The Stubbornest Girl in the World gets new teeth
Last night, Zoë was playing in the study while Andrew and I were working (he was coding, I was pretending to work but actually just fiddling around with some graphics stuff). For some reason, she took it into her head to remove all the materials (books, papers, folders, etc.) from a shelf that forms the bottom part of our bookshelf system. She was hurling these items onto the floor, into her toybox, you name it.
I told her no. She ignored me. I told her NO. She ignored me. I used her full name and told her NO. She still ignored me. I reached out and got her arm and physically pulled her away from the shelf. She went right back. I removed her. She went back. I don't know how many times we did this, but by about the third time she was bawling and I was pretty annoyed. I made sure Andrew saw it so he'd know I wasn't just being silly. Nope, there she was, the Stubbornest Girl in the World. I admire persistence. It's a good quality. Stubbornness is just persistence with an attitude, and it is actually possible to learn how to use it to your advantage rather than just annoying everyone in sight and cutting off your nose to spite your face. I'm not actually disturbed that she's stubborn, because Andrew and I both are and it would be a big shock if our child wasn't. And I'm not even really that worried about it, because this is pretty typical behavior for a not-quite-two-year-old. If she's still pulling stuff like this at the age of, say, three and a half, then I'll be worried. We took her out of the study and she had a big cuddle until she was able to stop crying (she's very sensitive and dramatic, and gets extremely upset sometimes). Then she had a drink and a snack and she watched a movie to calm herself down. She fell asleep at some point during the film. One thing to note about the situation, though, is that she seems to have gotten four new teeth at some point. It's hard to tell when they came in because she's extremely disinclined to let us look at her mouth (and forget the toothbrush!), but she's got all four canines in now. Could explain some of her irritability lately.
She's so cute
Zoë's in the study with us as we work on the computers. She keeps coming over to me and very gently laying her head on my side. She stays there until I say something to her, or until I reach down and give her a little cuddle back. Then she toddles off again to play some more.
How can I possibly resist this child? Oh, that's right. I can't.
Walking in stores
We've started letting Zoë walk around in stores. Generally, she likes to walk between both parents, holding hands (well, she actually holds a finger). For the first time, we let her walk between us in the grocery store this weekend and she absolutely loved it. She was grinning almost the whole time.
Today she walked between us as we went into Kmart. She also likes a particular game we play when she walks between us holding our hands. We say, "One.. Two... THREE!" and on three swing her forward, back, and then put her feet back down. She loves this game, but hasn't yet worked out a good way to ask us to do it again. So far she sort of puts her head back and grins, which only works if one of us is watching. Today she pulled her hands out of ours a couple of times; I think she was trying to signal us to swing her. One of these days, she'll work out that words are very effective for communication. At the moment, she seems to regard talking as an amusing pastime and novelty...
Newest Tricks
Zoë has two new tricks. The first is what Andrew and I call the "hidden cargo bay" trick. You see, her portable cot (which we use as a playpen as well as a bed when we travel or she spends the night with her grandparents) has a folding bottom piece. If you fold back one end of that (which she has learned to do) and you're small enough, you can nestle down into the nylon pouch that's formed when the bottom is not there and then you can pull the bottom back over yourself and become almost completely invisible. This is, apparently, a very nice place to go to sleep. (I don't know how she can breathe, but she seems to be fine).
The other trick is the "shove the entire thing in my mouth at once" trick. This works with bickies (short for "biscuit", i.e., a cookie), with pretzels, with french fries, with just about any food small enough to shove the whole thing in at one go. Since most of her food is small enough to do that with (she mostly eats finger food), she ends up doing it a lot. Oh, and this isn't a trick, but I've noticed lately she likes to sleep with something over her head and face. Her lambskin seems to be the favorite, but a blanket will also do (again, I don't know how she breathes). The funny thing is that I used to always sleep with a blanket over my head, too. I can't remember when I finally outgrew it, but I remember distinctly that I used to cover my head and make a little "tunnel" to get fresh air. I wouldn't have thought that sleeping with a blanket on your head was genetic, but there you go.
Good insight
the age of innocence is a really lovely little piece on the beauty of toddlerhood.
Overnight
Zoë spent Saturday night with her grandparents and went to church with them Sunday. Saturday she didn't take a nap at all and yet still stayed awake until 11pm (which surprised me greatly). Sunday morning she was her usual bundle of energy and trouble from what I hear. She managed to pull down a jug of cordial onto herself, she had half of Communion (just the bread), she ran off with the organist's keys (which were retrieved), and she somehow got glitter on herself (something with the older kids making cards).
This is normal for Zoë, mind you. Her name means "life" and she definitely lives up to it. She's an extremely lively little kid. Her great-grandfather referred to her affectionately as "The Wrecker" which should give a good idea of the way she moves and the stuff she gets into. Generally, she doesn't do a lot of actual damage, but she is definitely a handful. Sunday afternoon we came to get her and she was playing on the floor with stacking cups. Andrew called out to her and so did I. She looked up, took a second to realize what was going on, and then her little face burst into the biggest smile. She had a big cuddle with both of us and then happily went back to playing. Next step is to have her spend two nights with her grandparents, I think...
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