Rough night

Well, shortly after I wrote that last post, Daisy started crying in her crib and then threw up, prodigiously. It was the biggest throw-up of her life, I'd say. It was everywhere--all over her (of course), in many places in the crib, on the floor, on the rug. It had even managed to wrap itself around the crib bars in places you didn't think it would get to. Needless to say, it was a long night. Cleaning the room took awhile, and I decided she'd better have a real bath to get all the barf off. I scrubbed her pretty well with a towel, but some of the barf was deeply embedded in her hair.

She didn't seem feverish, so we think she over-ate at dinner (a rarity) and got an upset stomach. I had never seen her eat so much dinner-- many helpings of ravioli and pesto (which she devoured-- are you not supposed to give a baby pesto? Oh dear). Then she drank a particularly big bottle of milk before bed. She seemed in a perfectly fine mood today and not sick at all.

Oh, and a small but significant first, described forthwith. Today she asked me to sing a song I don't know very well ("The Animals Came In Two by Two..."). She kept prompting me to do the next number (one, two, three) and when I got to four, I paused, because I really didn't know what the animals did when they came in four by four. When I paused, Daisy prompted me with the line: "Stuck in the door!" I was impressed.

Since she knows these songs better than I do, I have been encouraging her to sing them her own darn self, to her animals. (I've also been encouraging her to read her favorite books to her animals).

One more thing: Daisy's new favorite game, unfortunately for me, is "soup." This is an extremely messy game. I know, I know-- it is my own fault. I have been allowing her some liberties with water play, because I think it's good for kids, theoretically. But now she begs to be given a cup or a bowl of water or milk and a spoon; she stirs the "soup" vigorously and feeds it to her animals. There is much spillage and mess involved. I am the Bad Mama for messy, disruptive games. Another fairly recent favorite is "drums." This one needs no explanation, I suppose, once I tell you that the "drums" are metal pots. I can't help it, though-- it is so funny. She bangs her drums with wooden spoons and sings "Oh Susannah" and a bunch of nursery rhymes she's memorized. She sings them pretty tunelessly, but she gets almost all the words. And she takes it SO seriously. Today in Sutro Heights Park she "sat a picnic" in the grass and said to me gravely, "Where are my drums?"

I am unapologetic toward my upstairs neighbor because you should hear how loudly he plays HIS music, till late at night!