Jillian and I spend a great deal of time talking about animals and the sounds they make. We point them on in books and as we walk around the neighborhood, and we are getting really good at barking, meowing, and such.
Right now, I am serving her dinner: chicken, carrots, and cheese. She holds up a piece of cheese and says “cheese!” I confirm. She… throws carrots on the floor and I say “carrots. Do not throw them.” She holds up a piece of chicken and says “whut dat?”
I say “chicken.” She answers “bok bok!”
Hmmmmm.
I wonder if she connects the chicken (bok bok!) that she’s “eating” with the chicken in her bedtime book who takes a bath, brushes his teeth, and wears pajamas. And if a connection is made, I wonder what she thinks of all this.
With cows and pigs and sheep, this isn’t going to be a problem. But with chicken… we’ll see if she figures it out.
Category Archives: Jillian
Wondering
My green thumbs
I have big plans for my yard. Last week, I planted a bunch of wildflower seeds in the front, and when I checked them yesterday, some had sprouted!
Yesterday was a very busy day – we got up, fed The Jillian, and made coffee while we decided which lawnmower to buy. I was minding my own business with my coffee when The Jillian came up with a tennis ball in her hand.
“Ball!” she said.
“That’s right, that’s a ball.” I always try to reinforce what she’s saying. Except for those times when she says “Shit!” This happens more often than it should, really, but I’m hoping that by not making a big deal out of it, she will never figure out that SHIT is fun to say!
So, like I said, I’m minding my own business with my coffee and then it happens. The chubby hand curved around the fuzzy chartreuse orb moves with steady purpose toward the end table. Before I can even react, PLOP! Tennis ball in the coffee.
Sigh.
I survived. We went to the big hardware store and bought a lawn mower, a weed wacker, and some gardening stuff. Freddie surprised us all by getting the lawn mower assembled without me having to go out and read the instructions to him all sarcastically. He mowed the front yard while I dealt with a nutso baby person who wasn’t interested in lunch and preferred a nap instead.
I am never one to argue with unexpected naptime, so I dumped her in the crib and headed outside to start my tomato seeds and think really hard about what else should go in the open space of my front garden.
Plus, I mowed the back yard. Keep in mind that it hadn’t been mowed since last… November? Maybe? So the grass was a leeeeeetle big higher than it otherwise might have been. Plus, the landscapers put down some topsoil/fertilizer/grass seed mixture on the [many] bare patches out there so it was sort of like mowing the surface of the moon.
Because Freddie is an odd human being, we have a lawn mower with a bag attachment. Because the grass was SO high, I had to stop and empty the bag SEVEN TIMES. How irritating this is, I cannot tell you. I would just be getting into a mowing groove when I’d have to stop and take off the bag, get grass all over myself, and start again.
Good times.
Eventually, the entire backyard was mowed (mown? Did I just make that up?), the grass was bagged, and then Freddie went to work with the weed wacker. As much as I love power tools and construction equipment and stuff that makes REALLY LOUD NOISE, I have a phobia of the weed wacker – I’m pretty sure it wants to chop my feet off.
Once the greenery was taken care of, we pushed some sand around on the patio and Freddie hung the birdhouse that my dad made for me. On Wednesday, the patio furniture is being delivered and we’ll be able to actually spend time outside in our yard without rolling our eyes and heaving great big sighs over the pitiful state of the grass.
It’s a good thing, too – we’re poor again and cannot afford to go out so we’d better enjoy our Very Expensive Yard to the utmost!!
Gray’s
Last month, I took Jillian to the doctor for her 18-month checkup. We were a bit late on this because Freddie had changed jobs and insurance and I wanted to make sure everything was effective before I started scheduling stuff.
The routine at the doctor’s office is always the same: they call Jillian’s name and show us to an examining room. The nurse asks me to get Jillian undressed to her diaper (and socks – it was chilly) and then bring her out to the scale to get weighed.
After weigh-in, the nurse says “the doctor will be right in, leave Jillian in the diaper (and socks).” This is a huge lie, since it takes at least 10 minutes for the doctor to appear. With a nuclear-powered toddler, 10 minutes might as well be six years.
Since Jilly refuses to be held when she can walk around and destroy stuff, I set her down in just her diaper (and socks) to wreck the room as best she could before the doctor showed up. Finally, after thirteen “No, Jillian – do not pull the paper off of the exam table” and twenty-seven rounds of “LA LA LA LA LA!” the doctor opened the door.
As she did so, a small, flesh-colored blur sped past her and headed out to the [full] waiting room.
“Hi! Hewwo!” said the blur, waving. “Ahhhm! Hed! Haaaar. Leg! Bellleeee. Butt! Pee-pee!” Oh, great! An anatomy lesson!
I scooped up Her Nakedness and headed back to the exam room.
“I was going to ask if she had a lot of words yet but she speaks very well for her age,” the doctor said. “And she doesn’t seem to be shy.”
“Not shy at all. I’m just glad I was able to stop her before she started pointing out everyone else’s pee-pee as well as her own.”
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A quickie
Well. Our week in Ohio was fun. Jillian got to be the pack leader of my mom’s dogs, and a good time was had by all. Unfortunately, what I thought was The Sniffles turns out to be an ear infection. Jillian was feverish and snotty from Friday onwards, and when it didn’t go away, we went to the doctor. Sure enough, it’s an ear infection. She is otherwise fine – destroying things, attempting to jump, saying “shit,” etc.
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Lazy Blogger Photo Parade!
No, I am not climbing the coffee table, why do you ask?
Say Cheese!
She’s got that crazy look in her eyes….
Jillian and her buddy, Elmo.
Best. Face. Ever.
Let’s see…
Hi! Remember me?
We’ve been busy here, what with the sniffles turning into the barfy flu or somesuch. Everyone is feeling better now, thanks to huge amounts of water and green tea and the judicious use of generic Mucinex.
Jillian dove head-first into a dining room chair late last week, which produced a cut on her eye and a fantastic bruise on her eyelid, which makes her look like she’s halfway through some kind of Goth makeover.
This happened because she was wearing a cute outfit, and I thought it might be cute to get her pictures taken in it. Ten minutes after I had this thought, BAM! Into the chair she went. So I am officially telling the universe that we are NOT getting pictures done anytime soon. The last time I had planned to get them done, she went face-first in the driveway and wrecked her face BUT GOOD.
I almost can’t take her out anywhere when she’s had a crash because I get disapproving stares from all the old ladies. Don’t they remember having a toddler? Crashing is what they do.
As an added bonus, Jillian is genetically related to both my mother and myself, so I’m amazed every single day that she can even walk upright. Of course, Jillian does everything she can to NOT walk upright. Today’s favorite activity had her putting a dishtowel over her head, spinning around in a circle, and then attempting to run. She’s not even 2 years old yet and she’s playing stupid frat games. Sweet.
We have finally scheduled the painter for the living room/dining room/kitchen. All I have to do is finalize the color scheme (and a scheme is definitely what it will be), then vacate the premises for a few days. Toddlers + interior painting in April = ick. We shall decamp to my parents’ house for the week, where Jillian will charm everyone silly and hopefully NOT kill any of the pets.
Freddie gave me my birthday present a month early. We are not good with delayed gratification (we’re both Aries), but that’s okay. He got me a Wii!!!! It’s so cool! The controls take some getting used to, but it is super fun. Tennis and bowling are big favorites here!
So other than that, everything else is situation normal: super-boring. But boring is good, because it means there’s no DRAMA!! And we hate the drama.
Freaky Genius
This morning, Freddie woke up and went to get Jillian out of the crib and started on her day of destroying things. As he was changing her out of her jammies, she pointed at his t-shirt and said “Iyonman!”
Most of Freddie’s t-shirts say this.
I was up and moving about by this time (I had to pee, or you can bet I would still be in bed), so I wandered in there to see what all the fuss was about.
Freddie asked me, “Did you teach her this?”
“Teach her what?”
He pointed at his shirt. “Jillian, what does this say?”
“Iyonman!”
We have created some kind of freaky genius. Freddie spent the next hour or so wandering around saying “there is no way a 19-month-old is reading. No. Way.”
I know. I’m scared too.
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It never fails
I made a huge mistake today. Instead of going out to do errands early in the morning (say, 9AM which is after Sesame Street but well before the pre-lunch meltdown), I waited until almost 11 to get us going for the day.
This meant that Jillian fell asleep in the car. Sigh.
We got back around 1PM, which is late for lunchtime, but as long as we’re busy we do okay when we have to wait that long. Normally, right after lunch, Jillian runs over to the baby gate that keeps the rest of the house safe from her and announces “Di-po! Nigh-nigh!”
[For those of you who do not speak Toddler, it means “I shit myself and I’m sleepy!”]
Today was no different. Jillian ate some of her lunch, rubbed the rest of it in her hair (it was only bread today, not like the ravioli she styled her hair with yesterday), and headed over to the baby gate.
I changed her and stuck her in the crib, where she proceeded to spend the next ninety minutes talking to all her buddies: OX the Uglydoll, Frank The Dog, MonkeyMan, and Blankie Bunny. I decided to let her do this until 3, which is when she usually wakes up from naptime.
So 3 o’clock rolls around and I realize I haven’t heard a peep out of her for at least the last ten minutes. I tiptoed into her room to see what was up and sure enough, she is fast asleep. I have to wake her by 4 at the latest or she won’t go to bed until 9 tonight and that just makes Mama crazy!
My head explodes daily
Jillian is learning words as fast as she can. Yesterday we learned about snow, since it was doing that outside while we were looking out the window.
Today it’s just raining, so I was a little confused when I heard Jilly saying “snooooooow.”
As it turns out, we have Clifford’s Puppy Days on the TV and it’s snowing on the show.
MY GOD SHE IS SMART.
She’s learning her letters, too. During diaper changes, she needs to have something to hold, so this morning I handed her the diaper ointment. She looked at it and said “A.” Then she looked again and said “D.”
Lo and behold, it’s A&D ointment! SOOOOO SMART!
After we were done with the diaper change, she sat up as I put on her socks. I’m wearing a U2 shirt (of course), so she pointed at Bono and said “Dada!”
Close enough, kid. Close enough.
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Hey, as long as it’s still beige
It figures that a child of mine would be drawn to beige things. We all want to rebel against our parents, and I am on the record as hating all things beige and all people who love beige things. Ever wonder what “no imagination” looks like? IT’S BEIGE.
So I’m not terribly surprised by the fact that the only foods my child will deign to eat are [you guessed it] beige or close enough.
Wheat bread. String cheese. Turkey. Chicken. Teddy Grahams. And our latest obssession: waffles.
Since I would like to get into the Mama Hall of Fame, I worry that Jillian isn’t eating enough fruits or vegetables. So I need to find ways to get more of these things into her. I’ve been experimenting with hiding foods in other foods, and it seems to be working.
So we bought a waffle/sandwich maker.
WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME?
It’s the greatest kitchen gadget EVER. It even beats my KitchenAid mixer, which is hard to do. This waffle iron thingy is the best. I should have gotten one years ago.
I have found that if I make a sandwich (let’s say ham and cheese) and cook it up in the sandwich maker… Jillian will actually eat it. I bet if I use the waffle iron thingies she would do so enthusiastically!
I know this is a phase and I hope she’ll grow out of it, because I don’t know what I’m going to do if I have to look at all this beige food for the next 17 years.