wednesday with laci

The fashion trends in our house have clearly taken a turn for the worse this morning. Not even an orange Tic Tac could coax her out of her polyester "night," as she calls it. If there is one thing I've learned in my two short years as the mother of this headstrong girl, it is to pick my battles. Pick.  Them.  Carefully.

Life with Laci can be exhausting. How can one little person create so many disasters in a single day and, from the middle of her mess, smile sweetly enough to melt your heart? Within ten minutes of this picture, she let herself out the back door, wrestled with the dog, screeched from the yard when he knocked her down, forgot she was upset on her way back to the house, and chased the cat halfway through the kitchen before I realized she had dog poop on her boot. It was awesome, in that totally gross, not-awesome-at-all kind of way.

And, as long as I'm asking unanswerable questions, why on earth does she hate going to sleep? Her resistance to sleeping clearly suggest that she views nap time as some kind of torture. And I can assure you that she does, in fact, still need a daily nap. Just stop by for a visit about 5 o'clock on a day she hasn't napped and you'll understand.

I bought a training potty for her today. She has shown no signs of being ready to potty train, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, so I'm sure this new adventure will be quick and painless (where is the sarcasm font when you need it). She has only recently begun to tell me when she needs a diaper change, a load in her drawers rarely slows her down (I'm sure she'll just love reading that sentence years from now).  However, the serial diaper changes we've been doing since Mia came home has me on the edge of butt-wiping overload.  Gross sounding?  Well, sorry, it is what it is.  And that is, butt wiping.

Honestly, I don't have any real intentions to potty train her at the current moment.  I mostly bought the potty so she could just get used to seeing it around. The real toilet terrifies her. A couple of days ago, I asked her, "Do you want to sit on the big potty?" To my surprise, she nodded eagerly and we hurried to the bathroom together. Once in the bathroom, she pointed at the toilet and said, "Mommy, sit!" Have I mentioned she is bossy? Because she is.  Bossy. Very.  Anyway, when I suggested that she sit on the big potty, there was much wailing and crying, and although she refrained from throwing herself on the floor, I decided not to push the issue.

I figured a small pink potty would be significantly less threatening. Silly me. When I asked her if she wanted to try her new potty, she responded again with wailing and tears, and the added drama of running away to the kitchen and hiding her face against a cabinet door. Have I mentioned how dramatic she is? Because she is.  Dramatic. Very.

She later commanded me to sit upon the pink potty myself, and hoping it would help ease her fears, I sat my oversized bottom on the undersized potty seat.  Was she pleased?  Sure, aren't all rulers pleased when their subjects obey?  And then she proceeded to climb onto my lap.  Fortunately, the tiny, pink potty withstood our blatant disregard for weight limits. Later in the day, after several hours of ignoring the tiny, pink potty, the polyester princess I call a daughter voluntarily sat on it several times without even being prompted. She clearly has no desire to use the potty for its intended purpose, but I'll consider today a victory anyway.

The rest of our day together included a variety of imaginative games, demands from her bossiness, and little battles won here and there. Like when I succeeded in getting her to eat something for dinner other than ice. And just when she is on the verge of pushing beyond the limits of my patience, she climbs up into my lap with her sippy cup of milk, and is content to snuggle in my one free arm while I hold Mia with the other.  She even through in a few kisses for Mia and me. Such a sweet moment with my girl.  Of course, our moment together was just that, a moment. As soon as the milk was gone, she hopped down and proceeded to run around the house like a maniac...evidence of what I call the "I just had a bath, so I feel all crazy inside, second wind." It is a powerful force, this after-bath second wind...a difficult battle to fight, and, unless I'd like to be up until midnight, one that I must win.

Thursday afternoon update (necessary only because I wrote this last night, but it has taken almost 24 hours to make it back to the computer to add pictures and upload):

The battle was won.  Before midnight.  Just need to convince the other one to sleep a little more, too.