Saturday, February 23, 2008

Riding piggyback


Yes, you see us doing Veeka's latest passion: Riding piggyback on Mommy's back. She loves to be carried to and fro at all times, convenient or not. Veeka likes to remind me that cuz she is a bit behind kids her age in some ways, the Terrible Twos are going to continue indefinitely. Sigh.
One of the problems is that "no" is a word that just does not resonate with her. She simply does not listen. Like I TOLD her not to run down the sidewalk but she did and got the scrap on her nose that you now see. I TOLD her not to stand atop my bureau and no sooner had I done that, she tossed one of my favorite pieces of pottery to the ground. The glue is drying as we speak but she got sent to bed (it was late anyway) for that one.
I am doing some painting today and as soon as my back is turned, Veeka not only goes into my room, she goes to the worst place possible; over by the can of open paint. I can't even run into the other room ...?! She gets into *everything* I tell her not to. The moment she peeks into my room, if she spots my open purse, she makes a beeline and whips out 1. the cellphone and/or 2. the lipstick/chapstick. She does not go open a book. Noooooo. She goes for the purse, the briefcase, the phone, the computer...Usually I hang my purse over the top of the drawer but sometimes I need to get something out of it and if I have to sprint downstairs for a moment, You Know Who grabs her opportunity to turn the purse over and WHEEEEE, all the 40-50 business, credit and store cards come pouring out.
As you can see, she is in her little ballet suit there but such efforts hardly use up a hundredth of all her energy. Plus she is putting food away like a Sherman tank. She eats as much cereal as I do and the daycare folks tell me she never stops eating from the moment she arrives there. They don't have any of that nasty low-calorie stuff that her mommy has. Nope, Veeka can pig out - and does.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Tearing my hair out


Well, it has already started. Veeka got one Valentine in the mail today and I got NONE. I see a trend.
Miss Veeka seems determined to make sure I never forget she is a Terrible Two. The photo shows what she did when I took my eyes off her. We were upstairs but all of a sudden I noticed she'd disappeared. Not only had she slipped into the kitchen, she got on a chair and climbed onto the counter where she found a bowl and then found her favorite granola and poured the latter into the former as much as she could. This is the mess I found when I got downstairs. She was not repentant.
But that was nothing compared to tonight when she locked herself into the downstairs bathroom. I have these kiddie plastic knobs around my doors but I had looked at the downstairs bathroom door which didn't have a locking mechanism. Or so I thought. Tonight I found out how wrong I was when she shut the door, pushed the knob in, then CLICK. When I noticed she was not exiting the bathroom, I tried the door and - oh, no. I began to panic and pound on the door and screech her name. NOW what? I didn't have an electric saw with which to cut around the door knob. I pounded, prayed and shrieked at her for a few moments and she was shrieking back sooooo, I very reluctantly called 911, with visions of firemen kicking in the door and me having to buy a new one.
They were already on their way when I tried the door one more time and - it opened! Fortunately I was able to cancel the call. She had somehow crawled up on the counter and twisted the knob so it would open. Sigh.
Every day is full of such delights. Yesterday at the daycare while taking her nap, for fun she removed her diaper and ended up leaving poop all over herself, her clothes, the bed - oh, the daycare folks were in a great mood after that. She so loves to take off her diaper (yet she won't be potty trained - go figure) at night that I have to pin her pajamas shut.
Or there's her habit of pouring her glass of milk onto whatever I have served for dinner. So I give her nothing to drink until she's done. And she no sooner gets in her car seat than off comes her shoes and socks. Which sounds like nothing until you've put her shoes back on for the zillionth time. Or there is the throw-all-her-bedclothes-onto-the-floor trick. Or the how-much-bath-water-can-we-splash-outside-the-tub trick. She would pull the kitty by the tail more except my tabby has put the fear of God into Veeka (unlike me) and Veeka doesn't dare mess with her.
This week is an anniversary for us. Her adoption papers were signed Feb. 10 and on Feb. 17, we flew home. It's been one year! Amazing I still have any hair left.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Our little ballerina


Miss Veeka has had 2 ballet lessons so far and so far she's liking all that running about. The cute little black outfit was given her by Mary Lyman Jackson a year ago and it was large then but just right now. So here we come, Kirov Ballet.
This week's fascinating activities included attending the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning - had to BE there by 7 a.m. latest which meant up at 5 to pick up a friend and schlep Veeka to the daycare. President Bush's speech was OK but he said nothing about this being his last NPB. Strange.
Then just as I was about to leave work that afternoon, had to whip together starting at 4:30 pm a front-page story about the archbishop of Canterbury saying maybe the UK should seriously considering implementing parts of sharia law. Weeelll that didn't go over real well across the pond. As someone said, the man is an academic and simply does not live in the real world. BBC's web site, which ran the original interview, got 191 comments in a few hours. As one person wrote, "Australia is starting to look better all the time."
Unfortunately because of that story, I was 90 minutes late picking up Veeka and the daycare folks looked like they wanted to knife me. Of course I hit horrendous traffic; and so am once again starting to seriously think of moving closer to work. The commute this past year has been simply horrible as I have to leave at the worst part of the day to go pick up our little ballerina.
Not much else is new - no progress on the potty training wars. Veeka is drinking out of cups these days but I no sooner give her, say, milk to drink than she pours it all over her dinner. Grrrrrr.