I don’t remember GlitterGirl asking “why?” this early. I was thinking GG was three when we hit that particular stage.

But, TwinkleToes is there.

Yesterday I thought maybe it was a fluke. But then this morning I said “let’s put your shoes on” and I got “why?”. I said “Because we are about to leave, and it’s cold outside, and you cannot go out without shoes on.” And then as we were headed out the door I said “hand please” and she said “why”, and I said “because I don’t want you to fall down the steps, so you need to hold my hand, please”.

I had to put a rule in place with GlitterGirl when she was younger, that she had to do it first and then ask why. I know this goes against the whole “teach them to question life” stuff out there, but it became a control thing with GlitterGirl to ask why in order to delay having to do what she was told (or to find a way to argue with me of why she should not have to do it). So, the rule became one of “yes, I will always tell you why, but I will not stop and explain it right at that moment, do it first, then ask why”.

TwinkleToes is much too young to understand that, I think. Plus, at this point she seems to genuinely be asking why, and not just trying to annoy me on purpose.

Of course, I also thought she was much too young to start asking why, too. This is not a two year old thing, is it?

TwinkleToes has decided she likes to sit on the potty and read books, but she does not like to make any actual deposits into the potty anymore.

I don’t know if this is a control issue on her part, or something else. If I was sure it was a control issue I’d take up all of the potties and put them away and not mention the potty at all until I thought she was ready to actually use the potty. But, I’m not convinced that this is a control issue at this point. She asks to sit on the potty right after she has a BM in her diaper. And she sits there and looks at a book for three or four minutes and then says (signs) she is done and wants a diaper back on. She hasn’t actually put anything into the potty in weeks.

Right after a big meal last week I asked her if she wanted to sit on the potty. She said she did not. And then about five minutes later her diaper needed changing. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked, maybe I should have just stripped her down and put her on the potty with a book. I knew it had been a while and it was time and that the food was likely to push it on out. But, I asked, and once she said no, I wasn’t going to put her on it anyway.

Also, when she does a BM she does it away from us. She’ll move to the other end of the den and duck down below a table, or stand behind the art easel. She knows she is going to do it, and chooses to do it in her diaper and not on the potty. For a little while she was telling us so we could help her get onto the potty.

When she’s on the potty I’ve tried sitting on the floor beside her, and I’ve tried going to the other side of the room and giving her some space. Doesn’t seem to matter to her either way.

I’ll probably give her another week or two and see if anything changes. If it does not then I need to do something to force a change, and at this point I think putting all of the little potties away for a little while is probably the best option. It is becoming clear that what we are doing right now is not working, so, time to come up with a Plan B. But, if I put them away then at what point do I bring them back out? I don’t think just waiting until she asks for it is the right answer, since she asks to sit on the potty all of the time now and does nothing in it. If we give her a book she’ll sit there a while, if we don’t give her a book then she only wants to stay for about 5 seconds and then she’s ready to get up.

If I could be home with her for a week I’d try the “naked and $75″ thing, as I tend to think that might work. But, I don’t think that can work just over the course of a weekend, especially when we are gone for part of the days on weekend days.

I’m not adamant that she be potty trained right away, it’s just that she was trying and now she seems to not want to try anymore and I’d like to figure out what is going on. If it’s truly a control issue then, fine, we’ll just completely drop it and take away her ability to control it at all.  But, if it’s not a control issue then I’d like to figure out what it is.

In the past I’d go through GlitterGirl’s clothes every fall and spring and box up the stuff she’d likely not be able to fit into when they came back into season, move the stuff that would probably fit when they came back into season to the back of the closet, and pull everything forward that was for the season we were headed into. I’d also go through the sock bins and throw away socks without a partner. It would take me about a half a day to do it (yes, I know, GlitterGirl has a lot of clothes).

It occurs to me that it’s probably going to take an entire weekend day to do it this fall for both girls. And it needs to be done. Desperately.

I’ll need to get down the boxes of GG’s old clothes that TT will probably be wearing this winter, wash them, and fold and hang them. I’ll also need to get rid of TT and GG’s summer clothes they probably won’t be wearing in the spring (box GG’s up and figure out what to do with TT’s since there is no need to save them anymore).

And then I’ll need to figure out what I still need to buy for them and go shopping. I’ve already bought a bunch of sweaters and long sleeved shirts and jeans. But right now everything is very unorganized and the summer and winter stuff is all together, and it’s on my nerves.

Is there a better way to do this?

There is this boy in GlitterGirls’ class who is very socially backwards. Very. Socially. Backwards. I really feel sorry for him, he tries, but it’s like he has no filter that tells him what is socially acceptable and what is not. His mom is a bit of a socialite, so it’s not that he isn’t being taught it at home, he just doesn’t get it.

Anyway, apparently some of the kids at school told him he couldn’t sit with them at lunch, and GlitterGirl told them to stop being mean, that he could sit down if he wanted, and she not only showed him where at the table he should sit, she kept bringing him into the conversation and telling the other kids to knock if off when they made fun of him for something.

He told his mom, and his mom told me at a school function when she saw me and wanted to let me know that I should be proud of my daughter.

I told GlitterGirl how proud I was of her for sticking up for him and for not following the other kids’ lead and being mean to him like they were. And she got all mad at her friends all over again when she told me about it, and about how wrong they were to make fun of him. She said he’s nice and he never hurts anyone and she just couldn’t watch them be mean to him.

I’m very proud of her.

GlitterGirl has taught TwinkleToes to be a puppy dog. TwinkleToes follows her around on all fours, barking. TwinkleToes sits, lays down, rolls over, and begs on command. And often times not on command.

I started to put a stop to it because it bothered me. But then I realized it didn’t bother them and they were having fun with it, so I kept my mouth shut.

But now GlitterGirl is tired of the game, and TwinkleToes is not. GlitterGirl says “No, I don’t want puppy dog, I want TwinkleToes, here, let’s do the Alphabet.” And Twinkletoes barks at her very cute from all fours.

I love watching them play together.

I came home late last night. It was a cool fall night, dark outside, no one in the car but me. I can’t remember when this last happened.

I rolled the window down and played 80′s music. It was nice.

I don’t often regret my move from a stick shift to an automatic transmission, but last night I did. My car does allow you to shift from 1st to 5th, but there is no clutch and it’s just not the same.

But, missing clutch or not, it felt really good. All I needed was the driving song from Miami Vice to make it perfect. But the 80′s songs that played worked well enough to transport me back in time.

I love my life now. That’s not really what this was about. More along the lines of realizing that the all-grown-up me is the exact same person as that 20-something-clueless me was. Only, with better judgment. I think. And more experience.

I don’t really have anywhere to go with this. I’m sure one day I’ll have my grandkids in the back seat and it will bring back the “good old days” of having my kids in the back seat. I know that right now I’m the luckiest mom in the world and I love every minute of it. But driving home last night was still very nice.

TwinkleToes’ speech is getting better. Not up to an age appropriate skill level yet, but she is getting there. When she started using her tongue she stopped using her lips, which has complicated things. One step forward, one step back. And for many of the sounds she can make, she can’t blend them together into words. But she is trying.

But, something phenomenal has happened. She can now count to ten in English and Mandarin. I taught her the English version, she must have picked up the Mandarin version in China. Her pronunciation isn’t great, but her tones are perfect. And her pronunciation is close enough that you know she’s got it right.

The other amazing thing is that we’ve been working on sounds and I’ve been putting the letters of the alphabet with the sounds. So when we work on (for instance) the B sound I write the letter B on a magnadoodle while we make the sound. And she now knows most of the alphabet. Not the song, she doesn’t have the verbal skills for that, but she can recognize the letters. Her wooden blocks have the letters and numbers on them – she can hand me the correct letter for 17 letters of the alphabet (and, of course, all of the numbers).

And, when I write the letter on the magnadoodle and ask what sound that letter makes, she can do a really good job of trying to make the correct sound.

I pulled out the Letter Factory DVD this weekend and she and I had a blast watching it together and making the sounds.

I know all mothers are supposed to think their children are brilliant. But mine really is. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

We’re working with TwinkleToes to help her learn sounds. I’m also introducing the alphabet letters at the same time, hoping she’ll begin to learn the letters some while we are at it.

This evening we were naming family members and talking about the first sound of everyone’s name. GlitterGirl was part of the conversation and she asked TwinkleToes what the first sound in my name is. TwinkleToes didn’t answer, so I did. And GlitterGirl argued with me, said that wasn’t right. I’ve learned to always ask questions with her before I declare myself correct, so I asked her what letter she thought it started with.

It turns out my name starts with the letter M. For Mommy.

TwinkleToes has had brief periods of sleep problems but for the most part she’s a dream to parent when it comes to sleep. After dealing with years of sleep issues (where no one got more than an hour or two of sleep at a time, for years), I know how lucky we are.

For instance, today when we finished lunch I got TT down from the booster seat and she said “nigh nigh” and toddled off towards the den. I put a few things away and followed her in and she was laying on the sofa with her blankie and a stuffed toy and was already half asleep. When she’s ready to go to sleep she is ready to go to sleep.

GlitterGirl has never taken a nap without tears and a tantrum being involved. So this is a huge novelty to me.

But night times have changed with TwinkleToes. When we lay down to sleep she has cried for several nights in a row. I’m not really sure what is going on. She wants to be held and then she wants to lay beside me and then she wants me to hold her again and then she wants to lay beside me, and this constant going back and forth of course doesn’t let anyone get to sleep. I’ve tried keeping her in one place or the other but she just gets so upset.

We had some sleep issues with TwinkleToes when GlitterGirl started back to school this fall but that was different, though I can’t explain why it was different. I think it was anxiety around GG not being with her during the day, or perhaps worrying over the goodbyes in the mornings. And that resolved and school is now part of the routine and not a big deal.

Ah well, hopefully this will resolve soon enough as well. The whole wanting me and pushing me away and wanting me and pushing me away has me concerned that maybe this is an attachment something or other. I don’t think it is, but the thought is in my head when it happens so I’m on the lookout for other red flags.

I have asked GlitterGirl’s teachers to let me know if they are going to be talking about family or genetics or anything along those lines, so we could have a conversation about it at home as well. So far I’ve either gotten a note or an email letting me know about such things and there have been no major problems.
I never thought that I’d need to include “names” into that list.

This week GlitterGirl had an assignment that included (in part) interviewing her parents to find out how we chose her name. And if someone else chose her name (like a grandparent) she’d need to interview them as well.  That’s not such an easy question to answer when we chose part of her name and some stranger in China chose the other part. GG’s middle name is the name she was given at the orphanage.

At first GG didn’t want to write any of the information about her middle name down. I told her that it is completely up to her, and that if she didn’t want to we’d find another way to do the assignment. I mentioned three or four ways she could word it, but she didn’t like any of them. We talked about how sometimes she feels proud that she was born in China and sometimes she doesn’t want to think about it, and that’s okay. However she feels about it is okay. And then I told her she could use my middle name for the report if she wanted, and she could say it is her mothers middle name and just leave it at that.

She decided to use her special name from China after all, and she wrote that this was her name when she lived in China and now it is still part of her name.

Until I offered that she could use my name, she didn’t want to use hers. Somehow, my offering another solution was what she needed in order to be okay with using her own name.