Animal Doctor

Anya and I took Laika to the vet today for her yearly checkup. Well, I say yearly, but when I called, the receptionist reminded me that we didn't take Laika last year. I'm a bad doggie mama. I could have sworn I brought her in, but that's okay. I can just blame my lapse on the kid.

What I also can blame on the kid (whether or not I can, I'm going to anyway) is that our poor puppy gained 25 - yes - 25 pounds in 2 years. Pre-Anya, we had a dog walker and Laika got to run at the park every weekday for hours on end. So she was quite svelt and I recall being concerned she didn't weight enough. Post-Anya, we can no longer afford a walker since I'm at home, and she gets to run a measly 20 minutes a day (with long bonus trips on the weekends). And it doesn't help that Anya sneaks her food to Laika and also likes to dole out extra portions of dog food (and cat food for Laika) when she goes upstairs. So the vet's orders were to hide the pet food from Anya and also drop her usual intake by 1/4.

What is that saying? Something like, "when you have a baby, the kid becomes the dog, the dog becomes the cat, the cat becomes the houseplant, and the houseplant dies." It's true!

Minor scolding aside, it was a fun visit. Anya was incredibly interested with all the goings on and asked a ton of questions of the vet tech and the vet.

"Is Laika gonna get a flu shot?"

"What's her temperature?" Asked after the tech took a rectal temperature. Afterwards, Anya kept lifting up Laika's tail and looking at her butt with confusion.

And Anya screamed and hid behind my legs when the vet brought out some dewormer for Laika to take orally. It was in a large syringe (minus the needle) and Anya thought it was a huge shot for her. "No thank you!!!!" And quickly got over it when she realized it wasn't meant for her.

And she talked about the paintings on the wall and pictures of animals with me and the vet.

It was just neat to see her so engaged and interested in the whole process. And we bring in the cats for their yearly (yes, actual yearly -- I somehow didn't forget them last year) so we get to do it all over again on Saturday. Fun.

Making Water and Seeing Water

We decided to revisit potty training with the kiddo on Tuesday, after a few-month hiatus. I thought I'd try a reward chart and see if it had any effect. Each time she goes on the potty instead of her pull up and washes her hands, she gets to put a stamp in a square. After 24 stamped squares, she gets a reward. In this case, it's a trip to the aquarium. Anya is very pleased to announce she stamped her last square yesterday, so we went to the aquarium this morning for her reward. It only took 5 days. Not so bad for a kid that told me she'd prefer to just go in her pull-up.

I have a love/hate relationship with the aquarium. No, scratch that. I love the aquarium. I really hate crowds (and doubly hate crowds with many a gigantic stroller gumming up the flow), so we rarely go. But it was pleasant this morning at 9:30, with the run of the place mostly to ourselves. Anya had a grand time, touched the sea stars, saw the otters and seals, and mostly ran from exhibit to exhibit. Totally worth it.

I don't know that she really *got* how the reward chart works. Since nearly every time she stamped a square, she'd announce that it was time to go to the aquarium and we'd have to explain again how the system worked to a disappointed child. But I figure after another reward chart filled or two, she'll understand how it works. I think with this next one, the reward will be the zoo. Half, because I'm lazy. I'm secretly happy to take her to the zoo anytime, since it's so close by and we've got a membership. But she loves it so much that I want the reward to be something she really looks forward to. I don't know what the reward will be after this chart. Maybe withhold seeing her grandparents so she's really motivated to go on the potty to get to see them again. Just kidding :-) I'll happily take any ideas. Except for toys. She's not really motivated by those and we don't need any more stuff cluttering up the house.

Anyway, I'm pretty proud of her that she finished one chart. She still had plenty of accidents (on-purposes), so the goal is to keep her motivated (without pushing her) until going on the potty is second-nature. According to friends, it takes about 3 weeks, so we'll see. She's pretty stubborn and independent, so I imagine this next year will be full of slip-up periods (read: I don't feel like it periods) where she has lots of accidents after she's "trained".

Brief update

1. My favorite word in the world right now is "too". I love it because I can say to Anya, "I'll miss you," or "I love you" and she'll say, "I'll miss you too," or "I love you too."
2. Anya had Pho' for the first time last night. Pho' is a Vietnamese soup for those not in the know. It's basically beef broth and noodles and meat. It's traditional to take this tasty soup and add Hoisin (plum) and, Hot Chicken sauces to taste. So it can get pretty spicy.
Anya said something along the lines of:
"That's spicy, yeah it's a little bit spicy!...MORE! MORE!" (Repeat until approx 4 cups of "little bit spicy" soup have gone down my child's gullet)
See below:3. Anya is currently singing Huggy-Boo with Mom down stairs. She knows all the words and sings neary in key.
4. Today was the first time Anya road a Metro Bus. Mom decided to go to Bastyre for an open house and I needed to get a new innertube for my bike. So Anya and I hopped a bus to the U-District. She seemed to enjoy herself. I love the bus myself so I think we'll be doing that again soon. Next stop: Light rail!

Gate and stuff

I finally sucked it up and took down the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs. For a little while, its presence seemed like a slight mental deterrent from Anya going upstairs -- slight, because she can scale the gate and be upstairs in about 10 seconds. But mostly it was just there to make me feel like I was doing something to keep her safe. So now it's down and I hope she doesn't do anything stupid. I haven't seen her dancing or jumping on the stairs lately, so it might be OK.

In other news, it turns out that Anya is indeed a girl. And likes to do "girl" things. I think a good chunk of this can be attributed to her hanging out with two certain 3 year olds a few times a week. Anya now loves dressing up, wearing costumes (mainly dresses and tutus) and dancing around. She now insists on picking out her clothes for the day and it inevitably consists of leggings and a dress -- sometimes a shirt if she's feeling crazy. And she also insists on dressing herself. She's gotten quite good at it ("tag goes in the back!"), and just struggles with putting on her socks on occasion. Unfortunately her clothes matching skills leave something to be desired and she's come up with many interesting combinations.

And now I have to go pick her up from the nanny share, so will update this another time...

Recent quotes...

A few recent quotes from our little goof:

"I'm going to go do something bad..." said while running toward the (locked) medicine cabinet

At the store looking at rawhide bones with dad. Holding up the big one, "That's a dog chew toy". Then holding up a much smaller one, "is this a cat chew toy?"

While at friends' house, the kids decided to run around naked and Anya noticed her 1 year old friend... "Gavy has a small penis!"

While reading a book to her elephant this morning... "That is a fireman......he has robot hands and he's going to pinch me with them! He's going to bite me and chew me!"

The hardest part of being a dad (or mom)

As I write this Anya is screaming and carrying on in her room. She's approx 3 months into her terrible twos.
She's really starting to work at manipulating us and it's heart breaking. I feel like it's become my job to make behavioral mountains out of mole hills. Giving time outs, and raising my voice at the slightest offense. I've even spanked her once or twice (though very softly).
But today she did something that terrified me. We were at the Ace just goofing around when she decided she didn't want to listen to me anymore. She lay down on the floor. There was no screaming no kicking or yelling. She just looked up at me with a "what are you gonna do about it?" look.
I tried to make her stand in a corner and look at a wall (the "public time-out") but she refused to stand. So I threatened to spank her, and the expression didn't changed one bit.
So I gave her three light taps on the butt and she didn't even blink. I felt a serious "is that all you got old man?" vibe from her.
I suddenly had a very sad vision of what the next 16 years of my life could be like: An endless series of ridiculous, meaningless power struggles. I want Anya to devote her energies and intelligence to something other than trying to get our goat. I want to be able to go out and play and enjoy my kid without it having to turn into an ever-escalating exercise in discipline.
I'm pretty disappointed that she's behaving like all other kids in this regard.

Same Place, Same Night, Different World

Christmas Eve 2007

Christmas Eve 2009

A fun conversation

With complexity of linguistic skills comes obscurity of subject matter...

[Driving to the Bagel Oasis]

Anya: I saw a robot squirrel!
Dad: A what?!
Anya: A ROBOT SQUIRREL!
Dad: What was it doing?
Anya: Climbing a tree.
Dad: Where was it going?
Anya: to THAT store!
Dad: what's it going to buy at the store?
Anya: Pineapples. And Foxes! It's gonna eat the fox.
Dad: Why would it eat the fox?
Anya: Because the robot squirrel's sad (of course) .

All About Dad

same questions regarding Chris. Asked this morning.

1. Dad's name is DADA
2. Dad's hair is BROWN
3. Dad's eyes are BLUE
4. Dad likes to GO TO WORK
5. Dad is 2 years old
6. Dad's job is MOUSE
7. Dad's favorite food BLUEBERRIES. NO, SQUIRREL FOOD.
8. Dad carries DINOSAURS in his bag
9. I love dad because I KNOCKED THE DOG BOWL OVER AND THE DOG CANNOT EAT IT

All About Mama

Anya and I were just looking at a flickr slideshow of geese and a random picture popped up. It was one of those little question and answer sheets asked of children about a parent in hopes of getting funny/endearing answers as keepsakes. I thought I'd play along and see what kind of answers Anya gave to those questions.

1. Mommy's name is MOM
2. Mommy's hair is RED
3. Mommy's eyes are BLUE
4. Mommy likes to BE A DANCING QUEEN
5. Mommy is 2 years old
6. Mommy's job is FLAMINGO HAHAHA
7. Mommy's favorite food YOUR WATER BOTTLE (not surprising - I carry my water bottle everywhere)
8. Mommy carries A PHONE in her purse
9. I love mommy because YOU READ BOOKS