challenging twos

i think i see how the "terrible twos" will manifest for nissa. in the last two weeks, she has become increasingly indecisive and becomes frustrated by it. she wants something, gets it, then shouts "no." in the few seconds it takes me to retrieve the desired object, she changes her mind. oh, so frustrating. i try to remain calm, but sometimes (after 4-5-6 attempts at avoiding the "no") my patience do wear thin. a trick with food that has worked so far is this: "would you like some (water, milk, crackers, etc)? no! ok, well i'll just leave it here in case you change your mind." and what happens a few seconds later just about every time? she goes for what was left for her. i definitely look forward to the end of this phase.

this morning i was woken up about 5am by nissa crying, squealing even, for daddy. i came in (since i was having trouble sleeping as it was) and nissa was petrified and i managed to hear "bug, squish it." i picked her up and asked again, and nissa was concerned there was a bug in her bed that daddy needed to squish. i set her down on the rocking chair, turned on the light and went through her bed. i assured her there was no bug, but she was certain. so i pulled a trick from an article i read and suggested that i said "shoo shoo bug and it left the room, and when i go outside, i'll tell it to go outside. that's where bugs belong, outside." and it worked! i had read that some kids worried about monsters under the bed are appeased by a "no monsters allowed" sign on the door. i can't argue with results. sure, i had to add on the "go outside part" after telling her the bug left, but it worked. i'm assuming this was inspired by a bad dream, maybe by some of the bugs we saw at the zoo earlier that day. i didn't think she was afraid of bugs that way, but i guess she is. i'll have to tell adam all about it when he gets up later.

so yesterday we made our first real trip to lincoln park zoo with nissa. technically, she went to see the zoo lights when she was a few months old, but she slept the whole time, so i don't think that counts. we've been talking about a lot of different animals from reading the books she has (dear zoo has been a potty stable for about a week now) so i wanted to show her what the animals looked like in real life. the biggest attraction were any areas with fish. we went to the sea lions right after the real lions and from the underwater area, she wanted to know where the fish were. she liked the fish in the alligator and hippo areas, and got a kick out of watching the aquatic birds swimming (lame-ola penguins were just standing around). sure, she was intrigued by the other animals (lion, jaguar, zebra, giraffe, snake, turtle, meerkat, rhinoceros), but didn't really get excited about them. most times she was excited to see the other people, and point out the animals to the other kids. i suppose we should have gone to the children's zoo area, but we never did. we'll just have to go next time!



last night nissa did something really cute. i came home from grocery shopping right around bed time and nissa and adam were watching phineas and ferb. i sat down next to nissa and after a few minutes, leaned over to me and asked "knits? purple knits?" it wasn't until she mentioned the purple part that it clicked for me (that happened the other day too) and i realized she wanted me to knit with her on my lap. i've been working on a knit winter ensemble for myself, including a cowl, mittens and a hat. i'll do that in the evenings, with the hope that she will take an interest in my hobby or, if nothing else, be soothed by the process. i'm glad to see she's noticing enough to ask.

my favorite new things nissa is up to are "come here, mommy" and "what's this?". i love how direct and explicit both statements are. usually "come here, mommy" is an invitation to play. i'm glad playing with me is a priority (and with daddy too) and i try to balance our evenings with necessity and play. "what's this?" is particularly new and most helpful when we're reading or doing something together so she can point to "this" and i can give her the answer. i realized yesterday that this question is very frustrating during a car ride, since i have no idea what "this" is while we are driving.