Popcorn for Breakfast, and Other Toddler Fantasies

The potty training process seems to have ground to a halt. Last night the kid was standing on one of her plastic chairs and for reasons known only to her . . . peed on it. She alerted her dad and he alerted me so that I could, in his words, "sterilize the chair." A seemed unconcerned about the whole thing. We were saying things like, "Don't do that, it's kinda gross." And she would just repeat, "It's kinda gross."

She spent the rest of the evening trying to shut herself in the bathroom. We don't know what she wants to do in there by herself, but we know we don't want her doing it. (It probably involves flushing un-flushable stuff down the toilet.) She was in rare form all evening. She really seemed to be bucking for a time-out - it was just a matter of which offense would finally put me and/or her father over the edge.

The next problem we ran into last night was that she wouldn't go to sleep. She has been in her "big girl bed" for about a week now. This is the first time she's really had control over something, when you think about it. She is *in* bed but she doesn't HAVE to go to sleep. She has access to all of her stuff. Basically she is drunk with power. When I went to sleep (two hours after I put her in bed) I could still her her talking and flipping pages in her books.

Needless to say, her ass was dragging this morning. She doesn't understand things like "two-year-olds need X hours of sleep." The first thing she announced was that she wanted popcorn for breakfast. Then she announced that she wasn't planning to wear pants today. It's like she thinks I hatched out of a pod overnight, had no prior knowledge of ANYthing, and would just cheerfully say, "Popcorn it is! Do you want surry-up on it?" And really, pants are overrated. Who needs 'em?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's been a minute, but let's talk about my b*o*o*b*s

Image
I'm in the sixth grade. I'm sitting on the floor at my friend Sharon's house. Rachel is there, too. My well-meaning friends turn to me and gently let me know that I "really don't need to bother wearing a bra." They aren't wrong. I'm wearing one, but the situation doesn't particularly warrant it.  Two years later, I found myself sporting a C cup. My mom, a talented seamstress, made me a dress at about that time. It was a slim-fitting column dress with a matching jacket, as I recall. The white fabric had large polka dots; we jokingly called it the Wonder Bread dress. My mom took my measurements. 36-24-36 At some point in history, those numbers were considered "perfect measurements" for a woman. This was 1984; I'd like to think the world as a whole is less concerned about such things these days. I'm confident my daughter has no earthly idea what her measurements are. She just knows she's cute.  Growing up with a fun array of medi...
Read more

On Being Patriotic

The list of adjectives I assign to myself is pretty long: clumsy, organized, competent, uptight, etc. One that might surprise you: patriotic. I fully understand what it means to be an American and am darned happy about living here. But, I have a beef (that part won't surprise you). I've grown tired of certain segments of the population thinking that they've cornered the market on patriotism or that they can dictate precisely how the rest of us express ourselves when it comes to our shared country and flag. Sometimes it seems like the Toby-Keith-boot-in-yer-ass brand of patriotism drowns out the rest of us. For the record, I don't believe that patriotism requires a love of NASCAR, a disdain for immigrants, a Republican voting record, or a preference for country music. Nor does it require adherence to a specific religion. I've seen Facebook posts from some of my friends and acquaintances that call for all of us to return to the "Christian principles on which ...
Read more

14 Weeks

Image
My baby is leaving me in 14 weeks.  She and I started touring colleges in May of 2022. When I applied to colleges back in 1988, I was an English major so there were no auditions. Colleges basically just said, "Sounds good. Come on in." I was the first person in my immediate family to go to college and as a whole, I don't think we understood the importance of campus visits and such. I ended up being fairly miserable that first year until I transferred to a school closer to home. For my daughter, I wanted to make sure she had an opportunity to see lots of college campuses so that she had the best shot at figuring out what she wants out of the college experience. I wanted her to look at elements like campus size and location, diversity, activities, distance from home, and distance from the nearest "big city" (since performers often head to larger cities with active theatre scenes after college).  Last summer, we began the daunting process known as "getting int...
Read more