Molly's got the cold that Ryan and I had last week. I'd thought maybe she'd get by without picking it up.
Didn't happen.
Her nose is running her straight out of town.
I can't tell if she has a sore throat and when I ask, she just starts crying.
She's never really been sick before.
She's NOT handling it well.
I think she gets that from me...
Generally speaking, she is on the more reasonable side of the Toddler Level of Reasonableness (TLR) scale. Lately she's been sliding down that scale with regards to specific topics.
For example, what she will wear.
PURPLE.
That's it.
PURPLE.
Not, "make sure there is some purple on my body" kind of purple. The "I must be swathed head to toe in purple. Shades of differentiation be damned" kind of purple.
And if she is sliding down the TLR scale when she's feeling well...you can bet your purple pants she's downright nonsensical when she's sick.
Normal Getting Dressed Kinda Morning:
Me: "Molly it's time to get dressed."
Molly: "Moy" (translation: "Molly")
Me: "You wanna do it?"
Molly: "Moy"
Me: "Ok, what do you start with?"
Molly: "Book"
~ repeat last two lines 6-7 times~
Me: "You have till the count of 3 then I'm taking your clothes off of you myself."
Molly: "Un. Two. Gee. Moy!"
Me: "Ok then, do it. What do you start with?"
Molly: "Eev" (translation: sleeve) (starts to pull sleeve but can't get it past her wrist)
Me: (starts to pull her sleeve)
Molly: "Moy!" (said with anger...she's now stuck halfway with arm in and out)
~repeat last three steps 4-5 times~
Me: "Ok, you tell me when you're ready for me to help you get unstuck."
Molly: "Help"
~Repeat from "Eev" for other sleeve.~
Molly: takes shirt off of head 80% of the time without getting stuck.
Me: "What's next?"
Molly: "Button" (said whilst pushing her nipples and belly buttons in turn)
Me: "Awesome, now sit down and pull them off your feet." (repeated 24 times while also trying to keep her from falling as she tries to run away with her pants at her ankles.)
Molly: (now sitting) (grunting) "Stuck. Help"
Me: "Got it! What's left?"
Molly: "Ocks!" (translation: "socks!")
Me: "How do you get them off?"
Molly: "Back"
Me: "Let me know when you need help..." Molly: "Moy"
Me: "..."
Molly: "Moy"
Me: "..."
Molly: "Help"
~Repeat for second sock.~
Molly: (running around the room) "Nakey, nakey, nakey, nakey, nakey. Hahahahaha. Nakey!" (translation: "Naked. Naked. Naked. Naked. Naked. Naked.")
Me: "....Molly...it's time to get dressed...."
Just typing that exhausted me. I don't have the energy to get you all the way through her getting her clothes on. So, maybe just read that in reverse and occasionally throw an excited "PURPLE!" coming out of her mouth here and there.
And we do that twice a day.
Getting Dressed Whilst Sick:
Me: "Molly, it's time to get dressed."
Molly: "No." (Collapses on the floor face down not moving.)
Me: "Ok, we can just stay in our jammers today."
Molly: "Nooooooo! Clothes."
Me: "Ok, then let's get dressed!"
Molly: "Boog" (translation: Booger. Meaning: she needs to blow her nose.)
~nose blown~
Repeat above 8,476,938 times.
The only reason she's in clothes in these pictures is because she got so much snot on her sleeve that she deemed it "icky" and let me actually get clothes on her.
And the only reason they're not purple is because we ran out of purple clothes. Literally. Nothing else was purple enough for her.
Somehow I managed to convince her that black was cool though.
So I've been keeping a draft post of funny things that Molly says or cute little stories and I went to add some to it today and I realized that some of them she already has stopped doing!
So instead of an update on what we've been up to....boring.
I'm going to actually hit "publish" on the next set of Molly-isms etc.
COLORS
Molly-ism: She calls the color brown, "moo". After a loooooooong (much much too long) time I finally realized it's probably because of the book we often read, "Mr. Brown can Moo."
What She Knows: She's been able to name all her colors now for quite some time. (Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Yellow, Purple, Black, Brown, and Yellow) We're working on white and grey now.
Funny Story: We went to the Perrysburg Winterfest this last weekend and, though cold, it was very sunny. Dada had his sunglasses on, so Molly insisted on wearing hers. As we got out of the car, I put them on her - for the first time since last summer - she looks around and says, "Moo".
It is slightly embarrassing but I didn't get it right away. I actually asked her, "What's brown Mol?"
Her response..."Allllllll"
Rock'n those sunglasses at Winterfest.
SIZES
Molly-ism: All babies are "mollies". So, if she sees a picture of a mother and baby elephant, the big one is the "mama" and the little one is the "molly". This also extends to any object that comes in a large and small version. Take, for example, blackberries. She pulls one out and says, "Mama". Then pulls a smaller one out and says, "Molly". Then finds a very large one and says, "BIG. Dada."
Funny Story(s): Anytime she can get her hand on a tape measure, she try to measure you. I'll warn you in advance, if you're an adult you are "big" and if you're Molly you're "ill" (Molly speak for "little").
A "ill" umbrella for a "ill" girl.
COUNTING
Molly-ism: For the longest time when you asked her to count something she would say, "two, two, two." Obviously from one of my recent posts, she's a little past that now.
What She Knows: Girlfriend can count to three. "Un. Two. Gee." Also, if you ask her how old she is she'll say "Un!"
In this adorable video she shows both.
PERSONAL HYGIENE
Molly-ism: All bodies of water are "bath". Actual baths, rivers, lakes, oceans...faucet water...pools. You name it.
As long as you name it "bath.
What She Knows: She loves the bath (the actual bath) so we have had trouble in the past getting her out of the tub without a small wrestling match. Apparently we used the phrase "one more [minute]" often enough that now she uses that as her primary campaign tool in every aspect of life.
"No more books Mol, it's bedtime."
"Un more."
"We're all done with Go, Go, Go Mol."
"Un more."
"All done with snack. Go play."
"Un more."
Funny Story #1: So you know Molly is really good at pooping in the tub. A gift she was just born with I guess. Anyway, things had been going great for us in that area until two nights ago. She pooped and we immediately went into autopilot for Operation PoopedInTheTub. While we were hosing her off under the running water, she saw her poop floating in the tub and freaked out.
- So, in writing this, I realize that maybe this story is as funny to you as it was to us....o well. -
Come midnight, Molly wakes up crying (she NEVER does that when we're at home.) I'm letting her work it out and hope she'll go back to sleep when she starts saying "poop. potty. poop. potty." So I go into her room thinking maybe she - strangely - needed a diaper change. No, she didn't. She had a nightmare that she pooped in her bed. Like, I had to turn the light on and show her that there was no poop in her bed. She searched for it. After she was convinced it was just a dream, we had to drag Dada out of bed to sing her her bedtime song again.
I did try to explain to her in the morning that she wouldn't have nightmares about pooping if she would just stop pooping in the tub.
Funny Story #2: Everyone (I think) knows that Molly is very particular and sensitive about what toys she allows in her bath with her. She gets legitimately terrified of new toys - but only in the tub. This hadn't happened in a long time. She'd even done really well the last couple times we visited places and she had to bath there. Until last night....
We were playing a game and acting out one of her favorite books and I grabbed the little blue walrus squirty toy. She'd seem him before though never was interested in asking him to join her bath.
Well....she lost her mind. Went into a crazy screaming fit of terror. Ryan had to scoop her frantically climbing out of the tub body up dripping wet and try to calm her down.
It. Was. Hilarious.
And utterly ridiculous.
And if that wasn't enough, tonight Ryan just mentioned, "Walrus" during bath and she started crying and screaming and looking around like he was in there with her again. We had to convince her that he was in his "home" (the tub toy bin) before she would calm down.
This is a baby that needs a bath.
AND OTHERS....
Cupcake = "kay-cake"
Cookie = "key key"
Pick me up = "Pick!"
She now also sings along to "burn burn" (Ellie Goulding's Burn) and "na na na na" (Selena Gomez Come & Get It)
We had a thunderstorm last week and when Molly heard the first (very big and loud) clap of thunder she says, "Woah, BIG truck!" It took me most the day to convince her there was not a truck and to explain thunder to her.
She calls music "dance".
Come chase me Dada = "Go Go Go"
Snow = "Nose"
Snow Dough = "Doe doe"
She now actually likes to pretend to heat up your food before she force feeds it to you.
ABCs
She readily identifies A, M, R, E, O, L.
She identifies N, D, T, P, K not by name but only by what they stand for. (So, for example, she calls the letter T "truck".)
She's working on C, H, J, and B now.
She's so funny as she slowly realizes that everything has letters on it. The amazement in her voice, "Mama. E!" is so cute. Just this week she realized that the poster at the bottom of our basement stairs (Play Like A Champion Today) has letters on it. And also that the microwave does.
BOOKS, MOVIES & TV
Molly's favorite thing to watch is videos of herself on her blog. So...we try not to encourage that too much.
But after that, her favorite movies are still Brave, Cars, and Ratatouille.
Favorite TV show is Chuggington.
Books are another story. Most recently she's had us read I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat the most. But, after a trip to the used book store, we've read Freight Train 6,485,394 times. She's also liking Green Eggs and Ham which is good because there is a B&N event here next week with that theme. So, we're going to it.
She's also been on a Chris van Allsburg kick. Not Jumanji, like you'd think but The Witch's Broom, The Stranger, and The Mysteries of Harry Burdick. The Stranger was interesting because I'd only read it once before she picked it up and - of course - was sitting such that I couldn't actually read the words to know what was going on. So, I was making the story up by the pictures....since reading it I've had to morph the story slightly to match what actually happens. She notices. The Mysteries of Harry Burdick isn't even an actual book. It is a series of unrelated interesting illustrations with a title and one line from a potential story. So, we "read" it by just asking questions, "Mol, who do you think lives behind that door?" "What is hiding under that rug?" "How is the nun going to get down from the floating chair? How did she get up there?" It's funny to hear her responses. I try to come up with some new questions every time we read it . She really likes it and is getting better at actually trying to give me an answer to all the questions. At first, she would just giggle and say "mama", like I knew the answer and was supposed to tell her.
Then there are the old favs that still make it into the mix regularly but with less gusto, If You Give A Pig A Party, If You Give A Moose A Muffin, Are you My Mother?, The Foot Book, Oliva, Goodnight Moon, Going On A Bear Hunt.
Who Was Amelia Earhart is still a frequent flyer (hahahahahahaha) with us as well. I fear she will be until she is found.
O yea, and she also loves the pixar book set we got her for Christmas. She'll read those by herself for a long time actually.
I told her this was an "asian fork" called a chopstick. She was skeptical at first but did try to use them when the waitress brought her out her own kiddy set.
I've mentioned it before but, Molly really likes the homemade play-doh we make. She likes picking the color we make, she likes mixing it all together, and she likes playing with. Hardly a day goes by that we don't play with it.
Then I found a recipe for Snow Dough in a magazine and decided we'd try that. It was equally fun but with a different texture and way to play.
Then, I remembered PINTEREST.
I've now found hundreds of different tactile recipes for Molly's mixing and mooshing pleasure. This week we did Cloud Dough.
We learned:
(1) Being messy can be fun
(2) If we want the dough to last for more than one day, we must play with it inside of a very large tub.
(3) one of the main ingredients (baby oil) has the power to make your kitchen smell like a cabbage patch doll whilst also creating an oil slick of your tile floor.
We built a "wee" for her cars on Friday. It was my idea but when I posed the question to her, "how do you think we can make one?" her response was, "Bowl! Boof! Mick!". (Translation: With a bowl, a spoon, and mixing!"
We eventually decided that was plan B and went with a box cutter, a cardboard box, and some tape.
But we may still resort to plan B because this morning Dada stepped on our ramp and broke it.
Molly doesn't know yet.
The reason she doesn't know yet is because we journeyed up to Ann Arbor today to visit their Hands On Children's Museum.
After the museum, we went out to dinner with one of the urology attendings (and his family) who actually lives up there. Dom, their 7 year old, loves little kids and Molly thought he was hilarious.
That was all before he whipped out his parent's phone and started to show her his favorite youtube videos about trains.
When I asked her as we were leaving if she had fun she said, "Dom. Choo Choo. Blu." So apparently the trains were blue and also the best part of the day.
We're just up here in Toledo trying to keep warm with the revolving door of visitors that have come through.
On Thursday I said to Ryan, "I can't tell what her favorite color is. She always picks a different one when I give her a choice."
On Friday, she insisted on wearing purple.
She has requested to wear purple every day since. I've succeeded in dressing her in another color just once since Friday.
So, I guess that's my answer.
On Saturday we went with Grandma and Grandpa to watch a bull riding competition. Molly liked it.
Then yesterday, she surprised us and counted to three for the first time. I told her she had to eat three blueberries before she got any more cheese and pulled them out for her. I turned my back for a second and when I looked back she had pulled three more out of the carton and clustered them together. I was impressed and asked her if she had counted them.
Her response was to pick blueberries up out of the carton one at a time and set them on the counter in another clump whilst saying "un, two, gee".
Holy crap she just counted to three!
My mom pulled out her phone to get it on video.
I said, Molly can you count to three?
She grabs a whole handful of blueberries and dumps them on the counter.
Grrr.
But today she did it on request for Dada at dinner. So she just practices selective maturity.
Perhaps best evidenced by her diaper hat today.....
Shoveling as much as we could before the latest snow...only to go to THREE stores and realize the entire city of Toledo was out of salt.
Waking up to a snowstorm...at this point it would only snow for 4 more hours...
Shoveling in an effort to be able to have Dada get back into the driveway. No luck. He still got stuck and Mama had to go out and help push.
Crying because she found her water table in the garage and couldn't seem to understand why I was telling her we could not take it out and fill it with water to play in.
Making lemonade out of lemons....but the winter version...making sledding hills out of too much snow, a fence, and a former Christmas tree.
