We have a two year old, so some evenings are really bad, where she is crying or cranky or reluctant to eat supper. But sometimes she is really good, like this evening.
She came in the door with her purse (an orange bag filled with trains) that she had taken out to the van on the way to daycare yesterday. She "tinkled on the potty" and washed her hands without much fuss. She wanted to see supper, as always, but wasn't crying when we didn't pick her up the whole time. We had her current favorite meal, spaghetti with a side of microwaved frozen spinach. I gave her a basil leaf to smell. I let her test a couple of noodles, per our tradition, and for some reason she had to take her bowl over to the couch and sit on a red pillow to eat them. She did her job of getting the forks and putting them on the table. Some of the time while I was cooking, she was playing with her new alphabet puzzle, which she calls a calendar for some reason.
For supper, she ate three helpings of spaghetti and we let her shake the Parmesan cheese on herself (her favorite part). She was really interested in the bread sticks again. She wanted a big one, but Zac said she had to eat a little (broken) one first. She took her time about it, but finally did. She said, "I crunch it." So then she got a big one and bit the end off. She said, "Where's the mommy?...In my mouth." Apparently the end of the bread stick is the mommy? Then she said, "I eat it like corn?" When we indicated that although this was weird, it was technically acceptable (not wanting to stifle her creativity and all that) she ate the very thin bread stick sideways like corn (she also ate her banana this morning like corn). During supper she talked about the hayride, asked where Julian was, and listed everyone else she went with.
After supper she laid on the play mat with Simon, who was being quite vocal at that moment, and she asked him, "What are you saying?" over and over again (because when he was "talking" earlier, we had asked Alice what he was saying).
At one point, she said, "I go to the bathroom. I'll be right back" and then she went potty by herself.
I was loading the dishwasher (which she is currently forbidden to touch) and she was doing a pretty good job restraining herself (I tell her to keep her hands on her belly so she has something to focus on to keep her grabby impulses under control). But she was testing, as a two year old tends to do, just what the limits were. So she touched the door. I told her if she did it again, she would go to time out. So she did it again and then happily went to time out (the end of the hall). But she wanted me to turn the light on in her bedroom because it was too dark and scary.
After her very pleasant time out, I told her I had a special job for her: unloading the dryer. She did it, then emptied the lint screen into the trashcan. Then she helped me carry the basket to the bedroom and made sure I dumped it on the bed. I had some sweaters drying on a rack, which she'd never seen before. She felt the sweaters, which were damp, then looked up at me and said, "You peed on it, mommy?" I explained that they were wet from the washing machine because you can't put sweaters in the dryer. I'm not sure she bought it. She also pulled her "new jammies" and blankie from the laundry pile to put back in her room for tonight.
I herded her back out to the kitchen, where she got her yogurt out of the fridge and her spoon all by herself. I got her a small cup (not a sippie cup) of water for her to keep practicing not spilling it. She can drink it just fine, but doesn't have good appendage awareness yet, so she often knocks it over. (No joke, as I typed this sentence she knocked over her cup of water). Her bedtime snack was only interrupted by another trip to the potty. Overheard from the bathroom, "I pooped in the potty, mommy!"
Thomas video watched and yogurt finished, Zac scooped Alice out of her chair, but then had to put her back in because she wanted to get down herself. Then it was off to the bath and potty once again. Alice fell down in the bathtub (partially my fault--I got tired of her standing there and poured water on her head) and said, "I need a bandaid on my butt!"
When the bath and toothbrushing was taken care of, Alice (wrapped in her elephant towel) went out to the living room to kiss daddy and baby brother goodnight. Then back to the bedroom, night diaper, pajamas, and stories (
Fireman Small and
Super Dragon tonight). The current final bedtime routine is that after she turns out the light, we pick her up and go over to the spy camera and we tell it "Don't scare Alice! She's bold and brave like Thomas" then she "flies" to her crib like Super Dragon and sleeps like super daughter.
