Sibling Rivalry

    I've been taking Clara and Wilbur out for comparatively long walks (we had been only walking about a half-mile.  Now we're up to a mile.  Which, for Wilbur, equates to ten miles, because of the stubbiness of his legs).

    Yesterday I heard a litany of complaints coming from the stroller about halfway through our walk.  It sounded like a just-hatched, ravenous baby T-Rex.

    "Are you hungry, Love-y?" I asked.

    "Hes, Mommy.  Me, me, eat, Mommy, Mommy, hes."

    "When we get home, I will make you lunch.  What do you want?  Do you want noodles?"

    "Hes. Hes, hes."

    At that point we had to take one of our frequent rests so Wilbur could sniff around in the weeds and recoup some vigor. Getting him going again was a massive feat.

    "Come on, Bub.  Yeeeesss, you're such a good boy.  Such a handsome dog. That's right.  Come on, boy. When we get home, I will fill your dish with cold water.  Won't that taste good? Mmmmmm..."  

     "Mommy!  No! Me! 'Oodles! 'Oodles 'Oodles 'Oodles!"

     "Of course! I will make you noodles with some cheese when we get home.  I was just telling Wilbur that I would put cold water in his dish.  Wilbur likes cold water."

     "No! Me-unt 'oodles."
     "How about some peas and corn, too?"
     "No.  Mmmmm no no unt...pease. 'Oodles! 'Oodles."
     "No peas and corn, huh.  How about some balls (prunes)?"
     The baby T-Rex made a sound like teeth scraping against metal.
     "No balls either.  Just noodles."
     "Hes."

Raking with Wilbur and Clara

     Last week was stiflingly hot.  Then, a few days ago, a massive wind storm blew in.  The air turned cooler, almost cold, as the wind roared against the house.  There were gusts of greater than 60 miles per hour.  When it was all said and done, the front and back yards were littered with pine cones and tree branches.
   Clara and I decided to rake up the debris.  I brought out her kid-sized gardening tools and showed her how to rake tree seeds and pine cones from the concrete patio into her shovel and then put them into her wheelbarrow.  It was interesting work, she thought, but what I was doing was more interesting.
     "I'm raking sticks and branches into a pile to throw away," I said.
     "'ticks," she said.  She grabbed the biggest one in the pile and pulled hard.  She would help me out by taking care of that big stick.
     "I don't think it's going to fit in the trash bag like that.  Why don't I hold it and you step on it to break it?  Here, put your foot right here." She put her little baby shoe on it and I pulled until it snapped.  She made a sound of deep satisfaction.
     Wilbur wandered over and laid down in the grass in the sunshine.
     "Oh, hi, doggie!  Yes, yes," Clara said, patting his rump.  She turned one of his ears inside-out and stroked it carefully between her palms.  "Ee-ya," she said.  "Ee-ya."  Then she lavished him with a series of high-pitched croons.
     Wilbur lifted a fleshy eyebrow.  He seemed to be debating baring his tummy to her.  On the one hand, she might scratch it. There was nothing better than getting a tummy scratch in the warm sunshine. On the other, she might sit on it.
      Finally, the deliciousness of the possibility was too much and he rolled onto his side to bare his tummy.  His roundness and the way he was reclining made him seem like a woman from a Rubens painting.  Clara stood above him, contemplating what to do.
     "Do you know what scratching is? It's what you do when you have a bug bite." I showed her how to scratch Wilbur's tummy.  As I bent down, she reached up and pulled my sunglasses off and put them on her face, upside-down.  Then she tried to put them on Wilbur's face.  It was a frustrating endeavor.  She knew they should go over his eyes, but then his ears were way up high, and she couldn't get the sunglasses to hook them.  It was all wrong, but she couldn't figure out why.
     She tried it a couple times, almost poking Wilbur in the eye. He winced and made a soft, high-pitched moan in the back of his throat.
     "Clara, do you remember the wind?" I asked, and I held my arms out, swayed and and shook my hair.  I tried to make the high-pitched sound of wind blowing through trees. Luckily, she caught what I was trying to imitate.  She chuckled and pointed at the big elm tree in our backyard.

Wilbur, Workin' His Way In

    This morning Wilbur yakked at the foot of our bed.  From the looks of it, he'd been eating grass.  Additionally, neither Simon nor I remembered to unlock the dog door, a fact that was brought home strongly by the distinctive bouquet of dog pee in the basement playroom.  I crawled around on all fours sniffing the carpet, trying to find the puddle.
    "I can't do this! We're taking him back!" I said to Simon on the phone at noon. "I need a clean house!"
    "Whatever you want to do," Simon said.
    I called back an hour later.
    "I don't want to take him back," I sighed.
    "Whatever you want to do," Simon said.
    I put Clara down for her nap.  She cried and yelled because she didn't want to nap. Wilbur came up the stairs and sat down on his haunches outside her door, a look of deep concern on his face.
    I laid down for a nap, too.  Wilbur has been sleeping next to my side of the bed since his third night here.  He likes to sleep on the velour body pillow I used while I was pregnant.  He was disgruntled with me this afternoon, however, because I'd sprayed 409 on his puke stain and he didn't like the smell.  He looked at me resentfully and made his way to the floor on Simon's side of the bed.  He dragged one of my dirty T-shirts from the base of the hamper to his new resting place, and put his snout on it.
    I felt much better after I woke up.  I put Clara in her stroller and we took Wilbur for a long walk.  The second half of our walk, he stopped intermittently and refused to budge.  He did the same thing on our walks last week, and I ended up carrying him six blocks (hope to heaven no one was watching out their front window).  Today I briefly considered slinging him over the top of the stroller, chubby front paws hanging off one end and chubby back paws hanging off the other.  I've learned, however, that the thing to do is give him thirty seconds or so to sniff the wind or listen to sounds and then gently tug his leash and say things like, "Oh, what a good boy!  You are such a good, smart boy! Yeeessss, such a good boy!"
     Tonight, he situated his considerable bulk in my lap, put his nose close to my mouth, and offered up his silky ears for a good scratch.

   

No More La-La

     A few days ago, we went cold turkey on breastfeeding.  My plan to wean Clara slowly was no longer working.  When I would drop a feeding, she'd pick one up later in the day.  It was as if she were keeping track somewhere.  Carving notches on the railing of her crib.  Counting on pudgy fingers.

     I was ready to be done.

     We decided before her afternoon nap.  We talked to her a little bit about it.

     "Clara, I'm not going to La-la you today," I said.

     "La-la," she said, nodding, a trace of anxiety in her voice.

     "You're a big girl now, and big girls don't need La-la," Simon said.

     "Mama still loves you very, very much, and I still want to cuddle with you lots," I said.  "I still want to give you lots of hugs."

     "La-la! La-la!" she said again, her voice betraying her level of panic.

     When we brought her up to her crib for her afternoon nap, she started to sob and point to the rocking chair.  "La-la! La-la!"

     I held her and made soothing sounds into her hair.  She clenched her hands around my neck and rocked back and forth and sobbed.

    "She's mourning," Simon said.

    We brought her back downstairs and read "Baby Dear," to her two and a half times while we snuggled.  She cried for a long time before she finally went to sleep.

    That night before bed, she asked about La-la and I told her we weren't doing La-la anymore.  She laid her head on my shoulder and then pointed to her crib.

    "Bed," she said.  She was steeling herself.  She laid down stiffly on her back in her footie jammies.  She seemed stoic except for the corners of her mouth, which sagged a bit.

    "Do you want to hold your baby?" I asked.

    "Yes," she whispered.  Simon brought up the baby doll from the backseat of the car, and she clenched it fiercely against her in one arm.

     "Do you want Scooby?" Simon asked.  She nodded and clenched Scooby in the other arm.

     We gave her a sippy cup full of cold water and made sure both her stuffed dog and rabbit were on location.  Then we stroked her hair and told her we loved her and left.  She didn't make a sound, that first night.

     In the morning she asked for La-La.  I brought her downstairs in a blanket and we sat on the couch and snuggled for a minute.  Then I fed her Cheerios while we watched Winnie the Pooh the whole way through.

Time-Out

     Clara and Wilbur's relationship has deepened into heartfelt adoration on her side and wary acceptance on his.  When he comes through his dog door in the early morning, she says, "Oh, hi doggie!"  Sometimes she gets down on all fours and pretends to be a dog, too.
     Other times she talks to him in a high, squeaky voice or gives him hugs.  Her hugs involve her bending down to clasp her arms around his furry neck and letting half her body weight sag luxuriantly onto his back. It hasn't happened yet, but in such a position, it's only natural that her leg would eventually come up and swing across his back.  From there it's only a hidey-ho and giddyap to full saddle position.
     Poor Wilbur.
     Clara's fascination extends to Wilbur's food and water dish.  She daily drowns her Scooby-Doo doll and Raggedy Andy in the water dish.  One of her favorite things to do is drop his dog cheerios, one by one, into the water.  She likes to watch them expand.
    We caught her doing this a few days ago and I said, "Clara, we talked about this.  The next time I catch you doing that, you will sit in time-out."
     "Oh!" she said, and trotted to the time-out corner.
     "Honey, you don't have to sit in time-out now.  Only the next time you do it."
     The next day she did it again.
     "Clara, that is not okay.  Wilbur can't drink his water when you clog it with dog cheerios.  It's time to sit in time-out."
     "Oh, this," she said, flashing a grin full of baby teeth and bright blue eyes. She cheerfully sat down in time-out corner with her little-girl legs stretched out in front of her and her little-girl hands clasped on her lap.
      I sat down across from her and said, "Do you know why we're sitting in time-out?"
     "Doggie," she said, pointing at Wilbur.  Then she stood up and held out her hands for a hug.  I put her back in the corner firmly.
     "It's not time for hugs.  We are doing time-out."
     She tried to escape to the side, giggling.  She tried to distract me by talking to me about the lamp. ("ayit" for "light").  I put her back in the corner a dozen times.  Her mouth started to tremble and her chin sunk to her chest.  Her eyes filled up with tears.
     I said, "Ten more seconds, alright?" and I counted loudly to ten and then picked her up and held her close.

 

Dishwashing

     "Would you like to help me wash the dishes?" I asked Clara today.
     She wasn't sure what to say.  It wasn't something I'd asked before.
     I pulled an old chair in from the garage and put it by the sink.  I stood her on it.  She gasped a little in delight at the landscape opening up in front of her.  She had seen me up here before.  She knew there was soap involved because she'd seen the suds on my arms.  Now she could put her hands in the sink.  Grab soapy dishes and silverware from the water.
     "On," she said, pointing to the faucet.  I let it trickle cold water into her side of the sink.  She washed one of her sippy cups.  She took both my sponges and my washcloth and squeezed them out on her chair. She experimented with the spray nozzle (thankfully, she doesn't have the pincer strength to turn it on yet).
    I put her back on the floor when I felt the margin between productivity and mess was too slim for my comfort.
    "Me!  Me! Mommy! Do! Tair! Tair!" she said as soon as her bare feet hit the floor.  She pulled on the chair.
    "Why don't you close the dishwasher for me?  You are the strongest girl I know.  You are really, really good at shutting the dishwasher."
     She smiled a secretive smile and nodded her head a little.  Muttering, she expertly surveyed where the best place to grab the dishwasher door was. She stowed her sippy cup in the top rack and pushed it close.  Then she picked up the door.  There was a moment when she thought she might fail, but then felt silly when she remembered she'd done it a hundred times before.
     She had almost pushed it close when something in the silverware cage caught her eye.  She staggered backward and let the door fall open, muttering in a tone of surprise and self-rebuke.  There were two colorful rubber baby spoons in the silverware cage that she felt shouldn't be there.
     She took the spoons out and appraised them under her breath.  They would have to do.  She brought them over to the dog's water dish and ladled out some water with the orange spoon. I turned from the sink in time to see her slurp water noisily from the spoon and smack her lips in appreciation.  It was almost as though she were at a wine tasting.

Two Little Girls

     Yesterday two little girls took over my house.  They ran shrieking across the kitchen floor at their reflections in the stove.  They left a trail of raisins down the stairs.  They insisted I pretend gobble a delicious concoction of plastic onion, banana and chocolate chip cookies they made in the play kitchenette.
     Sharlene's mom brought her over at 10:30 to play with us because she had to go to a funeral mass.  Shar is two and lives right next door.  She has beautiful, long curly strawberry blond hair and a rosebud mouth.  She calls Clara, "Cara," and Clara calls her, "Baby."
     "Clara, Shar is not a baby.  She's a little girl, like you," I explained.
     "Baby," Clara said.  When Shar arrived, Clara smiled shyly, tucked her chin and stuck her belly out a little bit.  A few minutes later, she tried to climb on her tricycle in front of Shar and fell off.
     Downstairs, Shar found the pink Cozy Coupe with the "princess" license plate.  She hopped right in and attempted to make her way across the floor in it.
     "Would you like me to push you?" I asked, and I pushed her across the room in the Coupe.  Clara, who likes the Coupe but is not particularly possessive of it, helped push at first and then took over the pushing entirely.  When Shar turned to see who was pushing, she was not pleased.
     "I push you!" she said, pointing at me.
     "Runs," said Clara, piling crayons into the back of the Coupe.
     "Shar, would you like to push Clara?"
     Shar sighed and got out of the Coupe.  "I sharing," she said.
     Wilbur the dog came downstairs and wisely left immediately (but not before Shar saw him. "Is dog at?" she asked me after he had gone, shrugging her baby shoulders and spreading her baby hands, palms-up).
     Later Clara indicated she wanted to sit on the potty.  We all trooped upstairs to the bathroom and I took off Clara's diaper.  She did her usual thing: sat on the potty a minute, adopted various expressions of concentration, hopped off, looked inside disappointedly, and busied herself with some bath toys.
     Shar found the letters we stick to the wall in the bathtub.
     "A B C D E F D," she sang softly. "Ach, I J K Elemenogee. K R S D U V, W S S AND Z."
     Clara hustled her against the side of the vanity so she could give her a hug.
    I left to get a fresh diaper for Clara and she and Shar shut the bathroom door on me.  "Hey!" I yelled. "Hey!" I banged against the door for extra drama and rattled the doorknob.  I heard shrieks of laughter inside. Finally I opened the door a little.  They pulled it open all the way, conciliatory expressions on their faces.  Then suddenly they shut it again, laughing uproariously.