Gallop Time, explained

I have mentioned in past blog posts that Julia regularly partakes in "gallop time," during which she gallops with thumpy, leaden feet back and forth between the rooms in the lower level of our house. In fact, any of you who have ever been to our home have likely witnessed gallop time. She is clearly off in some mental fantasy land as she traipses back and forth, as evidenced from the hint of a smile on her face and the faraway look in her eyes. She even mentioned, as some of you may have read in a previous post, that she often thinks about acting out various movies with her friends when she's doing gallop time. What I didn't learn until recently, however, was that it's not only gallop time that provides opportunity for this imaginary world (or what she refers to as "thinking.")

"Mama, do you think that only when I'm GALLOPING I can do my thinking?" she asked me the other day. When I affirmed, she corrected me. "No, when I'm at school and I'm riding my bike really fast, I can do my thinking THEN, too!"

The following night, she let me in a little further into her fantasy world. "Mama, do you think that I can't do my thinking when I'm laying in my bed at night because I'm lying still? I DO think when I'm in my bed!" she announced to me.

This got me to wondering what else she imagines, besides acting out out shows with her friends, when she's "thinking." Today I got the chance to interview her on Gallop Time while we were hanging out in the backyard.

ME: Julia, I was wondering, when you're galloping, or riding your bike at school, or laying in bed at night, what do you think about?
JULIA: Um, people.
ME: What kinds of people?
JULIA: Um, people with dark skin, and people with light skin.
ME: Do you think about people you know, or people you wish you could meet?
JULIA: Well, I think about people I don't know, that I just made up.
ME: Oh, okay.
JULIA: And I also think about my friends and imagine we're putting on a show and singing songs.
ME: Oh, so you imagine you're characters in a show?
JULIA: Yeah. But, Mama, the only songs I ever think of are "If You Wanna Be My Mother" and "I Want You Back."
ME: Oh, I see, so you don't, like, imagine you're in the movie Rapunzel and you're singing her part in the songs or anything like that?
JULIA: Well, I imagine that me and my friends all have Rapunzel HAIR that's not attached to our heads that we can, like, swing around on, and when the boys at school are, like, running around and chasing us we can just swing on our hair and go up into the trees and get away.

Awesome. Rapunzel hair: the perfect getaway tool.

Madeleine did plenty of running around herself today, although I don't think she was imagining she and her friends were swinging around on Rapunzel wigs. Thankfully, using so much energy playing outside allowed her to fall asleep for nap today, since yesterday was another non-nap day. After two hours of listening to her babble on the baby monitor, I went up to her room, resigned, and sighed, "Okay, let's get you up." She gleefully spit out her pacifier and leaped to her feet. "YEAH! Let's get me UP!" she exclaimed. I did not share her cheerful mood. "Well, yeah, you can just get up, because I guess you're not going to nap," I commented bitterly. "Yeah!" she cried merrily. "I'm NOT going to NAP!"

Aside from not napping, she has also been refusing to pee on the potty at my urging. (In other words, she is acting like a completely typical two-year-old.) If she decides she wants to go potty it's one thing, but if I suggest she go and then put her on the pot, she will stubbornly hold her pee and insist she doesn't need to go, no matter how long it has been since her last toilet trip. As we got ready for nap today, I instructed her that we would be trying the potty and then going upstairs, and I asked for her cooperation, which she was willing to give me. That is, until I actually said, "Okay, then let's go on the potty." Suddenly she decided to completely ignore me and actually run away from the room I was in and start climbing around on the living room couch. This led to a stern reprimand and me putting her on the toilet while glowering in frustration at her.

"I did it!" she cried joyfully as she began peeing. "I'm doin' pee-pees!"
I glowered even harder at her. "I'm not happy," I told her firmly.
Madeleine looked at me in sympathy. "Yeah, you just very, very sad," she astutely observed.

I can see she really gets it.

At any rate, she is now sound asleep in her crib while Julia plays an elaborate Little People game, complete with incidental music, ("Dooo dooo dooooo, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo doooo dooo!") so for the moment, all is calm in the Rowe household.