed up in matching black and white dresses and looking forward to a very grown-up day.

Now, you know that the potty training saga has been going on for close to a year now, but we decided a few weeks ago to really go all in and make this thing happen. So, for about three weeks she's been wearing underwear all day except for at nap and bedtime. This is working out quite well in terms of peeing. She never has a peeing accident, and we can even go out for the day, and she will pee in stores or wherever we are. Great. Awesome. A lot of progress. However, the whole pooping on the potty thing is an issue. She doesn't want to do it, and she will hold her poop in for days to avoid the issue. The only time she will poop is if we put a diaper on her, but sometimes she still refuses that and just holds it in.

So, there we are at Christina's house enjoying some bagels and company, and somewhere in the house is my pretty little daughter who hasn't pooped in three days. Suddenly, my friend Kye emerges from the bedroom and tells Christina, "I think your dog pooped on the floor." I stop for a second, look around for Ella, can't find her, and begin to panic. "Oh no," I say, "I don't think it was the dog."

I find her playing in the living room seemingly unaware of the fact that she's taken a giant crap on Christina's bedroom floor with poop all over her pretty dress, feet and legs, trailing it through the house. Embarrassed doesn't begin to describe how I felt. Mortified comes a little closer. I knew that I shouldn't scold her or try to make her feel bad about it, but I'm telling you the kid didn't seemed affected at all. Is it bad that I wanted her to be a little bit ashamed of what she did? I took her into the bathroom and cleaned her up while simultaneously yelling to Chris and her friend Teresa to stop cleaning up the mess. I put a diaper on her after that, which was a good decision because she pooped again before we left. I guess holding it in can only last for so long.

I went home feeling a bit defeated about the whole potty training thing. It's frustrating because she's obviously physically capable of controlling it, but has decided she just doesn't want to go in the potty. So, how do I convince her that pooping in the potty is where it's at? In the past three years of her life, I haven't been able to convince that girl of much of anything.

Later that day, I started reading a potty training book that asks you to take a personality test for your child before you begin training. Shockingly, Ella falls into the "Strong-Willed" category. So, for her, everything is about control (like I needed to take a test to know that). I'm supposed to act very nonchalant about potty training, as in, "Oh hey, there's this thing called potty training. You may have heard about it. Some kids are doing it, but you know whatever, it's not a big deal." So far, this does seem like the way to go for her. We ask her if she has to go, but if she says no, we don't push it. I think this makes for a longer process, but I'm just going to have to accept that this will take a while.

Update: A few days after this incident, she did poop on the potty for the first time. She looked absolutely terrified, but she did it. So, small steps in the right direction. I know she won't go to college in diapers. Live and let poop I say, live and let poop.

Potty Training 2.5

So, remember way back in the beginning of the summer when I talked about how one of our big summer goals was to really work on this whole potty training thing? Yeah, well, we're still kind of working on it. Now I know that it's totally normal for a two-and-a-half-year-old to still be in diapers, but the problem is that being fully potty trained doesn't even look like it's on our horizon.

She knows how to pee in the potty, and if you take her diaper off and leave it off, nine times out of ten she will remember she has to pee and run to the bathroom like a good little girl. I have gotten so confident about this that I've even let her ride home from school with no diaper on (if I know she already pooped and she pees one second before we leave). She pees pretty regularly at school, and we've set up the whole sticker chart thing with the promise of some sort of prize when she fills it up.  She likes to go to the bathroom alone, and she also likes to "pee like a boy" meaning she turns around and sits facing the back of the potty. Whatever, it's fine.

The problem is, she's really just not that into it. She loves the idea of wearing underwear, and she's very pleased with herself when she goes on the potty, but for the most part, she seems fine with the idea of wearing diapers for the rest of her life. 

I was looking at a development chart the other day and noticed that it says that most girls are potty trained at around thirty months. I did the math on my hands and realized that means Ella, right now. I think a little bit of egotistical panic set in because although I've always complained about how difficult Ella is, I've also always praised how early she did everything. She crawled before she was six months, she walked before she was eleven months, and she's been speaking in full sentences for what seems like forever. I have always felt a little secret pleasure about how "advanced" she is, and that's why this whole potty training thing is such a blow to my parent ego. This is the first time she isn't "early" and at this rate, she not only won't be right on time, but she'll be the dreaded "late." I'm used to so many difficult things with Ella, but I'm not use to worrying about when she's going to reach a milestone.

I think the problem is that potty training requires cooperation. You can force your child to be sleep trained (with a lot of screaming), or to sit for time out (with more screaming), or to wear a coat when it's cold out (sort of), but there is no amount of bribing, pleading, yelling, or dancing that will make a child pee or poop on the potty if she doesn't want to. So I guess it makes sense that this is the developmental roadblock for us, because Miss Ella B understands that this is something she has control over, and this lady likes to be in control. 

So, we're working on it, but I know my little girl, and pushing the issue is not going to work with her. Perhaps the promise of a trip to the chicken nugget store or a new set of batteries for her flashlight will do the trick. She may be stubborn, but she's not made of stone.

Fantastic Gymnastics

Here's that girl again doing what she does best, which is all the things I'm too afraid to do. Fantastic Gymnastics to you too Ella B.

Election Day

Today I brought Ella to vote. This is her very first presidential election, so I was trying to explain things to her beforehand. Here's how the conversation went.

"El, we're going to vote for the new president."

"What's a president?"

"It's sort of like the king."

"The king of all wild things?!"

"Well, sort of..."

She was a little disappointed that neither Max nor any wild things were actually at the polling place, but she was pretty excited to get a sticker. She was also very excited to pee in the potty there, but just about lost it when the automatic flusher went off. Oh well, at least we cast our vote.

She spent the rest of the evening running around the house yelling, "Go Barack Obama! Go Barack Obama!"

That's my girl.

RIP Crabby the Hermit Crab

There comes a point in every parent's life when he or she has to make that the dreaded announcement about the death of a pet. It's one of those awful moments, like coming clean about Santa, where you feel obligated to tell the truth, but you also feel like you're stealing a little bit of your child's innocence at the same time. You can choose to go the route of, "Spot went to live at a farm in upstate New York," or you can biet the bullet and tell the truth. A few days ago, Mike and I were faced with this decision for the first time.

For two years we were a decidedly pet-free house, not because we don't love pets, but for a variety of reasons. One is that we really don't need any more mouths to feed, or doctor's visits to attend, another is that we are busy and don't need something else to take care of. But the biggest reason for me is that until Ella was three months old we had the most amazing dog on the planet named Niko, and when he passed away I knew there was no way we could replace him.

Then, in the fall, Mike's dad asked if he could buy Ella some fish. We agreed and a few days later "Ronin and Phoenix" showed up at our house much to Ella's delight. A few more days passed, and when Ella realized that she wasn't allowed to touch or snuggle or throw those fish around, she lost interest. A month or so ago my parents decided to buy her a hermit crab. We figured this would be a much better source of entertainment. She could actually take "Crabby" out of his cage. She could hold him in her hands and touch his shell. The only problem was she is 2 1/2 and the idea of being "gentle" is still a work in progress. She didn't understand why crabby curled into his shell every time she picked him up, or why he really didn't want to sit in a tiny baby carriage in her dollhouse, or sleep in a tiny plastic bed with a blanket over him. Crabby became a source of arguments because she always wanted to take him out, and she always promised to be gentle, and she always wasn't. Soon, we stopped taking Crabby out when Ella was awake because he seemed to be showing signs of PTSD- a few eyeball twitches, a loose temper, the excessive drinking. Okay, maybe he didn't have PTSD, but he did have CTTD or "Current Toddler Terrorism Disorder" and frankly, Crabby was starting to get depressed.

For the past few weeks he hasn't really seemed to eat much or ever come out of his shell and there were several times that Mike and I checked to make sure he was still alive. Then, a few days ago when Mike was doing one of these routine checks, he touched Crabby's leg to get him to move and his claw just fell straight off. We knew then that Crabby was finally at peace in crab heaven, a place free of tiny human fingers and fake plastic palm trees.

When we decided to tell Ella, we were both a little nervous about her reaction. Mike even suggested we get a new crab right away instead of telling her, but I knew she could handle it. We sat her down and explained that Crabby got sick and died. She asked the usual why and how questions. She asked if Crabby was at the doctor's, or if he would be coming back, and we did our best to explain the finality of the situation, and after a minute she went back to play with a final, "Now we can get a new pet?"

Mike looked at me and saw the unnecessary tears in my eyes and chuckled a little. It seems that out of all of us, I remain the most easily traumatized. Well, after Crabby of course.

RIP Crabby. I hope Heaven is filled with really wet sponges and lots of sand.

Entertain me

During Hurricane Sandy our family was very lucky to have sustained no damage, no power outages, and no injuries. We did, however, deal with the difficulty of spending several days stuck in the house with a 2 1/2 year old who wasn't allowed to go outside. The weather started to turn on Monday morning, and my school, Ella's daycare, and Mike's office all closed in anticipation of the storm. Mike and I both had work to do so we switched on and off between Ella duty and work duty throughout the day. Ella was generally thrilled that we were all home for another day (mostly because it meant she could stay in her pajamas), but also because she had the two of us to interchangably entertain her, and entertain her we did. By 9:30 that morning she had already fingerpainted, played with Playdoh, played catch, changed into a tutu, and ridden her quad in the living room.

At some point she got into her bin of play clothes, and she kept coming into the office to show me her latest costume. She would come in wearing sunglasses, a scarf, and a hat, or her safari outfit, or her waitress outfit and announce what she was about to do. "Mommy, I'm going on a camping trip!"

I wondered how we were going to survive so many hours stuck in the house, but for the most part she surprised me with her new found ability to play by herself. This is a truly magical moment in the life of a parent, when you suddenly realize your child is not pulling at your pant leg, and in looking around realize she isn't even at arms length. You perk up your ears for a moment and hear the quiet nonsense noises of a little girl talking to herself. You quietly peer around the corner and find that there she is, nestled among her dollies, or surrounded by her kitchen supplies playing happily without you. You tiptoe away as quietly as you arrived and bask in the freedom of the next five minutes. You go to the bathroom, have a cup of coffee, watch a few minutes of the Cooking Channel, or make a phone call. You know it will end soon, but after so many years of doing everything with one arm, one eyeball, and one pant leg focused on her, you stop to enjoy this moment of not being pulled in any direction.

Of course, this doesn't last long, and before you know it you hear her yell, "Ready or not! Come and find me!" even though you never agreed to a game of hide and seek. At first, you can't find her, and for the first time you are actually impressed with her hiding abilities. After a minute you start to get a little nervous until you hear that unmistakable giggle coming from the bathroom. You look around until you see a tiny hand peeking out from the cabinet under the sink, and you are reminded once again that a 2 1/2 year old is pretty good at entertaining herself.

Ella B in NYC (the remix)

This weekend, Ella B took her second trip to NYC and this time she got to sleep over. The anticipation of this almost destroyed her. When I told her we were going to stay at Aunty Jessica's apartment and sleep in Aunty Jessica's bed, she just about died. I, of course, was dying to know how this was all going to work out.

We made plans to run/walk/stroll in this charity event for Big Brothers Big Sisters that Jessica's boyfriend, Alan, is apart of. I decided it would be easier to go in Friday night and sleep at Jess's than to take the train Saturday morning. Of course, this meant that Ella would have to sleep somewhere other than her crib. It also meant she would have to sleep in a regular bed in an apartment that is about the size of her bedroom. There were some very real fears about how this was going to work out.

We decided that it was best if she and I slept in the bed and Mike took the couch. The problem was how to get her to bed and whether or not I would be able to get up again once she was down. Luckily, she went down pretty easily. We took a bath, read a few books, had a bottle (I mean, what? My two-year-old doesn't drink out of a bottle. That's ridiculous. Anyway...), and then I shut out the lights and pretended to go to sleep. We told her that daddy had to "go to work" so he wouldn't be forced to lie down, too. This meant, however, that he had to sit in the living room/ non-functioning kitchen and occupy himself while remaining fairly silent. Every time Ella heard him clear his throat, she'd say:

"I think daddy's downstairs."

"There is no downstairs El, go to sleep."

She also kept putting her hand on my face and whispering, "Mommy, open your eyes."

Eventually, she gave up, rolled over and fell asleep. I was able to stealthily sneak out and sneak back in undetected. She slept through the night with no problems. I, on the other hand, kept waking up to find a tiny hand draped across my face, or a foot in my crotch. Now I know why she always wakes up with a huge knot in her hair. That girl doesn't stop moving.

In the morning, we headed over to Alan's apartment where Ella couldn't wait to tell Jess, "I slept in your bed last night." We went to Riverside Park and got ready for the race. Ella was especially excited that Dora was there and we got to take a picture with her. Mike narrowly avoided a traumatizing moment when he and Ella were following Dora as she went into a little tent. Suddenly, Dora started to remove her head, and Mike quickly turned around telling Ella, "Dora has to go potty right now."

We ran/walked/and strolled our way around the park and ate a few Whole Foods sandwiches at the end. Ella was excited to see "a lot of Franklins" which were really just Ninja Turtles, but she didn't know the difference.

The highlight for her was probably when we started and impromptu parachute party. She desperately wanted to hold up the parachute lying on the ground, but with only the three of us, it was pretty difficult. A few people joined us and before we knew it, we had formed a group and the kids were running and laughing underneath the parachute every time we lifted it up. Ella was afraid at first, but soon she was running underneath between Mike and I, laughing the whole way.

She never napped, so we called it a day soon after that. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and went to bed pretty early. All in all, it was a successful trip to the city, and Ella had another first. Her first sleepover in NYC, something I didn't do until I was probably 18. Ella B, you are so much cooler than me.

Really, really, bigger

 Recently, Ella has joined the ranks of all the other toddlers, preschoolers, and older kids who cannot wait to "get bigger." Whenever I haven't seen her for a while- when she is at school or has been sleeping- she will look at me and stand as tall as she possibly can and say, "You want to see how really, really bigger I got?"

What's funny to me is what getting bigger means to her. The first part is that she will literally be bigger and this will allow her to reach things that are higher (that I, of course, don't want her to reach), and do things that are difficult, like reach the pedals on her bike, or throw a ball as high as Daddy. The more interesting part of this is that she understands that getting bigger also means becoming more grown-up, a status that affords you more privileges. So what kinds of privileges is she interested in? She desperately wants to use grown-up scissors instead of her frustratingly dull ones. She also wants to go to a "big kid" school like Izzy and Arlo and Robby and Joey. She wants to swing by herself and swim without floaties. While I was driving the other day she told me, "When I get too big for my car seat, then I can drive."

To her, being bigger means freedom and broader horizons and new possibilities and I can't deny that being bigger does offer all these things. Ever since she was born, she has always been ready for the next thing: crawling, walking, talking. What's next? What's over there? What are those kids doing? Her fearless desire to know, and see, and do is what I admire most about my big/little girl and I never want to take that away from her, but there are times we all wish children could appreciate the beauty of being little, the freedom that comes from having no responsibilities in the world beyond playing, eating, snuggling, and sleeping. If only I could switch places with Ella B for one day so she could be really, really bigger and I could be really, really smaller and we could both appreciate the benefits of each existence. For now, I guess we'll just have to live our own lives, enjoying our own freedoms, while longing for those of the other.

"Why that's an airplane?"

 It has finally happened. We have entered the "why" stage of childhood development. At this point, she is clocking a good 200-300 "whys" a day for sure. This makes my parents very happy because as legend has it, I was the queen of the why. I even had to stop going to catechism because all the questions were making the nuns a little nervous. And I'm telling you, I really don't mind all the questions. Questions in and of themselves are great and, really, I am happy to answer them. Here's an example:

               
                "Mom, why is that man outside?"

                "He's mowing his lawn."

This is fine. The question is straightforward, and I can easily answer it. The problem is that it doesn't end there.

               

                "Why's he mowing his lawn?"

                "So it will look nice."

                "Why it will look nice?"

                "Because when the grass is short, it looks neat and clean."

                

 Even up to this point, I feel confident that the questions and subsequent answers are logical and possibly even valuable, but it doesn't end there.

               

                "Why it looks neat and clean?"

                "Because...because when you cut it, it becomes more even and flat."

                "Why it does that?"

                "Why does it do what?"

               

 We inevitably end up in this place where we both sort of forget what "it" is referring to, and she gets frustrated because she wants the line of questioning to continue, but we've both pretty much forgotten what we're talking about.

                 

This is the part that drives me crazy. The questions that have no answers, like, "Mom, why that's an airplane?" Why is that an airplane? Because it's an airplane! How am I supposed to answer that question?! Ask me about God. Ask me about sex. Ask me about the meaning of life. But please don't ask me, "why that's an airplane?" because really El, it just is, and that's going to have to be good enough.

My own little 'Lympian'

This summer has been all about the Olympics, or as Ella would say the "Lympics" and our house has been no exception. My husband could spend all day, everyday watching whatever sport is on (handball, ping pong, race walking- yes, that is a legit sport in the Olympics), and Ella has started to follow suit. While we get her lotioned, and brushed, and diapered, and dressed after her bath at night, she usually watches a show to keep her sitting and distracted. Lately, we will ask her if she wants to watch one of her shows or the Olympics, and sometimes she says, "Lympics- I want to watch swimming." While she will watch other sports, swimming seems to be her favorite. She is fascinated by how quickly those men and women can race down the length of the pool, "really fast like an otter," and how they wear goggles and go "all the way under water." She likes to jump on the bed naked and yell, "USA! USA!" as if it really means something to her.

Swimming as her sport of choice is not really random. She has spent a lot of time in the pool this summer figuring out the whole swimming thing for herself. Recently, we went shopping for flotation devices and I let her pick the one she wanted to wear. It is a pink number with one floaty in the back and one in the front that are attached between her legs. From the minute we bought it, she has been asking to wear it in the pool, "so I don't sink."

The thing that amazes me most about this girl is how physically adept she is. As with rolling over, crawling, and walking, she pretty much learned how to swim in a week. Our neighbors who have a pool went away and gave us full reign of the backyard, so Ella B was in their pool everyday, two hours a day, for five days straight. In that time, she went from asking me to hold her, to telling me to let go of her, to learning to kick her legs, to learning how to swim away from me, saying, "Bye! I'm going to New York City!" She also likes to jump into the pool from the ladder and tells me to "move back, Mom. No, farther!"

Because I was never an athlete, I am constantly in awe of  her fearlessness, her determination, and her understanding of how to use her body to learn something. I know she is only two, but I think all these traits are the mark of a true athlete. I'm certain that sports will come easily to her, and I'm looking forward to standing on the sidelines and cheering her on- my wide eyes full of admiration and wonder. 

Summer Olympics 2028, here we come!

I got it!

Ella B has reached another milestone- her first complete sentence. As a mother and English teacher, I am ecstatic that my little one can now put multiple words together in a logical, coherent, even grammatically correct way (something I am still having trouble teaching some of my ninth graders). On Tuesday, she was in the dining room playing with Play-doh and trying to figure out how to get the doh into the little hole in order to squeeze it out into various fun shapes. She was getting a little frustrated, so I showed her how to do it a few times and then left her to her own devices while I made dinner. After a minute or two of grunting and babbling, I heard her yell out, "oh!" and then, "I got it!" It was the sweetest little sentence I had ever heard.

I was telling Christina this yesterday and she laughed and said, "Of course that was her first sentence." And knowing Ella, it really does make a lot of sense. She has always been a very opinionated, independent, "Ella do it," kind of girl, and she continues to become more of her own little person every day. So happy milestone day Ella B. I'm looking forward to "I love you" and, "You are the best mommy ever," but I'll be happy with "I got it" for now.