Showing posts with label mess. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mess. Show all posts

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Cute/Gross Toddler Activities

At 21 months, McKenna is a busy, active, and curious toddler, like most kids her age. I try hard not to be a helicopter parent and stifle her curiosity. I let her explore the house on her own a lot more than I used to, trusting that she will avoid drinking from the dogs' water bowl or playing in the hamper of soiled cloth diapers. And usually, she does. Sometimes though, I catch her doing something that is downright gross. Some of her recent follies include:

- Twiddling the dogs' jowls and checking for canine cavities. I caught her second knuckle-deep into our German Shepherd's mouth this morning. When I came around the corner and saw what she was doing, she looked up at me innocently, before proceeding to lick her fingers clean. All-gone plaque!

- "Helping" clean up after a particularly messy diaper change. While I do not discourage her from exploring any and all parts of her body, there is a time and a place for these explorations. And that time is not while I am hastily wiping green-brown poo from her legs.

- Getting down on all fours and helping clean up a spilled mess with her tongue. She's at the age now where she mimics everything. I guess she thought she was pretty clever getting her share of the spill before her canine siblings got to it. And a puddle of Diet Coke is hard to pick up with your fingers, after all.

- Insisting on using her father's bloody tissues to wipe her mouth and face. All. The. Time.

- Waiting until she is waist-deep in the tub before realizing she needs to poop. I know, they all do that, but really!?

- Trying to figure out why the daddy long-legs she tried to consume won't stop wiggling in her mouth. The look on her face is not one that I will forget anytime soon - a mixture of surprise, shock, and "oops!"

It is the job of the toddler to be a budding scientist and explore the world around them, trying to establish cause-and-effect. I know that her frontal lobes will not mature for another 20 years, and her ability to predict the consequences of her actions will remain poor for quite some time. Every day is an adventure in our house, as we try to protect her from the truly harmful, while allowing her to make the every day mistakes that will lead to her growth and confidence. Now, if only my gag reflex could take a back seat for the next few years...

Sunday 4 March 2012

Baby Goes to the Office

I had yet to bring McKenna with me to the office, other than to show her off a few weeks after she was born. On days when I have to go into work, McKenna usually goes to work with Greg. But this past Friday I had no other choice but to bring her to work with me. I had meetings with students that afternoon, and could not find anyone last-minute to watch her. All of my students know that I am a new mother, so I knew it would not be any great shock to them to see her in my office. I could only hope and pray that she would choose that 2-hour period to sleep.

Alas, it was not to be. We got to the office just in time for my first meeting. After spending a couple of minutes chatting about the baby (of course), it was time to get to the real purpose for the meeting - to go over the student's midterm grade. Roughly 45 seconds into it, we hear this loud "pphhssssh" sound. I turned around to see McKenna grinning ear-to-ear, and I knew immediately that a true disaster awaited me in that tiny diaper of hers. If that liquidy, squishy sound wasn't enough, the smile gives it away every time. The student assured me that it was all good, and I should go ahead and change her there in the office. So, I dug out my trusty blanket, and a clean diaper and lifted McKenna from her carseat. Immediately I could tell that this was not going to be a simple diaper change. She had leaked through her pants, and clear up the back of her shirt. Fortunately I had another change of clothes for her, but there was no way I was going to get her onesie off without covering the rest of her in yellow goo. Thinking quickly, and thanking my lucky stars that I hadn't dressed her in a nicer outfit, I grabbed pair of scissors and cut the shirt off of her.

With a clean bum, she should have been ready to lie down and go to sleep. I spread a blanket on the floor for her, put her sookie in her mouth, and waited. And waited. And waited. Those little blue eyes just stared back at me, as if to say "you can't make me". And she was absolutely right. There were other people trying to get work done, so I had to keep her happy and quiet. So I picked her up, found some YouTube Sesame Street songs, and settles in for a long 2 hours. And so it was. A very cute, but long, 2 hours. Next time I will just re-schedule my meetings.