Kitchen Counter As Potty

Dahlia has some new favorite hangouts in our house. Number one among these is probably the kitchen counter. How I got into this habit, I'm not sure. Like most parental mistakes, they happen inadvertently.

She puts on her cutest face and says, "Hug?" To which it is nearly impossible to resist picking her up. But I can't stay in the hug position forever, and because I am a very busy woman, I placate her by placing her right next to me while I make lunches, cook dinner, etc.

Dahlia, who is eerily intelligent for an 18-month-old has made the logical connection that if she's perched upon the kitchen counter, while I'm in the kitchen, that I won't leave her side. She knows that if I take her down it's usually because I have business elsewhere, and she may not be included in said business.

There are interesting things to do up there. She can play with the coffee maker, grab bananas and persimmons, play with the cyclamen or the toaster, and most importantly It keeps me close. But it presents problems when I have to use sharp objects or turn the stove on, or do anything that isn't 3 feet from the counter.

It also is problematic when she takes her diaper off as she has begun to do. On Tuesday, for example, she disrobed with a little help from Miles, and asked for a hug. I hugged her and placed her, happy as can be, buck naked on the kitchen counter. She promptly rewarded me by saying, "Poopy" and leaving a turd the size of a persimmon. I whisked her and the majority of the turd (wrapped in paper towel) right off to the bathroom, leaving the rest of the mess for later. In the bathroom I said, "Bye bye poopy!" and flushed it down, and within seconds, Dahlia was sitting on her potty, which I'd dragged to the kitchen, looking adorable and confused, while I scooped the rest of the poop and disinfected the counter with two kinds of kitchen spray.

Seeing that I might make a run for it, and leave the room for a moment, Dahlia said, "up" meaning that she wanted me to put her and her potty on the counter. I obliged, and she went pee-pee and poo-poopy inside the potty. And I was very happy and proud of Dahlia. All those readings of Once Upon a Potty are paying off!

Where Has the Time Gone?

August, September, October, November. Well, it really has been a very busy period, one day just swept away the next. In that time we've been through 3 au pairs from Yenny to Angely to Triin. My work has been in major flux, Miles and Alec finished summer camp at a ritzy pre-prep school near our house; Miles started third grade; Alec started kindergarden. Dahlia has been picking up a very sophisticated lexicon and a serious sweet tooth. We've had construction in the house, Hadley traveled for business; the seasons switched, we had to chop down our two big maples, well actually we paid two men and a crane to do that; My parents and Hadley's parents have visited and gone, visited and gone; there have been ER visits, minor injuries for each of us, and all in all there has been no time to breath or write or read or sleep.

But hopefully now that we have a new au pair who I pray will be with us at least a year, I can get back to blogging here at least once a week.