Toys vs. Not Toys

Last night Fiona showed off her height by retrieving a bottle of medicine from the kitchen shelf we've been keeping it on the past two nights. I knew she wasn't going to like it, but I swung into action right away and snatched it out of her hand. She started screaming (of course), and I told her I was very sorry but medicine is not a toy.

By now tantrums are fairly predictable--Fiona runs into her room and screams for a while, and then when she settles down whichever parent she's mad at usually checks in to see if she's ready to be a human again.

I snuck back to the office to put away some dishes (hey, it's a New York apartment, whaddaya expect?) and saw Fiona running into the living room shouting something with the word toy. She saw I wasn't there, turned around, spotted me coming out of the office and ran toward me, redfaced and still mad as could be.

"It is a toy, Daddy! It is a toy!"

And, having delivered her rebuttal, she stormed back into her room and resumed her screaming.

Hey, she had an important point to make.

She's Got the Whole World in One Room

It's been a gorgeous past 36 hours in the city--I think. We've been indoors the whole time ever since Fiona came down with a fever on Tuesday. She's on the mend now--today she's been running around playing and is only a little more tired than usual, but yesterday she spent most of the day on the couch watching Pooh videos and trying to suck her thumb for comfort and then getting frustrated because she was having trouble breathing through her nose. In a sign of progress, she can now tell us what's bothering her ("my nose hurts," "my tummy hurts"), although that's probably small consolation to Fiona since our advice mainly consists of stuff that doesn't help her in the immediate present that all toddlers live in.

So, we've been cooped up. Fiona has noticed each of the past few days that a) she's home; b) she's dressed; c) she's not at day care and d) Daddy's home. To her that can only mean one thing--it's the weekend and time to go to the playground. I had to break her heart several times yesterday when I told her we couldn't go outside because she needed to get her strength back. Of course, the fact that she was coughing heavily and rubbing her eyes when she asked to go to the playground made my decision pretty easy.

Yesterday afternoon when Fiona started feeling a little better, we were playing in the front room and Fiona kept asking me "do you want to go to the playground?" I kept repeating that, no, that wouldn't be possible.

Finally she started telling me to ask to go to the playground. I thought maybe she was setting me up for a Bugs Bunny-type trick where I'd ask to go to the playground and she'd say okay and start trying to get her shoes on to get out the door. But instead she ushered me behind the door to the morning room. I quickly realized that this was the "playground."

Since then I've discovered that the coat closet is Fatty's (Fiona's favorite restaurant), and we've spent a lot of time going from the playground to Fatty's and back again. And my favorite moment is when Fiona tells me to ask to go to the playground, I say "I want to go to playground," and Fiona replies by putting an arm around me and telling me "it's too early to go to the playground, we go later." It's always a riot to hear your own frequently used phrases thrown back at you. At least it's a riot to hear them from a toddler.

Bathtime is Anytime

Fiona had a tantrum this morning and went to her room to scream it out. I snuck back to the office for a moment to print something out, and when I returned I couldn't find Fiona.

Eventually, I looked in the bathroom where I saw Fiona standing (fully dressed) in the tub with a big smile on her face, and announcing "I get in the tub."

That's great, honey. Just great.

Things You Don't Want to Hear Your Toddler Say

So yesterday morning after bringing Fiona back from the playground I pop into the office to check on Andrea, who's holed herself up to finish writing a term paper. After a minute or two I break off saying I'd better go check up on what our daughter is up to...

...and run smack into Fiona rushing toward me with a big smile as she holds up a Pooh bear doll and announcing:

"Daddy, I used tissues in bathroom with Pooh!"

On the bright side, that is an eight word sentence. And the number she did on the bathroom wasn't quite up to the caliber of teenagers on Halloween.

Stealth Toddler

It finally happened: at 2:55am a few nights ago I rolled over in bed and noticed a sleeping toddler between me and my wife. Fiona's come into our room many times during the night since she moved into a big girl bed, but this was the first time I'd slept through the entire opening-the-door, climbing-into-bed, lying-down-between-mommy-and-daddy process.

I picked her up and carried her back to her room. She didn't stir, and when she finally did wake up the next morning she didn't seem perturbed to find herself back in her own bed.

Patience (and the lack thereof)

Friday night during dinner I told Fiona we were going to go to the doctor on Saturday morning. She was so excited about going that she insisted she wanted to go to the doctor now. We explained that the doctor was closed, but she became so insistent that I wound up declaring that I was Dr. Daddy and that I was going to check out her boo boos (an approach that seemed to do the trick).

On Sunday morning I told her that after we went to the playground we were going to go to Fatty's (her favorite restaurant) for Mother's Day brunch. After about fifteen minutes at the playground (she normally plays there for at least an hour), Fiona started insisting that she wanted to leave to go to Fatty's. I had to tell her that if she wanted to leave we'd have to go home first, because Fatty's doesn't even open up until 11.

On Sunday afternoon rolled she spoke to Nana on the phone and Nana asked her if she remembered the pool in San Diego. Fiona started talking about the elephants, since she remembers the elephants at the zoo, and then annonced that she wanted to go to the zoo now to see the elephants. We knew enough not to tell her that she would go to San Diego soon (we aren't going until July); after the past two days, we may not even want to tell her she's going until we get on the plane.

Rules for a Time Out

So after a few weeks of good behavior Fiona used that word again when we told her that no, she could not, in fact, wrap herself in her wet bath towel to go to bed rather than wear pajamas. Fiona shouted "basta" at us, we told her that was a time out, and then closed the door to her room.

At the last moment as the door closed I realized Buddy was standing in the corner of Fiona's room (he tends to hover around us right before bedtime, since bedtime immediately precedes dinnertime for him). Not wanting to open the door only to close it again, I decided to just leave Buddy in there.

Fiona, however, wasn't having any of it. Within five seconds after closing the door she started yelling "Buddy in here! Buddy in the room! No Buddy in the room!"

We decided to abbreviate the time out--the point had been made, and it probably wasn't doing our anxious cat any favors to be stuck in a room with a shrieking toddler, so I opened the door.

"Buddy in the room!" Fiona shouted.

"I know," I said, as I scooped Buddy up to usher him out of the room.

And, as I turned back to have a debriefing with Fiona after the time out, Fiona shut the door and started crying. It seems she knew she needed a time out but she was determined not to have it with Buddy in the room.

We went ahead and abbreviated the (second) time out, too.

Basta! (and basta loopholes)

Recently when Fiona got mad she would start yelling "basta" at us, which is Spanish for "enough!" We didn't like the way she acted when she yelled it--it was the toddler equivalent of cursing at her parents--so we started giving her time outs when she used the word.

After two time outs she figured out that she wasn't supposed to yell basta. So she tried whispering it. We gave her a time out for that one, too--we were trying to drive home the point that it wasn't a word she was ever supposed to use with her parents.

So now when Fiona gets mad (not temper tantrum mad, which is a different beast entirely) she stops herself and says "no say basta." And we nod and say "that's right, we don't say basta." Which does make us laugh--if basta is the toddler equivalent of cursing, "no say basta" is the toddler equivalent of a teenager figuring out how to slip the f-word into a conversation with her parents without getting in trouble.

Fiona's still tests us from time to time. A few nights ago I was finishing putting her pajamas on and she knew there was only another minute or so to bedtime. So she said "basta" to me, presumably figuring that we'd never give her a time out so close to bedtime. But since we're not going to really break her of the word without being consistent, we went ahead and left her in her room and closed the door. After a few minutes we came back in, read some stories, sang a song, and then left her in her room and closed the door. A lesson in how context can change even within 15 minutes.

We'll see what happens if she breaks the word out when we're out shopping. She's too young to get a delayed time out, so it may be that she winds up finding that loophole after all.

Inventory

A count of the stuffed animals on Fiona's toddler bed Sunday night:

• Rojo (a red dog)
• Sunshine Dog (yellow dog)
• Tia cat
• Tio cat (two small stuffed cats from her aunt & uncle)
• Sleeping Pooh
• Sprinkles (I don't know what he/she is)
• Uniqua (from the Backyardigans)
• Roo
• Tigger (a very large stuffed animal)
• Big Eeyore (a very, very large stuffed animal)
• Baby Eeyore
• A small Eeyore
• An even smaller Eeyore
• Figment the Dragon (very large stuffed animal)

So, that's fourteen stuffed animals, including three that would dominate the space on my bed, let alone Fiona's.

In the middle of the night she flung her door open and came into our room to announce "My dragon fell!" Why she figured it was easier to walk into her parents' room than to just pick the dragon up off the floor herself is beyond me, but I suspect toddlers are instinctively driven to look for the way that most inconveniences their parents.

As we put Fiona (and Figment) back to bed, she saw Owl sitting on top of the box of animals. That made fifteen.

She's Learning Adverbs

Fiona pulls up her shirt.

Fiona: My belly!
Daddy: (grabbing at her, playing) I want that belly.
Fiona: No, Daddy, you have a belly already.

---

And another new modifier:

Fiona: I give Mommy a kiss.
(She does so)
Mommy: Thank you.
Daddy: Can I have a kiss, too?
Fiona: Of course!