Danny took Genevieve apple picking a few weeks ago. Apples are one of Genevieve's favorite foods. Maybe she heard the old adage that an apple a day will keep the doctor away, and we all know how fond she is of doctors.
Genevieve is in a Transition-to-Separation class. All of the other mothers have managed to actually separate from their children except for me. Progress is being made, though. Last week she was able to go the playground without me being there and she now interacts more with the children and teachers. We were on track to try a little more quality away time today when trouble struck. We will call this trouble "M".
M started the class today and came in with her Granny. The child is adorable and amazingly speaks more than Genevieve. After playing for a while she brought over a stuffed Barney for me to see and called me "Mommy". A lot of the kids call me Mommy by mistake but then walk off once they realize their mistake so I thought nothing of this. Then it was time to go upstairs to the tumbling room. All the kids are supposed to hold hands with each other or the teachers. Genevieve insists on holding my hand and today M insisted on holding my hand, too. We all thought this was cute and up the stairs we went. Once into the tumbling room Granny and I went out into the hall to do a little separating. I heard crying almost immediately but did not recognize it as Genevieve's. Then I heard more kids crying and the door opened. Granny ran to the door so she could go in and calm down M. The teacher said, "Oh, no! I'm sorry, but she doesn't want you. She's asking for 'The Mommy'." The teacher then pointed to me. I had to go inside and calm down M and Genevieve. It seems that M started crying as soon as I left the room. Genevieve was fine until she saw that M was crying and asking for The Mommy and then proceeded to cry, too. I held Genevieve in one had and M in the other and finally calmed them both down. (My hat is off to those of you with twins.) The teachers asked me to help out with M since it was her first day and they didn't want to upset her.
M's fascination with The Mommy continued to grow. She wouldn't sit down for snack time because she didn't want to leave The Mommy. She held my hand the entire time we were at the playground because she didn't want to leave The Mommy. Genevieve wasn't exactly thrilled with this since I was her Mommy first and insisted that I hold her, too. The other kids thought that Genevieve and M must know something they didn't and also wanted to hold my hand or at least show me what they were playing with. The whole time this is happening poor Granny is off to the side wondering what in the world is going on.
The teachers apologized to me afterwards and said that they really thought Genevieve was ready to separate more but that M's infatuation with me seems to have backtracked her a bit. It seems that I need to now separate from two children.
In recent months Genevieve has become, for lack of a better term, whinier. She wants to be carried around all day and can be a demanding little tyrant. At first we thought this was because we had traumatized her. First we moved, then we went on vacation, then she started school; maybe it was too much for our little girl. We tried to appease her at first but when it kept getting worse we realized we had to do something. So, we let her cry. She would cry for over an hour until we (well, usually I) would give in. If she was crying that long surely she was very upset and needed comforting, right? But she kept getting worse. We finally took her to the doctor to see if they could fix her when we found out that she had an ear infection. See the Just What the Doctor Ordered post for more details on that.
After Genevieve had finished with her antibiotics she still remained a cranky little tyrant. We were still feeling pretty guilty about thinking she was a demanding dictator instead of realizing that she was sick, so I took her back to the doctor. This time there was no ear infection. This time I just got some interesting advice. Seems Genevieve has entered the terrible two's a little ahead of schedule. She is not traumatized by all of the activity in her life but has more than likely used it to take advantage of her poor parents. Supposedly this is very common and not just a trick of Genevieve's budding-genius mind which leads me to the conclusion that all children are evil.
So she isn't crying because she is sick or traumatized. Great. Now what? Is it really necessary to let her cry for over an hour without doing something? Yes, apparently it is. She has learned that if she holds out long enough that she will eventually get her way, and she is more than willing to be very patient in this regard. Even with our good intentions we have trained her to do this. So now she can cry for an hour, two hours, three or more and we are to ignore her. When she falls on the floor kicking and screaming, we are to ignore her. When she sticks her fingers down her throat and makes herself puke all over your newly cleaned floors, we are to ignore her. When she beats her head against the wall until she finally knocks herself out, we are to probably call an ambulance and make sure no real damage was done. But if not, we are to ignore her. Thankfully we have yet to experience the last two scenarios, but hey, the night is young.
So far I am seeing some improvement in Genevieve's behavior. It will now become a test of wills to see who can hold out the longest. Barring any unforeseen ear infections, I think I am up for the fight. May the most stubborn one win.
We've hit another developmental milestone. Genevieve has realized that everything in the world has a name and possibly a purpose. Being relatively new to the place she's curious about what things are.
"Daddy, what's that?"
Everything must be identified. Nothing escapes her attention. From the contrails behind airplanes to the earplugs I use while mowing the lawn.
Sometimes she learns the word and is really adorable while saying it. Other times her pronunciation is a little bit off and she says the word at random inopportune times. For several days she was going around telling people about "Daddy's hairplugs" rather than "Daddy's earplugs"
I took Genevieve for a short hike on Monday. She managed to walk to the top of the hill on her own, but I had to carry her the rest of the way. I think I will try very hard to remember her backpack next time. Carrying 30 squirming pounds on your shoulders for over a mile does not make for a pleasant hiking experience.
Genevieve and I are babysitting Danny's sister's dog today. Sevi is a wonderful dog and Genevieve loves her, so we were happy to oblige.
After lunch I noticed a familiar smell in the air. It was time to play Guess-who-crapped-their-pants. Normally this is a very easy game to play since it is just Genevieve, Danny, and me and Danny has gotten a lot better lately. Today it was just Genevieve and Sevi, and since Sevi doesn't wear pants that really narrowed down the options. I changed Genevieve's poopie diaper and then continued to clean up lunch. Unfortunately that familiar smell was still on the air. I assumed that it was from the poopie trash so I threw it out. On the way back inside I sat on the floor to give Sevi a proper belly rub. I noticed that the side of Sevi's face was wet but gave it no further thought since she had just drank from her water bowl. I gave it much further thought when she rubbed her wet face across my arm and it left a brown, smelly streak.
I'm a trooper about these things so I cleaned my arm and then gave Sevi a partial bath. After I dried Sevi off I went to the kitchen to try and complete the clean-up process when I noticed that it still smelled. It was at that moment that I noticed Genevieve cackling and singing her new hit, "Poopie Again". Not sure if this is a Sinatra song from his later years that she stole or a Genevieve original, but she was definitely singing it with gusto. I checked her pants and therein was a mighty poop.
I'm going to go check on the dog again. Still smells in here.
Recently Genevieve had another ear infection. The last time this happened she cried uncontrollably for a few days before we took her to the doctor. At the time she was really young and her only means of communication was through screaming. How were we supposed to know that non-stop crying meant ear infection? We just thought she was really cranky.
Now she knows how to speak fairly well and can get her point across. Unfortunately she didn't know that it was her ear that was hurting her. So instead of merely just screaming she became a little tyrant. She demanded to be held and then when that didn't ease the pain she demanded to be taken to a different room of the house. "Kitchen. Kitchen. KITCHEN!!!" As soon as you set foot in the kitchen she would demand to go back, "Living Room. Living ROOM! LIVING ROOOOOM!!!" This pacing from room to room went on for quite some time. It was only interrupted briefly by some animated demands for toys. None of which stopped her crying because that wasn't the problem. After two days, many frazzled nerves and a debate on whether we could still return her to the hospital we took her to the doctor.
The doctor quickly diagnosed the cause of the problem and gave us a prescription for bubble gum flavored amoxicillin. She helpfully suggested that if G wouldn't drink it we could camouflaged the flavor in some chocolate pudding. Up until this point G was wary of medicine but enjoyed her fluoride (yummy peach) and even liked when we gave her ibuprofen (yummy grape). We had high hopes for this new potentially yummy bubble gum.
After picking up the prescription and looking at the fluorescent pink sludge inside the bottle a wave of nostalgia washed over me. Though, perhaps it was a wave of nausea as I remembered many a night fighting with my mother about having to drink this vile chalky goop. Still, I had high hopes. It had been quite some time since I took this stuff; medicine had come a long way as had artificial flavorings. We poured 1 1/2 teaspoons into a cup and told Genevieve that it was "yummy bubble gum." She sniffed the cup and looked at me as if I was joking. I asked her to drink it. I tipped the cup back against her lips at which point she started squirming like mad. Yummy bubble gum my eye.
Ok. Plan B. Using a dropper. The largest dropper we could find held 1/2 a teaspoon. This was going to be a two man operation. I held her in my lap pinning her arms to her chest. Her head was firmly held in the crook of my arm. Carrie squeezed her mouth open stuck the dropper in and squeezed. G spluttered but swallowed the medicine. Genevieve began to scream. 1 down 2 to go. After dropper number two was loaded I wrestled G back into my arms. Genevieve clenched her teeth to prevent the dropper from getting in. Carrie forced her mouth open and inserted the dropper. Unfortunately the dropper was right over the tongue instead of in the side by the cheek. Instead of swallowing the medicine G managed to spit it all out. Pink goo poured out of her mouth.
Rather than torment G much longer we tried to give her some ibuprofen but she was so agitated that yummy grape wasn't so appealing anymore. Great. We had a cooperative, albeit cranky, child. Now she wouldn't take any medication. At this point we recalled the doctor's helpful advice about pudding. We quickly put the rest of the drugs into the pudding. After a quick stir the pudding had turned a sickening pink tinged beige. The smell was a horrible conglomeration of grape, bubble gum and chocolate.
"Pudding Time," I said wanly. At the call of pudding G perked up. She loves pudding. Was I about to ruin pudding for her too? She demanded that she be allowed to feed herself the pudding. Knowing that this was more than just pudding and that she has a 75% spoon-to-mouth success rate I decided to ignore this request. I dipped a spoon into the mixture and pushed it towards her mouth. She opened willingly and swallowed with a smile. "More pudding," she cried. More pudding? Was this a fluke? Had she just not noticed the discordant flavors? Did she actually like it? If it was more pudding that she wanted, more pudding she shall have. I gave her another spoonful. She had barely swallowed before she began trying to wrest the spoon from my hand to have at the dish. I quickly fed her the rest of the pudding.
Pudding time became a daily ritual. Before breakfast and after dinner she would march around shouting, "Pudding Time." She ate all her medicine with no fuss. Hopefully this trick will last.
