Sunday, March 4, 2007

possession

I keep watching my child want things. This has been happening for several months, especially since she got more mobile, with her cute little Marine Corp wiggle. But she's better at possessing things.
This is especially clear on the potty, since
a) we spend a lot of time there
b) I'm interacting with her
c) I'm watching her face in a big mirror
d) she has her hands free
e) I leave an array of safe objects around on the counter for her to grab.

I do e) because if there aren't safe objects, she goes for
1) her diaper (hmmm. not so clean)
2) the little washcloth we use to wipe her bum with (also not so clean)
3) the faucets (cute, but sort of hard to hold her when she launches her self over to the side or to the front in order to possess them).

She has perfected the lunge towards objects, which on the potty is sort of a flailing hand motion. What's sad at this point is that her hand motion is usually so agitated or excited that she ends up pushing the item further away from her.

Here are the items I keep on the counter.
1) Stuffed pink lamb with a music box inside. It plays "Baa Baa Black Sheep" or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or the alphabet song, which ever you like. (had you noticed that all three of these songs had the same tune? I had not, until we got this toy. Call me unobservant. It seems like cheating that they all have the same melody. These are classic children's tunes. Don't they deserve their own music? Come on, people who put children's rhymes to music!!!)
2) Little plastic doozywhatsit that has kind of a red dice looking thing in the middle, with plastic tubing poking out of it. It rattles, too. Hard to explain, but the plastic is soft, and very grabbable, and it is washable. So if it falls in the potty it's no big deal. Not so true of the pink lamb.
3) Giraffe rattle. Soft and not very washable.
Note: The reason I have the soft/unwashable toys by the toilet is because I am holding the child, and when she picks up the hard plastic toys and gyrates, they hit me. This is a strong child. So I quickly decided that hard plastic was no go. That's why we like the doozywhatsit.
4) Spray bottle of water. Dyami uses this because he is too lazy to iron (and I don't judge him, because I am too). So he spritzes his chintz or whatever to get (most) of the wrinkles to fall out of it. And it doesn't seem to have any protruding/dangerous parts, and it's filled with water, and it looks adult and not toyish, so she's fascinated by it. And I do use a spray bottle every few days, so I think she's convinced by this one.
Note: For those of you without children, very small babies like things best that are not toys, but valuable/breakable/dangerous household objects. Ie, cell phones, cordless phones, digital cameras, flame-throwers, nunchucks. Lucy loves (loves) the cordless phones.

So Lucy lunges after all these things, and I try my best to keep her away from the butt wipe and the diaper and the faucets and the hairdryer. This child gets such a mad look in her eye when she's flapping her hand around trying to get to one of the items. Then she gets, say, a rattle, and she flails it. Very happily.
Ah, desire. So easily met at this age. So entertaining.

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