Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Smarty-pants

Zippidee-doo-dah! Zippidee-ay! My, oh my, what an impossible day!

That's what happens when you have two teethers, I guess. I think I have two teethers, anyway.

Despite the fact that I still cannot see any activity in the back of her mouth, I can't imagine what else could account for Abby's resurgent interest in mouthing absolutely everything, but especially her own hands, which I often find stuffed halfway down her mouth. Not only is it unpleasant to witness, as I imagine how many germs she must be ingesting that way, it leads to bad-breath smelling hands in no time flat. Not to mention the drool that comes into play...


Of course, what she really wants to do is spend all day with a binky wedged between her teeth. If it really is due to the discomfort in her gums, I really, really empathize, but I simply can't allow her to continue pushing the limits of what I'll accept when it comes to her continued use. I hate that, at over two years of age, she's still using one at all, but she simply cannot sleep without it.

The plan, since she turned one, was to limit binkies to nap and bedtime, which has become a near-impossible task since her brother entered the picture. Why? Because though her binkies are kept only in her bedroom (or the kitchen, being cleaned), Michael may often be found sporting one, and she nicks them from him.

Exhibit A


Exhibit B


Of course, now that Michael has turned one, it's time to start limiting his usage as well, which I've been trying to do as much as I can. However, since he's currently teething, offering a binky to him is often the easiest way to gain a bit of peace and quiet. And even though I've made an effort in the past couple of weeks not to bring him down to the playroom with one in his mouth, Abby has a knack for finding days-old ones that were tossed aside at some unknown point, and forgotten.

That's where she got the one that I confiscated from her this morning. Normally, I can do this with minimal fuss; often, she will give the binky up voluntarily when asked. However, in the last couple of days I've noticed that she's become irrationally attached to, and possessive of, every binky she sees. She knows that all of the blue binkies are Michael's and would historically admit to this fact even while trying to take or use them. Lately, she's been insisting that even the blue ones are hers.

This morning, the loss of her binky prompted a complete meltdown, which I tolerated as long as I could before finally asking, "Do you want to go take a nap? Because that's the only way you're getting a binky."

She insisted that yes, she did, so I called her bluff. She was, of course, unhappy to actually find herself in the crib, but I let her whine about her predicament for about five minutes before going to retrieve her. By this time, she was asking to "go play."

Of course, once downstairs, sans binky, she realized that the crib was the place to be and proceeded to screech at pitches and volumes that I am amazed didn't set a whole neighborhood of dogs howling. She did this on-and-off (stopping only to rest her voice temporarily) for close to an hour.

Michael, in the meantime, has apparently been suffering from more than just teething troubles. While we've made a successful transition to cow's milk, we're still having trouble establishing a more aggressive solid-feeding schedule, and as a result he's been drinking way more milk than he should. I didn't realize until today how terribly backed up he's been, and my heart broke for him as he moaned and wailed with each bm (of which there were four over the course of the day). When it first happened, he threw himself down on the floor and buried his head in the rug, and I was mystified as to what was happening. I thought at first that he had developed some sudden, horrible headache. But as I held him to me, rubbed his back and patted his bum to comfort him, it didn't take me long to realize what was actually going on.

I'm horrified that he had to go through all of that, feeling guilty that I wasn't more careful about monitoring his intake, and now paranoid, to boot, that he might somehow be psychologically scarred from the whole ordeal.

But he got through it, just like I got through the rest of the day, and Abby's continued crabbiness.

And in the evening, as she is wont to do, Abby put a smile on everyone's face with her cleverness.

We had dinner over at the neighbors', and in preparation I had packed a sippy cup, fork, and snack cup for Abby's use. We had all settled ourselves at the table to eat by the time that I remembered I had brought a special utensil for her use, so we figured we'd just work with what was readily available. Abby played along initially, and then wandered away from the table a few minutes into dinner. I figured she had just gotten bored with the whole thing. But just a minute later she was back, clutching her fork (which she had located in the diaper bag and retrieved herself), and proceeded to dip it into her bowl to eat with.

She may have started off the day a big 'ole cranky-pants, but she made sure to end as a smarty-pants.

That's just what you'd expect of a smarty-pants, though. Right?

***

Speaking of pants, Abby still had hers on, and a diaper, too, when she sat down on her froggy potty this morning and announced, "Abby made a poo-poo!" However, as far as I can tell, she timed her sitting on the potty with the act itself, which earned her lots of praise and fawning from Mommy. Though she seems to have lost whatever interest she had begun to show in the whole potty-training process as of late, this was a step in the right direction again. I guess I'll just be taking this a day at a time, like everything else.

2 comments:

  1. I had a horrible time trying to ween my oldest off her pacifier. (The second child stopped sucking her thumb on her own before age 2, and the third didn't protest when I took the nuks away.) She begged and pleaded, and we compromised letting her keep it at least in bed until age 5, but the howling and the tears when we took it away finally.... And then she learned to suck her thumb. Anyway, I wish you better luck! Best to do it young I suppose.

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    1. I see a similar future for us. I keep trying to remind myself that at least it isn't her thumb. I was a persistent thumb-sucker, myself, and though I promised my parents I'd give it up when I turned six, I remember that it took me a couple of years longer than that to stop sneaking it in at night or when I was upset about something.

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