I planned on posting this last week, probably Tuesday. Never got around to it. My bad. Some things are out-of-date, and will be noted. Just keep that in mind and add a week to all the dates I mention.
The girls are growing up. Fast.
The biggest development came over the weekend when L. started crawling. She was close last week, and as I watched her struggling to get going on Thursday, I said, “You’re going to crawl while I’m in Kansas City, aren’t you?” Sure enough…
She’s buzzing around, now, and already finding all the things she’s not supposed to be in. She’ll scan the room, lock onto something that is off limits, start squeeling, and head directly towards it. She’s also started pulling herself up onto things. And she’s pulling all the way up to a standing position, although she can’t hold it.
So that’s fun and exciting but, of course, a little annoying at the same time. I was trying to get the big sisters ready to go outside on Monday and did what I normally do with L. during those times: set her in the hall with a bunch of toys around her. Now, she ignores the toys and next thing I know she’s scratching at my feet as I try to fix M. or C.’s hair.
Big news for C., too. Ten days ago I would have said she was 10% potty trained. She was occasionally using the potty, but more often than not doing her business in a pull-up. Worse, if you suggested she be a big girl and use the potty, she was as likely to burst into tears and run away as take you up on the offer.
But something clicked last week and I’d put her at 75% now. She still has the occasional accident or just uses the pull-up when she’s wearing one, but most of the time she’s wearing big girl panties and going to the bathroom on her own. She’s even been using the normal toilet rather than the kid potty. We have some issues with toilet paper (she’s apt to use half a roll if you don’t watch her)* but for the most part, she’s made amazing progress in just a couple weeks.**
(While I was in KC, I called to check-in and S. scanned the house to find C. so I could say hello. She found her in the bathroom, on the toilet, and I heard the following exchange.
S: You’re not using lots of pieces of toilet paper, are you?
C: No. Just one. One loooong one!)
(Added comment: She went through one of those frustrating regressions over the weekend. Pooping on the potty freaks her out, suddenly, so she didn’t go for two days. Then, while we were at over at some friends’ house on Saturday, and she was wearing a pull-up, she disappeared twice and loaded it up. I caught her once. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs to the basement, trying not to be noticed. I yelled down to her, she jumped up, and then fell down two stairs to the floor. I believe I can honestly say that I scared the shit out of her.)
She’s also going through the phase that M. went through and saving the dirty pull ups for about five minutes after bedtime. Man, I hate this phase. One night we did hear them up there banging around and laughing. When I walked in to settle them down, I got hit with a blast of you-know-what and saw them fighting over something on the floor. C. had snuck into their bathroom, found the Febreeze, and they were wrestling over who got to spray it first. About half an hour later, I could laugh about that.</em>
To celebrate big-girlhood, she asked that we remove the rails from her bed so she is like M.. No problem, we thought. Naturally three times in the last week we’ve been woken by the sound of something crashing in her room followed by crying, and raced in to find her dazed and on the floor. She’s learning how to play it off, though. Monday night she reminded me of a cat, acting like it never even happened and attempting to scramble back under her covers before I could assist her.
M. has her own bigger girl news. She’s becoming fascinated by the various steps S. and I take to get dressed. Deodorant is especially interesting to her, for some reason. So, on a recent trip to Target, she got her very own thing of deodorant. She gets to put it on in the morning, and she loves it. THis, of course, means that C. is wearing deodorant, too. Better than having stinky kids, I guess.
One night they were obsessed with talking about it. They chased each other around for half an hour, and their conversation went roughly like this:
M: You stink, C.! You need deodor.
C: No, you stink! You need deodor.
I must admit, I kind of like the word deodor.