Our news: toilet training is pretty much done, with a few little issues here and there. The only really sad part of it was on about the second day, or maybe the third day, when there was a little accident, and we were on our way to the bathroom and I said, Nina, you're doing really well! and she said "no I not". It was so heartbreaking to see her discouraged and feeling like she was failing - which she wasn't! It just wasn't easy. Of course the other side is that she's very pleased now that it's all working well. I'll spare you all any more details.
In other news A- is now commuting to London twice a week, leaving me home alone with Nina after she gets dropped off. We've been having fun - taking long baths, calling relatives, not really bothering much about dinner, making castles out of blocks .. and all that. It's good. I guess we should be going out to playgrounds, while it's still light enough after work, but frankly I'm pretty tired after work and the idea of walking extremely slowly to a playground just never appeals. Nina can walk really fast, actually; the slow speed comes from fiddling with every rock along the way, which takes a while even if it's only a couple of blocks. I guess we could drive to one, but then we'd have to come home and park - not an easy job in our neighbourhood after about 6pm. Biking? Tired.
Actually Nina's great about playing in our bedroom while I relax for 45 minutes after she gets home. She puts her postcards through the edges of our wardrobe doors, then opens the doors and finds them again. Or she gets Dolly, Pengie and Payeh and variously puts them to bed and gets them up again, in the moses basket, using towels and baby blankets. Or she hides under the bed and says "where's Nina?". Or she jumps on the bed, shouting "No more MONKEYS jumping on the BED!". Or "hush-a, hush-a, we all fall DOWN" (crash).
One really funny thing happened last thursday after her bath. She's gotten into this mode of doing everything to delay bedtime. She doesn't really say she doesn't want to go to bed, it's just that she won't stand up and get out of the bath, and she won't climb on to the change table or let me put a nappy on her for overnight. She negotiates as many stories and songs as possible. I leave her awake now and she goes to sleep just fine (YAY!!!!) but it's gotten back up to about 40 minutes between starting the whole process and leaving her. Oh, and she'll want to go to the bathroom, and have a drink of water, and get another teddy bear, and on, and on, and on, and on.
So, I was trying to pry her out of the bath, and she kept not standing up, and not being willing to come out. All the water was gone. So I said she had to come out now or I'd (...get THIS...) take her BUS TOWEL away and she'd have to stand on a NORMAL TOWEL.(My parents bought her this super-cute tea towel with a great bus on it). I waited, left the room, came back, tried again, no luck. So I took it away. Oh my GOD the DRAMA! Naked kicking screaming rolling on the floor! Screaming! on the FLOOR! Some MORE! Rolling around naked in the hallway, kicking the door to the basement, then trying to climb back into the empty tub, thinking that of course this time I'd have to give her the BUS towel. She tried to climb the bathroom door. I had to pretend to be serious while trying to stop laughing SO hard. In the end I had to pretend to really seriously lose my temper, and threaten to leave her in the bed with no milk and no stories. By this time I was getting pretty frustrated, so it wasn't hard. And wow, she calmed right down right away, let me brush her teeth, and everything. I guess I have to get more firm, or the bedtime will start taking an hour.
Despite that big one Nina doesn't have many big tantrums. Overall she's so full of life and so full of joy. The hands-shaking full-bodied gleeful anticipation about being able to stand and dry off on a bus towel, about throwing a balloon into the air, or stirring the dough for the zucchini cake: it's pretty cool. It's worth the occasional naked screaming ripper of a tantrum.
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