The Tale of Winnie the Pooh and the Greasy Exhaust Pipe
We went out yesterday for a little shopping expedition. Zoë brought along her little Winnie the Pooh doll. When we got to the car, we remembered that the baby's seat was not installed (we had the car serviced last week and took it out so it could be put in another car temporarily), so Andrew installed it. I sat down in the passenger side, door open, both my feet outside the car, with the baby in the sling. Zoë was playing in the driveway and walking around looking at stuff, the usual toddler thing.
One of the things we always do is try hard to keep an eye on whatever toy the toddler has with her, lest it get misplaced. I saw she didn't have Pooh and asked her where he was. Then I saw him on the ground, face down. She didn't seem to want to get him (usual toddler willfulness), so Andrew retrieved the bear and that's when we saw... Winnie the Pooh had apparently taken a good look into the exhaust pipe. He had a thick, black, greasy circle of soot around his face. When we got home, we put degreaser on him to get the most of it out, and then soaked him overnight in a pre-soak solution. Unfortunately, he's "surface wash only" so I can't toss him in the washing machine. We really need to get her a WASHABLE Winnie the Pooh, now that I come to think of it... And speaking of Winnie the Pooh, one of her latest words is "Eeyore".
Teapots and talk
Zoë's latest favorite plaything is an aluminum teapot she found in one of the cupboards. I let her play with it because she can't hurt it and it pretty much can't hurt her. She carries it around and gives "drinks" to her dolls from it (from the opening at the top; she hasn't worked out the spout yet). A couple of times now, she's given her baby sister a "drink", which the baby sister didn't necessarily appreicate (at least, not the first time it happened).
Her speech is still expanding. A couple of days ago, she gave a great big burp and said, "'scuse you", which is what I always say to her! She also told me she had a stinky butt (she just said "butt butt butt" but it was in context). Some days she talks very little. Some days, she just says all sorts of things we didn't know she could say. It's almost like she listened and took it all in and now has decided to use the words she already knows. And on a mostly unrelated note, there are new pictures in the photo gallery.
More new words!
Her vocabulary is just blossoming all of a sudden. Today, "baby sister" and also "granddad". The baby sister wasn't impressed particularly, but Granddad (that's her great-grandfather) was certainly pleased.
Talking happy talk
Zoë's speech is absolutely exploding! She's accumulating new words every day and now she's using two word sentences. Tonight her new words were "stink" and (well, I told her that she was stinky, but she did repeat it, and then added "zoe stink") night-night (first time she's said it that I can recall!). She also says "zoe drink", meaning, "Give me a drink." I'm amazed at how quickly she's gathering up words and now sentences.
One funny thing is that she always calls herself "zoey-oey" (the second syllable is hard to write, but it rhymes with Zoë). I call her that as a nickname, and she's adopted it. Perhaps because she's got a lot of Sesame Street Zoes around who are all Zoe, but maybe she just likes saying it that way. She also tends to repeat words, such as "zoey-oey stink stink" or "zoey-oey splash splash". Lately she's also been playing a lot of pretend games. She had a little toy sheep and a toy sheepdog (presents brought back from New Zealand by her grandparents), and they were kissing each other. As she pressed their faces together, she made a kissing noise, even! Her little dolls often now "walk" around on things (in that bouncy, steppy way that kids do when they make a doll "walk"). She's also learned to drink from a straw, and she recognizes the shape of a cardboard juice container, the sort that come with a straw. A few days ago, she went to the cupboard in the kitchen and got out a cardboard container of beef stock and brought it over to her dad. She obviously thought it was juice. Pretty good observation, or at least we thought so. Finally, she's taken to trying to feed or give drinks to her dolls, and to Miranda as well. I often see her tipping a cup or cuplike object up to the face of one of her dolls, and a couple of times she's done it to Miranda. She put a straw in the baby's mouth once (you get juice from straws, you know), and once picked up some bit of something from the floor in toddler fashion and proceeded to put it into her baby sister's mouth (we did catch her in time). She's so sweet, she's trying to share and give her sister little treats, even if she does find them on the floor...
Speech and so forth
Zoë's speech is coming along fairly well. She spontaneously uses words I didn't even know she knew. In the bathtub, she announced, "splash," and then splashed the water (a word her daddy taught her). She said "key" when she saw her dad holding a dangling keyring. She says "cheese on toast" (not very clearly, but I know what she's saying) and "drink" and, lately, "bed". She's even using sentences, such as, "Daddy, good girl!" (which doesn't mean Daddy's a good girl, but she's telling her daddy that she's a good girl).
She's also getting time-outs a little more frequently. We try to keep them to a minimum because otherwise they lose their impact, but she's definitely getting the idea. For a while she was deliberately pouring her drink out onto the high chair tray. Two time-outs, each time administered immediately after the act, and she seems to have decided that the fun of having milk all over your tray isn't worth it. We've also had to give her time-outs for getting into the drawer in the sewing machine table, since it's full of dangerous items like needles and other sharp or pointy things (unfortunately, we haven't found a way to secure the drawer; it's a very old sewing machine table). All in all, I'd say she's doing pretty well for a two-and-a-third-year-old with delayed speech.
Sitting on siblings
Zoë scared me half to death tonight. She was playing quietly as I was sitting at the computer (in the same room). Suddenly, I heard Miranda start to wail and I turned to see Zoë climbing into the bouncer where the baby was sitting, and Zoë was sitting on Miranda's head!
I jumped up and pushed Zoë off and managed to knock her down in the process (that wasn't my intention actually), and I shouted as I moved (something simple like her name). Andrew came bursting out of the other room and put Zoë on the time-out seat for a moment while I blurted out what had happened and composed myself. Thankfully, Miranda was neither smothered nor hurt, and she put her fingers in her mouth and happily went back to sucking them. Zoë was pretty upset, though. I got her on my lap and held her and talked softly to her, apologizing for hurting her (I don't know that I hurt her physically, but I'm sure I scared her). I explained that I know she doesn't want to hurt Miranda, but that sitting on the baby's head isn't safe or nice. It took a while to calm poor Zoë down, and I felt absolutely awful, even though I know I was just reacting to a potentially damaging situation with the quickest thing I could think of at the time. So, ultimately, no harm done, other than for me to feel bad about upsetting the toddler who just wants to play with her baby sister. Normally, she's much more gentle with the baby and gives very sweet little cuddles and brings her toys.
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