Molly is into everything. I was reading a discussion group on the American Baby site this morning and a mother of a 2 year old boy was lamenting that she just didn't know how to handle her son who is suddenly into everything, frequently hits/slaps/pinches/scratches bruises her, and takes an hour or so to go down for a nap. This isn't normal, I said to myself? Molly is a perfect angel most of the time and almost always in a pleasant mood, but she's curious, has started climbing (picture Donkey Kong on the baby gate), and still enjoys getting Mom-o to say "Ow" from time to time. This bothersome habit has largely abated, and my bruises are healing nicely, thank you, but she gets me all of a sudden every once in a while, laughing maniacally, just to keep me on my toes. The naptime problem we've figured out is just that she needs to run around until she's really tired. Then it's a quick glance at the Peterson guide's owls or a brief zip through Fox in Socks and she's out cold. She barely made it to "That Sam-I-am, That Sam-I-am, I do not like that Sam-I-am." this afternoon after three rounds of chase around the house with Mom-o. All the pain is quickly replaced every time a phone rings and she says, "Heyo Heyo," or she give me a toddler knee hug and says "Mom-o" or gives me a big sloppy kiss on the cheek or or or or... you see my point.
Did I mention everything is still going straight into the mouth? Case in point:
The other night, Dad-o and I were cleaning up from supper and Molly was running around playing with her shopping cart and play produce. Suddenly she comes running to us, not upset, and stands there with a blank look on her face. I notice she has something red in her mouth and think, "Oh why how cute. She's got that plastic strawberry between her front teeth again." I say "Hi Molly" and go back to the dishes. So she stands there and says "HMMMMMMM" in a sound I can only describe as the sound that haunts Jon's dreams after a guy on a unicycle with a pick in his teeth forced him to throw lime after lime from a chair halfway up an auditorium filled with my coworkers during the Chinese Circus at Adventureland ten years ago... until he finally got one that stuck. This really gets my attention, as it did Jon's a decade ago. I look closer and realize she has, not the actual-size strawberry in her teeth but rather a 2-inch diameter play tomato stuck full in her mouth, behind her teeth. I think about emergency room stories involving frat boys and pool balls and lose my head for a moment. I think all three of us were crying and in a panic by the time we finally extracated it from her tiny clenched jaw. But we can all laugh about it now.
Molly is also already trying to impress boys. We worry about this. This especially distresses us in light of prior knowledge that she gets excited when four-wheelers and old tractors roar by, adores old convertibles, and waves to Republican politicos, and not Democrats. This is balanced somewhat by her affinity for long-haired teenage boys on skateboards and bicycles, but Hmmm.
But I digress. We were in a park watching a shocking children's talent contest when Molly became very intrigued by a cute little boy playing with mulch and rocks in a garden. Clearly he shared her interests! But, it was not until he put a rock into his mouth that she was unable to control herself. She walked right up to his dad and did her "I'm so cute and smart" routine. (She is a clever one, always win the parents' approval first) Peekaboo, kisses, dancing, tip toes, up and down. Once he was won over, and doing his own hokey pokey routine to entertain her, she turned her attentions on the boy. She plunked down beside him and said "Hi. Baby." They shared mulch. Talked a little. He had her interest. But, when he got up to introduce her to his Mom it was all over. You could see she was not much impressed by his crawling. She stood and stared at him lumbering around on all fours. When he came back she did spins, stretched and then, voila, stood on one foot unsupported for the first time in public. With a look that said, "You're such a child. I'm audi," she smiled, waved, turned and walked off. Such is a summer romance at 15 months.
It tied the room together
We also learned this week that Molly, like the nihilists who so vexed the Dude, is a rug-pee-er. Against the thinking of the Drs Sears and several people with older children still in diapers, we have started introducing the potty concept to Molly. The first day we had the seat I let Molly play with it and carry it around the house all day. At supper she made her "I'm poopin" face and I dashed her onto the potty and she pooped and peed. We were all amazed and proud. We haven't really forced the issue much since then, just the occasional potty effort. Her schedule is pretty routine, though, and I've been taking notes. So today I got brave. Perfect day to have the windows open and let her run around naked. As it turns out, Molly is very suggestible. I went out on the back deck to water our hanging basket and that gave Molly the idea that she should pee on the rug by the back door. She looked as shocked as I did. But we talked about it and the next pee was on the pot. She loved throwing toilet paper in the toilet after and watching it go down when we flushed.
She really loved the way her floating bath book looked when it was in the toilet, too. She really wanted to see the look on the face of Canada Goose named Duck after a water landing, too, but alas Mom-o was too fast. We went out to the store for Pull-ups and a lid lock immediately thereafter. (Why so quick on that? There was this terror of a child next door to us ten years ago who was more than a handful and I still hear the echo of the child of the next set of the house's owners saying, "Yeah, there's stuff in the plumbing that's never coming out.")
When we got back, I loaded Molly up with juice and was casually hanging around the bathroom and encouraging her to do the same (just be cool, pretend to be very interested in the Kleenex box) so I decided to install the lid lock. She was fascinated by this effort and, while I was studying the parts and using two hands trying to figure out how to pull out the knob (F) while pressing down on lever (H) (which way is down exactly, and do they mean to depress it, or to slide it in a downward motion?) when I heard a splash courtesy of fast-fingers herself. How great is that? I'm not exactly sure it's installed properly because Molly threw the instruction sheet in the potty. Nice.
The lid lock installed and the bathroom entirely tidied up with no pee in sight, I finally decided to just go and put a few dishes into the dishwasher. When I turned on the kitchen faucet I realized my mistake. Molly immediately dashed off to the livingroom. She came back seconds later inexplicably holding the TV remote and looking shocked and horrified at the jagged trail of water she left and we agreed that next time we'd do that in the potty, right?
So Molly has something in common with my Junior Advisor first year at Bates who's class notes on Paul Newman Day (swap beers for eggs in Cool Hand Luke) were filled with images of flowing pipes, then swimming pools, then Niagara Falls toward the end of his Four O'Clock class session. It's the darndest things that stay with you from college, isn't it?
When Molly is ten she will be mortified by this entire post. When she is 30 she'll laugh histerically.
Burn this. No don't.
C
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