Extreme Grocery Shopping

When Fiona first started going to the grocery store she'd just learned to sit up on her own, so she had all the entertainment she needed just sitting in the cart. Later we learned to keep her distracted by feeding her cheese after visiting the deli counter. Fiona picked up on that pretty quickly, and soon she would shout out "cheese!" as soon as we walked into the grocery store (and since there is usually a line at the deli counter, we quickly had an impatient child on our hands as we tried to get her her shopping cheese).

As children do, Fiona eventually realized that we were just plying her with cheese to ensure a peaceful grocery trip. And as children do, Fiona eventually decided that providing us with a peaceful grocery trip did not have to be on her agenda.

So on Saturday morning I headed for the grocery store with Fiona, hitting the deli counter as soon as we walked in, even though it isn't the most direct way to maneuver through the aisles. Fiona had a bite of cheese and then announced that she wanted down. After navigating through the produce, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to distract Fiona for more than another minute or two with a game of faux incredulity ("you want down? Down?! Nooooooo-- Fiona wants down?!") So, taking my life (or at least sanity) in my hands, I told Fiona she could walk in the aisles but she had to stop when I told her to and she had to stay within my sight at all times.

Well, she did pretty well. We had one incident where she ran off without me, which led to me sticking her in the cart for an aisle. But I quickly learned that Fiona really loves to help fill the cart. We went through the aisles with Daddy pointing to objects that we needed on the low shelves while Fiona put them in the cart. This meant I had to do a lot of quick thinking--looking halfway down the aisle to figure out what we needed while keeping an eye on Fiona to make sure she didn't decide that in addition to paper towels we also needed 17 cans of dog food (plus giving her a surreptitious helping hand with heavy objects that she wanted to lift herself).

So I forgot a few things (worst of all being diapers--you'd think with a toddler underfoot I might have remembered those), and we had some difficult renegotiations when we had to checkout (since I couldn't unload the cart, pay, and help load bags without having Fiona stashed in the cart). But we got our groceries without any temper tantrums and I didn't lose any more of my sanity than I do on any other Saturday morning shopping with a two year-old.

One More Thing on Shadows

I forgot to mention how vitally important it is that Fiona understands shadows, if she's ever going to read her father's favorite children's book. It's amazing I let her go two years without a shadow lecture.

The Shadow Knows

If the first 18 months or so of a child's life are marked by steady physical leaps (rolling, grabbing, crawling, standing, walking, running), the toddler months are definitely a time for major conceptual leaps. Fiona's latest interest is shadows.

She has a Pooh book (no, really) that shows Piglet being frightened of a shadow that looks like a heffalump until he realizes it's just Pooh Bear. When we first started reading it, Fiona didn't quite grasp what a shadow was. She would point to the shadow and said "shadow," but then she'd point to Piglet and say "Piglet's shadow" or the bathroom sink in the book and say "sink shadow." Since the artists hadn't seen fit to include any other shadow pictures in the book, it wasn't possible to explain the concept to her.

Fortunately the next day was sunny enough that I was able to point Fiona to her shadow on the living room floor. And now shadows have become the most fascinating thing in the universe. Fiona's shadow, Mommy's shadow, Daddy's shadow, Buddy's shadow (especially Buddy's shadow) all get announced with great excitement by Fiona. When we walk outside she points out the stroller's shadow.

And I haven't had to hear about my sticky fingers in at least 48 hours.

Lollipop = Rest for My Ears

Yesterday after Fiona finished her dinner she asked for a lollipop and we obliged. Now, we all know Fiona is very verbal, but it wasn't until she started sucking on the lolly that it suddenly hit home--last night was the first time all weekend that Fiona had been awake and the house was quiet. I guess after a couple of years of parenthood you just get used to the idea that every single thing your child does is going to be accompanied by a steady commentary of talking, yelling, singing or some combination of all three.

I guess the other way of looking at it is that Fiona likes lollipops so much she'd actually rather have a lolly than talk. No wonder her voice always sounds so tired at the end of the day.

Sticky Fingers

When Fiona first started feeding herself, her food wound up all over the place (no surprise). As she gained motor control and became more aware of her body, she started noticing that food was winding up where she didn't want it (mainly her fingers and face). At first, we helped out by wiping her off when she complained, and later we let her know she could use her own napkin.

Eventually Fiona noticed that sometimes when you eat with your fingers you can't get everything wiped off with just a napkin. Since we didn't want to have to hose her off after every bite of, say, pizza, we explained to her that it's okay to eat with sticky fingers sometimes. Even Mommy and Daddy get sticky fingers sometimes when they eat food, and we wait to wash until the meal is over.

If you've been around a toddler (parrot) you can figure out what happened next. Fiona now spends entire meals swaying "Mommy and Daddy sticky fingers." "Sometimes" doesn't seem to be a concept she's quite grasped.

And we're trying to figure out how to tell her that we're not going to scoop up every stray piece of pasta that might fall on the floor during a meal to put it back on her plate. Without causing a mid-meal temper tantrum.

Feelings

Fiona is now such a strong walker that she can (and wants to) walk all the way home from day care. Unfortunately, she doesn't always like to have her hand held. We fought the "you must hold a parents' hand when crossing the street" battle early (for obvious reasons) and seem to have won that one, but there are times when she just wants to walk on her own on the sidewalk. So far we can outrun her.

However, there are also times where Fiona decides she'd rather go in another direction. Now, if we're just out for a lazy walk on a weekend afternoon, where it's just about Fiona getting some time outside, that's fine, but most of the time when we're on the way home from day care her parents are tired and hungry and are fighting the urge to just throw Fiona in a stroller and run home (though I have tried that, and it doesn't go well).

A week or two ago, Fiona tried the "running in the opposite direction" maneuver and her mother had had enough. After yelling at Fiona (and getting the inevitable tears), Andrea then bent down and explained to her that she needed to hold Mommy's hand because she didn't want her to get hit by a car, which would give her a very big boo-boo.

"Car get boo-boo?" Fiona asked.

"No, a car can't get a boo-boo. Fiona would get a boo-boo."

This piqued Fiona's interest, to discover that some things could get boo boos and some things can't. Andrea explained to her that people can feel (hurt, happy, sad), but that things (like cars) cannot. Fiona asked whether Mommy or Daddy could feel. After figuring out that her parents could feel, she moved on to asking about Buddy.

So for the next several days, Fiona would repeat "Fiona get boo boo. Mommy boo boo. Daddy boo boo. Buddy boo boo. Car no boo boo."

Fiona's fascinated by the notion of "feeling", but it gets confusing for her parents sometimes. When she asks if Paddington can feel, or if the Daddy in her Fischer Price house can feel, we're never quite sure if we're supposed to answer as if those toys are living creatures or not. Good thing we have a psychologist (slash-grandparent) coming to visit this weekend.

Yes I Said Yes I Will Yes

(a.k.a. Another lit reference blogpost title to test Aunt Kathy, or at least her googling skills)

Up until a week or so ago, Fiona didn't use the word "yes." If we asked her if she liked her O's, she'd say "like O's". If we asked if she slept well, she'd say "sleep well."

But she's figured out what "yes" means, and now uses it when she means it. It's kind of nice, given how much more often we're still hearing the word "no."

My favorite use of "yes" was recently when Mommy tried to explain how living creatures feel things (I plan to post more about that soon). Fiona listened intently, but with a perplexed look on her face, until she was finally asked "is Mommy confusing you?"

Fiona nodded and declared "yes."

Recognition Should Always Lead to Congratulations

Lying in her parents' bed this morning, Fiona looks at the digital clock, which reads 6:44.

Fiona: Oh, a 4!
Daddy: That's right, very good.
Fiona: Another 4!
Daddy: Yeah. Do you see a six?

Fiona studies the clock for a long moment. Finally:

Fiona: There's a 6!
Daddy: That's right.
Fiona: Good job, Daddy!

Understanding Concepts of Time

So Fiona's made another conceptual leap: this morning she announced to her parents "I played snow yesterday." I believe this is the first time she's spoken about "yesterday", and it follows only a week or so after she correctly used "maybe".

I suppose it's still too much for a parent of an impatient two year old to ask when she's going to understand the concept of "soon" ( we still seem to be stuck in the polarity of "right now" and "never").

Petitioning Mr. Alighieri

I have a few other posts ready to write as soon as I have a chance, but I just wanted to get this out of the way:

Yesterday, New York City had its biggest snowfall on record. Fiona didn't have a chance to play in it yesterday because she had a cold that we didn't want to aggravate (she's doing much better today). Anyway, it was a lot of snow, but it ended in the middle of the day on Sunday, and everybody who's tried agrees: the shoveling really wasn't that bad because the snow was pretty light.

This morning I took Fiona to day care. She spent a little time while I set up the stroller playing with the snow and declared that snow is "funny". Funny is currently the highest compliment Fiona has to offer.

So I took Fiona the 5 blocks to day care, and I just want to say:

There should be a special circle of hell reserved for those people who think shoveling involves carving out a narrow strip for a 82 lb. supermodel to walk through. I had to deal with this last year, too, but Fiona's added an extra 10 or so pounds since then, and carrying my child in her stroller over snowbanks in the middle of the sidewalk was not the way I intended to blast my quads this morning.

Special disdain is reserved for the large apartment complex along the way that didn't shovel, since they can't even hide behind the pretense of being out of town or too old to do their own shoveling. You people have a staff. Use it.

That is all.

Gender Roles

Well, despite any noises we may have made about letting Fiona pick her own gender (I mean, both her parents did spend way too much time in academia in their twenties), our daughter has started noticing that boys and girls are, well, different. And one thing she's been doing lately is saying things like "Mommy Girl. Daddy Boy. Fiona Girl. Aunt Kathy Girl. Pop Boy." as she figures out who belongs to which category.

Sooner or later, Fiona's interest in boys and girls and her interest in Pooh was bound to collide. It hasn't occurred to her yet, however, that Pooh is pretty much a boys' world. It's occurred to her parents that Kanga is the only female, and she gets stuck playing "mother" while everybody else heads off to have fun; on the other hand, Disney may be changing that in the future (and to digress from a digression: the writer of that linked article and its headline obviously has no idea that the bear's name is Winnie-the-Pooh or Pooh or Pooh Bear, but never Winnie).

Anyway, back to gender roles--Fiona hasn't figured out that almost all the characters in her favorite stories are boys, but we are getting a window into what she thinks are boy characteristics versus girl characteristics. Her verdicts:

Tigger: Boy
Roo: Girl
Eeyore: Boy (I suppose the voice is a giveaway)
Piglet: Girl
Owl: Boy
Pooh Bear: Boy. No, Girl. Yeah, Girl (she had to think about this one for a while).

No word yet on Rabbit. Or Christopher Robin, for that matter.

Long-Term Memory

We have new photos that need to be posted to the web site (we just got the birthday photos back, so I'll try to do an update next week which means, if past performance is indicative of future posting, the site will be updated sometime in late April).

Anyway, I've added some of the new photos to the screensaver that runs on our computer, and sometimes Fiona likes to stand at the gate between the kitchen and office and stare at the photos of her that rotate on the computer monitor. When she sees a photo of her playing in her Tio and Tia's yard over Thanksgiving, she shouts out "lizard!"

Fiona spent a lot of time looking at the lizards in Tampa last November, but there aren't any lizards in the photos. Which means that her long-term memory now goes back at least two months.

Word Play

Now that Fiona has a full vocabulary, she's started playing around with words to see what happens. A few nights ago at dinner she tried putting as many words with "couch" as she could, just to see what would happen. And so we had mommy couch, Buddy couch, table couch, door couch, lamp couch, etc.

She's also started using 4-5 word sentences (or even six, in the case of "I see you in the morning") and correctly using the pronoun "it" (yesterday while looking for her juice cup she said "I don't see it").

Of course, sometimes she still likes to ask us questions she knows the answer to; for example, she'll hold up her spoon and ask "what's that?" Our default answer has become "it's Molly"--based on the way we read The Useful Moose, a book she got for Christmas from her Papa and Grandma. The main character is named Molly, and on each page we ask Fiona where Molly is she likes to point to everything on the page except for Molly. We then ask "that's Molly?" and Fiona smiles and tries to hold in her giggling until she finally admits, with an exagerrated "nooooooo", that she is not, in fact, pointing to Molly. So when she holds up a spoon and asks "what's that," we tell her "it's Molly," and Fiona replies "nooooo, it's a spoon!"