Meltdowns!

It's funny, the meltdowns. I mean, they are funny later, after the molten-down kid is asleep, like right now. Today we had a nice evening after work, played in the garden for a while, came inside to make the couscous salad and generally life was cheerful. But then Nina was too warm, and wanted to take off her sweater. The sweater was underneath the PINK DRESS:

Don't ask me. She looked like that when I picked her up. Apparently she wore it all day. I don't know how it started. Let's just be clear: this is not MY example she's following, with the frilly-ness... and not A's either, just in case you were wondering.

Anyway, the dress had to come off, and OH MY GOD. The DRAMA! Time out. And the time out wasn't such a problem, even -- we still don't know what the problem was, except that it was about closing something. Nina kept shouting "Close it! close it!" and we'd look at the door and say "do you want me to close it?" and she'd say "...yeah" so we'd try to close the door and she'd scream "CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT", clearly not wanting us to close the door. This went on for about 10 minutes (10 minutes TOO LONG, 10 minutes with a tearful child literally lying on the floor kicking), until finally we brought her into the other room, and  I opened and closed my hands, and a pen with its lid, and we finally got through to her that we didn't understand what she wanted. Then suddenly it was all "Nina down the slide! Play Mummy gotcha!" and everything was fine again.

In other news: did Nina make her first language joke today? We were walking back from the car, happily parked nearby for once, and she said "mummy change nappy" so I said yes, we'll change it when we get home, and have you done a poo? and we talked about that for a bit (I'll spare you the details) and Nina said "Nappoo! Nina have a poo. Nappooo!" Get it? Nappee, nappoo ...  

Another thing she did, perhaps a more pleasing example, is to generalize "yesterday" to "tomorrowday". I thought that was very clever, though I admit I'm rather biased. She's also pretty good with "soon, not yet" referring to bedtime. It's been a month or two now that she's been talking about other days, which can be quite confusing especially if we don't know what event she's talking about. Yesterday we went on these little mini-trains, with real mini steam engines and mini tracks. They are so cute. And she loved it! She talked about them a lot today, but if I didn't know, I'd really wonder what "Nina went on train inna tunnel, train DARK, train too HOT" or "Nina did a train, little train wheel around and round, engine, fire engine, very hot" could mean.

Why a parenting blog?

I read this article yesterday on Salon by John Barry: My baby is too boring to blog about

And I disagree, but it made me feel defensive anyway. After reading other blogs, like Refract, I confess that I've wondered: given that I'm blogging, why all, or mostly, about Nina? Why not a science blog? Or one all about amazing bacteria? Or math (who am I kidding)? Or music, or food? Or, maybe most relevantly, none at all? 

Well ... first off, it's not given that I'm blogging. This is not the given part of this scenario. It's given that I'm parenting. It's not like I can choose, hmmm, I'm going to spend many hours each week engaged in some outside-of-my-work activity that can be funny, heartbreaking, isolating, connection-affirming, maddening, deadly dull, frustrating, and fascinating, all in the space of just 32 short minutes ... and gee, what is that activity going to be? Is it .... scuba diving? Music? No! It's parenting!  Once the child is here, we are parents every day, and at least in our case it was by choice, and greatly celebrated.

But John Barry's right about some things. It's boring to read about whether someone went to Starbucks or Second Cup, whether it was quiet enough there to work, what kind of coffee they had and what the people at the next table were shouting about on their cell phones. I get that. And I get that it can be pretty boring to see pictures of someone else's precious child doing whatever precious children do at that age. So why did I start a blog?

Well, I doubt John B could go back and read all the archives of www.alittlepregnant.com and tell me that it doesn't reach out far beyond a bunch of multimedia collections about that particular story, those particular children. Parenting is a huge part of human experience and people like to share it, maybe so as not to feel like they are the only ones whose toddlers have a fear of lawnmowers. It is generic and it's unique. Most everyone does it, but it seems to require a lot more creativity than we give it credit for, not to mention sensitivity and perceptiveness, upper arm strength, stamina, patience, and finely honed negotiation skills. I blog because I've been entertained, informed and moved by the blogs I've read, I blog for myself, to remember these rapidly-evaporating penguin days, to share my excuse for a "scrapbook" with our relatives who are all too far away to enjoy a paper scrapbook, not that I'd have the time and energy for that either, and I blog for the occasional amusement of my friends. And like everything else out there, in newspapers, magazines, blogs, videos and novels: if it's in a genre that bores someone, he doesn't have to read it. 

On that note:

Bye Head!

Sometimes I hear Nina say things, and I think: wow, I sure didn't know that word until I was an adult (and no, I'm not teaching my child any of those kind of words, if you were wondering). Or in some cases, at least quite a bit older than 23 months. For example:

1. We were walking to the pub

2. and on the way, there were some iron gates, behind which there were tightly linked fence-type things made of thin strips of something like bamboo, just like a sushi mat, which Nina pointed out with great interest. Yep. We have a toddler who knows what a sushi mat looks like, though not, admittedly, what it's for. My sushi-making days have hit a little hiatus.

3. In the morning Nina helps her papa make a cappuccino for me (a chuni!), and at the appropriate time, she announces: Nina tamp! Papa tamp! Nina's turn, papa turn. See Mummy coffee there! So yes, we have a todder who can tamp herself a shot a of espresso, though she doesn't drink it. 

4. And on a related note: coffee beans, coffee ground... cappuccino, for that matter. 

4. Marmite. Enough said. 

5. Banjzos, otherwise known as garbanzos or chick peas

6. Rotate (maybe I knew that one, but I'd be a little surprised)

7. A large class of food items that just weren't probably on the toddler scene in Canada in  19xx-whenever-I-was-a-toddler, ie a very long time ago, like hummous, pesto, maybe even cherry tomatoes, olives, definitely edamame (a big favourite), pistachios ... naan, chai

There are more, I'm sure. I certainly didn't entertain myself at 2 by asking Mummy to look for another plane taking off on youtube. The current favourite is this cool little one here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDmnjwbJrVM&feature=fvw

And I have to admit that it is pretty cool to see a functioning plane being unloaded off the back of an SUV. 

As far as language goes, we're firmly in the territory of full sentences, a large proportion of which have the following format: 

"Not Joejoe's drink, not Evie's drink, not Lyla's drink, not Mummy's drink, that's Nina's drink!"  "Not Papa sock, not Mummy sock, not Joejoe sock, not Cami sock, not Papa sock, not Eva sock, that's Nina sock!" 

Or, hiding under a towel or behind a very small sock, "Where Nina?" 

(moving sock slightly) "There's Nina!"

One more funny little thing. Yesterday we went to the pub to see some friends, including our friend Ed, and have a celebratory drink. Nina was so good, and played with her toys, talked to everyone, and ate her treats and snacks. As we left: "bye bye, Head!". Like I said, sometimes it's just not quite there yet.