Okay, apparently Buttercup is taking on two+ years of demanding toddler independence all at once, without the 2+ years of building toddler skills. I am about ready to pull my hair out.
"No likey!" to everything, especially any kind of healthy food. She knows how to properly treat books, but she's suddenly trying out ripping them, folding them, and dropping them in puddles of water. The puddles of water are because she is deliberately spilling everything I give her to drink, and then demanding refills 400 times in a row. (She doesn't get them.) She wants to dress herself, but can't do any better than putting both legs in one side of the pants, and then screams bloody murder when I try to help, even though I really am helping and not doing it for her. She suddenly needs to wipe herself, which (needless to say) involves little bits of toilet paper all over the bathroom floor, filled to the top of the bowl, and a suspiciously stinky rear end.
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Potty time. Oh, the endless issues of parenting a toddler and going potty!
Buttercup just relieved herself in her underwear in the orphanage, and didn't even seem to be aware of the mess. (As did most of the middle-sized children; the babies got the limited stash of diapers and the older ones knew how to pull their pants down and pee in the grass.) Within a couple weeks of being home with us, she was magically potty-trained, and went in the potty whenever I took her. I don't know if she was formerly potty-trained and abandoned it in the stress of being in the orphanage, or if she was simply ready and her intense desire to be like her siblings did the rest. After another couple of weeks, she started telling me when she needed to go potty. I still put her in diapers at night and on outings when I don't want to handle a pee accident if we can't get to a bathroom, but even most of those times she stays dry. She has been very dependable for weeks.
Now, suddenly she's going back to having multiple accidents in a day, and not even telling me after she has wet herself. It is getting really frustrating, and I tell her not to pee her panties like a little baby, or she'll be stinky and the big kids won't want to play with her. Which is true, and appeals to her desire to be like the big kids. Maybe it's being harsh, but I figure any of her former adults would have just spanked her. And it's really annoying to deal with pee on top of everything else, when the pee-er in question has fully proven that they are capable of putting the pee where it belongs, so maybe I am not at my parenting best.
In the last day or two, we have suddenly had a dramatic turn-around. She wants to pee, all the time. She needs to poop, all the time. This wouldn't be such a big deal without the accompanying wiping issue: she wants to wiper herself, so if I help her on the potty and run out of the room to deal with something else, instead of calling me she'll attack the toilet paper herself. And if I hide/move the toilet paper, she'll call me back in, and then we'll have a conversation like this:
Buttercup: Me poo-poo-ling.
Mama (seeing and hearing no poo poo in progress): Good poo-poo in the potty. Are you done?
Buttercup: Me poo-poo-ling.
Mama: Are you ready for wipe?
Buttercup: Looky, me poo-poo-ling.
Mama sees nothing in the potty and no evidence of anything forthcoming: Let's wipe you up. (and does so)
Buttercup, as Mama starts to take her off the potty: No no no, me needs to go poo-poo! Is more poo-poo coming! Is poo-poo!
Mama: Okay, call me when you're all done poo-pool
The conversation is repeated a minute or two later. And for every bit of pee and every toot, all day long.
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It's nap time, but Buttercup would way rather run outside and play with the big kids. She escapes several times during the potty-and-new-underpants process, but I finally catch her in a wrap. She sobs and sobs, although she's too tired to throw a good fit. I put her up and adjust the wrap very carefully, because I know it will be a long carry and I want us both to be comfortable. She calms down quickly and lays snuggled against my neck, looking pretty content. She usually is once she gets up.
I show her herself in the mirror and give her a little pat. "Isn't that nice?" I ask.
"No likey NICE," she answers, sulkily.
I get the point!
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Mama: Are you ready for lunch?
Buttercup: Yes, me want-y lunch. Me want-y eat.
Mama: We're going to have rice for lunch.
Buttercup: Me no likey rice!
Mama: Would you like some eggs?
Buttercup: Me no likey eggs. Me no likey eggs... tomorrow. No likey eggs, tomorrow.
(I think she is trying to say yesterday, when she is right that she did not eat her eggs!)
Mama: What do you like?
Buttercup: Me no likey rice! Me no likey eggs!
Mama: What do you want to eat?
Buttercup: Me no likey rice!
Mama, since further suggestions are not making any progress, goes back to the original plan, especially since Buttercup always eats the following dish: I think we're going to have rice anyways.
Buttercup: Give me... toast!
Mama: We just had toast for breakfast. We're not going to have toast again.
Buttercup: Give me toast! Me no likey eggs tomorrow!
Buttercup, watching Mama get up to fix things: Me no likey rice! Me no likey rice!
Mama: Well, you can "no likey" things till the cows come home, but sometimes we have to eat what there is to eat.
Buttercup: Me no likey... cows!
(P.S. She is busily and happily eating her bowl of rice.)
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Buttercup's English is rapidly improving, and now when she hears a new word, instead of just being confused, she guesses that it is actually another word that she knows.
This morning, I asked her (rhetorically) if she was adept at something, and she answer "me no likey NAP!"
We were in the bathroom at our western-style pastry shop, complete with relaxing music. Norah Jones came through the speakers. I asked Buttercup "listen! do you know that music?" since I often put this on during their bedtime. Buttercup is incredibly musically attuned, and often can sing a song passably well after hearing it only once, and actually remembers music better than her older (and also musically attuned) older siblings. So I was sure she would know the song, and sure enough, her whole body stiffened in attention as she listened. But then she became distracted by whatever mischief she had been thinking of, so to help her calm down I brought her attention back to the music.
"Can you sing with it?" I asked, although of course that's a challenge. This was the song where the most noticeable phrase is "but we're so-ooo, far apart..." Buttercup waited for the moment when that phrase is just getting ready, and then burst out in her full voice, in perfect rhythm and admirable pitch: "we're so-ooo, far a-poo-poo...!"
I'm sure that was Norah Jones's first version, aren't you? The one her editor vetoed? If not, I can suggest she put out a toddler volume right away...!
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Buttercup has been stuffing her mouth ridiculously full lately, especially with soft foods like banana and pancake. She chokes herself several times a day. (Former near-starvation coupled with toddler-style exploring makes for a lot of food issues around here!) She looks up so blankly while I try to tell her to not make her mouth so full, and I haven't been sure what vocabulary to use to clarify what the problem is; eg. that I don't want to take her food away, I just want her to slow down. I naturally use "stuffing your mouth" but have tried to come up with simpler words as well, especially because she looks at me so blankly.
By which, I am forgetting how children learn words that are relevant to themselves, not words with the fewest syllables in them. Buttercup demonstrated perfectly well that she not only knows the word "stuffing," but she also knows when to use it and it's level of being unacceptable. Emerson finished up his lunch and was clearing his plate, and maybe was a little over-enthusiastic to get to his after-lunch game. Buttercup spied his cheeks, and started jumping up and down to get my attention, screaming "Em-son STUFFING! Look, Em-son mouf, Em-son STUFFING, he STUFFING!!!"
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Speaking of stuffing, last night Buttercup had an accident that ended her dinner. As I'm sure all parents know, when children are hungry and presented with a plate of food they like, they are pretty attentive to putting the food into their tummies. Once the tummies start getting full, all sorts of other activities start working their way into dinner-time. In this case, Buttercup kept reaching across the table to grab more carrot sticks, instead of eating her egg. I was starting to clear up and get things prepared for bedtime (another benefit of two parents is that one of them can set a good example by staying calmly at the table, but as soon as the kids get up they are on full manic-wild mode, so I have to get bedtime ready to suck them in). I had warned Buttercup multiple times not to stand in her chair and not to put her tummy on the table, but I wasn't hovering at that exact moment.
There is suddenly a crash and a cry. Buttercup had reached diagonally for the carrots until she was laying on the edge of the table, which she then fell off.
The fall was a problem, but so was her mouth. As she fell, bits of barely-chewed carrot spurted everywhere with the impact, but when I picked her up to comfort her, her mouth was too full to cry, so I had her spit out her mouthful on the table, so a big mouthful of half-chewed-up carrots came out. But then she started to half-choke with her crying, so I leaned her over with her face down and patted her back, and a third mouthful of mostly-chewed carrots came out. A few seconds later, the crying guttered out hysterically, and I leaned her over and thumped her back harder, and another good-sized serving of carrots came out. She was too shocked to cry for a minute, but was clearly breathing, so I gave her some water and she swallowed the rest.
That is somewhere above FOUR Buttercup-large-mouthfuls of carrot that she was chewing on, while still reaching for more carrot to push on top!
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