Potty Training: Part Deux

     Yesterday morning, Clara got out her sketch pad and asked for her crayons.  Her diaper was so engorged with pee that I felt sure it would soon explode, leaving the white, absorbent diaper granules that Wilbur the dog so loves to eat all over the floor.  
     "Let's change your diaper before we color," I suggested.
     "No!" she said forcefully, bringing both arms down in a baby karate chop motion.
     "Alright, alright.  At least let me take your diaper off, okay?  You can wear your pajama bottoms with no diaper for a little while, okay?"
     Clara was extremely amenable to this suggestion because it meant she could remain standing while I finagled the sodden diaper out through her legs.  And while standing, she could continue to color, making impatient sounds at me if I jerked too hard in my struggle to relieve her of the diaper.
     After awhile, when I had drawn for her several babies and dogs, a couple of hats, and a self-portrait ("Daw Mommy, Mommy. O-tay? Tanku, welcome."), she went to the basement playroom to work on her puzzles.  I wandered down with some laundry.  She left her alphabet puzzle and came running to me.
     "Poop, Mommy! Poop!"
     "You have to go poop?"
     "YES."
     Two or three weeks ago, Simon and I decided to put away Clara's potty.  While she seemed very interested in learning to use the potty, she hadn't made much progress potty training.  We figured she wasn't quite ready.  We also put away the "Elmo Goes Potty" video because, for some inexplicable reason, it seemed to get her really amped and kind of stressed out.
     We decided to just wait until she was ready.  We had no idea what "ready" looked like.  She seemed to be "ready" for potty training, according to all the parenting lists.  It seemed the one thing she hadn't developed yet was the ability to tell when she had to go.  Until yesterday.
     "Uh....do you want to sit on the potty?" I asked after she told me she had to go.
     "YES."
     I brought her into the basement bathroom, took off her pajama bottoms, and sat her on the toilet.  I held her under her armpits to keep her from falling in.  She suddenly seemed so little.  Her little pink piggies dangled a foot and a half off the floor.
     "My turn, Mommy," she told me sternly, pushing me away.
     "Okay, you want to hold yourself up.  That's good.  That's okay."
     I let go.  She grasped the edges of the toilet with pudgy hands and strained her plump baby triceps.  It was a losing battle.  Her bottom sank lower and lower into the bowl.
     "Mommy helps you," she panted after a moment.
     "Okay, I will help you." This time I hugged her and she leaned against me.  Her hair smelled like raspberry jam.  The skin on her back was so peachy and soft I couldn't help stroking it a little.
     "Mommy, poop is coming," she muttered into my ear.
     "Uh....Okay...Well, just let it come out."
     For some reason I couldn't help but flash forward a couple decades into the future, when I might be there for the delivery of her babies.  Yes, I just compared a bowel movement to the birth of my future grandchildren.  I imagine some elements are similar: the encouragement, the sense of solidarity ("I'm here for you, Baby.  We'll get this thing out, no matter what it takes!"), the ultra-close proximity.  And yes, the joy at the completion of a hard delivery.
     When it was all said and done, Clara prodded me out of the way and hopped off the toilet.
     "Wait!  Let me take a picture for Daddy!"
     "No, Mommy.  Flush.  Flush potty.  Bye, poop.  Bye-bye."
     "You're right.  Taking a picture is probably a weird thing to do."
     "Wash hands, Mommy.  Wash hands."
     "Right.  Yes.  Good.  Hygiene is important."
     After she'd washed her hand two or three times (pumping the soap is apparently one of the funnest things you can do), I gave her a chocolate chip as a reward.  And then we put a sticker on the calendar to show that she had gone poop in the potty that day.  And then, what the heck, I gave her a packet of chewy bunny candy, too.

Nocturnal Wars

Transcript of Last Night's Events:

12:30 a.m.
Bedtime.


1: 00 a.m.
Simon: "Ahem."  (Makes other obsequious, polite noises)
Me: (Deep breathing, pretending to be deeply asleep.)
Simon: (Clear throat). "It's just, I just..."
Me: "What?!"
Simon: "It's just...You keep moving.  I...I can't go to sleep."

     I try to hold still, but the minute Simon finishes speaking, I get an urgent desire to roll over.  I make myself hold completely still on my left side. I breathe very carefully.  I have discipline, and I can do this.
     My feet are suddenly hot.  Burning. I need to take off my socks.  To distract myself, I clench my abs to see if they've firmed up since I've given birth nearly two years ago (they haven't). I clench and unclench my calves to the rhythm of, "Just a Spoonful of Sugar." I feel like Simon has bat hearing.  I'm stuck inside submarine U-571, and I daren't stir lest the enemy hears me with his sonar.
     Perversely, this makes me want to punch the air and do "bicycles" on the sheets.  
     My feet are in hell and Satan is holding hot pokers to them.

1:34 a.m.

Me: (Gently, ever-so-carefully, using my toes, I take off my socks. The sound is faint, like crickets playing dodgeball. Then I ease over onto my back.  The sheets rustle softly, like a Caribbean breeze.)
Simon: (Exhales loudly through his mouth, producing a short, windy sound of exasperation)
Me: (Exhale loudly through my nose, producing a slightly more hissy, and therefore more authoritative, sound of exasperation.)

     Now I'm on my back.  I can hold still here forever.  No problem.
     I bet people's spines look like caterpillars when seen with an X-ray.  I think I can kind of feel my nerves coming out of my vertebra.  Nerviness is the worst.  I have that nervy, twitchy feeling.  It makes me think of when I dissected a frog back in college, and after we de-capitated them we had to stick a wire down their spinal column and wiggle it around to scramble their nerves.  So their legs would stop twitching.
     Wait! I think my leg is going numb!
     I bet I have a lot of fascia in my back. I wonder if "fascia" and "fascist" come from the same word.
     Hey, my traps are starting to twitch.
     I can feel my ganglia! I can feel my ganglia for crying out loud!!

1:36 a.m.

Me: (Roll over with quick, deft movement.)
Simon: "It's just...I have a big presentation tomorrow.  I want to be sharp for it.
Me: "I feel like a prisoner in my own bed!"
Simon: "I feel like a prisoner in my own bed." (Gets up, goes downstairs to the guest bedroom)

3:30 a.m.

     I wake up in a puddle of sweat.  I sluice the water out of my eyebrows with my index finger and thumb and try to figure out why I've awoken.  Ah, yes.  A lamb is bleating outside the window.  No.  It's Wilbur the dog, he's letting out a long string of high-pitched, windy farts in his sleep.  Yes, that's true, but there's something else... Yes, there it is.  Clara has awoken.

     What time is it?  

     3:30.

     So I've been asleep for an hour and a half.

     I'm going to let her yell for awhile and see if she goes back to sleep.  

     But why am I so sweaty?  When do women hit menopause? Forty? Fifty? Ninety? I love that magazine called More for middle-aged and mature women...I bet Diane Keaton has been on the cover...Wait! Don't go back to sleep!! You won't rest well in a wet bed.

     Why am I so sweaty?

     Maybe it isn't sweat!!!!

     When do people usually get incontinent?  Forty?  Fifty?  Ninety??

     Nonsense.  It can't be that.  How did it get in my eyebrows?

     Ah.  It's becoming clearer now.  Of course.  It's the comforter Simon's parents gave us a few years back.  The goose down one rated for fifty below zero.  It seemed so light and airy when I put it over me several hours ago.  

The Gentle Give and Take of Collaboration

     This morning, after breakfast, Clara and I sat down at her tiny kiddie table to color.  For several days, we've been working on a big, white poster board.  The rule is we can draw whatever we want on it, and we can use whatever colors we want.  (But no food.  Yogurt smears are not allowed). I tend to have an artsy-craftsy style, with curlicues and bright, complimentary colors.  Like most kids her age, Clara's style more closely resembles Jackson Pollock's.

   
     When Clara first started coloring, several months ago, she had five crayons that her grandparents bought for her.  They were the basic colors--red, blue, yellow, green and brown--and they were thick so she could grasp them more easily in her pudgy toddler hands.

     I colored with those for awhile.  Then I started thinking about bigger and better things.  I bought the Crayola 64-crayon coloring set at the grocery store and hid it in the drawer where I keep all my jewelry.  I stole a page from Clara's giant Toy Story coloring book to color in my spare time, in my bedroom, with the door closed.  I had vague ideas of coloring Woody and Buzz with a Matisse-like palette.  The dinosaur--I forget his name--grew a lime-green and gold halo.  Rings like those around Saturn circled his head.  

     "I've been coloring a lot," I admitted to my in-laws.

     "Coloring is great," my father-in-law said.  "You can buy more grown-up coloring books, like with pictures of historical figures like Thomas Jefferson and stuff, at education outlets.  I have several."

     "How do you know when to color softly or push harder?" I asked.

     "Well, it depend on what you want.  Do you want the soft stroke effect, or the waxy, deeper color?"

     "It sounds like your technique is quite advanced," I said.

     

     Clara found the 64-pack of crayons.

     Of course she did.

     After awhile, I got tired of trying to put them neatly back into the box after she'd used them.  I dumped them all into a Tupperware container.  

     We started working coloring into our morning routine.

     "I will color one Hello Kitty in your Hello Kitty coloring book, and then I have to vacuum the floor," I'll tell her.  Unless the Hello Kitty I'm coloring needs a midnight blue background, and a crown, and maybe some stars...     

     This morning Clara busied herself with making jagged brown lines on the edge of the poster board.  I carefully selected a salmon-toned crayon and began making tiny curlie-cues near the bottom.  

     "Mommy, daw a dog."

     I drew a pink Beagle to go with the fifteen other dogs I had drawn on the board, and Clara cheerfully scribbled over the top of it. 

     My curlie-cues needed some definition, so I casually went into the kitchen for a fine-point Sharpie.  I sat back down at an oblique angle, holding my breath a little as I uncapped the marker and began to outline my work.

     Clara saw the Sharpie instantly and swooped down on me like a horseman of the apocalypse.  

     "Mommy, my turn!"

     "No, it's Mommy's turn."  I continued to outline, but she kept reaching for the pen, making my line wiggle.  "Clara, it's my turn.  You can have a turn in a second."

     "No!! Mommy, it's my turn.  Baby's turn! Me!"

     "Okay, you can have it for two minutes, okay?  And then me."

     With a huff of satisfaction, she took the pen from me and began scribbling merrily.  After a moment, she tried to put the cap back on and couldn't.

     "Mommy helps you," she said.  I put the cap back on for her, and then she took it off again.  I wrote her name, "Clara," and my name, "Mommy," on the poster board with the pen.  Very interesting, her body language seemed to say, but can you do this?  And a wild flurry of scribbles appeared over and around the writing.

     Then she dropped the pen.

     "Me, 'icker.  Baby unts 'ticker."

     "Okay, you may have one sticker."

     She picked a sticker of Mr. Potato Head and stuck it to the poster board.  Then she took it off and stuck it to my sleeve.

     "Ohhhhhh, Mommy! 'Ticker on sirt."

     "Yes, it's on my shirt."

     She tried to stick it on Wilbur, but it wouldn't adhere to his fur.  "'Bur unt 'ticker?" she asked him.  He licked his chops in response.

     "'Bur, a mess," she said, pointing to the broken crayons on the floor.  She sighed and shook her head.  "No, 'Bur.  No mess."

     "Wilbur didn't break the crayons, Honey.  You did.  Don't you remember?"

     "Oh, Mommy mess."

     "No, not me.  You.  But you know what?  It's okay.  Crayons get broken.  They still work."

     "Oh, Baby mess."

     "Yes."

Wilbur the dog: Methods of Persuasion that don't involve food

   Sometimes I contemplate all the things I could threaten Wilbur the dog with for his transgressions.
   The transgressions:
    -"Killing" his stuffed animals (and sometimes Clara's stuffed animals), burying them in the backyard, then digging them up and "killing" them again, so there's cotton stuffing and muddy, matted shanks of fur all over the backyard.
    -Eating Clara's dirty diapers (if I should forget and leave one wrapped on the floor for a mere five seconds to run downstairs for her diaper rash cream), and then strewing the diaper remnants all over the back patio.
     -Coughing and retching like a miner with black lung in the early morning hours, then snorting and rolling luxuriantly on his back on the carpet just beneath my side of the bed, his collar jingling like a sleigh at Christmastime.
   
     The worst transgression of all is Wilbur's passive resistance.  My neighbors are all well-aquainted with the sight of me chasing Wilbur down the street (sometimes in my jammies), and then carrying him back to our house.
     Yes, Wilbur has learned the subtle advantages of the inert rebellion. When I catch up to him on the street, rather than darting out of the way of my reaching hands, he simply lies down and rolls onto his back.  No amount of coaxing can raise him to his fleshy paws.  When we first got him, and he weighed more than fifty pounds, this was an incredibly daunting task.  I had to squat down, slide my hands underneath him and then mutter this mantra to myself: "Lift with your legs, Isabelle.  Lift with your legs."
     It was like trying to haul a fleshy log.
     Now Wilbur is much more svelte, but he has the unique ability to make himself seem like he weighs 200 pounds.
     He has taken to dozing behind Clara's rocking chair while we read her bedtime stories.  When it's time to say good-night, he looks at us lovingly, as if to say, "You poor, poor people.  Don't you know I'm not ready to leave yet?"
     Because he's wedged behind the rocking chair, picking him up and bringing him into the hallway is not that feasible.
      And this is where the threats come in.  So far I've come up with three that seem satisfying to me:
   
       1.) "Wilbur, if you don't get out right now, I will take all your rawhide bones and replace them with dental hygiene bones." ("But Wilbur likes dental hygiene bones," Simon says.
      "He likes anything that goes into his mouth," I reply.  "But he likes rawhide bones better than dental hygiene bones.")

      2.)  "Wilbur, git! Or else I'll shave off all your fur and you'll look like a chubby pink rat."

      3.)   "Out, Wilbur!  Or else I'll swaddle you tight like a papoose and give you to Clara to play with.  You don't care?  Really?  Because I know she has some pink bloomers that would look fantastic on your head.  She could put your ears through the leg holes."

     Simon's threats are much more to the point and involve cursing in a low voice so Clara can't hear.
     Of course, most of the time, Wilbur just yawns and stretches while we're threatening him.  So we've developed two tried-and-true methods of getting him across Clara's bedroom floor and out the door.
     The first is the "log roll," and it's executed exactly the way you might think.  Wilbur doesn't mind this at all.  In fact, he facilitates by curling his paws under him.  The hardest part is the initiation push.  Once we get him rolling, though, inertia takes over and each roll seems a little easier than the last.  When we get to the door, he jumps up, shakes, and trots out into the hallway.
     The second method is "the drag."  Simon reaches down, grabs his collar, and drags him horizontally across the carpet to the door.  This appears to be Wilbur's favorite method.  Done correctly, there is no choking involved (though Simon sometimes wishes there were), and Wilbur gets a back-scratch from the carpet.  Again, he facilitates by curling his paws and tail in.
     He looks like a rotund otter as he slides across the floor.

Havoc was wrought: Play Group tours the fire station

     This morning, approximately ten toddlers of the Hillside Ward Playgroup (of which Clara and I are proud members), along with their grandparents or parents, swarmed the City of Boise Fire Station #9 for a tour.
     The firefighters were remarkably composed in the midst of the toddler melee.
     They showed us the austere room where they slept: hospital-like twin beds with bare mattresses surrounded by heavy privacy curtains (the beds looked super inviting to me-- a sign that I may be sleep-deprived.)  They showed us a room with recliners and a TV where they relax, their work-out room, and their kitchen (which, I jealously noted, was in many respects cleaner than mine).
     Then they brought us out to the garage to look at the trucks.  Initial response to the trucks was mostly positive, and sometimes extremely positive:

(Note: Colton, above, is most likely smiling.  His posture appears tense owing to the fact that he's trying to see out of the eyeholes of his Batman costume.  He has been wearing the costume for several days, ever since a relative gave it to him.)
     The firemen gave us some information and answered questions.  For example, if you have a sticker on your window saying you'd like your pets rescued, the firefighters will rescue you first, and then go back for your pets.  What a relief.  I don't know what I'd do if some fireman saved Wilbur the dog before me.
     There are two engines at Station 9: one for the city, and one that's used only for brush fires.  The diameter of the trucks' exhaust pipes is probably only a little smaller than a dinner plate.  When you turn on a firetruck, one of the firefighters explained, the diesel engine pushes out billowing black smoke.  It used to fill up the garage and put an inches-thick layer of soot on the walls. So now the firefighters hook a big hose to the exhaust pipe and it vents all the fumes outside.  The ventilation hose runs on a sliding track and is also really, really fun to play with.

The firefighters let everyone climb on the engine.

And then, oh glory be, they let everyone sit in the firetruck driver's seat.  It was almost more than Clara could digest.  She has always wanted to drive a real car.  I'm sure the driver's seat of our Toyota paled in comparison to this one:

     It turns out the firetruck starts by pushing a button rather than using a key. Someone worried that might make it easy to steal.  Well, firetrucks don't corner well, and they don't go very fast, one of the firefighters pointed out.  Plus, you'd be pretty conspicuous driving a firetruck.  
     Also, firefighters don't push each other or yell, "Shut-gun!" or fight over who gets to drive as they run to the trucks.  Each man has a permanent position.  You have to go through an interview process and get a promotion to be the driver.
     The firefighters assured me that they would thoroughly investigate the rig after we'd left, and un-push all buttons pushed by dimpled toddler fingers.
     After everyone had a chance to sit in the driver's seat, one of the firemen took us aside and put on his fire gear. Along with bulky pants, boots, coat and gloves, he put on a weird, medievel-looking hood and his gas mask. He said he wanted us to not be scared if we were ever in a house fire and saw a fireman crawling towards us on the floor.  The response to the gas-masked fireman was almost universal trepidation:

     And who could blame the kids?  He looked like a giant insect with Darth Vader breath.  I'm not so sure I myself wouldn't whack him with the nearest heavy object if he came at me during a fire.
     Shar ran to her dad to be comforted.  Clara found herself in the unfortunate position of having to pass by the gas-masked firefighter to get to me.  She made several attempts, the sheer baby terror on her face dawning afresh each time she rounded the side of his body and looked at his face.  Finally another mother grabbed her and brought her, rigid with fear, to me.  
     After the fireman took off his fire gear, he brought us outside and gave the kids stickers and fire hats.  One of the mothers, Ericka, brought homemade brownies.  

Panic: Clara discovers how to lock a door

     Clara likes to slam doors.  She thunders down the hall into my bedroom, her bedroom, the bathroom--wherever there's a door--and slams it with all her baby might.  Then she laughs diabolically behind the closed door.
     After a moment, when her chuckling subsides, she says, "Mommy! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! Do' suht! Do' o-pin!"
     This is my cue to come open the door.  She can reach the door handle, but she can't open it by herself yet.  She paws at it, and fingers the little screws that hold in the knob, and the strike plate where the lockset goes.
     This morning, she ran into the bathroom, slammed the bathroom door, and then reached up and locked herself inside.  She has never done that before.  I didn't think she'd ever noticed the lock until this morning.
     "Mommy! Mommy Mommy Mommy!"
     My heart nearly stopped when I tested the knob and found the door locked.
     "Uh, Clara, can you twist the button on the knob again?"
     "Butt-ton.  Butt-ton.  Mommy o-pin.  Mommy do' suht."
     "Honey, stay there, okay?"
     As if she could have gone anywhere.
     Still, I had visions of her drowning in the toilet, or somehow finagling her little hand past the baby-proofing on the cupboards and getting to my leg razors.
     What should I do?  This was not a door that could be opened by sticking a credit card in the doorjamb.  Who could I call that would come over STAT?  Our neighbor, Joe, is out of town.  I could call the cops, or maybe my boss, who I knew was rather handy, to come over and open it. (I noticed a tiny hole in the knob on my side of the door and had a vague sense it might be important.  Later, a coworker told me there would be an Allen wrench on top of the door sill that you inserted into the hole to open it from the outside. Wonders never cease.)
     Instead, I ran downstairs and grabbed a screwdriver.  By this time, Clara had figured out she was stuck and began to wail.
     "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!"  She listened briefly to me cursing at the screws on the other side of the door as I tried to place the screwdriver and decided I was incompetent: "Daddy! Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy!"
     Finally I got the knob on my side off.  Much to my horror, there was some sort of mechanism on the inside of the door that actually held the lockset.  I'd thought I could take off the knob and everything would just fall apart.
     Who knew doors were so complicated?
     The knob on the other side of the door fell off, too, and I could see Clara's big blue eyes staring at me over the lockset mechanism and through the hole where the knobs had been.  Her terror at being trapped inside the bathroom was quickly overtaken by her terror of disorder.  She tried to replace the knob on her side of the door.
     "Mess!  Oh, mess, Mommy!" she said.
     "It's okay, Honey, no big deal.  No biggie."
     The lockset seemed to be well-made, much to my chagrin.  I pushed at it and whacked it with the screwdriver.  Just as I was about to give up, it magically slipped open.  I thought Clara would come rushing through the door and into my arms, but she had long since stopped crying and seemed interested in the doorknob.  She hugged me, more to placate me than anything else.
     She grappled with the loose knob and peered inside it.  Then she looked at me and smacked her chest.
    "Mommy.  Bee-bee [chest smack] 'side do'."
     "Yes.  You were stuck inside the door."
     "Mommy o-pin...Bee-bee [chest smack]."
     "Yes.  I opened the door for my baby."

Bargain Shopping with a Blown-Out Diaper

     I pretty much detest grocery shopping with a toddler.  However, if I have to do it, I prefer doing it in small trips, and in a store with nice, low lighting, with a Starbucks inside or nearby.  It costs a little extra, I think, but the soothing ambience makes up for it.
     Sometimes, though, my family needs a whole bunch of stuff all at once. Knowing the total cost at a store with nice ambience could make me keel over in shock, I go to the bargain grocery chain near our house--Winco Foods off Broadway Avenue.
     How shall I describe the Winco Foods off Broadway? Preternaturally, frenetically bright, it's a flourescent-lit maze for the harried, the over-budgeted, the compulsive deal-shopper.  Floors so clean and reflective they induce nausea.  Acoustics like the inside of a warehouse. And always, always packed.  So packed that sometimes you have to park your cart at the end of the aisle and wend your way through shoppers to gather what you need.
     But the prices!  The prices always make me want to break into song. (Although, it bears mentioning that buying frozen veggies at Winco is like playing Russian roulette--sometimes they're delicious, sometimes they're so frost-bitten and desiccated you'd think they were on Lord Shackleton's trip to the South Pole).
     Last night was a Winco Foods shopping night.  I brought Clara because Simon had to work late. I'd taken her straight from her nap, so she was still wearing her pajamas. Clara is not a fan of shopping carts. She keened and flailed and climbed up my chest with her footie-jammied feet when I tried to put her in the front of the cart.  To keep her still and pliable, I gave her my phone to play with.
    Everything went smoothly until we rounded the corner into Dairy, when I caught the singular whiff of a dirty diaper.  As a mother, one knows the smell of one's child's scat.  It's as distinctive as a fingerprint.  There was no way the man with plumber's crack buying beer, or the woman with a nineties haircut and square shoulder pads, could have produced that bouquet. Unless they ate large quantities of Go-Gurt yogurt pouches and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.  Which was doubtful.
     I lifted Clara slightly to inspect the seat of her pants.  Yep, she'd sprung a leak.  For the first time in perhaps ten or so months.
     She thought I was lifting her from the front of the cart to carry her on my hip, and shrieked when I put her back down: "MOMMY! Hode you! Hode you! Hug! HUG YOU!!"
     I impatiently swung her to my hip, but it seems her desires to be held were all a ruse.  She really wanted me to put her down so she could run.
     "Stop!" I hissed as she yelled and squeezed my hip between her delectable toddler thighs. I bent her knee against me so she couldn't kick at my opposite arm.
     It seemed like people were beginning to notice the smell.  I could feel them staring. In retrospect, it seems more likely they were watching Clara's face go white, then brilliant red, as she screamed with rage.  One-handed, I hurried our shopping cart down the dogfood aisle towards the bathroom.
     Suddenly, the cart's right front wheel locked up.  And then the left back did.  I glanced down and saw the back wheel was clogged with what looked like a bunch of greasy, black strands, probably threads from some packing material. To my frazzled mind, though, the threads looked like hair. Like someone had used the cart to repeatedly run over someone's head.
     Panting with effort, I discovered if I grasped the right corner of the cart, and pushed at an angle to it, I could slide the cart horizontally, like a jack-knifed tractor trailer.  People hurried out of my way.
     When we got to the bathroom, I saw the damage was worse than I'd ever imagined.  My mind slowly reeled through images from the afternoon: Clara eating handfuls of blueberries before her nap; Clara eating an adult portion of baked beans at lunch; Clara gorging herself on grapes while I distractedly browsed the fruit stand near our house.
     I didn't have a change of clothes with me.  And, through some egregious oversight, I didn't have diaper wipes, either.
     I did have a clean diaper, and the little purple sweater I carried in case she got cold. And, glory be, at the very bottom of the diaper bag, I found the polka-dotted swimsuit bottoms Clara wore when she was six months old.
    We had to make a run out to the car to get her sparkly purple sneakers, and she locked me out of the handicapped stall once or twice while I was running back and forth with soapy paper towels. But after fifteen minutes or so, she was pretty cleaned up.
    The swimsuit bottoms were so tiny they looked like a Speedo, and we didn't have any socks.  Clara was incredibly peeved, poor baby, but I suspect it had more to do with not being able to run through the store like a wild heathen than with what she was wearing.

   

Pink Aye-Yai-Yai

     Last Saturday, Clara went to a pirate-themed birthday party for a member of our playgroup, a little girl named Hendrix.  The night before, I went to Walmart to get a present for Hendrix.  I could not have imagined the pink and purple gore, the sequins and plastic gemstones, the gluttony of long, silky pony hair, that awaited me in the aisle reserved for girls' toys.
     Believe it or not, apart from books, we have never bought Clara a single present.  She has never needed one from us. As the first grandchild on both sides of the family, she has been showered since birth with everything a baby girl could dream of.  Among other things, there's the basketball hoop and play kitchenette; dozens of stuffed animals and baby dolls; Disney DVDs; a big, gorgeous toy box monogrammed with her name; a set of intricately-detailed miniature animals.
     I haven't been in the toy section of a store since Ken doll, Barbie's boyfriend, wore the collar up on all his shirts.
     I was stunned and overwhelmed by Walmart's girls' toys section.  It was like someone had barfed Pepto-Bismol, there was so much pink in that aisle.  There were dolls that looked like anime characters, dolls that sang and lit up, ponies that came with hair driers and brushes (and hair extensions that would make the Kardashian sisters swoon).  Stuffed, battery-operated dogs walked, barked, and came with their own brushes. I saw something I hadn't seen before: chubby baby versions of Disney's Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, etc. There was something arachnid about the baby princess' plump, squat bodies with their strangely adult princess heads.
     I confess, a very primal, little girl part of me was ecstatic looking at all the glimmering, pastel deliciousness in that aisle.
     Thankfully, Clara was home with Simon.  Otherwise, both of us would have been "glamored" beyond remediation.
     For Hendrix's gift, I settled on a baby pony (unicorn?) named Sweetie Belle.  When you squeeze Sweetie Belle's hoof, she says, "Sweetie Belle hungry," or "Sweetie Belle sleepy." Maybe I should have been annoyed by Sweetie Belle constantly referring to herself in the third person, but I only felt enchanted. Unable to stifle the urge for more pink, I bought pink Hello Kitty wrapping paper with pink and purple ribbons, and a giant purple card with pink and purple ponies inside.  It was exhausting.  It was exhilarating.
   

Baby Park- Every Town Should Have One

     Late yesterday afternoon, I walked to the dog park with Clara in the stroller, and Wilbur on the leash.  Clara was extremely exhausted, having gone to bed too late the night before and then to a rambunctious birthday party yesterday morning. Wilbur wheezed and coughed the whole way, not having learned in his seven years of existence that straining too hard on his leash blocks his windpipe.
     Our dog park is actually the football field of a junior high school near our house.  The city has a deal with the school, the details of which I'm fuzzy on.  The football field is abutted by a creek and some hills, and it attracts tons of dogs from Boise's Northend.  There's George, a collie that treats Clara as though she were a Jolly Rancher candy.  This might have to do with us usually coming to the park after dinner, when Clara is covered in chicken grease or cheese sauce. Sometimes George's licks and kisses get so frenzied he knocks her over.

     There's a border collie named Nina, a German Shepherd named Gracie, a collie mix named Jo-Jo.  There are at least three standard poodles that show up on a regular basis, and two Shih Tzus, one groomed, one not.  There have got to be a hundred different dogs that play at that dog park over the course of a week.

     When we got there, Clara wanted to hold Wilbur's leash. I gave it to her, and Wilbur, sensing the lack of power on the other end, took off at a lope.  He yanked Clara along, her short toddler legs struggling to keep up, her bulky diaper inhibiting proper movement.
     "If he runs too fast, just let go off the leash, Honey!" I yelled.  I could tell by the set of her shoulders that she wasn't going to let go, that she figured she was the one in charge.  I caught up with them just as Clara started emitting a whine of irritation.  It quickly turned into a full dirge. Wilbur's jerking on his end of the leash caused her to stammer as she trotted along.
     "Na-a-a-iii, N-n-n-n-ooooo!  D-d-d-o-o-g, d-i-i-s 'ay.  M-m-m-a-i-i-i 'ay." ["I don't like this! Hey, dog, go this way! My way!"]
     "Let go, Hon'! Let go!"
     Keeping pace with them, I reached down and took the leash, then unclipped Wilbur from it.
    "Oh, me my.  My dog! My 'eesh!" Clara grabbed for the leash.  One of the first things to go when she's tired are her fledgling language skills.  This, I believe, really frustrates her. "This this this. Mommy! 'Bur 'unning! No 'Bur! No 'unning!"
     But he was gone, ears flopping, chubby hindquarters churning, towards two Great Pyrenees lounging on the grass.  When he got there he assumed his regal dog pose: tail erect, front paw slightly lifted, paunch sucked in.
    The Great Pyrenees, whose names are Lucy and Buddy, did not deign to greet him.  I cannot imagine why.  Every dog should be impressed when an overgrown woodchuck with floppy ears wants to say hi.
     Undaunted, Wilbur sniffed delicately at their butts.
    "Thou art the noblest, most genteel, most elegant dog," I told him to make him feel better.
     "Beeg dog.  Beeg fur," said Clara, collapsing onto the Great Pyrenees named Buddy. Buddy is mostly fur, which is why he lays around so much in July, August and September.  We've played with Buddy before, so we know he likes babies and little kids.

     "Dink dog, dink 'ater," Clara said, holding my water bottle to his snout.  He lavished the mouth piece with his big pink tongue.
     "And that pretty much ensures that I'm not taking a sip from that bottle tonight," I said.
      Clara petted Buddy awhile, then stood with her arms folded, addressing the foothills.  I can't be completely sure, because I was standing aways away, but I think she was delivering a lecture on Wilbur, on how he is not allowed to ride in her stroller.  Also how, the last time we were at the park, she got to kick a football, and she kicked it with her shoe: "'Ick ball.  Hoof 'iks ball."  She might have also thrown some colors into her discourse: "geen" and "boo."

     After awhile, she came running over to me, her face concentrated, serious. She was running like the wind, running to be free of humanity's inherent yoke of oppression.  I could almost hear the Chariots of Fire music behind her.

     We climbed to the top of a grassy knoll nearby.  "Un, ew, tee!" she shouted. ["One, two, three!"]  Shrieking and holding hands, we ran down the side of the knoll.  At the bottom, she wasn't ready to stop running, so she yelled, "'Eeeddy, 'et, DOE!!" ["Ready, set, go!"]

Potty Training: A Quick Trip to Lunacy

     On Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning.  I woke Clara up earlier than usual to get her ready.  She was warm and fleecy and snuggly, and she burrowed her head down into my shoulder, her hair like soft wire mesh.
     We were already running a little late.
     As I was changing her diaper, I said encouragingly,"You know, someday soon, you're not going to need diapers anymore.  You're going to wear big girl panties."
     Potty training induces about the same level of anxiety in me as having a picnic in the middle of the freeway.  There are as many potty training guides out there as fruit flies, but every kid is different.  The moms in the play groups we're in are all starting to potty train, and I think, what if we're the last ones?
     Oh the horror.  The horror of the four-year-old child in diapers.
     Every pediatrician I've ever consulted with is very firm about this: in your average, healthy child, potty training has nothing to do with intelligence, and is not in any way connected to their success later in life.  Kids potty train when they are ready.
     Don't you dare bring status into this, I tell myself, as I surreptitiously ask the undie-wearing toddlers I know how old they are.
     I think most of my anxiety actually stems from the fact that Clara very, very much wants to go.  Her idea of a good time is spending a half hour or so sitting on the potty and pretending to go, or making her stuffed animals sit on the potty.  She is at a stage where she seems to understand intellectually why people sit on the potty and what goes into the potty, but she doesn't have the muscle awareness or control yet.
     "Yes. Potty!" Clara said this morning when I mentioned the big-girl panties. She suddenly sat bolt upright from her changing pad, giving me the first inkling that perhaps it was a mistake to mention big girl panties when we were on such a tight schedule.
     "Uh, do you want to sit on the potty?" I asked, glancing at the time on my phone. Yes, she did.  She thundered down the hall, naked as a newborn kangaroo, and plopped down on her potty.  And there she stayed for the next ten minutes, despite all my entreaties that we had to hurry.
     "Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle," she said.
     The potty remained dry.
     I finally got her dressed (I told her if she let me put on her diaper, she could play at her friend Molly's house later).  Just as we were headed out the door, she grabbed at the crotch of her diaper under her baby Guess patchwork jeans and said, "Oh! Mess! Poop!"
     "Nai wannu sit on potty," she said, as I whipped her dirty diaper off and rolled it up tight.
      I wanted to say, "Lay down NOW so I can put your dang diaper on and not be late for the doctor who charges even if I miss the appointment!"
     But what if, as inconvenient as it was, this were a pivotal moment in her march toward bathroom autonomy?
     "Ok, you may sit on the potty briefly," I said.
     "Sirt off."
     "Honey, you don't need your shirt off to go potty."
     "Nai wannu sirt OFF."
     I took it off, exasperated.
     "Mommy sits big potty."
     "I don't have to go...Ok, alright, maybe a little, if it's helpful...Ok, let's be quick.  You want to play with Molly later, don't you?"
     "Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle...Mommy sirt off."
     "Honey, people don't take all their clothes off to use the potty.  In fact, they usually don't take any clothes off.  That's just if they're taking baths or showers."
     Wilbur chose that moment to shamble through the bathroom door and come sniff around Clara's legs.  She giggled.
     "Git!" I yelled as his nose ventured delicately into the waste basket where I'd recently deposited her dirty diaper.
      It wasn't until she'd spent a few moments pretending to read Mean Jean the Recess Queen on the potty, stuffed her jeans into the dry potty basin, and let Buzz Lightyear sit on the potty and wash his hands, that I finally put my foot down.
     "Lay down," I thundered, wielding a fresh diaper. "Now! No more potty-sitting! We gotta go!!"
   
   

Identity Crisis

     Sometimes I have trouble unplugging from mommy-hood.  Just now, for instance, I told my husband I was going to hole up in our bedroom for a while and have some alone time.  But I heard Clara coming up the stairs, saying, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!" and part of me wanted to ditch the whole me-time thing and go hang out some more with her.  In spite of the fact that I spend all day, every day, hanging out with her.
     I pictured myself getting up, going downstairs to the playroom and trying to engage with the Winnie the Pooh sticker book or help Clara put one of my socks that she's mined from the clothes drier on Raggedy Ann (instant thigh-high stocking for Raggedy).
     But I know if I was hanging out downstairs, I'd be longing to come upstairs and work on my blog or read one of my thriller novels.
     A similar thing happens when I get a late-night craving: I head down the stairs for a chocolate cupcake from Albertsons at one in the morning (Trans fats? Yes. High fructose corn syrup? Absolutely.).  Halfway down the stairs, I say, "Wait a tick, it's one in the morning.  You should go to bed and wait to have the cupcake for breakfast."
     So I start back upstairs, but then change my mind again and head back down to the kitchen.  A person watching from afar might liken my movements to those of a gerbil, empty of logic and reason, darting back and forth on electrical impulse alone.  A gerbil, or maybe the UPS man.
     The analogy between the cupcake and the baby is imperfect, though.  The cupcake indecision has a lot to do with guilt.  Doctor Oz says you shouldn't snack after seven at night.  Even when I picture him saying those words shirtless, I still feel remorse.
     I sometimes feel guilty when I'm not hanging with Clara, yes. But it's more than that.  When you spend your whole day anticipating when someone's going to have to pee, and making sure they understand why it's not right to chuck a can of Diamond-brand almonds at a strange man in the grocery store (or why it's not ok to throw rocks at the dog), and trying to remember how many fruits and veggies they've had today, and trying to figure out how to channel all the love you feel for them into a consistent way of parenting that won't disfigure them or turn them into hardened criminals--when that's your focus all day, you sometimes lose sight of your own identity.
     So the struggle is between caving into the ease of doing what I've done all day--hanging with Clara--and trying to remember who, exactly, I am and what it was I wanted to do with my life.

Eating fish while perched in a puddle

     This afternoon we went shopping at Home Depot, a tricky endeavor with a toddler under the best of circumstances.  Today, though, Clara was fighting a cold, making her more fractious than usual.  She has also lately reached a weird sort of emotional dichotomy: she very much wants her independence, but she also really, really wants to be held. It gives me whiplash.
     When we got to the store, she raced down aisles filled with bolts and washers and poplar planks and lighting fixtures, the waist band of her hot-pink tulle skirt riding up her tummy, her diaper clearly sagging in the black leggings underneath. She grabbed a coiled doorstop from a bin, pretended to sleep on top of some washing machines (with Simon supervising, of course), and debated pulling the blooms off some exotic-looking houseplants.
     After an hour spent shopping in the most inefficient way possible, we decided to ditch and go get lunch.
     We went to McGrath's Fish House because Simon and I feel Clara should eat as much fish as possible for Omega-3 fatty acids (they're supposed to be really good for your brain, and there's a lot of 'em in fish).  Clara was delighted with the kid's cup the waiter brought her.  It had a lid and a straw.  Very prudent design.  Except the straw hole was not totally sealed (I found myself thinking of the caulking aisle at Home Depot).  This meant that, instead of quickly making a huge mess, Clara could make a huge mess over the course of the next half hour or so.
     Which is exactly what happened.
     "Mess," she said sadly, after several enthusiastic attempts to drink from the cup had caused most of the water to dribble out the straw hole and onto the booth where I sat with her.
     Simon looked at her seriously.
     "Why is there a mess?  Who made the mess?" he asked.
     She thought for a moment.
     "Daddy," she said, pointing to him.
     "No, I didn't make the mess."
     "Mommy."
     "Mommy didn't make the mess either."
     She thought for another moment, and then her face turned very grave.
     "'Bur," she said, nearly shaking her head in disgust.
     "How could Wilbur the dog have made this mess?" I asked. "He isn't even here."
     She smiled.  Yes, okay, she knew I was right.  She sighed.
     "Baby," she finally said, pointing to herself.
     "Yes, that's right," we praised her, and she seemed to squirm under the strangeness of this new feeling: sheepishness.  It made me want to kiss her cheeks.
   

New Innovations in Torture

     Simon let me sleep in this morning.  He got up with Clara at 5:30 and then again at 7:30, when she woke up for reals.
     At nine, I heard her calling for me: "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!!!"
     "Well, come here and say 'hi' then," I hollered back.  I heard her chuckle, and then she appeared at the foot of the bed, wearing a T-shirt her grandparents had gotten her from the Galapagos and a pair of candy-striped leggings with ruffles across the seat.
     I pulled her up onto the bed, and she nestled into the warm wedge between my arm and the side of my body, her head on the soft part of my shoulder above my armpit.
     Simon collapsed with a exhausted sigh into bed next to us.
     Never one to lie and relish a sleepy morning in bed, Clara popped up after a few seconds.  Working hard and grunting with effort, she gathered the goose down comforter in her arms.  She covered Simon with part of it, and then put the rest on me.
     She leaned forward and cupped my face in her dimpled toddler hands and kissed me as hard as she could right on the mouth.  Then she belched luxuriantly into my mouth.
     "Yeeeesh," I said, twisting my head away and gasping for air.  I could almost taste her breakfast: toast with butter and blackberry jam.
      "Mommy!" she said, bringing my face back to hers with her hands.  Her face was maybe an inch and a half away.  Her baby peaches n' cream complexion was flawless, except for the scrape on her chin where she caught the edge of the kitchen table at dinner a few nights ago.  Her eyes were pale and clear blue, like two pools of water.
     With her index finger, she pointed to the mole near my mouth, the tiny scab on the side of my nose where she'd accidentally scratched me awhile back, the red spot on my chin where I'm constantly tweezing stray hairs.  "This, this, this," she whispered as she pointed.
     Then she climbed onto my chest and started pulling my eyelashes.
     "Hey!" I protested.
     "Eyes, nose, 'eeks, tin," she said, pointing to my features.
      Suddenly bored with my face, she abruptly rolled off my chest.  I heard Simon grunt as she climbed onto his.
     "Thanks for all the baby finger prints on my glasses," he said.  Then, "Those are lashes.  Eyelashes."
     "Mmmmm," Clara responded.
     "And those are eyebrows," Simon said.
     "B'ows," Clara said.
      She got behind him and pushed until he rolled over onto his side.  She rested her head on his rounded shoulder.  Then she kissed it and rubbed it vigorously with her palm.
     "Seep.  'Eep, Daddy. Shhhhhh."
     "Ennhh," Simon moaned.  There were purple shadows under his eyes.  I could see he was already nearly dozing.
      "'Night," Clara said.
      "She's putting us to bed," I whispered.  "Would that it were actually so."
      "She likes to play sleep," Simon agreed, deep regret in his voice.
      Suddenly tired of sleep, Clara stood up and pulled the covers off Simon.  Then she stood on the edge of the bed and pointed at the floor.  "Down!" she ordered.