Monday, December 01, 2008

I Share

I have a few posts kicking around in my head, but I'm pretty wiped out tonight, so I'll just give you random stories instead.

We had my cousin's family staying with us over Thanksgiving. Pumpkin liked my cousin and her husband, but was really enamored with their 8 month old "bay-bee!" She wanted to be near the baby most of the time, which was mostly OK- except for when it was the baby's naptime! She did OK with sharing her things with the baby. The first night was a bit rough- she didn't want to let the baby sit in her old high chair (which she hated) or in her booster seat. Luckily, my cousin had brought a Bumbo chair and could feed the baby in that. Pumpkin also wasn't too impressed with the idea that the baby could take a bath in her bathtub. She handled these things better on the second day, and would consent to let the baby sit in the "baby chair" and take a bath in her tub, as long as she could watch.

It was fun to watch the two cousins play. They didn't really play together, but Pumpkin wanted to sit right next to the baby to play. We tried to convince her to share her toys, with limited success. She would announce "I share!" and then steal a toy from the baby. By the end of the visit, though, she was holding her prized phone up to the baby's ear and handing him toys that she had decided he could play with. It was hard to watch my precious little girl steal toys from her cousin (who, for the most part, didn't mind- he is a remarkably easy going baby), but I think she actually handled her first overnight baby visitor very well.

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We were all so busy laughing at Pumpkin's complete misunderstanding of the word "share", that we didn't really notice the first part of her toy-stealing pronouncement: I share. She has started to use "I" as well has her name to narrate what she does. This milestone was so subtle that I didn't even notice it happening. Hubby and I now amuse ourselves by trying to understand which events are preceded with the pronoun and which warrant the full name.

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We had a houseful of guests on Thanksgiving- my parents; my grandparents; my sister; my cousin, her husband, and her baby; another cousin, his wife, and her parents. As mentioned above, my cousin and her family stayed with us. Then my parents, grandparents and sister came back over on Friday evening for my Grandmother's 85th birthday. It was a lot of activity for Pumpkin, but she handled it pretty well. There was some trouble with the Friday nap, and some crankiness towards bedtime, but she mostly seemed to enjoy all the visitors. In fact, she seemed a bit bereft when they all went away. She kept asking for everyone on Sunday, when our household was reduced back to me, Hubby, and her. Then Hubby had to go pick up some friends at the airport, leaving while she was still taking her nap. She was quite worried when she woke up to find only me. She kept asking for Daddy, almost as if she was afraid that everyone was slowly disappearing on her.

She is still asking after our various guests. I'm not sure what to do to comfort/reassure her.

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Remember the shrunken pie crust? The crust and the accompanying pie tasted quite good, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, we didn't eat them on Thanksgiving day, because one of my guests showed up with three pies. There had been a misunderstanding- I thought I said to bring a salad and maybe a pie, and apparently I was understood to say "bring lots of pie!" So my pies stayed in the refrigerator until Friday. I'm really, really glad I didn't throw away the misshapen pie crust and start over!

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:56 AM

    Pronouns are hard, but I love watching kids as they figure it out though.

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  2. That is a good game to play: what warrents the pronoun versus her real name. I will be playing this game from now on!

    Glad she did well with all the guests and the other baby. Now you've got me thinking... maybe I should have a baby spend the weekend before I bring home a bro/sis to see how the Pumpkin will do.

    After family and guests leave, we often show our girl pictures of them when she asks about them.

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  3. Anonymous5:47 AM

    Hi Cloud!

    Just wondering, how old is Pumpkin now? Sounds like her speech is getting pretty advanced! The Prince is 19 months and still doesn't say mummy and seems to call everything else daddy. Starting to get worried, since his daycare contemporaries are all chatting away like pros...

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  4. @Ashramama- Pumpkin is 20 months old. I don't think 19 months is particularly late to be not talking much, but if you're worried, maybe you should talk to his doctor? I do know that boys tend to start talking later than girls.

    Also, Pumpkin wasn't talking much until she was 14 or 15 months old. Her spoken words took off at about the time we started showing her signing time DVDs. We started that because they were signing with her at day care. She was signing to us at home, and we couldn't understand her. She loved the DVDs, and still signs as well as talks. There are some words we only understand because she uses them in conjunction with signs.

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