Too steamy to share on facebook

As we're sitting on the bathroom floor today, post pottying and pre re-pantying.

Anonybabe (pointing to a newly discovered spot on her nethers):  What's that?

Me:  Your clitoris.

Anonybabe:  Why? 

Then, as I pause a minute to ponder where I'm going to take that one, she moves on. 

Anonybabe:  Do you have a cla...cl...clitoris?

Me:  Yes, most women have a clitoris.

Anonybabe:  Can I see yours?

Me:  Not today  (???!!  I know why I defer, rather than get into a yes/no battle with my three year old, but for the record my answer creeped me out mightily). 



Why am I surprised that conversations like this are coming up?  This is par for the three year old course, right?  I just wasn't expecting the anatomy question from that particular angle.  Now I'll be ready when she asks about her taint.   

Dancing on the glass ceiling

Hi, kids and kidlettes.  I moved to Iowa recently.  I am here.

And Anonybabe is a whopping three years old.  Old enough to demand princess dresses and nail polish and makeup...lord knows where she learned about these things.  Certainly not from me.

She is fixated on becoming a ballerina, so being a nice mama, I signed her up for a ballet class.  I found a dance studio that does "Storybook Dress-up" class for very young children.  They put on costumes and prance around the studio together for 30 minutes, three days a week for a couple of weeks.  I was picturing Disney princess blechiness.  Somehow, it's worse.

Anonybabe has a teacher who goes by the name "Peach".  She's all of 20, very tan, and very, very good with the kids.  But Peach always seems to work some kind of beat heavy techno into the dancing the girls do.  We can't see them in the studio, but we can hear it seeping through the walls.  We heard it thumping through the door on Wednesday when the girls dressed as cheerleaders before filing out to cheer "Lets! Go! Team!" with metallic pom poms.  And then we heard it again today before the girls filed out at the end of class dressed in tulle and tiaras to curtsy for us.  Maybe she'll play some 90's era Madonna for them when they dress up as cowgirls on Monday.

I'm trying not to get too snobby about the whole affair in front of Anonybabe.  I'm just glad she gets to do something out of the house, and am proud that she is so willing to do this on her own. 

But lordy, what is Peach trying to teach those girls?

Scapegoat

I was cleaning out the cabinet in the conference room ...the place where I used to pump my breast milk before the well ran dry.

I found these stickers:

Wish I'd used them on my breast pump when I had it so I could have had the satisfaction of punching it in the face.

It would have made a much better whipping boy than Anonyhub.

Wormhole vision

Before Anonybabe was born, I fantasized about what our biggest challenges would be as parents.

As languid bookworms who wrinkle our noses at sporting events, I figured Anonyhub and I would have a jock who only felt alive when his body was in motion, and who felt a library was a self-insulating crypt. I imagined we'd have a vast expanse of "huh?" to cross to understand each other.

I'm not ruling all of that out quite yet, but it turns out the challenge of being a parent is having a kid who is just like you.

Anonybabe gets so completely absorbed by whatever she is doing that she does not want to change it. Period. She'll cry lustily when we tell her her stinky diaper has to go; she'd rather stay in it than have to pull herself away from whatever she's doing. She'll flail and fuss when we try to change her from her pj's to her clothes, only to have her flail and cry again when it's time to change her from clothes to pj's. She hates the idea of getting on the potty, but once she's there we have to pry her off so she doesn't get baby hemorrhoids. She doesn't want to go eat when she's playing, and she doesn't want to go play when she's at the table. But no matter how much she protested about a thing before doing it, once she's doing it she's happy as a clam. Super content, until you try to move her to the next thing.

I may or may not be guilty of such a thing myself. Bloody shit, am I really that unwieldy and annoying?

Slow Boat

Well, that was over almost as soon as we started.

Physical therapy.

Next week, Anonybabe has her fourth and last session. Her physical therapist told Anonyhub today that she was happy to continue, but didn't think it was necessary. Anonyhub, who told me just last week that he planned to do only one month's worth of sessions, enough to determine that Anonybabe's "legs weren't put on backwards," agreed. The physical therapist will write up a report suggesting activities we can do to help build Anonybabe's strength, and we'll go our separate ways.

Anonybabe is what we thought she was from the beginning. Stunningly, deliberately, willingly slow to move. With the low muscle tone to prove it.

More power to her for it. She fits right in in this family. When the therapist asked her today what her favorite thing to do was, she answered "going to da libwawy!" It gives me flashbacks to the beautiful summer days I used to spend lounging in front of my parents' television watching PBS, or reading, reading, reading until my eyes hurt.

We'll all try to be more active together. Take long walks. Maybe we'll keep one eye towards moving to a warmer, more rural climate where we can roll out of bed and run outside to play without so much forethought.

But I'll also hold this experience in my heart when I'm told Anonybabe is different, is frustrating, doesn't fit. I'm gonna help the girl out when she needs a push. But ultimately I'm gonna let the girl be herself. Slowness and all.

Toddlers Who Talk and a Mama Who Sings

I was singing to Anonybabe at bedtime last night, looking for new tunes to try on her, and pulled out "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.

"Oh, I like this song," said Anonybabe. "This song makes me happy!"

She let me sing a couple more lines, until I got to the part about snowflakes staying on my nose and eyelashes.

"I have eyelashes!" exclaimed Anonybabe, fingering them. "And I have have eyes!"

And then, as chipper as a Barney character, "And I have a nose....with boogers in them!"

Feathered, friend

Anonybabe had her Halloween hoo-ha at daycare today.

She dressed as a chicken.

Here she is with her class, parading down the street to show off their sweet duds.

Halloween rocks.