Toes, Ears and Nose

Yesterday afternoon, after playing outside and getting her pants soaked by sitting on the melting ice in her sled, Madeleine turned into an enormous crank. I brought her inside to change her into dry pants, and figured she'd enjoy playing up in her room. She usually loves sitting with her pile of books and flipping through them, not wanting to come back downstairs with me, and since I had some stretching and strengthening exercises to do, I thought I could do so on her bedroom floor. Unfortunately, she wasn't in the mood for independent book-reading, but instead wanted to sit in my lap while I read the same book - "Toes, Ears and Nose" - over and over and over and over again. Each time I would read the final page, she would grab the book in frustration, indignant that it was finite rather than a never-ending, re-looping story, and throw it on the ground. After which she would be inconsolably sad that she was no longer holding the book, so she would climb out of my lap, making her toddling, pathetically crying way over to the book, pick it up, and plop down in my lap, waiting expectantly for the story to begin anew. I attempted to do some of my stretches while reading, but she grew impatient if I took too long to turn the page, due to sitting in a certain pose for the requisite amount of time. After reading it for about twenty minutes straight, with the same angry fit followed by sobbing re-acquisition of the book, I decided we were going to just have to nip things in the bud and go downstairs. I took a screaming Madeleine down with me, and brought her into the living room, where I resumed my stretching and set her down with a bunch of toys. She couldn't recover from the unfairness of being taken downstairs though, and she got up and started toddling around, wailing. At that point, I had to just choose to ignore the crying, assuming she would eventually wear herself out and decide to start playing with something. While I was stretching, head-down, she toddled off and I suddenly heard her crying from upstairs. I went to the bottom of the stairs and found her at the threshold between her room and the top of the stairs, holding "Toes, Ears and Nose," waiting for me to help her down the staircase. I brought her - and the book - down, closed the stair gate, and put her down with her book on the living room floor, returning to my stretches. Nope. Not good enough. I had to be reading it to her in order for her to feel like her life was complete. So I began flipping pages with one hand and saying the text from memory, all the while continuing my straddle stretch, head down near the floor. Still not good enough. She began struggling with all her might to pull my head up and worm her way into my lap. It was sit in my lap and have me read the story over and over or BUST.

While I was cooking dinner last evening, Julia decided to make my day a little more temper-tantrum-filled by freaking out at the end of her bath. (Yes, the bath during which Ariel bellowed about her magic POWEEEEERS! ad infinitum.) Happy as a clam for the vast majority of her time in the water, Julia suddenly discovered she was freezing, and her feeling of cold apparently prevented her body from working like that of a normal human being.
"Julia, why don't you do your soap then, so you can get clean quickly and then get out and get warm?"
"Noooooooo, Mommy! I neeeeed yoooooooou to do it! I'm toooooooo cold!"
"Julia, I'm cooking dinner. I can't really leave the kitchen right now." "Moooooooomy! I'm freeeeeeeeeezing! I neeeeed you to do it!"
So I went in and got her clean as quickly as I could. I tried to get her out of the bath similarly as quickly, but she had to slowly and meticulously put all of the millions of bath toys away, one at a time, for fear they would get sucked down the drain. Meanwhile, I had Madeleine toddling around, alternating between walking near the hot stove, and trying to climb into the bathtub with Julia. When Jules had finally put away all the toys, I got her dried off, then attempted to put her warm clothes back on.
"Noooooo, Mommy! I want my pajaaaaamas!"
"Well, that's fine, but if you want your pjs YOU have to get them yourself. I'm cooking, and I can't run upstairs right now."
"Noooooo, I want yoooooou to get them!"
"Julia, why don't we just put your regular clothes back on? They're right here, and then you can get warm quickly."
"NOOOOOOOOO! Pajaaaaaaamas!"
"Okay, then you're responsible for getting them yourself."
So she went up the stairs to her room, then stood at the top, outside her door, crying,
"I can't get my door open! My hands are too wet!"
"Dry them off on your towel! Then try again!"
"I can't do it! I need yoooooou to open it! Mommy! I can't do it!"
Madeleine decided to add insult to injury by choosing that moment to come sobbing into the kitchen holding "Toes, Ears and Nose" out towards me.
Long story short (too late, I know) I managed to get Julia into her pjs, dinner cooked, and Madeleine distracted from her book, after much wailing and sobbing from both kids.

Now, onto a completely unrelated subject: here is a photo of the picture Julia made for me at the YMCA today. See if you can guess what it is? (Answer below)



ME: Julia, I LOVE your picture!
JULIA: It's South America!
ME: It's beautiful.
JULIA: But Mommy, did you think it looks like a hurricane?
ME: Uh, yeah, it does look a little like a hurricane.
JULIA: It's not a hurricane. It's South America.