Daisy and the Tchaikovsky booklet

That's a little better...

...Daisy slept till almost 8 this morning.

Daisy's aphorism of the day: "It's better that I don't drink coffee." However, she also informed me, "When I'm older, I'm going to drink coffee."

My weird daughter

1. Lately, Daisy has been telling us what color songs are. She has identified songs that are red, brown, purple, and yellow. Could she have synesthesia??? That would be cool.

2. I posted earlier about Daisy's love for her "Tchaikovsky booklet"--the insert in her Nutcracker CD. She also loves her "Monkees booklet." She talks to them. A lot. This evening, as we got ready to go out, Daisy trotted ahead to the elevator, one booklet clutched tightly in each hand, and chirping, "Come on, guys! Let's get on the elevator!" The "guys" are Tchaikovsky and the Monkees. She addresses the Monkees directly, pointing at their faces on the front of the booklet, and tells them about Tchaikovsky. In her world, they are all friends and companions. It is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cute.

Complaining

Daisy has turned back into an early riser-- no more waking up at 8 or 8:30. She's been waking up between 6:30 and 7, and getting to sleep way too late (since her naps, for some reason, have also been late). I am tired, especially as I just made it through the third week in a row that my mom didn't come to help us out. This morning I noticed my bones hurt, in that way that happens when you are sleep deprived, and you start having flu-like symptoms. It kind of feels like your whole skin is bruised (I hope it isn't really the flu). I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night, in part because our neighbor was again playing his music too loudly, through 11:30. We have asked him to stop before, and complained to the landlord, but eventually he always starts doing it again. But the bigger problem is that I kept having sharp stabbing pains in my head, which I know are a result of my TMJ problem. I must be grinding my jaw and not being aware of it. The pains this time were worse than ever. Ugh. And I have a long, long day ahead of me. I am wallowing in a bit of self-pity.

Whirlwind trip to Santa Barbara

Pictures below post.

We are back, and very tired, but it was a great trip. We stayed in a motel in Santa Barbara and spent a lot of time in their two outdoor swimming pools. This is a luxury we have not enjoyed in San Francisco--being able to swim outdoors in the evening, comfortably. Daisy had possibly the most fun of her life in these pools. One of them was only two feet in depth so she could play all over the pool without me holding her the whole time, which was a totally new experience. She was so excited that she was shrieking and babbling with delight. She makes up these hilarious nonsense babblings, and for some reason one of them was "Compliments to the chef!" (She kept yelling this as she was running all over the pool). We loved our first evening of swimming so much that we got up and did it again in the morning. We also walked around downtown Santa Barbara in the evening and ate outdoors at a Mexican restaurant for dinner; visited the Santa Barbara mission; visited the UC Santa Barbara campus, where Mark got his Master's degree, and did a brief tour of horrid Isla Vista dumps where Mark once lived (although they looked nicer now, in the glow of nostalgia); and had lunch with an old friend of Mark's!

Daisy was a champion. Unbelievably, she only napped for 45 minutes on the way down; luckily, she got a 2-hour nap on the way back to make up for it. Our potty-trained girl did a spectacular job with the bodily functions on the long shlep, too. She would tell us whenever she needed to use the potty, and we'd just pull over to the side of the road and use our cheap-o plastic potty wherever we were! She did all her bodily functions in it, the whole trip. She was pretty good at sleeping in the motel, too, and spent most of the night in her travel bed (5 AM to 7:30 in bed with Mom). She had some slightly whiny moments at the mission, where she kept asking us plaintively, "Do they have swings?"

Having fun at the pool in Santa Barbara

Daisy has a new interest in making funny faces. She invented this new face on the trip--squinting her eyes shut and jutting her chin out and making this big toothy grin (well, she also has a close-lipped version, and that's the one here). These are our funny faces for the camera.


The fountain outside the Santa Barbara Mission

The beautiful mission

Some of my favorite Daisy lines from trip

Daisy (placing full cup of water on my knee): Is this a good idea?

Convo from the car ride to Santa Barbara:
Daisy: This touches me.
Me: The music, or the magazine? (She likes to read catalogs, and was reading one.)
Daisy: The magazine. I'm very, very sad because the magazine is touching me.

Daisy has some constructions lately that we find funny--such as "I don't love this" to mean "I hate this." Today, for some reason, she told me, "Mom, I don't love firetrucks and airplanes." I don't know why. I always thought she loved firetrucks, at least. She also calls the carwash the "car shower" and begs us to take her through it.

Another amusing moment (though maybe you had to be there) was last night in the hotel room. Daisy kept rolling out of her travel bed and we heard this loud THWACK as some part of her hit the closet door. I turned on the light to make sure everything was okay, and there was Daisy--wedged in the corner, her entire body except her feet off the travel bed, and she says immediately, in a brusque tone: "Could you turn off the light, please?"

A final Daisy note--something I know I won't want to forget. Daisy has fallen in love with reading booklets, mainly the little inserts that come with CDs. Her favorite one is her "Peter Tchaikovsky booklet" (which she calls, exactly by this name, with totally clear pronunciation) from her Nutcracker CD. Daisy reads her Tchaikovsky booklet over and over and OVER again and begs us to read it to her. It has been read so many times that it has fallen apart and been taped back together numerous times and the pages are literally disintegrating. Even when we're not reading this booklet, like when we've convinced her to let us read another book, she still sits and flips the pages of the booklet WHILE we're reading the other book to her. In fact, she is in her crib right now sleeping with the Tchaikovsky booklet.

Daisy Lee Roth

My Baby

I love being this little girl's mom.

Jinxing myself, but oh well

Lately, my early rising Daisy has been sleeping until 8, then talking happily in her crib till 8:30; then, I can put books into her crib with her, and she stays happily reading until 9:15 or so. !!!!! Now, if only I didn't have a crashing case of insomnia, I'd have no reason to be sleep-deprived.

Also complicating matters is the fact that I have her signed up for some early morning activities (like a 9 AM swimming class, which she loves). I picked that time because she was getting up so early, we might as well have something to do. I'd try to switch times, except in the back of my mind, I'm also mindful that she starts preschool in September and will have to be there by 8:30 at the latest... so I don't think I should get too used to this schedule, lovely though it is.

I guess what's going to end up happening is that she'll go to bed earlier, to adjust to getting up earlier.

Haircut

Me: I am going for a little while, Daisy, to get a haircut.
Daisy: Is your hair a rat's nest?
Me: Well, what do you think?
Daisy: You need a haircut.

I enjoyed today

Today, of all days, Daisy slept till almost 8:30. !!!!!! You don't understand; this NEVER happens. And it was the worst day for it, because we have a swimming class at 9 AM that Daisy has been looking forward to all week. (Why did I pick the 9 AM swimming class, you ask? Well, because Daisy always gets up early in the morning. Except for today.)

I knew she'd be sorry she missed it, so I grabbed her out of her crib and raced her to the swimming class. It's at the Presidio, close-ish by, so we weren't that late. I am so glad I went, because we had a great, great time. It was only our second time, and the first time, Daisy was quite afraid of a lot of the activities and hung onto my neck a lot. I was surprised when later that evening she told me she had loved the swimming class. This time, she was all smiles and laughs the entire class and participated in EVERY activity except one--which, mind you, is a pretty courageous activity: sliding down a water slide and splashing into the teacher's arms at the bottom.

BUT: she went underwater today! (She did this as a baby, too, but that was before she was old enough to understand why it's scary.) She was smiling afterward. She did all the jumps off the magic carpet, and the wall; she scrambled up the wall to the ledge, almost entirely by herself; she backfloated with the teacher's help through a tunnel; and this time she participated in the activity that terrified her last time, "run and jump off the magic carpet." Okaaaay... since you're pressing me, I'll admit that she didn't run and jump so much as scoot on her butt and then sort of kerplop off the end. But it was still major headway, because last time she wouldn't go anywhere near this activity and was upset when the teacher wanted to hold her. This time she went to the teacher without any fuss, and laughed and smiled through the whole class. YAY! I want her to enjoy the water, and that's more important to me than whether she runs and jumps off a floating board. (The butt scooting was pretty cute, too.)

Then we had another big adventure: taking the Geary bus downtown to Union Square to meet Mita, who is in town for the 4Cs conference! Daisy wanted to sit in her own chair, NOT in my lap, so I stood most of the way (which is fine), hovering over her. But she was completely fine, and held conversations with her seatmates at various times. At one point she did say suspiciously to me, "Are we passing a nursing home? Is this a nursing home?" I am not sure if she really knows what a nursing home is, but she also asked, "How old are these people?" She then informed me, "I am going to a nursing home." I hope not.

The busdriver was very, very nice and patient with us, getting on and off the bus. The ride home was not so lucky. We had a jerky busdriver who rushed us in and out and made us move a couple of times. But it was still okay, given that coming from that direction is harder (getting on a packed bus, that is). I was proud of Daisy for being patient with such a long ride and with all the chaos that is a Geary bus ride. The only other bummer was that an elderly Russian lady, who was quite entranced with Daisy, reprimanded me for having her in such a light sweater. "That is BAD," she told me, shaking her finger in my face. This has happened to me before, with other elderly Russian ladies!

In the very last leg of the ride, a nice woman from our library story-time got on with her cute little daughter and shared some Chinese coconut crackers with Daisy. Daisy was ecstatic. She clutched on to a cookie in one hand, and in the other, a carnation a homeless man had given her in Union Square (he also tried to give her some balloons, which were not attached to the string he was handing her and immediately flew up to the sky. He then asked Mark for ten dollars). It was a great day out in the big city for Daisy!

We are going to see Mita again in a few hours and we can't wait.

I know I won't be this lucky every time

Tonight Daisy got over-tired and started acting cranky about going to bed. She was saying, "No, no, no," and insisted on going into the living room to play with her fairy house. I was too tired to argue with her, so I decided not to insist and just went into her room to wait for her. Five minutes later I heard her say to her fairies, "It's time to go to bed now." And she came trotting into the room, saying, "I'm ready now!"

Again, I know for a fact that I won't be this lucky every time. But this has happened a FEW times, at least, to us. Another example was a phase in which Daisy didn't ever want to wear sweaters or jackets (she still hates wearing most forms of clothing and insists on taking off the sweater the second she gets inside). On a few occasions she was revving herself up for a major-league fit, it seemed, when I wanted to put on her jacket--but if I just backed off and sat there watching, she'd say after a few minutes, "Okay, I'm ready now." I only wish this were some kind of long-term thing I could count on.

Irrelevantly, today Daisy invented a game called "worm chess."

And one last Daisy anecdote. Daisy has been talking a lot about people's skin: Do you have skin? Do I have skin? What is skin? Where is my skin? Etc etc etc. So a few days ago, I mentioned, "Your skin is a lot like your daddy's; Daddy has olive skin." Daisy looked at me doubtfully and said, "Does Daddy have all of his skin?"

Ha, ha, ha, olive, "all of"! Funny funny funny.

Bye now.

Two stories from Gommy

Daisy's Gommy asked me to share these... I hope I get them right.

1)(This one actually penned by Gommy): "Here's the story about Daisy's first aphorism: I was singing the Brahms lullaby and I suppressed a burp. She said, "Gommy did you burp?" I said, "Yes, Daisy, I did." Daisy laughed and said, "Gommy,you shouldn't burp with a song in your mouth!"

2) Gommy was leaving town after spending two days with Daisy, and she stopped to pick up a bagel. Now, Gommy is always pretty tired and drained when she leaves us, after spending lots of quality time with Daisy, so she did not notice anything was wrong when she asked the man at the counter for a "Sesame Street bagel." Everyone laughed at her, and she still didn't know what she had said--until another customer told her.

Ahhhhh

So, my life is still hellish because I don't have enough time to get work done (my mother came down with bronchitis and was unable to come and help us with Daisy during the most busy work week of the entire semester), but Daisy has turned back into the cutest child in the world, so at least the Day from Hell (Monday) has so far been an anomaly... although now that I've put this in writing, I am *definitely* opening myself up to another Day from Hell.

Today I put it out there that Daisy calls Vivaldi's music "Pinocchio music" for some reason I can't fathom... I don't know how she's ever heard the name "Pinocchio" and I don't know why she associates it with Vivaldi. Gommy, do you know? She also told me, "This music is classic." I love it!

She has been adorably angelic so far today. She lies under her kiddie slide and pretends it's a space ship, and that she's an astronaut going to see pirates on the moon. Also, today at the Rochambeau playground she was pretending to be on a merry-go-round, talking to herself about it, and she turned to me and said, "Is this a story about Daisy and her mama at the merry-go-round?" I just love that she makes up little stories and narrates them to herself.

On the bus ride home, she made all the strangers, and the bus driver, smile and laugh with the funny things she said. Some days, I love being the mother of a two-year-old!
PS
Oh yes, this is also sweet: Mark told her he's taking her to a party with his "work friends" tonight, and she gravely inquired, "Will Ace and Gene be there?" (Members of KISS.)

Favorite quote from today

Daisy telling Toby, very seriously, “I love riding on buses, and I don’t like cheese.” I am sure there was some connection, in her mind….

Two Daisy notes

I have mentioned how Daisy often narrates in the third person--so here is a good example. This morning after using the potty Daisy said, "'It's time for M and Ms,' she thought." (It went on from there--I just love the "she thought.")

Daisy has not liked it lately if anyone pretends to be hurt or crying (as Gompy mentioned in one of his comments). Today Mark did a somewhat upset-sounding fake voice and Daisy told him to stop by saying, "Don't say those words!" Then she said, "Is Daisy worried?" She sometimes expresses her own feelings that way, by asking a question. We should try not to worry her, of course, but I like to see that she is developing empathy.

Pieces of the wolf and random things

Soooo... my mom and I are clearly not on the same page about what we read to Daisy (right, Gommy)? To illustrate: Daisy asked me to read "The Three Little Pigs" to her last night. I carefully edited the story to omit the demise of the first two pigs, and then at the end, when the wolf comes down the chimney and lands in the third pig's pot, I said something about how the wolf went home and the pig enjoyed a nice dinner. Daisy: "What's that?" (pointing at the pig's plate) Me: "That's the pig's nice dinner." Daisy: "Are those pieces of the wolf?"

At that moment I realized Daisy's Gommy (my mom) had been telling her a more *accurate* version of the story. Another case came up tonight when I (unfortunately) was reading her "Snow White." (I think she is too young for these stories, but I'll just go ahead and blame Gommy again--she brought the book and now Daisy can't get enough of it.) I started to edit the Snow White story from the beginning, saying "lips as red as cherries" instead of "red as blood." Daisy interrupted me: "What about the part where she pricks her finger?" !!! This kid is too much--really. Her memory is dead on. If she's heard something once, believe me, she remembers it and wants you to do it again the same exact way next time. You can't get away with anything. I think she has Mark's phenomenal memory. To give another quick example, today she suddenly brought up Lulu's red balloon birthday party, which was almost a year ago. She remembers little details from things that happened that long ago and will bring them up.

The cutest thing, though, is a recent development with Daisy: her favorite story in this unfortunate book is "Peter Pan," but she doesn't really want to hear the story. She wants you to flip to a certain page, where Pan is looking straight out of the book, and she TALKS to him. This started a couple nights ago and has been going ever since. "Peter Pan, I live in a house. And even I have paintings on my wall. That is a painting of Daisy when I was a baby and my mama. And even I have a light on my ceiling. And even my mama takes me on the bus to get ice cream. And even my Dada does pushups. He is very strong!" (That is a verbatim transcript, but it goes on and on and on like that, with Daisy telling Peter Pan everything about herself in a running monologue--and most of the sentences beginning "and even I.")

Two random conversations from this evening with Daisy to close this random post.

Daisy: What does Elise dream about?
Me: I don't know--maybe about her Big Wheel and how much fun she has riding it.
Daisy: Probably she dreams about my eyes.

I honestly don't know where she got that. Then, the last thing: this evening, after Dada had put on her nighttime pullup and pajamas and read her a story, Daisy came running into the room to get me to read her stories, as I always do. She came right up to me and said, "Mama, I had fun today at our new swimming class." It sounds like such a little thing, but it was so grown-up, so thoughtful, that it felt truly different. Usually, she'll answer if I ask her if something was fun, and sometimes she brings up something we did during the day, or a few days ago, or something she wants to do. But somehow, this felt different. Maybe I am projecting, but it felt like she wanted me to know she had enjoyed this new thing we had tried together, because she knew I was wondering about that.

I was going to stop, but I'll just add that the swimming class was fun today, although I'm a bit worried that some of the activities are too scary and will bring some stress to the experience. Daisy loooooooves being in the pool, but she just wants to "swim" around with me and do the more low-key activities (jumping off the wall or off the "magic carpet" into Mama's arms). She was afraid to run down the magic carpet and jump off, and she was afraid to do the water slide. She clung to me and shouted, "No, no, no." I don't want to pressure her because I want this to be fun and I want her to have a positive feeling about being in the water. She had a big smile on her face during the free swim with me and did not want to get out of the pool. I hope I can build on the positives, then, and not have to worry too much about whether she's willing to do all the stuff the other kids are doing.

Three wishes on a geranium

I tried to teach Daisy about genies giving three wishes, because in the San Francisco Ballet version of The Nutcracker that we've seen, a genie emerges from Aladdin's lamp. Anyway: today, several times, Daisy told me she was "getting three wishes from a geranium." I asked her what she wished for: Matryoshka dolls was as far as we got. Daisy is obsessed with those Russian nesting doll where each doll fits inside a slightly bigger one. So I've got one item for the birthday list already!

Daisy's thoughts on "American Idol"

"Do you want to press it off, please?" (telling me to turn it off)
"Did it be so terrible?"
What a discerning viewer!

State of the Daisy at two and a half

This is going to be one of those interminable, boring posts that can only interest a mother (or father). You are hereby warned!

I haven't written one of these in a long time--I guess because Daisy is not a baby anymore. At some point in her development, it stopped seeming crucial to chart all the developments and phases. Time takes on a different feeling after awhile, as anyone with an older child knows; first you count the days, then you count by weeks, then months. And then... your child is two, and the exact age starts seeming a little blurry. You don't mark all the milestones anymore. But I think one day I'll want to read what she was like at two and a half. As with all the earlier phases, this one will grow fuzzy in my memory, I'm sure--even though it doesn't seem possible right now. So let's get it down so I can look back at it later.

So far, I would report that the twos are not terrible. There have been some trying moments (as in the day that I posted about a little while ago, the terrible day at the playground!). But the truth is, that day was an exception--hence my intense need to blog about it. In most ways, I think this age has been more fun and pleasurable than any earlier age. It's so great that she can communicate her thoughts and ideas to me clearly, and we can do so many activities together. We have so many laughs, and it is really fun to be with her. She is happy most of the time, and the most fun thing in my life right now is to see her laughing and cavorting.

Daisy's definitely been showing some new characteristics in the last few months. Most to my surprise, in her music class she suddenly emerged as this outgoing, independent, participatory kid. We had taken the class together before and Daisy pretty much stayed back as an observer. I remember friends from my moms' groups calling her "the observer," in fact. But then, around the age of two, she started changing. Now, when she's comfortable in a setting, she will be very outgoing. She doesn't stay close to me, sitting on my lap; she runs around the room, runs up to the teacher, talks and talks to him, tells him about her day, eagerly answers questions, etc. It has been startling for me. Who is this little girl?

She is potty trained, as I reported in earlier posts. This has been going really well thus far-- no backslidings yet, though I know it's still a possibility. It was a surprisingly quick and painless process. At this point, she seems to tell us whenever she needs to pee or poop, she does both in the potty, and hasn't had an accident in a long time--though again, I know she will, and that's fine. But I'm very proud of her for how she's handled the process so far.

Verbally, she continues to astound us. Today after music class, in fact, the teacher of the class after ours approached me to say how amazed she was by Daisy's talking--how much she had to say to Seth, our music teacher. There Daisy was, waiting around after class, monopolizing his attention, going on and on and on! (This is not how I remember being at all; I remember being shy and withdrawn, having a hard time addressing teachers even when I wanted to.) This other teacher commented to me on how much Daisy had to say, how clear her pronunciation is, and how long her sentences are. I am not sure how to describe her verbal facility at this point, because I just think of her as fully "there" now--a fully conversant being with whom I have complete conversations. This has been true for awhile now, too. She continues to show us, too, that she has a phenomenal memory--for books, songs, for remembering little details we mention to her. When we talk, now, she wants to be in on it, making it hard for us to have "adult" conversations at the dinner table. She'll interrupt us, saying, "What are you talking about it?" and demanding to be included.

She is also able to sing a large number of songs now. She has been singing a lot of simple songs for ages now (songs like the ABCs, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and the Eensy Weensy Spider), and in addition to that, she now carries a tune fairly well. She can "sing" most of the music from the Nutcracker, humming or saying "doo doo doo" for the notes, and the music comes out recognizably.

In terms of gross motor skills, she is still somewhat slower than other kids her age.
She does most of the things they do, but more slowly, more cautiously. She loves to run and jump, but she's not as fast, and she'll be slower and more careful on the stairs. She loves dancing! She's got some great moves, too, if I dare say so.

More to come (a work in progress)....

Exchange with Daisy, two minutes ago

Me: Ahhh, Daisy. Life is hard.

Daisy: No question about this.