eww bugs.

Oh, crap. Evie is watching Dora. She's really never watched it before, except a few minutes when Erik was here. She's standing in front of the TV in utter fixation. I was kind of hoping to avoid Dora because she gets on my nerves. Something about the way they stare at you. Also, I figure that she has enough to do with English and Swedish without throwing random Spanish at her.

So, I weaned the girl last week. Well, no. I told her that she was weaned, though. Does that count? The little brat has started pretending to bite me. She gets this grin on her face as she clamps her teeth down... threatening me, as it were. Then she laughs when I get mad at her. Truth is, it actually IS kind of funny, in an awful sort of way... not that I ever laugh at her because I sure as hell don't want to encourage her to bite me again. Anyway, we had a conversation following one such event, where she agreed that she didn't want nummy-nummy anymore. Then she nursed some more at the same sitting, of course. ;)

Iin the last couple of weeks, she has apparently decided that she no longer necessarily wants to nurse to sleep. That's usually what the pretend-biting signals... she's done nursing and wants rocked or otherwise put to sleep. It's taken us a little while to "get" it and we're still trying out new routines, but as annoying as change is, this is fantastic news in the long run (as long as she stays with it.) Because of the biting and because I had always had two years as my nursing goal, I've amped up the weaning process this week. We're now staying much more firmly to the morning-nap-night schedule. That's been the goal for probably a couple of months, but it hasn't been a strict enforcement. Anyway, it's been working pretty well (except the first time I said no and she cried, and then later told M on the phone, "Daddy. Mommy nummy-no." Poor baby! :) I am so going to miss this but it's time. I don't know if morning or nap will be the next to go. I would have said morning, except she seems to need it more then and doesn't want to eat solid food.

She has suddenly also started professing a strong desire for her daddy at bedtime. This is both sweet and unfortunate for him, because what she wants Daddy to do is walk with her and sing. "Daddy walk. More singing." He walked with her for hours every day when she was little, but it's been a while since there was any regular walking. She weighs three times as much as she did then now. Daddy's poor back is taking a beating. He has tried to introduce "Daddy sit" instead of "Daddy walk" but she freaks out. I think this is connected to not necessarily wanting to nurse until she's asleep. We're actively trying to teach her to fall asleep and it actually seems to be working. We'll tell her to close her eyes, and think of kitty cats. She'll close her eyes right away almost every time, and then we tell her again when she forgets, and eventually her eyes stay closed. Last night, it took me maybe half an hour to get her to sleep. That's half the usual time it takes me so progress is being made. We also tried Daddy-walk before she came to me instead of before and walking until she was asleep, so he only walked with her for one song and therefore can still move today. Lucky Daddy!

Yesterday, we went out to get the mail* and it was so nice outside, I thought I'd let her play in the yard awhile and hopefully wear herself out. (carrieb's inspiration there.) We have gone out a couple of times in the evening lately with the wheelbarrow, and we have all three picked up sticks from the yard. Evelyn thought it was great fun. That first night, she somehow ended up with a slug on her shirt. I'm guessing it was on something she picked up? I don't know. Anyway, she started saying "Eww bug! Oh no! Eww bug!" It was really funny and cute. I got the bug off of her but she stood there a while, dramatacizing about the ewwness of bugs, or things that are not bugs but maybe remind her of bugs. She has continued to talk about "eww bug!" since then. After a few minutes of random wandering around the yard, I went to get the wheelbarrow again for more stick cleanup. Our yard is a disaster area. We've unloaded at least three wheelbarrows full of sticks from the front yard and one small section of the neighbor's yard (from our trees) and there's still plenty to go. She wouldn't help me yesterday, though, like she did the first time we did it. Then she was running around with glee, picking up sticks. Yesterday, she was standing rooted in one spot, with her arms held out from her sides in that grossed-out sort of way, repeating "Eww bug!! Eww bug!!" over and over. She acted really upset about it. I kept trying to tell her that there were no bugs there, and that bugs wouldn't hurt her, and that it was all okay, and asking her to help me, and then I started pointing at things saying "not a bug" over and over. She was totally stressed out about it. I kept asking her if she wanted to go inside, but then she got really upset and most definitely did NOT want to go inside.

After a while, I gave up on picking up sticks and thought maybe she would be more comfortable in another part of the yard that wasn't covered in leaves, so I brought her over to the iris bed and started raking the leaves out of it. (grain_damaged would be proud of me! I did gardening work! Or, actually, she wouldn't, because she wouldn't have let her yard look like this in the first place.) Same thing. She stood there, rooted like a tree, freaking out about the bugs. I have no idea what the deal is. I finally got a huge thorn in my finger and decided to go inside and clean it out and get her away from the imaginary scary bugs. She threw a fit about coming inside, of course, but I was beginning to feel really bad about how upset she was outside, too, so what can you do? She has been enamored of being scared lately, so we're thinking maybe she was just enjoying the drama of fear. Kids are so weird.

(At least she knows she's goofy. She climbed on her potty chair backwards the other day and laughed at herself in the mirror and said, "Baby weird!" Haha.)

I am now officially starving, having been awake since 5:30 without sustenance, so I think I'll go check out the cereal situation now. I just wanted to post while I had a chance, because I haven't been so good about doing it at night lately.

*I got my first free issue of Martha Stewart Living... that has got to be the prettiest magazine ever.