Saturday, January 5, 2008

Little Princess and her mommy woke up very early this morning. Mommy had to get ready for the shower and needed to leave early. She stayed with Granddaddy and me and we had some more fond things to remember:

(a) She is so good at doing things she is asked to do. She understands pretty much everything we ask or tell her to do. She isn’t using her words as much as some people thinks she should, but she certainly understands clearly things we ask of her. I think she is just absorbing things as she quietly watches and listens. She has words in her vocabulary she says, she just doesn’t express them all the time. She knew exactly what I wanted her to do when I told her to close the door to the family room. Immediately she did it. Again, she helped clean up the Cheerios she had dropped on the floor. Many other things I can’t remember right now, but she does understand.

(b) She drank more of the yummy store-bought milk from her sippy cup using the nipple, today. And she really seemed to enjoy it.

(c) When I tried to put her down for a nap, I felt as if I were wrestling a 23-25 pound alligator. She was so squirmy and fought me all the day. She wanted nothing to do with nap time, even though she had gotten up early this morning. I offered her more milk from the sippy bottle and at first offer she pushed it away and said, “Mama”. She knew that wasn’t the routine and she didn’t like it.

(d) To keep her away, she decided she needed to count Grandmomma’s teeth! It was as though she had just discovered I had teeth. Anything to stay away!

(e) She did finally go to sleep…for a whole ten minutes because I made the mistake of laying her down in her bed. That wasn’t what she had in mind, so she cried and cried. Later in the afternoon Granddaddy would get her to sleep and we wouldn’t make the mistake of putting her down again. She slept that time for around an hour.

(f) We figured out a way to make a neat little chair out of a small cardboard box that was sitting around. This was especially for teddy to sit in. She was amused. At least for a time.
(g) Another form of amusement for a toddler? Try a roll of tape. It does the job. Next time I think I’ll invest in a roll of masking tape. It’s much easier to find on the floor if it falls off her hand, head, whatever. She was drawn to this simple fun activity so many times over the afternoon.

(h) I have a set of primary colored foam mats that I have used on my wood floors when the kids come over to prevent too much damage from toy tractors, trains, cars, etc. and I always pull them out for The Little Princesses’ mother to use to change her diapers. It’s much easier on the knees. And they are great for poor old grandmomma’s old bones when the grandkids wants grandmomma to play with them, which they always do. I pulled them out and put four sides of them together, actually really only locking three sides and leaving the fourth side to open as a door. These stood as a cube in the middle of the floor. Now that was THE fun thing for her all day long. She loved having a house she could go in and out of with Teddy.

(i) After Mommy came home and packed everything up, she told The Little Princess she would be back in after she took something to the car, and they would be ready to go home. The Little Princess reached over and pulled her mommy’s car keys from the purse Mommy had left in a chair, and handed them to her mommy and waved and said “bye bye” to her mommy. That didn’t get rid of her, so she pulled Mommy’s purse from the chair and handed it to her and said “bye bye” again. And, after Mommy left the house, Little Princess closed the door! Of course it broke Mommy’s heart! Ah well, she was just ready to get rid of you, Mommy. She was having a good time at Grandmomma and Granddaddy’s! See you next time!

(j) She has learned to give a High 5 and Gimme 10 when asked. Her Mommy says she has been doing this since her Uncle came into town last and showed her how to do it, even though she didn’t do it to him, I don’t think. Just another one of those times when she’s letting it soak in before she puts it to use.