Lorfa heefer

I was in the bathroom when the door opened abruptly. She came in, shut it, and climbed on top of her potty chair, mumbling.

"What was that, honey?"

"Loofah hoopah."

"What?"

"Loafah hayfa."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand. Can you look at me and say it really clearly?"

"Loffie Hoofar!" she shouted.

This went on for a while. Eventually, she settled on a pronunciation.

"Lorfa Heefer! Yeah. Lorfa Heefer."

"OK, Lorfa Heefer*. What does it mean?"

She stopped spinning in a circle, hand on the wall, and looked at me, rather exasperated, and shook her head.

"Mommy, It's complicated."

Next week, she'll begin my Astrophysics lessons.





*We eventually worked out that "Lorfa Heefer" means La Tour Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower.

Victory Farts

This is a post about potty training. If you're the squeamish sort, bye bye.

After a few tinkles months ago, the magic stopped. She was no longer interested, and would answer queries with a quick and final "No!" and walk away, to color in her Kai-Lan coloring book or make another little pink play-doh ball with matching play-doh crumbs.

During her visit with her maternal grandparents in DC, I heard the expected, "She's so smart! She knows her ABC's, can count to 20 in English and 10 in French* and she's only 2? She should be potty trained by now. So'n'so's kid was trained by 18 months! Why isn't she trained yet?"

Yeah, like I haven't tried. Sigh.

So they tried, the questions, the incentives, the promises. And her response?

"No!"

Then this week, she refused to let me change her diaper. I was kicked, screamed at, cried on, hit, and just generally abused. Not fun. Even so, she'd begin crying suddenly, with an "I peed my big girl bed!" or "I peed my booster chair!" (while wearing a diaper, still.) Since her dad finally had a weekend where he didn't have to really do much (this is exceedingly rare--he never takes any time off, but he needed it), it became his job to deal with diapers and the like. Rowan needed Mom to take some distance.

She didn't fight him, but still had no interest in the potty. However, she did have an interest in the Hello, Kitty! panties.

So he tried it. She wet through a couple of times, but he said it seemed to make sense to her. She insisted on the panties over her diaper at bed time.

Today? No requests, and many refusals. (All the panties were dirty.) But tonight before bed, she acquiesced. She sat on the potty, happy, with Mom in the room, for a good 5 minutes.

And?

She FARTED. At least 5 times.

I call that a win.












*That would be Un, deux, trois, quatre, six. Un, deux, trois, quatre, six. Un, deux, trois, quatre, six. Close enough.

Heard, on a Fall Walk

"I'm running, on my tap toes!"

"Your tiptoes?"

"No, Mommy! My TAP toes!"

Stopping for every surviving dandelion and remaining patch of snow, downed branch or frozen berry, we made our way up the hill. She ran to the top, turned around, grinned as she caught my eye, and raised her arms up in the air.

"Ta-DAH!!! Ladies and Gem-men!!!"

She threw herself down on the still green grass, brown, red and yellow leaves, and rolled to the bottom of the hill.

She stood, smiling as she brushed the leaves from her sleeves, and ran to me, grabbing my finger tightly. "Come on, Lucy!" she called, as we headed for home.




*Note: I hope to have new photos soon. We've returned from DC, and I am awaiting the return of our camera, which the team was borrowing for use with the competition. I'm going through withdrawl. The phone camera just doesn't cut it. Updates on the trip soon, too.

Dance Party: Yippee!!!

Our Hips Don't Lie from Ronica on Vimeo.

Please ignore the tall, bloated dork who appears occasionally in the frame, and focus on the cute kid with the smokin' moves. My favorite part is after I spin her around, when she nearly falls over but keeps on groovin'.

My daughter is so awesome.

PS: Lucy? Not much of a dancer.