====================================================================== ========================== ======================== ======================== PEBBLES PRESS ======================= ========================== ======================== ====================================================================== ``The Straight Poop on Heather'' 23 February 1996 Vol. 2, No. 4 Editor-in-chief: Heather Contributing Editors: John & Marie Fashion Editor: Aunt Susan -- HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS We had a wonderful holiday trip, spending several days in Maryland with Marie's family, then the rest of the week in New York with John's family. The only snag was that Heather and John both came down with a horrible flu the day before we left for vacation. (See Health News.) Heather was completely enthralled by the present-opening process, especially unwrapping, and even more especially taking out the surprises! After Christmas was over, we had a tantrum or two in the next few days about wanting presents -- every time she saw the wrapping paper, or a wrapped present in a window, she'd say "Present! Heather open it!" My favorite present was the joint present that I had Penny's mom make for John and Heather -- matching black capes, with this wild geometric patterned silk lining. Heather's has a little hood and is just adorable. She looks like Little Red (well, black) Riding Hood. It's too big for her right now, but I can't wait until they can wear them out together. On Friday after Christmas we went into Manhattan and went to FAO Schwartz. Unfortunately, it was jammed, Heather was tired/cranky to start with, and then she wanted to ride up and down the elevator (but there was a line). We went on it twice, and the second time told her this was the last time, then we'd go look at Frumble dolls (Richard Scarry), but she threw a fit, so we left as promised. Boy did she holler. Later in the day, when we figured she was good and ready for a nap, we went to see Toy Story. Well, she perked right up and watched the first 2/3 or so of the movie, just lounging in our laps. She was positively captivated by the animation. Finally, about 3/4 of the way through the movie, she fell asleep (with a bit of work). The traveling worked out pretty well, overall. On the flights to the east coast, she was feeling sick enough to be subdued and mellow, but not so sick as to be miserable. On the way back, she took a nap during the layover, and eventually fell asleep on the last leg (though she was squirmy and tired for the first few hours). She did wake up during the night more than usual, especially the first few days when she was sick. But she was easy to get back to sleep most of the time (though I was pretty tired by the time she started sleeping better and John was feeling well enough to help out)! -- ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT Hmm, maybe I should change the title of this section to "Tantrums, we get Tantrums." Actually, I don't personally mind the tantrums as much as I mind it when she gets in a whiny mood -- in these moods, she just kvetches and cries about every little thing, and is generally not much fun to be around. The real tantrums usually are surrounded by more or less normal behavior (though they're often triggered because she's tired or hungry, so sometimes there's some whining associated with that). Luckily, she's really good about following the serious safety rules -- she doesn't run into the street ("No! That's the street!" is enough to stop her dead in her tracks), she doesn't touch sharp objects ("That's sharp. Not for Heather."), and she doesn't touch hot things. Of course, these are lessons that we've reinforced, sometimes with real "punishments" (or, as the modern child-behavior books would say, "logical consequences) -- when she breaks one of those rules, usually it means that we leave whatever fun place we're at, or she's removed from whatever activity she was doing, immediately. Smaller things can really set her off, though. We have a little cabinet in her bedroom (which is still not babyproofed, so she doesn't play in there alone) with a bunch of junk in it, including shoe polish and other nasty stuff. When she started to open it at one point, I said "That's not for Heather, there are dangerous things in there." She started to cry, and then threw a really major, major tantrum, running around with tears just streaming down her face, sobbing "open it, open it!" She kept running back into that room, looking at it, and then yelling "no no!" then running out again. After a while she let me read a book to her, and calmed down, but then remembered about the cabinet and started crying and looking at it again. I reminded her that there were things inside that weren't safe, and she couldn't open it. She went into tantrum mode again, and then went and started kind of playing with the knob, while still sobbing. I reminded her once more, and tried to distract her away from it, but didn't actually physically remove her until she started to open it. Then she got a timeout (a very rare event). She hasn't gone near the cabinet again, though. She's getting more stubborn about getting dressed -- a classic toddler battle zone. One day she was in her pj's for a long time, then I told her "let's get dressed so we can go out to the yard and see Daddy!" But as soon as I started unzipping her pj's she stsarted yelling "no! no! jamas, jamas!" and clutching her pajamas to keep me from taking them off. That scene lasted for a while -- I just said, okay, then we won't go outside. Which made her fall apart, but she still wouldn't let me dress her. Lately she's been REALLY stubborn about not letting me brush her teeth. She just clamps her lips closed and won't open her mouth at all. It had gotten to the point where I'd just try for a few minutes, then give up, hold her down, pry her mouth open, and brush really quickly. One day, she was clenching her lips closed again, and I said, "do you want to open your mouth, or should I hold you down again" (some choice, right)? She said "beep, beep," grinned at me, and clamped her lips again. I said "what goes beep beep?" "Toofbwush." "Oh, I get it. Okay, beep, beep, open up!" -- and I pretended the toothbrush was beeping to get into her mouth. She kept her mouth clamped a few seconds more, then opened REALLY wide for about five seconds. Then I had to do it again. Took a while, but it worked. Lately, it's been "Little Pig, Little Pig, let me in!" (Interestingly, Heather seems to invented this all on her own. I had figured John had taught her a new game, so I mentioned to him "by the way, we did the beep-beep game with the toothbrush tonight." He said "what game?" I said, "didn't you teach this to her?" He didn't. Quite creative, this little one.) -- TODDLER DINING Heather's favorite restaurant (for now) is Fresh Choice (a salad bar place that also has pizza, soup, muffins, fruit, frozen yogurt, pasta, you name it). A typical meal for her at Fresh Choice might include pasta salad, kidney beans, cottage cheese, pizza, soup, broccoli, muffins, and frozen yogurt. Quite astonishing. Heather also really likes Chinese food. She loves potstickers, and also eats rice, soup, and miscellaneous stir-fried items. One day she ate an *entire* moo-shi pancake (which I didn't think she'd even try, but after "helping" me spread the hoisin sauce and fold it up, she wanted to assert possession, I think; then realized she liked it). Heather has also had her first taste of sushi. Up till now, I hadn't letting her have any actual raw fish, since I was worried if there *was* something contaminated, she might end up really sick. But since our resident pediatrician (Aunt Susan) thought it was okay, we let her try some. I didn't think she'd even try it, but she did, and then asked for more! She liked dipping it into the soy sauce/wasabi mixture, can you imagine? She didn't eat a huge amount, but she probably had 4 or 5 bites of albacore sashimi, and another 4 or 5 bites of salmon roll. She also ate a whole bunch of the soy beans -- she wouldn't touch them, until John showed her how he could pop them out of the pod, and make them peek out, then she couldn't eat enough of them. She was dipping *those* in the wasabi, too. The next time we went for sushi, she even ate uni (which, for those of you not in the know, is sea urchin and tastes and looks NASTY). Of course, her favorite food is ice cream. And her favorite beverage is a smoothie (fruit, yogurt, and/or juice mixed in a blender -- here in California, there are dozens of places dedicated SOLEY to selling smoothies. Hard to imagine, I know). -- PARTY TIME We hosted two holiday parties -- the official Center Christmas party for our group at SRI, and our annual Grinchathon. The hardest part was getting the house cleaned up for the parties! Heather did a great job hosting. At both parties, the kids who were there really loved playing with the play kitchen we gave Heather for Christmas. They'd all making "cookies" together, then passing them around on a cookie sheet. Before the SRI party, Heather failed to take a nap. So during the party, she was having fun, but was in this really punchy mood she gets in when she's exhausted but wired -- she oscillates between having a great time, being bubbly and silly, and degenerating into fits of crying. Finally around 4:30, John took her out for a car ride to put her to sleep, which worked almost instantaneously. When he got back, I went inside and made everybody be quiet while he brought her in to her crib -- that was pretty funny, dozens of party guests standing silently around, while we tiptoed through with a sleeping toddler. The Grinch party was a huge success. The kids all played really nicely together, and a couple of the women who don't have kids (but *do* have loudly ticking biological clocks -- but I won't name any names...) were having a blast horsing around with the kids. Then all the kids (and some of the adults) gathered around and were positively mesmerized by the Grinch showing. -- VISITORS, WE GET VISITORS Uncle Eddie and Aunt Donna visited for a few days in February, and Aunt Susan visited the very next week. Heather remembered, and was thrilled to see, all of them. (We look through our photo album a lot, so she recognizes and talks about even friends and family members we haven't seen in a long time.) Susan brought Heather to choir rehearsal one night. (I joined the Peninsula Women's Chorus last fall, and rehearse one night a week.) She was *so* good; all during warmup, and for the first 10 minutes of singing or so, she sat up front with Susan and just watched and listened. Then she came and sat on my lap for a while. After she started to get restless, I sent her home with Aunt Susan. She might have protested, but Susan promised to buy her ice cream on the way home, and it was adios, mamacita. Susan also babysat the Friday night she was there, so John and I could go out for a nice pre-Valentine's Day dinner. Now THAT'S a treat! -- HEALTH NEWS -- Flu Number One: Both John and Heather woke up the day before we were supposed to leave for Christmas vacation with signs of a flu. Heather seemed a bit warm, and had a bit of a cough, but didn't seem really sick. John felt awful and stayed in bed -- when I got home with Heather around 1:30 he was still in bed, was really feverish, and said he had felt delirious part of the morning. Heather took a long nap, then woke up coughing more and feeling quite warm. I just crossed my fingers and hoped she was okay. Around 7:30, I was reading books to her, and all of a sudden she started really fussing and crying. She obviously wanted something specific, but I couldn't figured out what it was. Finally I got up and walked all around the house with her pointing to things "do you want this? this? this?" When I walked into her room she just about climbed out of my arms trying to get to her bed. "Are you tired? Do you want to get into bed?" Yep, that was it. I put her down and she immediately curled up and went to sleep. I thought, okay, she'll sleep it off. Later she woke up, and was acting fussy and strange, so I asked her if she wanted something to drink. "Yes!" So I took her into the kitchen to get her some juice. Just as I walked in there with her, she let out a few really phlegmy coughs, got a funny look on her face (like "what do I do with this gunk in my mouth?") and before I could say anything, she started throwing up all over both of us. She had drunk most of a smoothie before her nap, and it all came back out -- strawberry puke all over my clothes, her clothes, her hair, the floor... I think I've been officially baptized as a parent. As it turned out, she slept restlessly for the next few hours, woke up and needed a lot of cuddling and comforting, threw up a tiny bit once more, but then slept through the night. John was pretty sick, and was completely out of it for the whole trip, and mostly slept for the first 3 days or so we were in Maryland. Fortunately, Heather never got any sicker, and started to get better pretty quickly (much more so than John), but she was still sick enough the next day to be very mellow and subdued on the plane trip. So it all worked out okay. -- Flu Number Two: (hopefully our quota for this winter) In January, Heather got another bad flu. We were spending the night at Rick and Pauline's house in San Francisco, planning to go to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito the next day. Heather woke up crying around 1:30. We brought her into bed with us, and she felt really warm, but I thought that was just from crying. She was really restless, and wouldn't settle down and go back to sleep. Finally I sat up with her, gave her a sip of water -- and then she threw up on me. Again. Luckily, there wasn't that much, and (disgustingly enough) I caught most of it. She seemed much better after that -- we brought her into the bathroom, cleaned her up while trying to calm her down, gave her some children's Tylenol since by now she was *really* hot, and wrapped her in a towel. We went back to bed, and she was asleep within a few minutes, though she slept restlessly all night. In the morning, she was still feverish, and would oscillate between being perfectly happy, running around and playing, and then falling apart on the tiniest provocation. She was really low-energy for the next few days. We filled out the time reading endless numbers of books, watching our Muppets video and Sesame Street (like I said, TV rules get suspended when she's sick...), making tents out of chairs and blankets, cooking together (though she had almost no appetite), and generally trying to keep her occupied. I could tell she was tired, because on Monday, since she seemed to be feeling pretty well, I asked her whether she wanted to meet John for lunch at Hobee's, expecting her to say "Daddy! Hobee's! Coffeecake!" -- but she just sighed a bit and cuddled closer, and said "stay home." ** [Warning: you squeamish folks who don't read the poop update might want to skip this next couple of paragraphs.] One night, I went into her room to check on her, and while I was watching her, she sort of coughed or sneezed, and a dark-colored chunk of mucus came flying out of her nose. I was about to go get a tissue to clean it up, when she started sniffling and rubbing her nose -- which I realized was bleeding like crazy. I panicked only mildly; but I did quickly pick her up and haul her into the bathroom, hoping her *entire* crib and pj's wouldn't be covered with blood. She was a bit dazed and upset, but calmed down pretty quickly and even let me wipe up her face (which she normally HATES). I finally got her back in bed, but she woke up again around 2:30, crying pretty hard. I went in and picked her up -- and realized her nose was covered with dried blood. I took her into the bathroom and cleaned it up enough so she could at least breathe more easily. She slept REALLY late the next morning, till about 8:45. (I actually went in and peeked at her around 8:30 to make sure the blood hadn't caked on so much she couldn't breathe...) ** [Okay, squeamish folks can start reading again.] -- ALL THE POOP THAT'S S*IT TO PRINT (Less squeamish-inducing than usual, so the usual disclaimer has been removed. Especially since you wimps already skipped the bloody-nose section.) Heather has recently been showing more interest in toilet functions. She's gotten even more interested in watching us go to the bathroom (she sometimes wants to reach in and see what's going on, which is a bit farther than I'm willing to go in the teaching process). She sits on her potty sometimes, and we've started asking her if she wants to sit on it when we have her diaper off, if we're not running out the door (when we're changing her, or before bath time). So far, she hasn't actually done anything *in* the potty, but one day when I was running her bath, she was sitting on the potty, then got up and wandered to the other side of the bathroom. Then she made a funny noise, like she was surprised, so I looked over, and she was looking down, watching herself pee on the floor with this surprised look on her face like "what the heck is THAT?" (She peed on the floor once a long time ago, but I'm sure she doesn't remember it; she was only about a year old then.) I made the most of the opportunity, saying with some excitement in my voice, "Heather! You're going pee-pee! Look, there's the pee-pee on the floor!" Then we cleaned it up together, and she hopped in the bath, and I would casually ask during her bath, "Heather, where did you go pee-pee before?" "On the... FLOOR!" "That's right, and where should you go pee-pee next time? Where does Millie go pee-pee?" (that's the little girl in the Potty Time book we got from the library) "On the... POTTY!" She loves the potty book, and wants to read it over and over. -- BABY TALK I thought it would take Heather a lot longer to go from putting two words together to using sentences, but it happened amazingly quickly. I think she started putting two words together around mid-November. By January, she was speaking in long phrases ("Uncle Steven hiding under the table." "Winnie-the-Pooh videotape on the television." "Daddy build the house." "Heather ride in the van"). Now she speaks in complete grammatical sentences. ("I'm reading the mouse book." "Daddy went to the store." "Mommy is pulling up her pants." "Where's the Animal Poems book? I can't find it!") She does still use a lot of shorter phrases as well, especially for demands ("Juice Heather!" means "I want the juice"). She uses auxiliary words (the, this, that) surprisingly well and often, and usually pluralizes appropriately (though she overgeneralizes with things like "peoples"). She knows about different verb tenses ("I ran", "I'm reading", and sometimes "I want to read" (or, more amusingly, "I need to read" or "I hafta read")), though she also makes mistakes here sometimes ("I felled"). Her speech is quite understandable -- she has surprisingly good pronunciation for a not-yet-two-year-old -- though I still have to interpret for her sometimes. The only sounds she has trouble with are "l" (which sounds like a "y" at the beginning of the word and a "w" in the middle) and "r" (which always sounds like "w"). For a while she couldn't say "s-" combinations -- "step" would be "tep," for example. But now she has no trouble with those, so she's much more understandable than she used to be. People often express surprise not just that she talks so much, but that they can actually understand her most of the time without a translator. She's taken to completing people's sentences if they don't finish. Yesterday Amy (one of her teachers at day care) told me that she was changing Heather's diaper, and Jonah came up to her wanting to hand her (Amy) something. Amy said, "Jonah, I can't take that right now..." and then didn't finish because she was in mid-wipe. So Heather goes "I can't take that right now. I changing a diaper!" A lot of the sentences she uses are "canned", in the sense that she's heard them (or something very similar) before, but just to hear these things coming out of her mouth is mind-boggling, even though I should be used to it by now. At day care, they teach the children to "use their words" when one of the other kids does something they didn't like. The other day, when Alex came over and started trying to fool with the sand pie she was making, she waved her hand at her, scowled and said, "No, Alex, I'm trying to make a pie! Heather's busy!" Then she looked up at me and said "It's crowded!" She's memorizing more and more long stretches of books and songs. She sings songs to herself -- "Five Little Ducks," "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "Eeny Meeny Miney Moe," "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" (though she insists that they're swinging on the tree, even though that doesn't rhyme with "One fell off and bumped his head"), the alphabet song, and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." -- COGNITIVE... Heather's memory is really impressive. Besides all of the verbal memorizing she's been doing, she also remembers what we've been doing, and what our plans are. If I tell her we'll stop for a Juice Club (smoothie) after school, when I pick her up, she'll run up to me saying "Juice Cwub! Juice Cwub! One morning after she woke up, she absolutely had to have a slice of raisin bread right that second. So I got up with her, went to the kitchen -- and on the way, she got distracted by her toys in the living room. Guess she wasn't that hungry after all. So I started puttering around in the kitchen, and waited for her to remember. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later she came running out to the kitchen saying "raisin bread! raisin bread!" One day, I was cleaning up in her room, and heard her reading books in the living room. She finished the one she was reading, and said "Princess Prunella." (That's "Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut," by Margaret Atwood -- a Christmas present from Ross, and her current favorite book. Highly recommended.) I heard her looking through her books and then she said "Read Princess Prunella." I was about to go retrieve it from the bathroom, where she had left it, when I heard her say "In the bathroom!" and toddle into the bathroom to get it. It amazes me that she can remember things like that. I went on a trip to San Diego for a few days in January. Right before I left, we went to the library, where they have a bunch of puzzles. She clearly understood the concept (the pieces go in the cutout holes), and had the dexterity, but didn't have the spatial conceptualization about rotating the pieces and lining them up just right. She'd just push really hard on a piece if it didn't line up, and get frustrated. Well, when I came back, we went to the library again, and suddenly she knew how to do them! She'd just rotate the piece and slide it into place right away, as if she'd been doing it forever. Heather also suddenly learned her colors (or at least some of them) a couple of weeks ago. She definnitely did NOT know colors, either to name them ("what color is this ball?") or to recognize them ("which one is the blue one?"). Then, while Susan was here, we went to McDonald's, and Susan took Heather into the ball pit. When I went in, Susan said "you know, she knows colors." I said, "Really? Last time I checked, she didn't." But sure enough, she knew which balls were green, blue, and yellow. But not red -- go figure. And I've seen her use those color words since then -- yesterday morning, she had a red juice box, then at lunch I gave her a green one and she said "This a green juice box!" I'm still wondering whether she's going to be musical; both John and I are eagerly watching for signs, since we both love music. She displayed a sense of rhythm recently -- now when I sing "There was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o..." she says "B-I-NG-O" in rhythm (putting the right pauses between letters), which stunned me the first time she did it. Then today, I was singing something, and she echoed one of the notes at the right pitch, which she's never done before. She often repeats lines of songs, but usually just in a regular speaking voice. I think it would be really neat if she started actually singing -- can you just see this tiny little person (32 inches tall, max) toddling around *singing*? -- FUN 'N' GAMES At one of our potlucks at day care, Maria (one of the teachers) and Tatiana (her daughter, who was in CIP1 with Heather last year) were there. When Tatiana showed up, Heather was absolutely OVERJOYED, and they played together for about half an hour. Really played together, none of this "parallel play" stuff the books claim is the only kind of group play toddlers are capable of. They played peek-a-boo through the play kitchen for about 10 minutes, laughing hysterically and practically falling down; then got ahold of a little wicker trash can, and ran around the room, both tugging on it in different directions, falling down, and running after each other to grab it again. I mean, they invented this GAME that they were both just having a blast with. It was great to watch. I let Heather "help" around the house a lot; she especially likes to sit up in the "big chair" (a tall folding chair we keep in the kitchen) while I'm cooking, and to help me cook (which usually consists of stirring messily, and eating whatever I'm cooking with). Actually, the one task she's good for is putting bibs away when the laundry's clean -- I fold laundry in the living room, and hand bibs to her one at a time. She runs to the kitchen, puts it on the right shelf, and runs back for the next one. Keeps her occupied and the bibs actually end up in the right place. Usually. Heather likes to go into the entryway where we keep our shoes and put them on. Every now and then she comes clomping out in a pair of my shoes, which is just hysterical since she has to shuffle along. For a while she wanted to wear a hat and carry something over her shoulder all the time, but she hasn't been into hats or shoulderbags much lately. She likes to wear her sunglasses, though. Which brings us to... -- FASHION Heather got lots of great clothes for Christmas -- too many to list, really. Mostly cute shirts, pants, and sweaters (Aunt Susan gave her some adorable grownup-looking cotton cardigans that are perfect for layering, since the weather can change so much from morning to afternoon). She also got a pair of black high-tops with the Tasmanian Devil on them and some adorable rompers (including a dressy black velvet one). I finally trimmed Heather's bangs. We used to just brush the hair to the side, but it was getting out of control. I thought about trimming the back, but it's too beautiful to touch! She was very good about it, really, except that she didn't like the cut hair TOUCHING her. ("aahh -- aahh -- haiw!", shaking hands vigorously to remove the offending substance.) She sat on her potty chair in the bathroom and read a book while I cut. -- STAY TUNED ...for more HeatherMania!