matching tracksuits

When the Girl is being put to sleep, she sometimes gets angry. Scratch that -- furious. She can howl and scream and whimper endlessly when I'm the one trying to put her to sleep instead of K.

I usually just wait her out. She'll literally scream and push and wiggle and cry until she literally passes out. While she's doing this, I simply walk around the apartment, holding her close, and whispering sweetly (or as sweetly as I can manage while every last nerve in my body is being assailed simultaneously). There comes a time when she's crying, then whimpering, then crying, then tumbling quietly toward sleep -- until something disturbs her and reminds her, "Oh, yes, I am indeed irritated."

That's when toys can become landmines.

There are two beeping, flashing, musical toys that are particularly deadly. In one of them (a caterpillar that plays about four songs and flashes lights where one wouldn't think caterpillars would have lights) has expired: the batteries are dead, and gosh darn it, I just can't seem to remember to replace them. Touch it and it begins a loud, loud, loud symphony.

The porcupine is not much better. Give it a kick (as I did last night) and it begins talking to you. Nothing too intelligent, but you wouldn't expect physics from a porcupine.

Last night, I kicked it dead center. I'm not sure which woke L: my sudden, frustrated gasp, or the porcupine.

The video is fixed — don’t know why it wasn’t playing, but I just re-“compiled” it and it seems fine.

Update: Some folks tell me the video stops halfway through. I give up on this one…

We’ve been taking L to swimming lessons at the local YWCA. Within a few weeks, we’ve gone from calmly moving her about the pool (“Dig, dig, dig! Kick, kick, kick!”) to dunking her under water after blowing in her face. She doesn’t much like the former, and the latter sets her to screaming more often than not. The instructor suggests that it’s the water running down her face when we pull her back up that upsets her.

Still, we take her regularly and follow the instructor’s advice, on the hopes that it’s the unfamiliarity of it all that is bothering L.

There’s a progress report at YouTube.

Few things in life are more of a milestone for a child than to learn how to use the toilet. There’s tons of advice about when and how to begin. “Most children show signs of readiness to begin using the toilet as toddlers, usually between 18 months and 3 years of age,” writes one site. It continues,

These signs include staying dry for at least 2 hours at a time, having regular bowel movements, being able to follow simple instructions, being uncomfortable with dirty diapers and wanting them to be changed, asking to use the potty chair, or asking to wear regular underwear. You should also be able to tell when your child is about to urinate or have a bowel movement by his facial expressions, posture or by what he says. If your child has begun to tell you about having a dirty diaper you should praise him for telling you and encourage him to tell you in advance next time.

Well, L can’t communicate yet, and in fact she’s just learned how to sit up on her own. That doesn’t mean she can’t use a potty chair already. How do we know? Because she’s successfully used the chair several times.

Is this real “potty training”? I do indeed think so — we’re giving her an alternative to dirty diapers from an early age, and we’re showing her how “grownups” do it.

The key is knowing when she usually relieves herself. BMs are the easiest, because she announces it clearly and well in advance. But at least two times, we’ve sat her on the potty chair after eating when she wasn’t showing any signs, and within a few moments, she made use of the chair.

Our hope is that this will make “real” potty training more manageable. We’ll see in a few months…