The Great staller

My daughter can stall like nobody's business. At bedtime, she decides she hungry, thirsty, has to potty, has had an epiphany regarding the Riemann Hypothesis, etc. All of these (well, except maybe the last), you can't really let go. If she's hungry or thirsty, she'll wake up in the night. And we're still working on the whole potty training at night thing. She'll throw huge fits, scream, run away. It's gotten better since we got a visual clock that shows red covering the clock, slowly going away (I highly recommend them, you can buy them here: http://www.timetimer.com/). But still, bedtime is an ordeal, to say the least.

The other time she stalls is when it's time to go to school. She'll also decide she's hungry or thirsty now, even though she's already had breakfast and has declined any offers of more food for the last 20 minutes. And this is the part that gets me the most: she likes school. A lot. She loves her teachers and her friends. Sure, she's often happy when we come pick her up, but it's more of a secure-attachment happy than a thank-God-you've-finally- rescued-me happy. I'm taking this as a sign that we're doing something right, that she likes her home. Anyway, so the picture was her newest stall technique this morning. She put her underwear on her head and started laughing. Then, of course, she had to show Nonna. She wanted to show Daddy, too, but he'd already left for school So I had to appease her by taking a picture to show him later. So here you go, baby. Your lovely daughter, wearing her underwear on her head. I'm pretty sure she got that from you.

Just...read it. No title could appropriately encapsulate this story.

Aria goes to my in-laws house every Thursday, where she gets to spend time with her grandmother, aunt, grandfather, and two teen-aged cousins. It's awesome for her because she gets to, quite literally, be the center of the universe for between two and five people for the majority of a day. We like it because we don't have to pay for childcare on Thursdays. And I love that she's getting to spend so much time with our family who doesn't live in Portland.

I usually go pick her up after work. She never wants to leave, and my arrival is usually met with cries of, "No, mommy, go away!" At least I know she's having fun there. I'm often not able to pick her up until 8:30 or so, and am dead tired after a long day at work. But I still try to give her some time to show me anything new she's gotten, spend a little more time with her family, and play for a bit.

So a few weeks ago, she decided she wanted yogurt before we went home. Aria sat down at the little Aria-sized table they have for her, and her Mimi got her the yogurt and a spoon. Aria takes the spoon and holds it upright in front of her face.

"Hi, Spoon, I'm Face," she says, beginning a conversation with the spoon.

"Hi, Face, I'm Spoon," she continues, changing the pitch of her voice.

"I want some yogurt," she says in her Face voice.

"But I don't like yogurt," Spoon says. This goes on for about a minute more. Honestly, I didn't catch it all, I was laughing too hard. Then Aria puts the spoon in the yogurt and then in her mouth, and begins making muted screaming noises ("ahhhhhh"), apparently coming from the Spoon, who has not only been forced the have the offensive yogurt on it, but then was put into a small, dark, wet cave.

My daughter has an odd sense of humor. I think it took her grandmother and me the duration of the yogurt-eating to recover from this one.

Taking care of mommy

Ever since she was little--yeah, yeah, she's still little, but littler--I'll tell her, "Call me if you need me." Aria has taken strongly to this, and will often ask me, when I'm putting her to bed, "I call you if I need you?" Tonight, I was taking a bath because I've been sick all week--not that I need an excuse to take a bath--and Aria was told by both her dad and my mother to take care of me. So she keeps coming down the stairs to check on me. The first time she comes downstairs, she takes in how I'm laying in the bath, my glass of ice water, and my book. "I don't read in the bath," she says.

"No, but Mommy does," I said. I picked up my water and took a sip.

"I don't drink water in the bath," she continued. "And I don't lie down like that in a bath," she said, almost accusatory.

"What do you do in the bath?" I asked.

"I play," she said excitedly, and began acting out play-bath motions. "And when I'm done, I say, 'I'm all done!'"

The second time she came down, before she left, she said, "Call me if you need me." I agreed. So she continued, "How do you you want to call me? Do you want to call me low, like this, 'Aria I need you,'" she said, pitching her voice low. Whenever she does this, she protrudes her lips out, and always has a half smile. "Or do you you want to call me high, like this, 'Aria I need you,'" she said, in a false falsetto. Smiling, I chose the low, and demonstrated it to Aria's satisfaction.

After a few few more trips down, she had me choose again, giving me the two former choices as well as one new one. "Or you can say, 'Aria I need you," she sang the words, dancing around the bathroom, "and Salsa!" So I'm pretty sure she wasn't really Salsaing, but it does beg the question: where did my daughter learn about Salsa?

My daughter likes Abba

This was is blatantly pilfered from my other blog that I'm horrible about keeping up. But since it's an Aria story, I thought I'd add it here. Today's likely going to be too busy for any other posts. Enjoy!

Last night (9/14/09), I’m cleaning the bar, and Aria comes running towards me. I think she’s saying “I found a ballerina,” and she has a DVD in her hand. When she gets closer, I realize she’s saying, “I found Momma Mia,” and is, indeed, holding Momma Mia in her hand. I asked her if she liked that movie, and she said, “Yes, I like all the songs in it.” Then she says, “sing Momma Mia, mommy,” and I tell her that I don’t know all the words. So, helpful girl that she is, she says, “‘Momma Mia, here we go again,’ like that mommy.” Music classes soon. Definitely.

Update: We actually ended up watching the movie a few nights later, and Aria became rather upset that the whole movie didn't consist of them singing the song "Momma Mia" over and over again.

Tinkerbell

This is the story that originated the idea for this blog. Last Saturday (10/10/09) I was getting ready for a costume party. Given the extensive amount of wings we have, I decided to use my good blue and white set and go as a fairy. Aria has a love/scared relationship with this particular set of wings. They generally hang on the wall, and she loves being lifted up to look at (and touch, my tactile little darling) them. But occasionally, she sees them on the wall and gets afraid, and wants us to take them down and put them away. But today appeared to be a good day, and she was quite fascinated by the wings.
"Fly, mommy!" she exclaimed, laying on the floor.
"But what else do I need to fly?" I asked her, knowing that Peter Pan is currently her favorite movie.
She looked over at her hand, closed in a fist. "Dust!" she stated proudly.
"Yes, and I don't think we have any fairy dust right now," I said, finishing putting on my wings.
"But we can pretend, mommy. I got a fairy right here," she said, holding her fist out to me. So I went over to her and let her sprinkle "dust" on me.
"So what else do I need?" I asked.
"Think a wonderful thought!" she shouted proudly after a moment.
"Okay, so I'll think of you!" I said with a smile, and proceeded to fly around the room.
"Aria's a wonderful thought!" she agreed. "Watch me be a wonderful thought." So we spent a few moments flying around the room, as I watched my daughter be the most wonderful thought I could imagine.

Since this is a week old, I'll give a brief today up-date. Today, she ate: four oranges. Two frozen waffles (while they were still frozen). A bowl of strawberries. A bowl of spaghetti-o's and meatballs. A sugar donut. And I'm sure a few other things. I sense a growth-spurt coming on. Here's to hoping the longer sleeping hours come with it this time.

My little (big) force of Nature

Aria is...well, Aria. I wouldn't change a thing about her, but she is challenging. And full of energy. We like to kiddingly (mostly) say that she has the personality of three children. Or as her father puts it, she's three pounds of personality in a one pound bag. And she's the most awesome thing. Ever. Hands-down. The best thing I will ever do. At a party the other night, I was telling an Aria story and a woman told me I should write them down, for both her and me. So I got to thinking, why just for her and me? Her father, grandmother, and I all live with her, so we do get to enjoy these moments everyday. But what about her other grandparents, aunt, and cousins? They only live about a half-hour from us, and have her one day a week, so they do get to experience her specialness regularly, but I'm sure there are stories we forget to tell them. And what about all the other people who love her? My father lives in New Jersey, and has only gotten to see her twice. And we have so many friends who adore her. So this is for everyone who loves Aria, or likes cute kid stories. Or just needs a break in the day to occasionally say "thank God it's not me." 'Cause those stories are inevitable, too. And the grass is always funnier when it's not your own.